Riggo-toni

Is that slang for the aforementioned gay act?

Probably because he would have been too busy trying to promote another invasion. Occupying a country divided by Sunni Shiites and Kurds was child's play - how exciting would it have been to attack a country with Sunni, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Kurds, Twelvers, and Ismailis. Obama getting Assad to hand over stockpiles of chemical weapons may have been an ephemeral remedy, but it was still more effective than Trump's token airstrikes that did no real damage - planes were flying out of the bombed airstrips the next day. The Neo Cons like Bolton predictably led to the creation of a previously unthinkable alliance between secular Baathists and hardcore jihadists that created a new terrorist organization worse than Al Quaeda, and set the wheels in motion for a greater Middle East series of wars along the Sunni Shiite divide. Powell's speech to the UN, spoon fed to him from the NeoCon cabal of Bolton, Wolfowitz, and Dumsfeld, gave celebrity status to the most violent sectarian of them all, Zarqawi.

Whereas Trump is a blatant imbecile, I suppose that one might reasonably argue that people like Bolton and Wolfowitz are intelligent, despite a litany of policy disasters and no genuine successes. Both are pathological ideologues which renders them immune to reason, changing circumstances, or calculated actions. When denouncing Iran, it's always about the past 40 years; never, say, the last 20. That's because they have often been on the right side of history the past two decades. Even after the destruction of priceless artifacts and harboring of Al Quaeda, the US continued to give tens of millions of dollars to the Taliban right up to 911. The Iranians, meanwhile, were supporting the Northern Alliance...the guys we eventually used to fight the Taliban we had created. It was Iran's Al Quds forces who defeated ISIL on the ground, whereas the half billion we spent in Syria ended up in the hands of Jihadists. Iran has supported brutal Shiite militias, but it is our supposed allies the Saudis who are funneling American materiel into the hands of rebranded Al Quaeda groups and promote the Salafist theology that is the backbone and breeding ground of Islamofacism and terrorism.

A painting I did last weekend of Urbino Italy. You've probably never heard of it, but it was one of the most important cities of the Renaissance. It was the birthplace of Rafael, and its leader Duke Montefeltro was the greatest military tactician of the peninsula. He was actually part of the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medicis, but pulled his men back and denied involvement when he realized it was failing. I spent a summer in the neighboring town of Urbania, which is why I wanted to paint this.

I have a Master's degree and I work in IT, but I don't drink...

I thought this might be another Kellen Winslow thread....

We all know what happens to ultra-talented injury prone redheaded Eagles QBs whose backups win the Championship while they are out hurt....they get traded to the Redskins.

Report: Kellen Winslow II Couldn't Stop Masturbating In Front Of His Teammates https://deadspin.com/report-kellen-winslow-ii-couldnt-stop-masturbating-in-1835493794 Former NFL tight end Kellen Winslow II was convicted of rape, indecent exposure, and lewd conduct on Monday—charges that stem from separate incidents involving Winslow sexual assaulting a woman, exposing himself to another woman, and touching himself in front of a third woman. A mistrial was declared on charges related to two other rapes, 15 years apart, and prosecutors haven’t said yet if they will retry him on those charges as well. When pornography became widely available on mobile phones, he often watched it on his smartphone during meetings, the two former teammates said (nowadays, such sites would typically be blocked by the building WiFi). Teammates begged out of shared hotel room assignments with Winslow because he watched pornography and masturbated openly, with no regard for who was in the room, a teammate and an official said. He could count on having an empty seat next to him on any team flight, ... Later on in his career, after being sent to Tampa Bay via trade, Winslow acquired a life-sized silicone mold of a woman’s torso—complete with vagina and anus—to bring with him on road trips, according to one former assistant coach.

Time for me to Google...