https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_diplomacy

Curiously, the three other global leaders in Medical Diplomacy are Cuba, China, and Taiwan. One of the biggest critiques of Trump’s cuts to USAID has been “you’re opening up inroads for evil foreign influence peddling campaigns”.

And there’s been a certain confirmation of this, from the African side of the conversation.

Every time China visits we get a hospital, every time Britain visits we get a lecture.

~ Dr Lubinda Haabazoka, Director of the University of Zambia Graduate School of Business and former President of the Economics Association of Zambia

In South Sudan, specifically, Chinese diplomats have been aggressively peddling direct aid and coordinating international aid.

Meanwhile, the American administrations have persisted in its campaign of economic sanction as a tool to pressure players in the region

First 9 years of school is absolutely mandatory where I come from

Attendance is mandatory. Failure is always an option.

Then after 12 years of school you still need a degree for most job listings.

You can find jobs (even good paying jobs) that don’t require a degree, but they tend to be labor intensive, health hazardous, and with awful working hours. There’s a job I’m always seeing open in Houston for non-college recruits that involves hosing out shipping containers at the port. The job starts around 6pm and you’re in a giant rubber hasmat suit dealing with tanker ships full of toxic chemicals. The bosses want you to work 12 hour shifts, you’re in close with heavy machinery on a dock, and you’re surrounded by carcinogens that you have to meticulously shield and clean yourself of and hope your PPE is keeping you safe on the clock.

$80k+/year. The bigger companies looking for people with experience will pay north of $150k.

You can also work out on a rig for $150k+. You can drive trucks overseas (Americans working in Iraq could earn $200k+/year back during the occupation). If you do have military experience, there’s a ton of money working as a “consultant” in Private Defense. No college necessary. But… you know… there’s trade offs.

The glut of US tech workers is due to the excessive number of H1B visas being issued.

That’s been part of it. But even with the H1B and the outsourcing, there’s a ton of technology to be administered, maintained, and repaired. We’re a technology economy. The glut of US tech workers is due to induced demand.

Why hire an expensive American new graduate when you can hire someone from India with 3-5 years of experience at 60% market rate instead?

Because you need to be able to communicate your needs fluently and India is in the wrong time zone. You can outsource some of your work some of the time, but follow this logic to its conclusion and you begin to ask why you’re even in business in the states. Why not just invest money in India’s private sector if you’re so convinced their workers can do a better job at a lower price? Why have an American business at all?

Replace me with an AI and I will laugh my way straight over to the brokerage where I short your stock.

Chevron replaced their whole IT department with Indian outsourcing companies a year ago and they’re already falling apart from the inside out.

I mean, me too. Glad I never had a talent or penchant for art. I’d be broke.

Church is just another form of entertainment for Americans.

you fucking dumbasses started calling it “communism”

Oh sure. That was half the joke of 2009. Insurance lobbyists going on TV and predicting America would become Venezuela for getting subsidized private coverage.

And Democrats were happy to play along. Lieberman filibustered the Public Option from within his own party because the TV news made the bill so unpopular

Apparently a bunch of right wing Internet media keeps trying to name him “Edward Crabtree” and cover up the fact that he’s Muslim

No shortage of American planners. They just work in hedge funds and board rooms

They happily voted for a guy who had a health care policy that amounted to “concepts of a plan” for like a decade now.

They were the same guys voting for Romney in 2012, the man whose health plan was good enough for Obama to crib wholesale.

I can’t think of a single time from last election season where this was agreed upon as a bipartisan issue.

Joe Biden Has Advocated Cutting Social Security for 40 Years

What Bloomberg campaign?

He’s the thirteenth most prolific campaign financier in 2024

This is like the “I’m calling ICE on my neighbors that I know have undocumented family members because one of them voted for Trump”.

I’m sure liberal has done this IRL. The desire to punish brown people for voting incorrectly is strongly bipartisan.

Did they vote for the clowns running this circus?

Giving every die hard Ted Cruz supporter a free pass

I have massive issues with how the game awards runs itself, but the solution isn’t to artificially restrict what a game can win.

It’s an awards show. Everything about it is artificial

Are you trying to say that any game that gets funding of any kind is automatically not worthy of winning?

??? How did you get here?

If a game does the best in multiple categories should it be skipped over just to highlight another game?

It’s all subjective. If you make Balatro and I make BG3, there’s no objective way to evaluate “Best Game” between the two. You’ve got to make some subjective judgement (or just put your hand out and collect bribes).

Giving one of them a full stack of awards doesn’t signal quality, it signals bias.

If an indie studio’s first game wins best indie game how can it not also be the best debut indie game

E33 wasn’t the studio’s first game. So it shouldn’t be winning the “award for debut games” on the ground alone.

But yes, if you’re winning the “indie game” (which E33’s budget shouldn’t have qualified it for anyway) spotlight another game under “debut” even if you’re predisposed to favor turn based RPGs over platformers or puzzle games or simulators. In fact, especially then.

This isn’t just recognizing the game, it’s recognizing the actors.

It’s recognizing the budget more often than not.

Did they bring it about? I seem to recall “Entitlement Reform” as bipartisan issue.

FFS, look at the Michael Bloomberg campaign. And he’s practically running the national party at this point.

Gotta wonder how many of these trained, blooded combat veterans are going to take this abuse laying down.

It’s still nice. Honestly, the reciprocation of appreciation/affection is its own glamour filter. The girl who thinks I’m hot is made hotter as a result.