Absolutely! Unfortunately, we are talking about the US. The article even says explicitly:
“Various U.S. presidents considered and approved billions of dollars in arms sales to controversial nations during his tenure — for instance, to Saudi Arabia in its ongoing war in Yemen.”
So it’s not the first time he’s about to make a very questionable choice. Though I guess he knows some details that blur the lines.
It does sound a bit weird. On the other hand, if he can influence the choices positively, he does have a point. If not him, someone else would take the job. I would have drawn the line somewhere else but I can understand where he is coming from.
And the fact that he resigned means that he has and likely had some moral compass guiding him.
I meant what actually happened is illogical to me. So I’m simply a bit confused and understand that there might be some nuance that I’m missing.
And I think an accidental leak is absolutely possible, it’s only that a conscious effort by China and the USA is unrealistic.
Just so you know, not only them are reading your response. I appreciate your response.
And as someone that isn’t working in the field, I have to admit that it is very illogical that they would conduct gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in a country previously hit by a coronavirus outbreak while violating safety standards. Obviously that’s hindsight but shouldn’t this be very obviously a bad idea? It’s not like the existence of a virus like COVID-19/sarscov-2 was completely unexpected.
Huh? Why would you switch to miles from kilometers?
And IMHO megameters aren’t used that often because there is rarely anything useful to measure with it. Using a different unit makes you lose your sense of scale (e.g. the earth has a radius of ~7000km, not 7Mm) and for astronomy megameters aren’t big enough most of the time (and you might as well use lightseconds/years because gigameters give no real intuition of scale).
I’ve actually wondered about this. If you take a sealed container, freeze and thaw it again, shouldn’t it be sterile? So basically good for as long as the seal remains tight?
With some exceptions of course, the seal might not be tight at low temperatures, some bacteria can survive frost etc.
The economy isn’t looking that great in Spain right now AFAIK. With high unemployment it could at least be somewhat attractive.
3,400€/month to be part of some special forces doesn’t seem like a good deal? Like, sure. It’s a good salary. But for joining a war where about a third of the soldiers already are casualties it seems a bit low. At least if you view them as mercenaries. For volunteers I guess that the ideological reasons play a huge part. But why does the company emphasize that they are only called volunteers to avoid legal issues? The whole thing seems quite sketchy.
Sure. In my experience a week is absolutely no problem and usually cooked food goes bad in a detectable way (mold or tasting off). Personally I never had a problem but I guess it also depends on the fridge temperature and whether it really was cooked/fried all the way through.
I mean, there shouldn’t be any salmonella on fried eggs in the first place. And once dead it won’t come back just from being stored in the fridge.
I assume you mean casualties? In that case outright deaths would be approximately a third of that.
My comment was intended to highlight how fundamentally our views differ and not to start a discussion. I’m aware that my view is not completely neutral but I feel like your view is too different from mine to productively discuss them.
Yes, the Russian economy is doing better than expected but, obviously, a country at war with embargoes and large amounts of the workforce at the front will suffer. And yes, the current counter-offensive is not going as well as planned but the fact that Ukraine even started it and is making, albeit small, gains shows that they are at least on approximately even footing.
You’re right, our views differ quite a lot. In your comment I disagree with basically every conclusion. The Russian economy is worse off, the war will end with Russia getting at most Crimea and a coup in the US is completely unrealistic as of now.
Time will tell.
TBH, I haven’t read that much about the aftermath. I only heard some parts (e.g. the secret services) kept quiet for quite some time which suggests for me that they didn’t really care either way. If everyone really supported him it does make a coup/collapse less likely. The impression I got was simply:
I also don’t think the gang of eight is that diectly relatable because the SU collapsed. Here, it would simply mean replacing one president for another. In theory, a coup is as simple as a successful assasination (ignoring the successor question).
For me, it doesn’t look like there is any way out for Putin. Winning the war is unrealistic at this time, would take a long time and would result in a long embargo from the west, destroying the economy even further. Losing the war will probably result in extreme protests with all the casualties that already occurred. We will see whatever happens. I assume that Prigozhin failed not because the elite support Putin but because they are even more afraid of him. I assume everyone with money wants the war to end.
And about the USA, yeah that’s a bit of a whataboutism. There is a lot of division there and I think they are one bad president away from significantly worsening the situation. We will see about that too I guess.
First things first, the US is going to deny involvment either way. So this means nothing TBH.
Lukashenko being involved is quite weird to me and makes me wonder if there is something going on there. Does Prigozhin really think that his life is safe now? Or was it simply delayed (e.g. because of assistance by Lukashenko in a future coup?). It doesn’t really make sense either way.
I mean, I agree with your points here. Honestly, I’m wondering why he started in the first place as his life still is in danger.
I just don’t agree that this strengthened the state/Putin. In a way, if someone like Prigozhin without any realistic chance tries a coup and gets away with his life (at least for now) doesn’t this show how weak Russia currently is?
But did the coup really fail? Prigozhin simply called it off after !another! country negotiated a solution. The coup in Turkey failed because of, seemingly, Erdogan being too powerful and the people loving him. In Russia it failed because of Lukashenko intervening and Prigozhin calling it off. Putin does not look strong currently.
Okay, sure. Still a bit skeptical about point 2 but we will see.
Why do you think that? Dive bombing hits generally within a few meters, even during WW2 where it was used against tanks. Why would a guided rocket be that much better? Where would it get the target data from if it doesn’t have a human to guide it?
Obviously, there exist guided munitions with higher accuracy (<1m) but that’s not the majority.