cosmicgadget

Just make sure your fan is on the latest firmware!

Yes, the bases (and stationary targets on both sides) are absolutely in danger. One thing they do is act as military infrastructure up until the start of the conflict (and in a reduced capacity after).

From what I've read, there are two likely Taiwan scenarios:

1. China targets US bases and ships before sending transport craft across the strait. Sending transports without that first strike would be suicide. Unless this reporting is wildly inaccurate, it is a very clear acknowledgment of the impact of the US military presence abroad.

2. China blockades the island. This opens the door to a Crimea-like soft invasion whose outcome depends on the international response.

In both cases, bases in theatre play a huge role. You talk about "day one" - in either scenario above it's not a one-sided first strike where the plarf wrecks US bases and ships and the pla dances into Taipei. Recall how much advance warning the US publicly gave of the Russian invasion?

When you are deciding on your takeways from the Iran conflict, remember that it's a bombing campaign and not reflective of a full near-peer war.

This seems fairly on-brand with the Paul brothers, testosterone check, bomb-Iran-and-then-effect-regime-change-with-vibes Department of War.

It is what Rogan listeners voted for, putting the Chad back in Americhad.

This reads like the cancel culture panic that quite obviously was just a propaganda tool.

Someone submitted the link.

Some other robotics company will have competent killbots while Elon's are continually "only two years away".

Which might have been a good thing except that he decided instead of delegating the car company he'd use it to make robots.

This is a strangly specific thing to want so badly.

> US could not protect its allies in the gulf

If the goalpost is "being an impervious shield". I think a more reasonable expectation would be to prevent or respond to a Kuwait situation and keep shipping open. Obviously that second one is a huge failure.

But we have only seen bombings and angry tweets. The US military is capable of quite a bit more. It's a terrible path to go down (and we may do so in about a month), but we haven't seen the full capability of the military because the orange guy in charge only wants to do bombings and threaten genocide.

It wouldn't be worth disputing the semantics of what kind of black mark this is for the US as a global power, except that you use it to conclude there is no point to maintaining bases in the far east. If you think they don't matter, just look up any discussion of Chinese warplanning.

Cabin crew got the cockpit door open, there were off duty pilots on board, and they landed without a rudder. What a crazy story.

The speculation and astroturfing has been interesting as well. There were reports that the crew were Ukrainian and Russian. Some comments on the avherald post are "must be Boeing's fault" (which I'm sure pleases Simon, the AirIndia truther).

I think he cares very deeply and will declare victory as always. Everything he does, to me, seems to be about insecure bravado.

E.g. he seems to be in absolute shambles over his approval rating while simultaneously claiming that the "real" polls make him look great.

Both of those statements seem false.

> lack of buying for 4 years before Trump ever got back into office; and it fell completely on deaf ears.

So Jan 2021-Feb 2022 Biden didn't top up the SPR, something that definitely makes sense given the fiscal situation.

From Feb 2022 onwards, oil prices spiked because Russia invaded Ukraine. People started putting stupid "I did this" stickers on gas pumps and Biden drew from the SPR when it was nowhere near empty.

Trump doesn't refill it, with both houses of Congress, then starts a war with a nation who every military analyst knows could close a huge oil passageway.

Supporting Ukraine in Crimea would have been the right thing to do but in 2014 the US was extremely war weary. Despite his dovishness with Russia, conservatives still love to claim Obama was a war monger.

If you want to claim the Biden administration rested on its laurels in 2022, you were either not paying attention or are not participating in good faith.

I believe they expected a Venezuela-like regime change and when that didn't happen they tried to bomb Iran into anarchy. Then there was the numerous failed negotiations. And trying to coerce allies into the folly of escort duty.

I don't think deescalation is on the table, regardless of big oil. The one supposed deal that Iran was on board with made Trump look like a loser and he will put boots on the ground before he allows that. After midterms, of course.

Math checks out. On the plus side, my panels exist in x, y, z, and time.

The Venezuela thing is a long term play. Pumping US oil makes sense in isolation but if you factor the political cost it is not a slam dunk. The more likely move to benefit US oil business is to attempt the Venezuela strategy in Iran.

I think you just need to look at the administration's rhetoric since the war started to see they were surprised by this outcome.

Nah, I'm good.

My vague recollection from 2020 was that motivated individuals were challenging hundreds to thousands of ballots in critical precincts (addressing the scalability). Of course the voters were all eligible so they challenged based on the mail ballots being properly signed and dated.

> We are hypocrites if, at great expenditure, we don't use flock cameras to enforce jaywalking and drones to ensure all landscaping is permitted.

Okay.

Interested to read about these claims (and which case intended to overturn DC v Heller) but that would just make the Roberts court more political.

> Courts have a lot of power to throw out or reverse previous precedent

Yes, we've seen the death of stare decisis.

> less permanent power to change interpretation of the laws themselves.

They have to work harder to do it but this court has not been shy about reinterpeting everything through the Calvinball (originalism) lens.

Thank you, it makes me wonder why the administration is pursuing this at all. Optics? Or is there something more Stephen Miller-y going on here?

What a crazy thing to commit a felony for. Almost beyond belief.

> it's my wife's fault we raised the flag upside down on January 6

Yeah, there's quite a lot of reason to believe SCOTUS is political. I think the simplest one: the conservative justices lied and/or told half-truths about their views on Roe v Wade. Under oath. The ones who lied are liars. The ones who dodged the question are politicians.

As I understand it, one of the main disenfranchisement tactics is to challenge ballots already cast. It's potentially very effective because the voter must see that their vote was challenged and then proactively contest it.

Does the decision make this easier?

I mean typically the outcome of civil suits is black and white (at least on a per-claim basis).

So Amazon and Microsoft don't enforce cloud licensing agreements with the USG? If the government wants to add 3,000 Windows users to support their mission Microsoft is shit out of luck in getting paid for them?

The hidden upside for Anthropic is now they won't be forced to refer to AI as "SI".

Not ones whose defense customer base is dwarfed by its commercial customer base.

Making it a 0/1 situation is really reductive.

Dodd-Frank? CFPB?