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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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Aye, that vassal stuff is way overused, but it's one way for the most egomaniacal americans and their foreign enemies to agree on something.

What's the latest on north stream from your end? Little ukrainian-polish men feeling patriotic?

For American vassalization, at this point I just chalk it up to cultural chauvinism and American-centricism, even when it's not done by Americans or by people who'd recoil at the thought.

For nord stream, it makes as much sense as anything else I've seen, which is to say I've seen and heard of nothing that could be considered authoritative. Then again, I've also said that I find it credible for anyone to have done it, and that there are reasonable reasons for the Baltic powers that might know to keep quiet regardless of who actually did it, be it overly patriotic types of western powers or Russian types. Any official acknowledgement might comes with political pressures to Do Something they'd rather not do, regardless of who did it.

I will maintain that the Seymour Hersh story was laughably weak, and has been damned by how little weight it carries even amongst the sort who would usually applaud.