Is Russian bot-net spreading and inciting outrage through millions of fake accounts in order to destabilize SA in the Middle East roaming too far into tin-foil-hat theory?
Not tinfoil hat stuff, but not a particularly good strategic move for Russia.
SA-Russian relations have been strained by Syria, but they've actually improved substantially since mid/late 2016. MBS was in Moscow talking military issues in May 2016. And in September SA signed an agreement with Russia to limit oil production, widely seen as a major win for SA and OPEC more broadly. At the time, MBS explicitly told the Washington Post (of all papers) that he intended to coordinate with Russia to encourage them to move their regional focus from Tehran to Riyadh.
In 2017, they followed that up with a massive three-part contract selling Russian weapons to SA, committing Saudi money to energy investments in Russia, and bringing Russian petrochemical plants into SA. Later in 2017, the Saudis started pressuring the US to drop sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.
Saudi/Russian relations aren't perfect, but they've improved substantially. And more importantly, the improvement is heavily tied to MBS personally and his new direction for the country.
Meanwhile, Turkey is heavily pushing this story via the Istanbul consulate angle, in what's generally described as an attempt to destabilize a regional competitor and personally undermine MBS and his new direction. (Turkey likewise has strained-but-improving relations with Russia thanks to the work of its new strongman leader.) Depending on who you listen to, some of the extended Saud family is also advocating for this to become a crisis in order to oust MBS and return SA to its older positions.
So I can't really see what Russia gains from striking out at SA now, especially via a line that does less to weaken the country and more to weaken a specific leader who's been more friendly to Russia than his predecessors. This looks like a regional spat between two states Russia has been courting, plus an internal fight on which Russia sides heavily with MBS.
Marathon runners, climbers, etc you mentioned have a pretty narrow field of physical competence. No way in hell a climber can compare athletically to LeBron James.
At that distance, at the complete edge of the field (could’ve easily gone out of bounds), swarmed by two guys, with one hand. Most impressive things in history of sports might be a bit hyperbolic, but it’s pretty incredible.
Impressive but yeah I don't really get that quote. Look at cricket just because I know it. It don't have the fight with other players but talk about the reflex time needed for the close catch, athleticism and presence of mind to make sure the ball doesn't go over the boundary.
Actually met my oldest friend on ICQ random chat. Lost touch with everyone from High School, University but still chat to him most days and visit when we're in the same country.
The unapologetic close-mindedness of Americans, even in the more intelligent parts of the web, never ceases to baffle me. Really? Human experimentation started in the US?
It's a facet of the American exceptionalist mindset filtered through a Biblical worldview. Good things become enshrined and eventually turn into unquestionable scripture (cf. the Constitution); bad things are whispered in conspiracy theories until they become the Original Sin ("nobody else could have been so evil as us").
On the other hand, we really did invent the eugenic concept, as implemented for example by the Nazi regime, and even that example wasn't enough to stop some states, such as California, forcibly sterilizing their own citizens for explicitly eugenic purposes until at least a couple of decades after.
You're not quite wrong about American exceptionalism in its negative application here. (You're far from wholly right, though - people question the Constitution, for example, all the time.) But the Progressive Era in the US really does have a hell of a lot to answer for. That's whence came the modern concept of engineering a society en bloc, and treating its members however harshly seemed necessary to fit them into the overarching structure of some notional greater good. That's what Huxley was satirizing in Brave New World. Where did you think he got the idea?
Sir Francis Galton (a Brit) invented the term "eugenics." The Wikipedia article on Eugenics notes that the concept of selective breeding of humans dates back to at least Plato.
Additionally the Wikipedia entry indicates that the modern Eugenics movement started in the UK before spreading to the US, Canada and most other European countries.
> That's whence came the modern concept of engineering a society en bloc, and treating its members however harshly seemed necessary to fit them into the overarching structure of some notional greater good.
I've never heard anyone say that you can't change the Constitution, only that if you want to do something that is current unconstitutional, you have to change it first. See gun control, the belief in the hard-line pro-2A community is that if you want to restrict the right to purchase, own, and use firearms, you have to introduce another amendment either changing or clarifying (based on your viewpoint) the second amendment. Please don't start a[n anti-]gun control argument here, that's not the point.
Doesn't mean that France, Portugal and Spain actually thwarted any plans, but only showed their hand, and that they certainly would attempt to thwart any such plans if they could. I suppose wikileaks' tweet is just saying "shame on you for even trying..."
If this turns out to be true, I will never again travel to these countries and spend my tourist dollars there. Not saying this is true, but if it is, NO MORE FRENCH CHEESE :-)
