DradisPing
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User ID: 1102
DradisPing
2d ago
Europe desperately needs to confront reality.
The UK has less than 25 working main battle tanks and more admirals than working ships. Yet their politicians are talking about confronting Russia without the US.
It'll take at least a decade of intense reindustrialization and rearmament to field proper defensive armies.
They need to get started now. Putin is actually a moderate in Russia who just wants to bring territories that are majority ethnic Russian in Russia proper.
Putin is 72 and there's a very real chance that he'll be replaced with an actual hardliner when he dies.
The German delegation laughed at Trump in 2018 when he tried to warn them about dependence on Russian energy. Now he's decided that a harsh wakeup call from him is better than letting them be caught off guard in the future.
An actual Russian agent would just tell Europe not to worry and let them be at the mercy of the next Russian leader.
DradisPing
3d ago
Self bailout may not be exactly accurate, but I think it's mostly about refinancing the X debt.
The other issue is that xAI is a benefit corp. I'm not an expert in legalities, but this probably allows him to bake in a requirement to promote free speech into X.
If he becomes more arms length or sells off enough stock to loose control he could probably still sue the board if they start bringing in "misinformation policies" or banning politicians and political activists from one side.
DradisPing
3d ago
Disney has a major problem where it is unwilling or unable to constrain budgets on productions.
I think midlevel execs get an ego boost from writing big cheques. It makes them feel important and powerful.
DradisPing
4d ago
China has been trying to take over international shipping lanes. Trump sees US control of them as critical in the long term.
Greenland only has 57,000 people. If the Northwest Passage becomes a more viable shipping route it's an obvious chokepoint for China to try to control.
The US is already paying to defend it by having a base there. Greenlanders would most likely be better off as a US territory. Denmark isn't doing much for them.
57,000 people is less than the monthly illegal immigrant entries under Biden, so it's pretty easy for the US to invest in new programs to benefit the residents in exchange for becoming a territory.
Plus there is likely oil that can be developed with modern technology.
The only downside for Greenland I can see is the Jones Act possibly causing some problems. I don't know any of the details about shipping there.
DradisPing
9d ago
Transvestigation or transpiracy is enjoyable because it's wildly out there while being basically harmless. The claim is that many celebrities are secretly transgender.
A prominent example is Candance Owen's 8 part video series arguing that Bridgette Macron, the french first lady, was born a man. It's amusing but desperately in need of a shorter summary.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FDOnxpViQxY&list=PLPW2eH9z9CUvJ0Iiv9AQqq2RVAWFFfNZR&index=8
The Electric Universe is fun because it starts with plausible sounding arguments about space not being electrically neutral and then builds so much stuff out of that it starts sounding like 40k lore.
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2015/02/18/discourses-on-an-alien-sky-series-2/
DradisPing
9d ago
I'd try getting a used MacBook Air and doing a battery replacement. They tend to be really good at build quality and battery life.
DradisPing
14d ago
It's more of a thumb on scale thing. The ED giver out a lot of grants and also has school evaluation programs. Assorted state groups who live off of grant money will toe the line when ED policies come out. Common Core was pushed out in part using "Race To The Top" grants.
Basically being the major source of education grants lets people at ED control what is trendy in education. It's not direct control but it's a significant influence.
DradisPing
14d ago
It's infamous for being full of Education PhDs who change up federal standards so that their side businesses selling education materials generate steady income.
The top Education PhD programs are famous for far left ideological gatekeeping because you need a degree from one of them to work at DoE.
People on the right just think that breaking it up into other departments would result in better people fulfilling it's requirements.
DradisPing
14d ago
The most likely explanation is that when DOGE asked about the work USIP tried to play the "private organization" card instead of answering questions.
DradisPing
14d ago
It looks like USIP is structured to get government money and spend it without oversight. It'd be very surprising if it weren't up to anything shady.
DradisPing
14d ago
As a side note, the Trump administration seems to REALLY hate US assistance to foreign countries and they're doing their damndest to shut it off.
I think it's more accurate to say that he sees foreign policy as solely within the power of the President and doesn't like the fact that there are a bunch or orgs around DC funded by the US government with official sounding names that are undermining the foreign policy of the White House.
DC loves these para governmental organizations. In the case of USIP the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defence are ex officio board members. The rest of the board members must be appointed by the POTUS and confirmed by the Senate. So it seems like it's sort of part of the executive branch but also not when it comes to oversight.
DradisPing
15d ago
The family values voters were mostly Silent Generation and are mostly dead.
Musk is a Trump ally. But I think everyone on the right is aware that he only got there because the more authoritarian elements in the Democratic Party felt he wasn't toeing the line and decided to go after him.
But I do think there is less of a split than you think. The traditionalist right has always been pretty accepting of wealthy men being bad parents so long as their children were all well provided for. Musk is more shameless and extreme than is typical, but it's really less offensive to conservative sensibilities than a DINK couple.
DradisPing
19d ago
Rural Italy was quite poor. Making spaghetti was laborious. Meatballs were a rare treat to be savoured.
They didn't want to drown all that in tomato sauce.
Seafood pasta dishes are actually more traditional.
Once they started extruding pasta in the 19th century it became a lot cheaper.
Italian-Americans could afford meat and had access to extruded pasta and canned tomato sauce. So they experimented with traditional ideas and new ingredients.
DradisPing
21d ago
It's actually been going the other way as there are special benefits to identifying as non-white these days. Back when there were restrictions on non-white immigration Indians fought to be classified as white and won. Similarly hispanics includes a lot of people with 80%+ European ancestry. A nearly 100% European ancestry kid who doesn't speak Spanish gets to identify as hispanic for college applications because his grandparents were born in Latin America.
Steve Sailer has a bunch of articles on "the flight from white" that are worth reading.
One of the interesting battles within the Democratic Party has been about how Jewish activists see themselves as non-white, but a lot of the activist base sees them as white.
DradisPing
27d ago
The random jihadi style attacks are less ideological than people assume.
Islam liberalized a lot of social policies, but also froze them. One of the problematic rules was that low level officials had unlimited tax power over their regions. These could be enforced on a small level.
One of the things that travellers between Christiandom and Islamdom often commented on was that in the Christian lands peasants often had carts. Under Islam they did not.
A cart was too much of a visible investment and could be sized by the local lord (not sure about the correct title) at any time.
How does a family protect it's wealth under those circumstances? One strategy it to convince everyone your family is too dangerous to mess with. The local lord or his relatives are frequently vulnerable to a mob of people with knives, they can't be hyper aware and guarded all the time.
However committing suicide makes you, and thus your family look weak. And therefore vulnerable to exploitation.
So you have things like "Running amok" where a brooding person suddenly lashes out in random violence.
So the attacks are often closer to "death by cop" than some deep ideological motivation.
You could probably eliminate a lot of it if there was some way for men who feel they've failed at life to die gloriously. But that's a big step for society to take.
Perhaps we could just start off by sending them on "the Hock".
DradisPing
29d ago
Jewish students at UCLA had to go to court because protesters were blocking Jews from entering the campus and UCLA argued it had no responsibility to stop them from doing so.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/14/us/ucla-campus-protests-court-ruling/index.html
There has been a lot of targeting of Jews for being Jewish by protesters over the last few years.
DradisPing
30d ago
The problem with ransom attacks is that they require the victims to do an individual rational cost benefit analysis and pay.
Most of these companies would refuse to pay out of moral indignation, which collectively gives them a herd immunity.
There are also types of insurance to cover some of the losses from business interruption.
DradisPing
1mo ago
The obvious answer is "Elon Musk." Certainly everyone seems to assume he's in charge of DOGE. He (and Trump) talk like Musk is in charge of the effort.
I think Musk's role is akin to the tank role in video games. He's drawing aggro and absorbing damage. He's basically taken over Trump's shitposting duties.
The contrast to Jack Smith is interesting, because that was a very clear violation of the appointments clause. Smith was signing court documents as a prosecutor without being confirmed as a prosecutor.
Whereas I doubt anything Elon has announced on Twitter is actually backed up by documents signed by Elon in official capacity.
DradisPing
1mo ago
John Eastman goes into the the types of jurisdiction and birthright citizenship in this interview: https://rumble.com/v6me54x-sidebar-with-john-eastman-birthright-citizenship-executive-order-lawfare-an.html?start=936
Unfortunately there's no transcript I'm aware of.
DradisPing
1mo ago
The key point here is that this is in SDNY. SDNY likes to pretend that it's not a normal district, instead it's a second DOJ.
The prosecutors are resigning in large part to promote that myth.
Of course that's not true. SDNY has no special legal status over say the Northern District of Alabama.
Barnes specifically has long been critical of the Federalist Society. Culturally it skews more pro corporate and more authoritarian than most of the right wing base would like.
DradisPing
1mo ago
It is not working yet! Judges have blocked almost all of his big cuts. Because they aren't legal by established law and precedent (Impoundment Control Act).
NGOs have run to DC and SDNY to get blocks because those are the most politically corrupt districts. The problem for them is that the TROs are so unprecedented and off the rails that higher courts are going to need to step in quickly.
DradisPing
1mo ago
Hasidic Jews got minority status for federal programs back in 1974.
I think this was actually a key plot point in War Dogs, Jonah Hill had to pretend to be Hasidic.
This rule seems to be just extending that, since trying to determine if a given Jewish person counts as Hasidic or not is probably pretty difficult.
It is kind of silly that the two wealthiest religion groups in the US, Jews and Hindus, get special treatment for loans.
DradisPing
1mo ago
People in the State Department and on the left in general want Trump to give funding to Hamas to "rebuild Gaza".
Their usual game is to play up the humanitarian disaster.
Arguing that the US should take over and rebuild with direct management counters that, because the pro-Hamas people suddenly have to argue that Gaza is fully capable of running itself.
I don't think it's any sort of real proposal, just an indication that US money isn't coming without control on the ground.
DradisPing
1mo ago
But the terrorist designation activates specific regulations in the financial system. Sure, they could pass new laws and regulations to do the same thing. But this does have an impact on it's own.
Submarines solved the first strike problem. During the cold war there were enough missiles in the water on both sides to guarantee severe retribution.
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