mattfromnj

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It is so bad that he refuses to ever go back even to see his extended family.

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I have a friend from Venezuela who made the mistake of going back to visit some old friends and family, and ended up getting kidnapped. He hasn't been back since.

Props to the white guy with glasses in the back for not sliding out though.

Did the police ever release how he found out about these girls/guy and the house? I know he lived relatively close by but he lived in a different town and from everything I read had no connection at all to these kids. How did he find them?

To the person who mentioned how he would have killed again, that's actually a theory for why there are fewer serial killers today than in years past. Guys like this who in decades past may have gotten away with it and killed others, tend to get caught after the first time now and get locked up for decades right away. The police methods have gotten much more advanced and that's one of the benefits of it.

They aren't interested in being our friend anyway, we've been bending over backwards since at least 2009 to get them to sign deals and play nice and they've told us to go f ourselves repeatedly while killing US troops the whole time. We've made some mistakes in our relationship with them for sure (they supposedly reached out after 9-11 to cooperate and we told them no) but they've had more than enough opportunities to be our pal and have repeatedly told us no in the most harsh manner possible.

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Hopefully the report is true.

Wrap this shite up.

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There's reports that they might be pretty close to at least a temporary cease fire in Lebanon. Lots of issues to work out but they seem much closer to getting something done in the north than in Gaza.

It was amazing that Walz of all people tried to call Vance weird. Walz is one of the creepiest, weirdest politicians I've ever seen.

Is Young even that fast? I know he was mobile but I never really saw him as a "runner" more of a guy who could scramble and get first downs when he needed to. Not someone like Daniels you designed runs for and the defense had to game plan around his mobility.

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If you hold this view, don't bitch and complain when taxes must be increased to care for all the geriatric prisoners you want to lock away forever.

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Any one convicted of a serious enough crime that they're in prison as an elderly person is going to be entirely dependent on the state even if they get released, they'd need housing vouchers, food stamps, medicaid, etc either way. It's not like a 75 year old who just did 25 years is going to go right back to their old job.

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Let’s say you’re a fan of a team and invite 10 friends over that are also fans of that team for a watch party. They all bring a dish and promise to help clean up after. Then later on 10 random people from off the street barge in and start eating your food, and put a soccer game on the other TV so loud you can’t hear your game.

It doesn’t mean being a fan of a team is bullshite. It just means you have bigger problems than the game to worry about right now.

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It's worse though because these people didn't barge in off the street, to keep using your example- they were *invited* by one of your friends leaving the door open, or in some cases just going outside and telling them to come in.

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Have you seen the recruiting class, especially QB? Probably our best class ever. Sky isn’t always falling, kid.

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This plus you never know what will happen with the portal, there's bound to be surprises.

There's a pretty good documentary about the behind the scenes porn industry in Florida called "Hot Girls Wanted" that came out a few years ago. It shows how hopeless the business is for most of the girls who enter it.

Their careers are incredibly short, usually about a year, they make nowhere near as much money as they thought they would (most make about 100k in their first year and then it drops dramatically) and they get asked to do more and more extreme and degrading stuff to stay relevant.

My favorite part was when a girl was going to tell her dad she was in porn during their hunting trip. No better time to tell dad you're a porn girl than when he's armed I guess.

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To give everyone some back story, I recently became concerned with the levels of my drinking due to an occasional light burning sensation just under my rib cage.

My drinking started out around 19 when I was in college. I drank Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get drunk. I couldn’t put a number on it but I probably drank 40 drinks a week over that span. I kept up with that pace throughout college.

Fast forward to after college and I continued to drink at the 40-50 drink a week pace for the past few years. Just recently I started having a very light burning sensation that comes and goes occasionally under my ribs. Other than that, I hadn’t experienced any other symptoms other than putting on some more lbs over the past years.

This prompted me to schedule a doctors appointment to get some bloodwork. I am scared to death that I have cirrhosis as I’ve been a 40-45 drinks a week drinker for the past 8 years. This has been a huge wake up call for me to get sober. To add injury to insult, I also recently lost my job.

Hopefully my blood work comes back not so bad.

Appreciate any thoughts or advice.

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Honestly I don't have any experience with alcohol but it sounds like you're having a rough time in general and I know plenty about that. Hope things turn around for you, and soon. The fact that you have the self awareness to get tested and at least try to get it together is a good sign. Good luck.

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The greatest shock of this war is simply how inept Russia’s combat operations have been. On paper, they should’ve rolled Ukraine and Zelenskyy is hiding out in Poland somewhere. I’m not a military expert, but I have to believe if they had the ability to roll Ukraine they would’ve committed the additional personnel and equipment needed, and taken care of business by now.

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In fairness to Russia the Ukr army in 2022 was one of the largest and certainly the most battle tested in Europe from fighting the separatists in the east since 2014. They'd also been given a lot of NATO training and even equipment during that time and reorganized a lot of their leadership. They were very good. I think Russia thought they were the same army they'd seen in 2014-2015.

Russia seems to struggle with logistics. Remember during the invasion all those abandoned tanks? They're awful at maintenance and logistics. There were Russian soldiers looting stores because they'd run out of food less than a week into the invasion.

Fwiw the experts I've seen actually said there was nothing really wrong with Russia's plan for invasion, it just didn't work. The Ukrainians put up a good defense in depth, they contested the airfields and didn't allow the Russians to take them, they stayed back and ambushed all the supply convoys, etc. A lot of what's happened in Ukraine hasn't been about Russia doing anything wrong it's just that Ukraine is doing well with what they have.

The casualties on both sides are massive. To give one hint there was a Russian milblogger (a very popular one who goes on tv there) who said that between February and September of 2022 the VDV (Russia's airborne) lost 60% of its forces killed, wounded or captured. Both sides are taking losses the US hasn't experienced since ww2 or the very beginning of Korea, its horrific.

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Can somebody update the fighting ?

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Last I read the Israelis had entered some of the central neighborhoods of Rafah, based on sightings by local Gazans. Apparently they're not facing as much resistance as they anticipated.

The bad news for the Israelis is that they are now "clearing" neighborhoods in the Khan Younis and Gaza City areas for up to, in one case, a fourth time. They're going into Jabaliyah, part of Gaza City, with apparently as many guys as they are going into Rafah with. It's a major operation in a place they've been fighting off and on for months.

The Israeli media is even starting to note there doesn't seem to be an end game. They clear areas, wait for Hamas to come back, clear again, etc etc. Meanwhile talks over the hostages have all but ended for the time being.

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And why does the Left in general support the Palestinians and oppose Israel?

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The left has supported the Palestinians for a long time because the Palestinians used to be secular and supported by the USSR, think of the PLO back in the 70s and 80s. They were part of the worldwide revolution in the way Gaddafi and Mugabe and even Che and Castro were.

The LGBTQIs are into Palestine now because a lot of the modern left is really just anti-US and anti-west. They're not "pro" anything. They just want revolution and socialist change in the US and so they support anyone and everything that is opposed to us (admittedly ISIS and the Taliban were notable exceptions, though by 2021 even the Taliban had gained a level of acceptance that was unthinkable even 5-10 years earlier).

Also they view everything as "oppressor/oppressed" and view the Palestinians are the oppressed and therefore the ones they support.

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According to the Jtimes link, Israel is ending its active invasion and occupation of southern Gaza.

Beginning of the end for Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran appears to be off for the time being.

I hope this is the beginning of the end of the war. The US experience after 9/11 largely proves you can’t exterminate extreme ideology with bombs and occupations.

Netanyahu has weakened Israel by falling asleep on October 6 and losing crucial support for Israel as a result of its post October 7 conduct. Hopefully he is gone soon. His time and utility for Israel has come and gone.

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I'm more pessimistic than I was a while back too. I don't think Hamas will be destroyed by this war anymore than Hezbollah was destroyed in 2006. They've taken a beating but according to Israeli media they've already returned to parts of Gaza City and Khan Younis, only about a third of the tunnels have been destroyed and their rocket stockpile is apparently still in the thousands. The reason the blockade of northern Gaza is still going on is because Hamas is there and are distributing the aid that comes in, just as they are in Rafah.

Netanyahu has to know his career is over as soon as the war ends. The same way Israel had major political and military changes with the Winograd Commission after the 06 war, this one will be even worse. The amount of political/IDF/Mossad/Shin Bet firings and resignations over 10/7 is sure to be high.