Over the Iran attack? I’m pretty sure he broke ranks years ago.

How would you react if you saw a similar exchange between MAGAs?

MAGA A: <some sweeping negative generalization>.
MAGA B: You don’t really mean that, right? It’s not all of them.
MAGA A: I’m just joking. Relax.

Would you take that response at face value or would you assume that the joke is a thinly veiled statement of their actual beliefs?

The Israelis regularly murder journalists and civilians. The danger was quite real.

“Whataboutism” can occasionally be an honest critique of a spurious argument.

When it’s just a link on it’s own, it’s almost always cover for hypocrisy.

That is completely true and also unlikely to matter.

I was born 3 decades after the end of WWII. By that point Germany and Austria had gone through great lengths to repudiate the policies of the Nazis. They had paid massive reparations. They had issued numerous official and unofficial apologies. The monuments of the Nazis were torn down in favor of memorials for their victims. That didn’t stop other kids from calling me a Nazi as soon as they found out I spoke German. To this day people are comfortable making Nazi jokes about random Germans (see Oliver Zeidler).

Similarly, we have evidence that the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by a small number of repeat offenders. That doesn’t stop the repeated mantra of, “Not all men but always a man.”

Many people, particularly in Asia, are offended that the Nazis turned the Swastika into a symbol of hatred. Most people are aware that the Nazis stole the symbol but you really can’t wear one without risking a fight, even if you have the little dots in it.

It doesn’t matter if they should or shouldn’t be assumed to be complicit; they will. People around the world will see the Star of David as a symbol of death and destruction for generations.

Is it something about hair extensions?

I don’t know what the implications of hair extensions would be.

I assume she meant exactly what she said.

That’s an incredibly frustrating problem.

I have a fairly technical background. How technical? When you mention Black-Scholes to people you get a variety of responses.
Most people just say, “WTF are you talking about? Why doesn’t that guy just wipe his feet?”
Finance-curious people may have looked it up on Wikipedia.
Actual finance professionals may get excited and talk about, “the Greeks”.
I’m the kind of nerd who went through the entire derivation from fundamental concepts like the stochastic discount factor and then had to compare the calculated and observed convexity of utility functions to rediscover the equity premium puzzle.

Many Democrats are happy to listen to me shred the economic “theories” that Trump blathers on about and are very satisfied to see proofs that their numbers don’t actually work in real math. Many of those same people absolutely loose their shit at the implication that Democratic policies are anything less than perfect.

Don’t get me wrong. Trumps economic and foreign relations policies are absolute monkey turds and I’ll never get tired of throwing them in the toilet, where they belong. At the same time, hypocrisy doesn’t do Democrats any favors.

Jon Stewart, in particular, talks about Trump’s corrupt and illegal activities on a regular basis and has been doing so for a long time.

I sure as hell wouldn’t want the job of securing logistics in the northern woods with a bunch of angry Canucks running around.

This guy seems like he might know what he’s talking about but is there a version that isn’t a 3 hour video?

Like an article or something?

talk to their parents first

This is key. It’s one thing to stop a child from harassing your pet. If you “teach them a lesson” after the fact without the parents’ permission, there are now two wrongs that need to be dealt with.

They do work. They’ve been using them to blow up tanks.

The way they’re used there isn’t much time for that. With regular drones they hunt around for something to kill and then dive in. The wired drones stay hidden until the target comes into range and then they just come out for the strike. The defenders only have a few seconds to react.

Wire guided missiles have been in use since WWII.

Markus Reisner has a pretty good explanation of how they’re deployed in one of his videos.

They have much shorter range so they basically set them up as ambushes. The wired drone gets hidden somewhere at a choke point. An other operator flies a recon drone at long range. When they report that a good target has come into range the wired drone takes off and hits the target.

The major difference is that in “blink” and “chicken” you expect to keep doing your thing (eg driving straight ahead) while only your opponent makes concessions.

The Cuban missile crisis involved significant concessions on both sides.

The Cuban middle crisis was resolved through negotiation and concessions, not by a game of nuclear chicken.

I don’t know if any of your predictions are true. They might be, but I don’t have nearly enough evidence to be confident in any of them.

If they are, I don’t see how the complete collapse of Russia is even remotely feasible. Those predictions add up to saying that none of the necessary pre-conditions have been or will be met. Together, they say that we have no way to coerce Russia into the desired state and we have no way to re-align their interest to get them to do so voluntarily.

China definitely won’t swoop in to defend Ukraine against Russia. I think we can agree on that. It’s pretty clear the US won’t either. I think we can agree on that too.

That’s why I’m wondering if you think the EU can get big enough to do so on it’s own, and do so quickly.

I can see why this would be a good outcome for Europe.

It essentially turns Russia into a puppet state. If we were to eliminate China and the US, that would make Russia Europe’s puppet state. While it has some obvious advantages to Europe, it’s clearly not in the interest of either Putin or Russia (the most pessimistic estimates put his approval rating at over 60% among Russians).

Since it’s obviously not to their advantage they won’t agree to it. That means someone would have to force them to accept that new status quo. The US just dropped all support and China has made it pretty clear that they’re not going to participate in any operation like that either.

So that leaves the EU. I’ll circle back to my earlier question. Do you think the EU is ready to adopt and ratify a constitution if it came up again? Absent that, do you think the EU can put together a military coalition that’s big enough and permanent enough to induce an immediate surrender by Russia? If not, do you think that the EU is willing and able to wage a protracted direct war against Russia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irn-Bru

lol

“Originally selling it as Iron Brew, the drink’s makers, A.G. Barr, were forced to change the name of the drink in 1946 following a change in the law that stipulated that the marketing of products be “literally true”. As the drink did not contain much iron, nor was it brewed”

“The brand also has its own tartan”