On Game of Thrones Finale, Neoconservativsm Is Scrutinized - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Perhaps nothing in GOT resonates as well as Daenerys’s conquest of Mereen, which invites obvious comparisons to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this season, Daeny pledged to free the slaves, rescue a downtrodden populace from an antiquated social order, and rule the city as a wise and modern queen. Superior firepower (dragons) is not her only weapon: She also wields the weapon of rhetoric, couching her conquest in terms of liberation and good vs. evil. Her slogan, "Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons," might as well be a giant MISSION: ACCOMPLISHED banner...
But killing is simple. Living is the hard part. In the season for finale that aired last night, Daenerys finds Mereen more easily conquered than ruled... Many of the now former slaves don’t know what to do, and some even wish to go back to their chains. And most striking of all, Daeny encounters the Mereneese equivalent of a drone warfare victim: a father whose child was incinerated by death from above, an inadvertent casualty of Daeny’s efforts to remake the city. Daeny has no choice but to hedge on some of her fundamental beliefs, and suddenly, the Breaker of Chains is reshackling her freed slaves, as well as the dragons she claims as her children...
There was finally good news at the Wall, however, where Stannis’s forces arrived to put an end to the wildling assault. The wildlings want to cross the north’s giant border fence, but the Night’s Watch has balked at the idea of allowing them into the Seven Kingdoms. Would Jon Snow and Stannis be better served by a more lenient immigration policy? It seems clear that the wildlings’ primary aim is not war with the people of Westeros, but rather refuge from the hordes of zombies and ice demons. The Watch and the wildlings will need to negotiate some mutual peace in order to survive."
Iraq Is a Terrible Place to Succumb to Sunken Costs Fallacy - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "Despite the absurd arguments from the war-drum crowd that we needed to spend even more time in Iraq, we know that's not a rational response. The Iraqis are not children, and their factional issues are theirs to deal with, not ours. Additional actions in Iraq not only would cost more money that we really can't afford, but any sort of military action (even absent ground troops) can risk American lives. The perfectly reasonable resistance to further military action is a reflection of the grasp of sunken costs in Iraq. The trillions of dollars spent in Iraq and the loss of American lives and the permanent injuries so many have suffered didn’t liberate the country. There is no rational reason to believe that additional actions will result in a better outcome. I can't even fathom what it must feel like to be in the position of these veterans, to have lost arms, legs and friends in Iraq and to watch what’s happening now. But we can't turn lies (the reasons for the Iraq war) into something noble by continuing to throw money and people at Iraq to "fix" it. I don't know how to fix the pain, emotional and physical, veterans must feel over Iraq's crumbling, but I do know that we can't make it better by spreading that pain to even more veterans. That would be the likely outcome of additional military action in Iraq."
New Study Says Smoking Marijuana Improves Your Lungs | BroBible.com: "A study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that smoking marijuana does not negatively affect lung capacity. The long-term study analyzed the lung function of cigarette smokers, marijuana smokers and non-smokers over a 20-year period beginning in 1985. Incredibly, it found that casual marijuana smokers performed better on certain tests than non-smokers. From Time: While tobacco smokers showed the expected drop in lung function over time, the new research found that marijuana smoke had unexpected and apparently positive effects. Low to moderate users actually showed increased lung capacity compared to nonsmokers on two tests, known as FEV1 and FVC. FEV1 is the amount of air someone breathes out in the first second after taking the deepest possible breath; FVC is the total volume of air exhaled after the deepest inhalation."
Leonardo DiCaprio Pulls YET ANOTHER Power Move, Allegedly Flies 30 Girls to Brazil to Party With Him | BroBible.com: "Partying in Brazil for the World Cup with 20 of his best friends on a 484-foot mega-yacht, the thirst apparently caught up to Hollywood’s most badass playboy. If it’s to be believed, a report in UK tabloid The Mirror alleges that DiCaprio flew 30 girls to Brazil to party with him on his boat. Another 20 are already vacationing in Rio..."
Leonardo DiCaprio Sex Yacht Anchors Off Brazil | What Would Tyler Durden Do: "There was a time when I was pretty sure Leonardo DiCaprio was gay. He’s kind of fetching and that whole supermodel dating thing has been a long time down low cover for male celebrities. But now I realize I was blinded by jealousy. Pure, green-eyed monster bullshit that rendered me short of objective judgement. Leonardo DiCaprio is banging the world’s hottest women with accents. At some point, he will have plowed the best looking 5,000 women from nations where elected officials promise voters two square meals a day and a carton of Camels. To expedite his assembly line junk dipping, Leo rented one of the world’s largest yachts, filled it with a few dozen girls in bikinis, and sailed it to Brazil for the World Cup."
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