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There is more than just pilots. A team of ground crew is necessary for each aircraft as well as as a supply chain of spare parts and ground equipment specifically for that aircraft. They can get western volunteers for the ground crew too, but the number of people who are currently certified on...

I would recommend this book. I went in as an extreme skeptic, but he told the idea...

Historically Christian countries/kingdoms have been very intolerant of other religions. On balance probably more xenophobic than Muslim ruled places were. It was only really in the last century that some Christian dominated countries have moderated on the antisemitism and many have legally...

The article is a bit off, but there are limits to US weapons. I've been quick to tamper down expectations from each "game changer" that has been announced. The US finding out much touted weapons had problems in combat is nothing new. At the beginning of US involvement in WW II the US had to...

I've been busy the last couple of days. I wasn't able to respond. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. I was not accurate, but the history of Jewish people in Muslim lands can best be described as "complicated". At times and places, they were treated fairly well and at others quite...

Not I did say at the start that it is a Kobiashi Maru scenario. The reason that bit from Star Trek made it into the common lexicon because it is a test at the Star Fleet Academy designed to be a no win situation. Israel is not going to win over the Muslim world anytime soon, but they could...

Many other automakers are up while Tesla is down. Some of this is due to growth, such as Rivian which was just starting production a year ago. But I also wonder if some of this is due to Elon Musk. I do know people who like Tesla cars, but won't buy one because of Elon and his craziness the...

The Germans and Japanese didn't have TikTok and the Allies were not fighting an insurgent force. Civilians are going to die in wars. Especially wars like the one in Gaza. That can't be prevented. What can be done is to do all you can to limit civilian casualties, which precision munitions...

I thought his US politics were a bit blind to the realities we're facing and was somewhat overly partisan. I thought his analysis of the Israeli situation was fairly good. I'm a centrist who is not a member of either party too, but one party has gone off the deep end IMO. The other has...

That looks just like my partner's ex's Honda Odyssey! It really looks that trashed. He took everything out of the back and uses it as a panel van. He's very hard on cars, but he hasn't managed to kill the Odyssey.

Ukraine, Russia, and Imperial Japan were all state actors. Their militiaries are arms of their governments. All those countries to one degree or another have/has their own military manufacturing sector of their economies. In the case of Japan (and Germany), the Allies destroyed the ability of...

It wasn't a battery, it was just the launch system. Total loss was only about $100 mil max (if a full load of missiles was also taken out), probably less than that. Some of the cost of a Patriot system is also due to the volume of production. The F-35 cost per unit was brought down...

I bought a Buick Roadmaster new in 1992 and kept it until I got my Model S in 2016. It was a great car. Very reliable. My mechanic wanted to buy it from me, but unfortunately the car outlasted him. He died of a heart attack about 2 years before I was ready to sell the car. When I got my...

There is a separate thread for cryptocurrencies and this discussion should be there. But when one currency is much more widely used than another, a rise in the smaller currency does not mean that the larger currency is being devalued. The Argentinian Peso has been a mess for a while due to...

I stand corrected, there are some Chinese car imports, but the cheap EVs Chinese companies are over producing are blocked from the US market. Mostly because they don't meet US safety standards and probably won't for some time. A co-worker of my partner is a Vietnam vet who believes in buying...

This makes more sense than the video on Russian artillery production that was posted here yesterday. Russia has ramped up production, but I think Trent makes some good observations here. There is a lot of hand wringing about the volume of Russian artillery, and it is a problem, but Russian...

Yes, and the American public weren't willing to go to war over it.

The first sinking of a US warship was the Jacob Jones sunk on Dec 6, 1941 by a u-boat. The Atlantic was a dangerous place by late 1941, but the Germans could claim that attacks on US ships were accidents. Many times the Wild Weasel planes are both prey and hunters carrying the AGM-88s...

That appears to be for Malaysia only. With China's domestic market getting soft, the Chinese are dumping their EVs onto the world market at discount prices. Any country that allows Chinese import cars is getting flooded with them. The US currently doesn't allow imports of Chinese EVs. For...

The Kearny didn't rise to the level to give Roosevelt the political capital to declare war on Germany.

I have seen the last week about just how much disinformation people are consuming. This poll has been talked about in many places Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden Jordan Klepper recently did a mini-documentary about how many Americans believe...

Israel is the only nation in the world that is also Jewish. But many countries have state religions. There are many Muslim countries, Catholic countries. etc. Being critical of the Israeli government, but not having an issue with people who are ethnically or of the Jewish faith is quite...

Over-the-horizon radar does not have the capability of an airborne radar system to see aircraft hugging the terrain. Under some conditions they could see aircraft that low, but an AWACS type system can see them much better and much further away. Not good, though describing Kaliningrad as...

There are some similarities, but he got drawn into the Mediterranean to bail out the Italians who were losing to the British. He thought the British were bottled up on their island and that the Kriegsmarine could strangle them by cutting off their supply. His oil supply was limited and he...

Putin would be an idiot to open a new military action now. His army is struggling to fight Ukraine. Going in somewhere else would put incredible strain on an army that is in trouble with the one war it has. Technically their most advanced tank is the T-14, but that has not gone into regular...

Seizing US assets in Russia would just mean taking assets of US companies still doing business there. It wouldn't amount to much. Other than maybe some minor embassy funds, no western country has any significant assets anywhere Putin can get a hold of them. Most of this is just bluster on his...

The money was approved by Congress. All spending has to start in the House of Representatives. He was also pressured by others in his administration to supply Ukraine. Miles Tyler who was a low level appointee in Homeland Security has written a book about what went on inside the...

The sending of lethal weapons was Congress' doing, not Trump's. He didn't want to sent them to Ukraine and got impeached over trying to extort Zelensky to get some made up political favor. Congress is now in favor of giving Ukraine more free reign with US weapons on their own. Mike Johnson is...

They are poking the beast. They must have managed to make a new batch of TOS rockets. Those have been out of action for a while.

Russia has unilaterally decided to redraw its borders with Lithuania and Finland, claiming parts of the coastal waters of both countries The Moscow Times: Russia unilaterally decides to redraw maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea - Euromaidan Press

I know I've had a couple of more or less sub-clinical infections. Over the last 4 years I've had the feeling I was coming down with something, got a good night's sleep and was fine the next day. Three times I did anti-body tests within a couple of weeks of that and every time my anti-body...

In the US there are a lot of hand wringing and accusations in the media, but when someone is actually indicted the evidence is pretty strong. The US DOJ doesn't file charges unless they are 99% sure of a conviction.

Last year I had to use an air gun to paint a shed. I broke out the N95s left over which saved wear and tear on my lungs.

I sort of take ST as it is. Some series are better than others. Since the reboot they have been trying to tack back towards Rodenbury's original vision of optimism as opposed to the conflict ridden future of the DS9 era the series have been overall better. Discovery has never been the...

The US has converted most of the inventory of dumb bombs with the strap on kits. F-16s are going to have to operate in the same conditions all other aircraft are operating in. The entire region is saturated with air defense systems. The F-16 is an air superiority fighter, but it will not be...

The protests a few years ago show that the bulk of Iran's population would like the religious dictatorship to end. It would be nice to see that happen and some government that wasn't so radical take its place.

COVID is ubiquitous now. It's become as common as the common cold. There are very few people who haven't had at least one variant at this point. I'm glad you got a mild case, though that is the norm these days. I have a friend who is immune compromised and has asthma from SARS back in 2002...

If the president of Iran was killed, his loss is not going to change Iran's policies much. The president of Iran basically serves at the will of the Ayatollah. His loss will disrupt the government for a short time as the new president gets up to speed, but it won't have any bit impact. The...

In almost 10,000 years of human conflict (certainly going back before recorded history), nobody has found a substitute for infantry no matter how advanced the tech gets. Ultimately war is about one side's boots on a given patch of ground. Until that happens, the land is in dispute. Control of...

IMO David Sacks mind is unshackled from reality most of the time.

A Psychologist named David McClelland came up with a theory of human motivation some years ago. The theory is that at its heart humans are motivated by only three things: Affiliation, Achievement, and Power. Virtually everyone has one of these that dominates. From the site below...

Some of the protesters are paid plants, but it probably isn't "most". All it takes is a few to throw the movement into disrepute. As for the similarity of the tents, John Oliver answered that question a few weeks ago. If you go to Amazon and look for their cheapest tent, up comes exactly the...

A couple of bits I came across today. The Ukrainian drone with a machine gun in action: Indication what the Russians planned for the Kharkhiv region

I was fortunate to go to a Cal State when fees were around $250 a quarter. My parents moved just up the road from Cal Poly, SLO just after I left high school so I lived at home and commuted. I did graduate debt free, but that's very difficult these days. That will help bring in humanitarian...

I noticed that too. Though not all people have college degrees. According to this in 2022 about 50% had at least an AA degree, about 40% a Bachelor's degree, and about 10% have a Master's degree. Educational Attainment Statistics [2023]: Levels by Demographic So only about half the population...

Looks like a Bayraktar TB2.

Robert Fico (PM of Slovakia) is very pro-Russia, so the Russians wouldn't be behind an assassination attempt of him. And the west doesn't tend to do physical assassinations. We will learn more as police investigate, but it may have been a loner who didn't like Fico.

You may be right. Instead of ATACMS, small groups of infantry are a good target for 155mm cluster munitions. The US has a lot of it and has pretty much decided not to use it again. It should all be shipped to Ukraine for just this sort of combat. The Ukrainians got a small amount of the...

The Russians have committed one of the largest forces in this entire war on one target. The Ukrainians reported another 1400 Russian casualties yesterday Casualties of Russia in Ukraine - official data The vehicle losses have dropped a bit, which tells me the Russians are trying to take...

I'm not as paranoid about "they're all out to get us" as you are. There are some bad actors who definitely want to control everyone else. Read up on Project 2025, but there are others in government who take the founding documents seriously and try to live up to the spirit of them. The...