... because even spies have their standards.

Leadership positions of any kind are and have always been a magnet for arrogant sociopaths. From Fortune 500 C suite down to mud hut tribal strongman.

Question (evolutionarily) has always been, sociopath or not, is he more or less effective than the next most plausible alternative?

Fuck if I know if there's a pure-hearted diamond in the rough out there somewhere just waiting to lead us to greatness, but as to my question above, the answer usually seems to be, good enough.

What was the excuse for when Biden was in office?

The US doesn't control what happens in Moscow.

Short of getting into the fight ourselves (um...no) there is nothing to do other than watch.

Putin would pet Russia fall before he cries "uncle"
The only way to end the war is when Putin himself ceases to be in power, unfortunetly he still retains enough popular support to remain in power without even having to force the issue. (Which he would if he faced mass protests)

Or it's not a shortcoming at all. Since the representation difference is correctly encoded.

My main complaint is that English doesn't get letters for British versus American D and T sounds in words. Given how Brits pronounce "students", I'm not convinced we're using the same alphabet.

Just a hypocrite. Like, honestly, most "green" advocates.

I will continue riding my elliptical and counting my calories. It's a fantastic drug, and if you absolutely can't get thin any other way, I guess it might be worth the risk, since obesity kills too. But if one can do it cold turkey, then one probably should.

Systematic moochers score quite high in the oppression olympics. Dumbasses too though admittedly they may have fallen behind the pack.

You punched down. And that's bad, especially if the dumb schmuck deserved it, I am led to understand.

Sorry what, I'm too engrossed in my smartphone right now to listen. ;-)

In an attempt to add context to what appears to be an inflammatory comment, here's some background:

Some time ago the US Department of Defense asked Musk to turn off starlink access in the Crimean peninsula. Although officially a Ukranian territory and not recognized as part of Russia, it made sense to do this due to the Russian occupation. Some Ukranian drones stopped working, and Musk steadfastly refused to allow his civilian system to be used to kill people.

Due to fallout from that incident, starlink satellite access was divided into two parts: Starlink and Starshield, both using Musk's satellites.

The explicit intent behind Starshield was to separate civilian and military uses of the satellite constellation. Under this framework:

"Starlink" is the regular user system, and it's TOS require that it not be used for military purposes. Basically, it's an ISP saying that you cannot use their system to kill people. Elon Musk is responsible for overseeing how Starlink is run and managed.

"Starshield" is the military version, and this is OK to use this as a weapon. The US Department of War (used to be "defense") controls who uses this and how it is used, they allow Ukraine to use it for battle, and they disallow Russia to use it for any purpose.

It was noticed that the Russians were stealing starlink endpoints and using them to attack Ukraine, so a "fast moving" detection was implemented to put a stop to this. As a byproduct, some Ukraine drones stopped working as well.

The Ukranians have access to starshield, the military version, and should have been using this instead of starlink.

Yes, he made the civilian version of starlink not work for drones, but this same change protected Ukraine from Russian drones using starlink.

Some people like to find reasons to criticize Musk.

"reality has a well-known liberal bias"
As we both know, reality has no bias; but Colbert's comment is so delightfully self-affirming that narcissist progressives can't stop repeating it as fact.

Personally, I think any society needs both liberals and conservatives to be healthy. Lately, progressives seem to delight in actually killing conservatives. (shrug)

Liberals cheerfully explore the world, and while many fall off cliffs, get eaten by bears, and eat berries that kill them, the ones that survive make progress possible. Without them we wouldn't have found wonderful new places better than where we were, animals to domesticate, and delicious berries that are good for us. Confident, naive liberals die in droves but pull civilization forward.

OTOH, conservatives are insurance for survival. They DON'T explore where stronger, dangerous hostile tribes may lurk to be led back to our village to enslave/kill/eat us. They don't eat those lovely red berries because the blue berries our ancestors have eaten have kept us healthy and well for centuries and are good enough, thank you. They do not accept strangers because if someone was a decent good person, why would he have been driven out of HIS village and come here?

Which is more important, survival of our tribe, or advancement for our tribe?
Trick question: both. The tension between sides is fine, rational, and normal; both should be encouraged. In a healthy society, our educational system would put out both.

What's odious to me is certainty. (To be clear, I find the same sort of certainty among Evangelicals and it is equally if not more repellent. And I consider myself a person of some Faith, maybe that's why?)

I get it; as a liberal you *have* to be confident that whatever whacky bullshit you're following today MUST be right, it MUST be better, or you wouldn't chase after it like an OCD squirrel. What's ironic is that most of the values leftists insist are core humanist values - even humanism itself - was born in the hearts of deeply religious men like Luther, Erasmus, and Scottish Presbyters.

Useful information. Appreciated.