braincat31415

Sigh. I give up.

I know about this, but again, this does not mean that Browder himself was squeaky clean. My opinion is that he bit off more than he could chew, aligned with the wrong crew and lost the fight with the people more powerful than he was. Of course I don't know anything for sure, but it is highly unlikely that an investment fund in the 90s Russia was compliant with the law. At the very least, a lot of wheels had to be greased in order to be able to operate, and that opens the door for more shady stuff. It is a bad example of an innocent person being referred to Interpol.

Alephnerd, I doubt Mark Carney was personally involved in anything shady, but it is entirely possible that GS operations in Russia proper were not entirely clean. I am not even implying that GS was aware of anything. What I am saying is not a long stretch by any means, just look up the 1mdb scandal. And Browder was right there in Moscow in the middle of it. Tell any Russian old enough to remember that Browder's operations in the 90s were in complete compliance with the law, they would laugh in your face.

That's what he says, but I very much doubt that. He was running an investment fund in Russia in the 90s. Back then such activity was impossible there without some connection to the organized crime, whether state-affiliated or otherwise. He likely lost the power struggle against other crooks and got Interpol used against him.

I see. Thanks for the quote. I missed that part in the press release.

Has the study made an effort to exclude any other factors? For example, a reduction in commute during the covid years?

NYT says Russian AD in Venezuela wasn't even hooked to radar, with much of it kept in storage. Indian AD (S-300 or S-400) performed very well during the recent conflict with Pakistan.

Add to this all of us who pay taxes to subsidize the effort.

I used *roff back then. Now I have to put it into confluence. What a downgrade.

What a constructive comment. Are you a Wayland developer by any chance?

I find Mandarin Chinese a lot easier than Russian.

It's actually the other way around; the Saudis are only able to sell their oil because the oil money is flowing into US treasuries and other financial instruments, and it has been like this since the 70s.

Agreed, and it's easy to understand why the US is doing what it is doing in Latin America by reading the new national security strategy.

I am not sure how US manufacturing activity contracting implies that Europe is not losing its manufacturing to the US. There are lots of news of European companies expanding in the US (one example would be Airbus in Alabama, lots of others). You are absolutely right about LNG exports, and it's unfortunate because it also pushed residential gas prices up, but just look at the benchmark prices in the US vs. Europe (TTF vs Henry), they are different by a whopping factor of 2 at the moment, and it has been worse in the previous years. Notice that the US manufacturing that tends to concentrate next the the source will get its gas even cheaper. Volkswagen CEO recently stated that manufacturing in Germany no longer makes sense. I believe Europe will adapt eventually, but the cost in terms of lost manufacturing and quality of life will be high.

Thanks for the link. I think the facts are correct but the conclusions are wrong. Yamal gas will be redirected to Asian markets by 2030, and Europe will keep losing its manufacturing base to locations with cheaper energy (e.g. the US). But something tells me von der Leyen will not have trouble heating her own home.

A self inflicted wound. Europe keeps entering into spot gas supply contracts and paying through the nose instead of signing longer-term contracts for lower prices. The Russians have always been reliable suppliers even after sanctions took place, and calls from some hotheads to use gas as leverage was never seriously followed through by the real decision makers. And Habeck is an idiot. Lately Germany has not been buying enough summer gas to keep the storage full, and of course the storage gets emptied during the winter - people need to keep warm. To imply that Gazprom is somehow stealing gas from these facilities to exert political pressure is ludicrous, expecially since Gazprom has not even owned these facilities since 2022.

Understood.

There is another way to go about it - ignoring the phone completely while enjoying biking or jogging. Or leaving it at home. Unless I am on a call duty, all my notifications can wait.

An interesting idea, but I look at it as yet another thing to make my life more complicated than it needs to be. A pen and paper, plus a mechanical watch have served me well so far.

This looks more like refusing to enforce the law rather than prioritizing individual rights.

I think what you are saying is still on a shaky ground if I understood you correctly. Site operators will have a political bias that will skew the decisions. And of course there is pay to play and kickbacks... integrity was for sale ever since humans existed. Think in terms of what the internet gave us instead of what it has taken away. In my youth, I had to listen to shortwave to find the other side of the story.

Interesting, even though I personally learned a very different lesson. You are right about the icecream though, I have never managed to find a better one in the US.

The specific example I cited was the "we are coming for your children" chant in NYC, which is way beyond demanding to "live and let live". Things like this give an insane amount of ammunition to the anti-gay movement. You are lying by twisting my words, thankfully, the posting history is all there for everyone to see.

I always supported equal rights and dialogue, and voted accordingly. That's why I do have problems with militant individuals like youself that create a complete mockery of the issue by refusing to think, resorting to insults, eating their own and actually causing the real harm to any rights movement. Who would want to be in the same voting block with someone who seems to be off the rails?

Of course you will next say that you don't believe me and will pull more proof from wiki, but I don't give a flying duck. Bye.

It's a fair question. No, no desire to curb anything because of who is going to do the curbing. Any regulating entity (government or private) will use subjective judgement and will invariably devolve into censorship. The concern of course is that humans as a crowd are dumb, but on the other hand I think you give individuals too little credit. A smart person won't get his/her political views from random X posts.

The problem is that most americans do not know first hand how the real censorship looks like. In the context of the previous discussion in that thread, chinese and russian firewalls block any discussion of gay rights issues. Do you think the US will be any different? We are all humans with the same deficiencies. Any "firewall", however it is implemented, will be a double edged sword that will eventually start cutting one way, and you won't like the result.

To sum it up, yes, it's the least of all evils.

If you would like to deride the answer, I assure you I am quite immune to the effort.

Touched a nerve? I have quite a few gay and trans friends. They tend to agree with my views which is live and let live. Their lifestyle is not a problem, and they afford me the same courtesy.

What would you do if your array is so large that it requires an unsigned int64 index?

I should blame the Russians then for introducing stupid acronyms into English language. It is not nice to use the word f!@k in a public forum, but wrapping it in a dumb acronym is just fine.

FAFO? Yet another moronic acronym of the day. Jeez...

Is anyone here still using [tg]roff?

I agree. Pfizer settled more than a few cases. When talking about a low probability but catastrophic event, the burden lies on the side of the vaccine manufacturer and a mandating agency (and not on the side of the consumer) to prove beyond any doubt that the treatment is safe. I doubt Pfizer has met that bar.

Edit: To all the pro-Pfizer downvoters, feel free to take some Zantac. You have learned nothing.