DramatistDreamer

This is exactly what I suspected would be the response of the Chinese after the talks had been concluded. The article mentions a quote from a Chinese government analyst that stated that the Chinese are secretly hoping that the U.S. will become further mired in the Middle East so that China can rise globally unhindered by any obligations (as they felt when Obama was President-- he often appealed to their sense of conscience and duty as global stewards and in order to burnish their global image, the Chinese often felt pressed to oblige). With Trump, they now know they will feel no such inclination to act conscientiously. The Chinese will now treat Trump and the U.S. in a slightly more nuanced way than they treat Kim and North Korea. They regard Kim like a cousin who is somewhat of a tempermental twit who is prone to public outbursts. I think they will now regard Trump and the U.S. in similar fashion without the familial ties.

I didn't watch the match because I can't stand watching Siegemund and her gamesmanship antics. She's been doing this for years. I'm not surprised she was nasty to the ballkid, it's who she is.

According to analysis done at Standard & Poor's, Obamacare is not in a 'Death Spiral'. No ‘Death Spiral’: Insurers May Soon Profit From Obamacare Plans, Analysis Finds

Job growth in March has slowed. I wonder who Trump is going to blame, considering he took credit for January (even though he had only been sworn in mid-month) and February's job growth. Is he going to try to blame Obama after taking credit for the Obama administrations previous successes?

Did anyone read Dan Rather's very thoughtful Facebook post? He talks about how "concerning" it is that members of the media are lauding Trump's actions in Syria. I didn't listen to Brian Williams' remarks but I heard that he "waxed poetic" about the missiles being launched. Just disgusting how the warmongers have shown themselves like beached whales washing up on shore, except I'd have far more feeling for the beached whales.

Is it just me, or does that ATWT screenshot look highly unflattering (I'm not even discussing GL)? Not just the long faces but the colors are washed out and the lighting is garish. It's very telling of where the show was technically and creatively when it went off the air, IMO.

Well, post missile strikes, an official from the U.S. called Russia to confirm that Russia would still maintain the aircraft collision prevention hotline (which is supposed to prevent mid-air collisions of U.S. aircraft over Syrian airspace) and Russia said 'Nyet'. Russia suspends collision prevention hotline

@Soapsuds Jordan..."hew"?

By 2009, wasn't Herrera living in Portugal? I think he may have been quite ill by 2010 as he died the following year. Personally, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Gunnar returning for the final storyline arc. There could've been one final "Hello Barbara" moment as Gunnar walks into Barbara's engagement party (cue the dropped and shattered glass from Barbara's hand) Gunnar, might have been held in a Swiss sanitarium (the same "spa" where Carly, Emily and Rose were held) suffering paralysis as a result of a serum that was being fed to him intravenously and with the help of a nurse who felt sorry for him and eventually fell in love with him, exchanged his 'poisonous' serums with one that slowly cleaned the poison out of his system. Once he learned what happened to him, the memories of his last encounter was with James in a battle to the death. With a health regimen, speech therapy, etc. he slowly regained his health. Assuming that Barbara was in danger, with his strength rebuilt, Gunnar confided to the nurse that he must now search for James and make sure that James never hurts anyone again. The nurse helps Gunnar escape and Gunnar encourages her to continue in private practice far away from the "spa" and warns her that they may never meet again. Tearfully, they say their goodbyes and Gunnar sets out to find James, eventually crossing paths in Sweden at the Stenbeck estate. Gunnar tells Barbara, he and James fought and James died. Barbara says "James never dies", which Gunnar offers to prove this to be true. Barbara asks Gunnar if he killed James and Gunnar replies that he wishes he were so valiant but it was an accident that ended James' reign of terror. While Barbara is shocked and conflicted, Henry is confused, Gunnar finally realizes what event he's just interrupted as he sees Bob and Kim, the Hughes, the Ryans and an assemby of guests- all slack-jawed staring at what is unfolding before them. John, still nibbling on an appetizer, looks at Lucinda and says "what d'ya know?" and shakes his head in disbelief.

I know Nick played for Australia but who was the other singles player? As for Jack, well, hauling that tummy around the court probably requires extra energy! Fatigue clearly wasn't an issue for Nick who played Federer for well over two hours!

Very unstable brothers from another mother.

An independent investigator is still needed to investigate Trump's ties with Russia. People need to not get diverted away from this fact. The need becomes even more clear when you read articles like this- C.I.A. Had Evidence of Russian Effort to Help Trump Earlier Than Believed Between the FBI and Mitch McConnell's intransigence, surely things were stalled. I was thinking of the Chinese President Xi Jinping sitting in his room at Mar-a-Lago and then finding out about the missile strike and wondering what their reaction to all this will be, especially since the Chinese have sided with Russia on Syria in the past and the Chinese are averse to other countries 'impinging' on what they see as a sovereign country. I am curious as to whether the Chinese will now be reluctant to work with the U.S. on other foreign policy issues like, say, North Korea. Just a thought. Surely the testosterone of despots runs amok these days. Oh look, another loose cannon with power! Duterte Orders Military to Parts of South China Sea Claimed by Philippines Not that it matters much, but 50 advertisers have now pulled out of O'Reilly's show. Things can change quickly and we all know that it will take much more than this to stamp out sexism. Gorsuch has been confirmed, by the way.

I just heard that the Memphis tournament is moving to Long Island!

Ian Bremmer has a much different perspective. He stated that the longterm effects of the airstrike won't pan out as a victory-- in fact, he mentioned that the Russians have now moved to shore up Syria's air defense and that Trump has done more to dramatically worsen U.S./Russian relations in the last 24 hours than has occurred in several years! Bremmer said the only smart thing that Trump did was to notify the Russians in advance. He also chastized a comment made by HRC that she would bomb Syrian airfields (interesting that so soon after she mentioned taking action, Trump rushed to take action- does Trump look to Hillary as a leader to try to model himself on foreign policy since he clearly lacks a cohesive policy??). I don't know why Hillary made this comment and if this strike has negative consequences, I suspect Trump may try to blame her for his failure. Bremmer also stated that the fact that Trump did not want to take in refugees or take any humanitarian action to help the Syrians, undercuts his entire argument that he supposedly took action to remediate the suffering. *(didn't Trump claim that he took action because he thought it was in the interest of national security? Oh was that just so he could strike without getting Congressional consent?)* Bremmer also seemed dubious of Trump's argument that this was in the interest of national security because the U.S. was never struck by Syria- which doesn't even have the capability to attack the U.S.- the U.S. struck offensively and pre-emptively.

I saw this on the Japanese broadcaster NHK before I went to bed last night. The Asian markets are a good predictor of what is going to happen in global markets and initially, the stocks were starting out steady as the markets opened before news of the missile strikes, after which, they promptly tumbled. As for the health exchanges, fortunately, for me, I live in a state where the health exchanges are very successful, so I'm relieved (so far) that there is no plan to tamper with that success. I no longer think this to be the case. Before I went to bed, I checked some CNN social media and other news feeds and the warmongers have emerged in full force. Just this morning on CBS This Morning, Michael Morell was already championing Trump's "decisiveness" in not waiting to get approval-he said he believes it was a successful strike, as long as Trump doesn't look for others to join him- AKA a "coalition of the willing" Part 2 (which he has already done, since he made a statement that he wanted other countries to join the effort).

Geez, I forgot that DC tie was being contested in Australia! I went to bed! You lost interest in the tournament? I lost interest as soon as Venus lost!! I was like "The Volvo tournament is cancelled!" I joked about Shelby winning but in all honesty, I don't much care who wins that tournament at this point. I mean, it's GREEN clay!

I wish tennis would sever its ties with the gambling establishments. The thing some of these trolls post is ridiculous. Don't be surprised if Charleston gets a Rogers vs. Siegemund final. Who is actually left in the draw? Oh, right... Wozniacki, she's probably the biggest player left.

Yes, she is. What a sad irony. Tennis, particularly in Europe, seems to see no problem with aligning themselves to betting companies and gambling. Well, I think many of the most abusive people are gamblers who have lost money. Gambling on human beings has to be the stupidest thing ever!

Siegemund is a cheater in the way she uses gamesmanship tactics. You're lucky she didn't take two bathroom breaks and call for coaching like she did in her match against Venus. @Soapsuds I thought about what you said about Sloane being a jinx. When she took a selfie with Venus, I thought "Uh-oh" and then did a chat with Madison and Tennis Channel posted it on Twitter then the next day both Venus and Madison lost! I kept thinking "Jinx!" Unfortunately, I heard Madison got a ton of abuse on her social media account. There is nothing that she could've done on a tennis court for someone to tell her to go kill herself. That's horrendous! I wish Venus hadn't bothered, she needed the rest. She could've won but I think she was like "whatever", especially since she didn't bother to venture in from the baseline much, even though Siegemund repeatedly hit drop shots. I didn't watch the entire fans but I heard from some people who attended the match, in person, that Venus was ahead 3-1 in every set! Fatigue can weigh on the mind and irrespective of Siegemunds 'tactics', she did get to the finals of Stuttgart last year, (where she got bageled by Kerber). And it's ridiculous that Lucie lost but the weather has been pretty bad and I think for many players that was a dis-incentive to keep playing with other tournaments on the horizon. Plus, it's Green Clay!

Welp. Either way, it's not a good feeling. at all. Especially seeing as Trump appears to be calling for his own version of a "coalition of the willing".

Henry often came off as campy, which was jarring because until the show's last decade, ATWT was never known to have camp in such abundance. Sure there were moments even in the 80s but it seemed that it was balanced out by the drama and the smart humor. In the '00s, the camp nearly took over the show and it drove me away, TBH. To me, Henry and Vienna actually worked because together they came off as this eccentric couple who only the other one could understand. Henry even had his moments with Katie, although they sort of tiptoed into the bizarre at times but I can agree with those who thought Henry and Barbara didn't quite synch. I can see why Colleen felt that finally her character, at least, got a happy ending and it probably appealed to her ego that the show paired her off with a younger man but to me, Barbara's personality had been stipped of it's intensity and drive-- I guess it had to be, in order to make that pairing work. Colleen was probably just happy to have someone writing for her. Anyone who had high standards for ATWT at that point was going to be terribly disappointed so she probably had learned to 'make do' with what she'd been given.

I don't mean plan as in long term plan. I mean plan as in "I'm in Mar-a-Lago and I can strike tonight and not be expected to speak on it right away".