Craig Shapiro

@nfergus e.e. cummings would like a word with you.

One minor benefit of the Epstein scandal is that the repulsive habit of writing English without capital letters will finally be seen for what it is: a sign of gross moral turpitude.

I worked in Qatar from 2004-05. I lived in a villa in the city of Doha. As I understood it (never looked it up, so don’t @ me if the details are off) to be a citizen of the State of Qatar you had to be at least 3rd generation. Citizens got a cut of the money from the country’s state-owned gas industry, varying depending on who they were. Citizens were also only like 1/3rd the population. Everyone else was imported labor, and there was a sort of caste system. The Filipinos were the merchants, usually working in retail businesses. There were Indians and Sri Lankans there too, and a lot of them were private taxi drivers. At the bottom were the people from Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, etc. They worked construction and such. Immigrants didn’t have any rights. Your sponsor confiscated your passport from you, and you couldn’t legally leave the country without an “exit letter” from them. If you ran off, they’d put an ad in the paper that you’d “absconded.” This happened to me, as an American citizen, working for an American goddamn company! (Dyncorp. Would not recommend.) Even their military immigrant labor. Only the officers were actually Qatari citizens. Women had a hard time. Many were brought there thinking they’d be working as house cleaners but would end up as indentured servants. If you were a westerner, hanging out at the hotel bars (one of the few places where alcohol was served), you’d be approached by Chinese girls. They were prostitutes, but most of them hadn’t planned on doing that. They got in country, got their passports taken, and found out their sponsor had all these “fees” they wanted them to pay, skimming off the money they were trying to earn up to send home. Every year or so the Qatari government would crack down on it and deport a bunch of them, only to ignore it again when it was convenient. Their entire economy is built on resource extraction and exploitation of people from poor countries. Back then, the technical jobs were more or less outsourced to westerners. I don’t know how it looks there today. Were there open-air slave auctions or anything? No. Their system was subtler and more sanitized than that. We had two military bases there then. Now it’s just Al-Udeid Air Base. In my opinion, this should be closed. We should pull chocks and unhitch Qatar from our wagon. We have other Arab allies that aren’t as beholden to militant Islamists and aren’t harboring Hamas. That’s not going to happen, though , and we all know why.

🚨 Jews make up just 0.2% of humanity. And half of us live in a country smaller than Maricopa County, Arizona. So when mobs scream to “wipe it off the map” or “from the river to the sea” that’s not politics. That’s a call for extinction. Remember that. H/t @ScottJenningsKY

This was filmed in Gaza yesterday. My God, the Palestinians bounced back from famine and genocide quickly. It’s almost as though neither of those things happened.

Hamas is operating inside hospitals? Our cuddly Hamas? No way.

@Paco_X7 @schweigru @bmg_edits

@schweigru @bmg_edits Dann lieber Dieter Hecking zurück holen und davon bin ich schon nicht begeistert.

Laut dem Kicker beschäftigt sich Borussia mit zwei möglichen Kandidaten für die Nachfolge von Gerardo Seoane. Dabei handelt es sich um Pellegrino Matarazzo (zuletzt TSG Hoffenheim) und Martin Demichelis, der nach seiner Zeit beim FC Bayern zuletzt in Mexiko gearbeitet hat.

Very true...

Israel is NOT an apartheid. While Israeli civilians are under attack, vile antisemitic propaganda does not take a break. Frances Coppola wrote: “Israel only builds shelters for Jews.” I’m not a Jew, and I go to the shelter in this very building. And when I’m on the street while the sirens go off, I go to public shelters. I have never been been discriminated against inside the state of Israel, and my name is Ahmed, and I have spent quite a lot of time in Israel in the last year. I know many of you think Israel is an apartheid. I know did. Until I visited Israel. So you should visit Israel to decide for yourself. But maybe not right now while the Islamic regime in Iran is targeting civilians. If Israel were an apartheid, I would not step foot in it. But Israel is not an apartheid.

The West's success can be summarised in the simple observation that millions who live in it are unable to understand what it is like to deal with hostile enemies who want to invade your country and kill you because all they've ever known is freedom, safety and plenty.

Hey @grok, what percentage would you need to enrich uranium to for civilian purposes and would a country enriching hundreds of kilograms of uranium to 60% or above suggest that it is developing nuclear weapons?

When I was pursuing my PhD in psychology of decision making at @Cornell, I took a course with David Dunning. It turns out that the Dunning-Kruger Effect will soon be renamed the @ComicDaveSmith Effect.

This @TheFP video is CRITICAL to understand the complicity of media in turning the public against Israel based on lies. Hamas keeps power by warlording all aid going into Gaza. So, America and Israel have set up their own distribution centers. This is a huge threat to Hamas. They don’t care if Palestinians die. So they attacked them. Western media breathlessly reported it. The IDF put out footage proving it wasn’t true, and then AFTER THE PUBLIC BELIEVED THE LIE, they quietly retract the stories. And it’s a pattern. They did this with Al Shifa hospital too. They must stop believing Hamas sources so blindly.

@tomcolicchio Nonna’s

Where am I

@PatrickMcEnroe @DjokerNole @MiamiOpen Jimmy Connors and Fed

Today @DjokerNole will win his 100th career title @MiamiOpen He will join 2 other male players in the 3 digit category Who are they? Do not google it

My speech at the UN Human Rights Council about their recent report on Israel on behalf of the @UNWatch : I ask the UN, the Arab League, and everyone who had waving the Palestinian flag since October 7:   Where is the flag of Yemen?   In my country, half a million people have died in the last 10 years. The biggest famine and humanitarian crisis in modern history. Why does no one care when half a million Yemenis die?   What about Sudan? In less than two years, more than 150,000 people have been killed. Where is the Sudanese flag? What about Syria? Half a million people were killed. Where is the Syrian flag?   High Commissioner, why is it that when Arabs kill millions of Arabs, no one bats an eye? Where is the outrage? Where are the protests? High Commissioner, may I ask why your report mentions Israel 188 times — yet fails to mention the Islamic Republic in Iran even once? How can you speak about the conflict while ignoring the party who armed, trained, and funded the terror proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis — who have been bombing Israel thousands of times?   Why don’t you mention that the Houthis in Yemen have spent millions of dollars firing missiles at Israel, instead of feeding my starving people?   And why is Qatar sitting here as a member of the Human Rights Council when they host the Hamas terror leaders in luxury hotels? ——— Their response? Silence.

Which player made you fall in love with tennis? 💖

It’s been 15 months and Hamas have finally been able to produce some pictures of people in Gaza who’ve been starving.

@GadSaad 4) all y’all

Upcoming trips to Texas, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. I'm preparing my new accent starting with: 1) Bless your heart 2) I'm fixin' to leave 3) y'all What am I missing to fit in?

@EvilMopacATX @StilesSwitchBBQ . so easy.

Time to play "Which Austin BBQ Line is This?"