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There aren't many good days of late.

Israel is employing some ancient weaponry

I think the truth is that the Etenards are getting too old and Argentina wants to win some brownie points with the international community by giving them away. The Russian stock market isn't doing well There is also a run on the banks Not necessarily the beginnings of a crash, but it's...

I disagree with this cynical view. The administration is trying to walk a fine line between two vocal factions within the party. I think appropriately they are trying to give aid to the innocents caught in the crossfire while trying to support Israel in defending itself while also trying to...

Scratch one Su-57 A prediction that the end is near for the Russian economy

The difference between modern Mongolia and Russia is Mongolia isn't currently trying to hold together a multi-ethnic empire as their ancestors did. There is no need for the tactics employed by their ancestors because Mongolia is almost all Mongolians. Russia conquered all of northern Asia at...

Russia has a long history of being pretty callous about its people. It's probably rooted in the lessons they learned from the Mongols. During the age of monarchs Russia vested the most power in the Czar. Even up to WW I the Czar had the most power of any head of state in Europe. During the...

This is Russia's economy pre-war. RUSSIA Trade Summary 2021 | WITS | Text Fuels is the largest chunk, but there are a lot of other commodities too. Agricultural products and other mined mineral predominate, but they also had a relatively strong military export business that might be in the...

The US boom after WW II was caused by the rest of the world economy. The US had 50% of the world's manufacturing capacity in 1940 and it was close to 90% by 1945. The US was the only major participant in WW II which had no damage to its industry. The world was trying to rebuild in 1946 and...

Correlation does not equate to causation. Just because something you think is important happened in 1971 and the something else happened two years later. That doesn't mean one caused the other. A lot of things happened in the 1970s. The split of the lines starts in 1973 which was when the...

Not only can we ask where he's going to get the weapons to give to the west's enemies, but the next question is, who is he going to give these weapons to? Give Cuba ballistic missiles to they can attack the US? Cuba would be starting a war which they would lose in a matter of weeks. Give...

Pilot programs for UBI has proven successful. Probably not all of them, but quite a few have.

Those are fine on good paved roads, but they would be more trouble then they're worth on damaged roads, dirt roads, or off road. A gopher hole can defeat one.

At the peak of the Ukrainian campaign against refineries, the cost of refined fuels went up worldwide. Russia had already discontinued exporting refined fuels, but with the refineries down they started importing them. That caused fuel prices to go up. Yes crude prices are somewhat separate...

Let's hope they wait until after the US election. High gas prices helps the people who would do nothing but harm to Ukraine if they win. Dropping crude prices is a good thing for the west and hurting Russia.

It's been a few years since I read the book, but I believe the tribal program just required people to be enrolled tribal members. Doing a search for pilot programs I did find this Global Map of Basic Income Experiments | Stanford Basic Income Lab It looks like most pilot programs focus on...

Some of the test cases have been among homeless in London or members of a particular Native American tribe, but no further "tests" were required for them to get funds. I suggest you read the book I linked the other day: Utopia for Realists.

I've read a bit of SF that took place in those sorts of worlds. And dystopian visual SF (TV and movies) is popular, but I've tended to steer away from that sub-genre. I tend to steer away from that sub-genre though. All fiction relies on some sort of conflict to drive the plot along, but I...

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.