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" Russia's war with Ukraine is hurting them !" London (CNN Business)Six months after invading Ukraine, Russia is bogged down in a war of attrition it didn't anticipate but it is having success on another front — its oil-dependent economy is in a deep recession but proving far more resilient than expected. "I'm driving through Moscow and the same traffic jams are there as before," says Andrey Nechaev, who was Russia's economy minister in the early 1990s. The readiness of China and India to snap up cheap Russian oil has helped, but Nechaev and other analysts say Russia's economy has started to decline and is likely facing a prolonged period of stagnation as a consequence of Western sanctions. On the surface, not much has changed, bar a few empty storefronts that once housed Western brands that have fled the country in their hundreds. McDonalds (MCD) is now called "Vkusno i tochka", or "Tasty, and that's it" and Starbucks (SB...

  You take the good/you take the bad; you take them both and there you have : After two decades of insurgency, the Taliban exhausted the world's most powerful military and their NATO allies, which agreed to withdraw from the country in a deal signed in February 2020. As Western troops were concluding their withdrawal last summer, the Taliban oversaw the rapid surrender, defeat or co-option of Afghan security forces — forces they saw as aiding a foreign occupation. Today, the Taliban's particular interpretation of Islamic law is being imposed in fits and starts, largely over women and girls: Most girls cannot attend secondary schools. They may not travel long distances without a male guardian. Women report being hounded out of their jobs. They've been ordered to cover their faces in public, although the rule is only applied to women on television so far. There are changes perhaps less noticed outside of Afghanistan: Afghans are living in relative security for the first time ...

 Just can't figure out what... (h/t to Wavy and CBS News ) 

 It should be clear to most that the reason Joe Biden has low poll numbers is not only did he not push for things his party's base wanted (Medicare For All, student debt forgiveness) but he failed on things he said he would do ($15 minimum wage, $2,000 stimulus checks). And that's not even going into how his Administration threw up their hands after a tepid COVID-19 vaccine rollout, his photo op that passed as troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Russian saber-rattling and soft support for Ukrainian Nazis that led to a new war in Europe or the inflation that came as a result of that mess. Nevertheless, it wasn't supposed to be a problem for Joe Biden. Out of all of the Democratic primary candidates for 2020, he was the one who could reach across the aisle and work with the GOP to get things done (never mind that this was also the claim of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama when they either campaigned or got elected). Of course, we know how this song ends. The Democrats claim t...

 Channing Tatum has made no secret that "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" was not something he found of acting in . Among his complaints was the script, no being able to play Snake Eyes (he wanted the only guaranteed non-speaking role ?) and not wanting to be pigeon-holed into being an action star. No sir ; we certainly don't want Tatum to get stuck with that label. Not at all .  I also remember a video where Tatum said he was hesitant because he was worried that G.I. joe may be to propagandistic (for the record, this is that director's resume ).  Anyway, now that America is in a post-"Why-Did-We-Leave-Afghanistan" mood, Hollywood has greenlit a propaganda war/dram/action movie that Tatum and "Venom" star Tom Hardy are attached to. Well, at least he won't have to wear a cheesy battle suit, right? 

 America is a country that, politically-speaking, has conservatives, liberals, libertarians, socialists, communists, anarchists, fascists, and many other ideologies. Some people even have elements of more than one. But when it comes to how America views the world, it's like the trope " Planet of Hats ." In (American) science-fiction, other worlds tend to be completely unified under one trait, philosophy, belief system and/or style of government. Everyone is obese, or share the same religion or are authoritarian.  I suppose we could call this a "Nation of Hats" for practical purposes. The idea that another country could be filled with variations, differences or extremes is almost foreign to most Americans; in truth it's not entirely their fault, they're just listening to what the American media is telling them.  Take this AP story about the Taliban in Afghanistan , for example: KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Friction between pragmatists and ideologues in the ...

Instead of pretending to know what's going in Afghanistan or arrogantly trying to predict the country's future, why not take the time to reminisce about past and current America presidents trying to justify the entire experience? Since we're talking about 20 years and multiple presidents (Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden) this will be broken up into four parts For this post:  Joe Biden . Keep in mind that not every speech or even every speech about the country in question is being referenced, just notable ones where the justification is mentioned. Also, since this particular president is currently in office, much of this is subject to change .  Because justifications vary, let's use a key: Humanitarian  ("People are getting hurt!") Economic  ("America/American businesses are either losing money because we're not taking action, or can gain money by taking action."  Political  ("This will give us an advantage with our political adversaries,"...

 So, buried in this CNN story about the Taliban "declaring victory"  is something slightly more important than the comments of someone who's happy that his country is no longer occupied: Once again, we've left gear behind: In one video, militants dressed in US-style uniforms and holding US-made weapons examined a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter parked inside a hangar. Taliban fighters were also seen posing for photographs while sitting in the cockpits of planes and helicopters that once belonged to the Afghan Air Force. But Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told CNN Tuesday he wasn't "overly concerned about these images" of Taliban fighters examining the abandoned aircraft. "They can inspect all they want," Kirby said. "They can look at them, they can walk around -- but they can't fly them. They can't operate them." He added that the US military had made "unusable all the gear that is at the airport -- all the aircraft, al...

Instead of pretending to know what's going in Afghanistan or arrogantly trying to predict the country's future, why not take the time to reminisce about past and current America presidents trying to justify being there? Since we're talking about 20 years and multiple presidents (Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden) this will be broken up into four parts For this post:  Donald Trump . Keep in mind that not every speech or even every speech about the country in question is being referenced, just some notable ones where the justification is mentioned. Because justifications vary, let's use a key: Humanitarian  ("People are getting hurt!") Economic  ("America/American businesses are either losing money because we're not taking action, or can gain money by taking action."  Political  ("This will give us an advantage with our political adversaries," or "We must spread liberty/freedom.") Military/Strategic  ("Better to fight them over ...

Instead of pretending to know what's going in Afghanistan or arrogantly trying to predict the country's future, why not take the time to reminisce about past and current America presidents trying to justify being there? Since we're talking about 20 years and multiple presidents (Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden) this will be broken up into four parts For this post:  Barack Obama . Keep in mind that not every speech or even every speech about the country in question is being referenced, just notable ones where the justification is mentioned. Because justifications vary, let's use a key: Humanitarian  ("People are getting hurt!") Economic  ("America/American businesses are either losing money because we're not taking action, or can gain money by taking action."  Political  ("This will give us an advantage with our political adversaries," or "We must spread liberty/freedom.") Military/Strategic  ("Better to fight them over there...

  SNL "celebrates" one month after US invaded Afghanistan . Funny how this wasn't referenced in "A Closer Look" about Afghanistan . 

Instead of pretending to know what's going in Afghanistan or arrogantly trying to predict the country's future, why not take the time to reminisce about past and current America presidents trying to justify being there? Since we're talking about 20 years and multiple presidents (Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden) this will be broken up into four parts For this post: George W. Bush . Keep in mind that these are not every speech or even every speech about the country in question, just notable ones where the justification is mentioned. Because justifications vary, let's use a key: Humanitarian ("People are getting hurt!") Economic ("America/American businesses are either losing money because we're not taking action, or can gain money by taking action."  Political ("This will give us an advantage with our political adversaries," or "We must spread liberty/freedom.") Military/Strategic ("Better to fight them over there than figh...