I’ve been looking at this data for reference:

https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/2021_anti-doping_testing_figures_en.pdf

Where do you get your claims?

Either way, as another guy pointed out US athletes have a really quite absurdly high rate of TUEs. Maybe that’s just because the average American is unhealthy, maybe that’s just because the US healthcare system catches more of those things, but it’s still odd that those athletes coincidentally take performance-enhancing drugs as medication for their medical condition. It’s also odd how low the TUE rate is in other countries in comparison - WADA seems more willing to approve requests from the US, which maybe explains part of the discrepancy.

Flagrant violation of the rules knowing that the US national agencies won’t give a fuck. The rules themselves might be questionable (but really, cannabinoids are still illegal in most of the world…), but it demonstrates that US athletes feel like they can basically ignore the rules because nobody will enforce them.

Friendly reminder that China has one of the lowest positive doping test rates in the world. The US tests positive at more than 5x that rate. India tests positive at more than 15x that rate. Russia tests positive at a similar rate as the US.

The US just can’t accept that WADA, which receives more funding from the US than from any other country in the world, isn’t biased towards Americans. We know that 6.5 to 9.2% of US athletes are doping, anyway: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11102888/

But sure, those 6.5% to 9.2% of US athletes are all acting on their own and there’s no system in place to encourage doping (as if the fact that almost 1 in 10 US athletes get away with doping isn’t a system to encourage it).

Default incoming?

Ok but they’re so cute it’s amazing

no, clearly it must have been a 50kg warhead

people have no grasp on the scale of high explosives and it shows

Exit polls run by US actors and by the opposition

Ah yes, my favourite. It’s been a while since we had a good old colour revolution. The CIA’s getting their mojo back.

Increased use of Mandarin, however, obviously infringes of Chinese minority rights.

Edit: just to be clear, many Chinese dialects have a lower lexical similarity than European languages. The standardization of Mandarin in education has had impacts on these dialects as well.

They’re also poor and economically disadvantaged. Do you like keeping poor people poor? Jfc

sigh

Do you have the memory of a goldfish? Status quo under the previous KMT administration was very healthy. No talks of invasion, lots of talk about economic ties and cultural exchange. It was great, actually. Xi and Ma met, which was the first meeting between leaders since the start of the civil war. Ma is a true statesman and a symbol of what proper Taiwanese governance should be. Peace across the strait was possible for once.

Then, the DPP got elected, started sucking America’s cock, started inviting top US officials for state visits, received awards from American state-funded institutions (like the National Endowment for Democracy), increasingly remilitarized, invited the US to sail through the Taiwan Strait… And the rest is history. Odd how it’s always the US-backed government that’s the “victim” in Western media, isn’t it? Surely China violated the status quo with respect to crossing the median line on their own accord, not because just a few weeks ago a US warship was invited to sail through the strait? Do you even remember what the status quo was?

Taiwan claims territory that conflicts not only with China, but with: Mongolia, Myanmar, Bhutan, India, Japan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Russia, Pakistan, and also Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. Recognizing Taiwanese sovereignty violates the sovereignty of not only China, but also all of those countries… Which is absurd. Cut the crap and look at a map. ROC sovereignty would basically wipe Mongolia off the map. The funny thing is that Taiwan recognizing the sovereignty of the territory that conflicts with all of these other nations would have no bearing or impact on their sovereignty claim with China itself… Taiwan simply refuses to do so. The only claim that Taiwan cannot make freely is one that shrinks the borders of modern China (e.g. in the Arunachal Pradesh area and the South China Sea), but for everything else they have complete legislative authority to recognize foreign claims (after all, China has already done so, so doing so would not violate One China policy). They won’t, of course, because they refuse to recognize China’s negotiations in those territories as valid.

Dude thinks Chinese people aren’t people. Provinces with a population that exceed some of the most populous states in America… “barely have any people”

The KMT supports normalization of relations with China. China was perfectly happy with the status quo until the DPP systematically stomped on the status quo and tore it apart

Do you see the shit going on in the Yuan? The DPP is corrupt and sabotaging Taiwan’s economic growth for no good reason.

Young people want money. A nice house, good food, travel. It’s not that complicated.

Gansu, the poorest province in China, a province where “almost no one is living.” Qinghai, Xinjiang… Same story. Together, they have almost 60 million people. Many of them are minorities with historically poor job prospects due to their distance from economic centers.

By building energy installations in the middle of the country, they’re providing jobs to a group that’s been left behind by the rapid industrialization of the country’s East. Providing them with a surplus of electricity. Driving investment in the region. Moreover, this group of people is more than the population of New York and Texas… Combined.

How about you take your racism and your classism and shove it up your ass?

These are factories in the US. The worst case is, the US seizes and nationalizes them. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Capitalism, survival of the fittest, free market, cut the laggards, etc…

“Heavily subsidized supply chains”

Let’s just call it what it is: economies of scale. China makes up 80% of the polysilicon market. The US? Barely 5%. Scale is the strongest subsidy of them all.

Taiwan’s current government is incredibly pro-US. Trump understands that the DPP’s days are numbered given the rise of the KMT/TPP (which only lost the election because of a last second collapse of coalition). Taiwan’s government is pro-US in spite of the public’s interest, not because of it.

After all, Taiwan’s trade with the mainland and Hong Kong make up almost 50% of all exports. The bulk of this is in basic goods across the Taiwanese economy, not the product of one company.

In the past, Taiwan’s frigid relations with the mainland were due to sour memories (losing the civil war, getting kicked out, etc.) Today? Young people just want a prosperous life, and China is absurdly prosperous - especially for young engineers in tech. The US can either recognize that fact, or drag another country into war.

It’s pretty funny when foreigners care more about your own sovereignty.

Does it sound like a suppressed .22 to anyone else?

Then you live in a failed democracy and your only option should be systemic regime change. Viva la revolución.