Quite a media frenzy lately but I don't see why it such a big deal. Trump has a profound lack of sensitivity and decorum and the use of the term shithole in a closed meeting should come as no surprise. A case can be made that the term is accurate if you consider the poor infrastructure and lack of proper plumbing in some of the nations mentioned; raw sewage qualifies you for being a shithole. And if Trump hadn't mentioned Norway I don't think there would have been so much yammering about racism. I still can't tell if he is racist or not but he is certainly prejudiced against those of a lesser social standing than he thinks he has attained.
The guy is in a hole and yet he keeps digging but this will all roll off his back because he likes the attention these conflicts provide, maybe an attitude he picked up from his friends in the professional wrestling community. He doesn't talk about polls or opinions, all that matters to him is ratings. When things go wrong others will get the blame but if things are going well he will take the credit. The guy is spiritually bankrupt and doesn't deserve the attention he is getting, and I'm growing weary of giving him mine. But the possible results of his words and actions are frightening and that is something I can't ignore.
It's too bad that none of the media outlets took a page from the scriptwriters of The Good Place and referred to "shirt holes" That would have been funny. You guys know that new episodes have been airing for a couple of weeks now, right?
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Mr. Beagles mentioned that Chinese gave up global exploration because their ships became junks but I can find no evidence of that. My understanding is that they turned inward because of social and political considerations, not seeing any advantage in expanding trade with other nations.
For a while they had a hell of a navy with some amazing expeditions led by Zheng He, a famous eunuch. Almost ninety years before Columbus set sail in his puny ships Zheng He was cruising in nine-masted ships with four decks, 400 feet long. Not just a couple of ships either, there were hundreds (mostly smaller), with tens of thousands of men aboard. As a conquering force they may have been unstoppable, but since that wasn't in their game plan we will never know. Inscrutable, indeed.
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Last week the Russians reported that its Syrian air base was attacked by a swarm of drones. The future began earlier than I thought.
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