The look on her face is clearly one of disappointment. It’s funny because it encapsulates the ~~children fyrefest ~~ Willy Wonka Experience but I never doubted she was just trapped in the machine.

I can tell if China is worried about current Russia or a future US under Trump.

An iPhone and Chipotle. That dude is set.

I’ve edited my post for accuracy, it was genuinely an honest mis-remembering of the attack; thank you for the clarification.

Picking a fight with a superpower is generally a poor idea. Killing military members - even in Jordan - might be considered a bit beyond mere commerce.

Edit: I did misremember the attackers in Jordan and thought that was part of the Houthi organization. The Houthi’s are attacking US warship(s) in the area, but haven’t directly killed an US service members that we know of/yet. The Jordan attack was (now that I’ve checked again) by one of the groups operating under the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.

My only defense here is that all of these attacks on US and UK vessels (merchant and military) are in retribution for the US support of Israel. And, yes, there are a lot of groups backed by Iran and Iraq who are using the Israel-Hamas/Israel destruction of Gaza as an excuse to lash out at Western powers who (generally) provide support to Israel. My apologies for the error.

Can we add a down vote bot for bot posts?

That’s what a contract is. In promise to pay and you promise to deliver. Would the corporations only accept $650M each if it ended up costing them $100M less to make each one? No, of course not, they’d bill the full $750M because that’s what they bid. Finding out that you underbid or under negotiated is a risk of contractual business.

Corps need to put their big girl panties on and deliver. Maybe pay the executives less next year instead.

In that case we’re going to need a bigger Death Star.

Michael Bolton

You know, if I were going to pick a fight with a military world power, I’d at least have the good sense not to do it during the run up to a head-of-state election.

Many these cities are unsustainable as modern cities. Their creation and golden periods were marked by lavish spending of royalty and/or wealthy merchants (today’s billionaire class, but without jets and yachts to spend on). It’s almost impossible to rebuild to modern, tourist level usage without massive cash infusions and disruption of services for that maintenance.

I just hope Gaza can hold out long enough for Trump to win the US presidency and restore peace to the region. Only Jared Kushner has the knowledge and charisma to bring the two sides into harmony like he did in 2019.

R’amen