tfowler11
1yr ago
Sure it can. In fact there is a good chance it was. Having no liberty ship in service really doesn't matter. The fog and friction of war is enough to cover such mistakes. Had it been a huge and highly distinctive ship like a carrier or battleship then you would have a better point (of course then it would have been much better defended).
Confusion and mistakes are rampant in war. Iraq didn't have any M1 tanks, Warrior armored vehicles, Scorpions, Panavia Tornadoes, Challenger 2s, F/A-18 Hornets, Bradleys, M113s, or Spartans, yet all of those were taken out in either the Gulf War or the 2003 Iraq war, despite it all being forces that train with each other (US taking out US weapons systems, US taking out British weapon systems, and the UK taking out their own equipment). That's on the ground or the air, not the sea, but the basic ideas is the same and there is nothing about a Liberty Ship that screams "US war ship" or "couldn't possibly be Egyptian". A Liberty ship is just an old (even at the time it was 22 years old), small (by modern standards) that have been owned by numerous countries and companies around the world.
tfowler11
1yr ago
"The Opposition Bloc - For Life (OPZZh) was lead by Yuriy Boyko and had 25 members in the Verkhovna Rada. In order to comply with sanctions against Russia after the invasion, OPZZh had to dissolve itself and immediately reform as a new party with a different funding structure. The party is now called Platform for Life and Peace (PLP) and has the same members in the Verkhovna Rada as before, including Yuriy Boyko. The opposition politicians all still have their seats, nobody was banned."
https://old.reddit.com/r/NAFO/comments/101c3rw/how_to_respond_to_claims_that_zelensky_banned/
Yes that's a source with a clear anti-Russian bias, but you ban parties with funding from Russia but allow the same people in a formally different organization to have the same ideas, same structure, same leadership, same people in office, ext, and don't block then from running for office, you still can have free and fair elections, and the ideas and groups that were "banned" still get to participate in that election.
Germany has other way to get Russian gas besides Nord Stream. 2 was never brought fully online (it was ready and tested, so it could have been used, but it was decertified and never used). 1 was the biggest pipeline supplying Germany, but not the only one or even the only one that Germany used to buy Russian gas.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Its greater then their headline spending numbers. If you adjust for purchasing power there is even a bigger difference then their official numbers. But its still less than the US's spending (although something like 85 or 90 percent instead of a much smaller fraction. Perhaps the numbers should be adjusted by a bit less than purchasing power parity (the difference between costs for high tech, or even more mundane military items isn't likely to be the same as it is for civilian production, and at least for the more advanced items is likely to be less), but even then you still get well over half, and China's spending is growing faster, and at least at the moment (and probably at least for the next couple of decades) any conflict would likely happen nearer to China, where China has almost all its forces while American forces are spread across the world with the largest portion in the relatively distant North America.
The main counterbalancing advantages for the US are
1 - The US has more built up capability from previous spending. (But military equipment is a depreciating asset, not a productive investment so the importance of this declines over time).
2 - The US is more likely to have allies on its side.
3 - The US has some geographical advantages. China has to get past potentially hostile countries in the first (and depending on the scenario 2nd) island chains. Also its easier to interdict shipping to China (at least with a distant blockade, a close blockade would be too costly) than it is to the US.
4 - (This one is weaker and less certain) China would probably be seen as the aggressor and get a more hostile world reaction then the US would. The US isn't going to invade China, or just start lobbing missiles at if for the lols. A war with China would most likely start over a Chinese attack of Taiwan, and the other scenarios mostly involve China grabbing disputed territory as well. If China doesn't make such an attack there won't be any war.
tfowler11
1yr ago
China's economy is growing faster than the economy of the US, but the difference between the two has been decreasing as China's growth slows. I'd expect that slowing growth to continue for a number of reasons.
1 - The middle income trap and more generally the fact that catch-up growth is easier than innovative growth.
2 - Increasing centralized statist control in China, as opposed to the relaxation of such control in the past which allowed for tremendous growth (it is very unlikely to get anywhere near as bad as Mao, but it still been getting worse to a much lesser extent than that disaster).
3 - Demographics.
4 - The US and to a lesser extent a number of other rich countries becoming more hostile and less open to the US, while China itself is doing a bit of the same from the other side. Many countries are seeking to source outside of China. For things that don't need very low wages to be successful there is some attempt to bring the production home. For things that do, purchases will be more from places like Vietnam (and many other countries, I"m not saying Vietnam is going to grab everything from China). Not just from more hostility and less open trade to/from China but also as China's economy grows it will be less and less a low wage place.
5 - The extent of wealth and income in China that's related to a large real-estate bubble.
I still think that China's economy will pass the US's as the world's largest. But I don't see "at least twice as large" soon. Also China has a lot more people. That is the main reason it will become the largest economy. But OTOH that economy is spread among more people. As Chinese living standards improve (and if they don't that we'll create its own problems, but its very likely they will) a huge amount of national income will be needed to cover those living standards. 50% greater economy with over 4 times the people, doesn't give you 50% greater surplus to spend on military adventures or whatever.
No FTL travel, does not imply not getting a vast a mount of resources from space. It doesn't even imply no expansion to other star systems (although obviously it makes such expansion slower and more difficult, and any colonies set up in other star systems will be more isolated and have to be more self-sufficient).
Also even without resources from space, you could have fusion, and other new sources or improved sources of energy.
And in terms of population, projections in to the future can and often have been wrong, but we may be facing more of a problem going forward from declining population (mostly from people choosing not to have children, or to have fewer children, or to put off having children until later and then not having as many child bearing years left), rather than overpopulation for the world. Its possible the world won't hit 10 billion. Its reasonably likely it won't hit 20bil. Such numbers should be quite supportable with technological advances and continued economic growth.
tfowler11
1yr ago
They didn't thoroughly control politics even at the time. And assuming the counterfactual that they did, such control rarely lasts, esp. in cases that aren't openly obvious puppet states. Control for a moment, is not control forever. The US didn't run the polling places in Ukraine, didn't set the election rules, didn't count the votes, etc. Once someone was elected, US opinion had some influence, because Ukraine seriously wanted support. But that's a separate issue than the elections.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Ukraine had several free and fair elections post Maidan, and those elections actually determined who got to run the government.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Some sort of argument can be made about the US. I don't think its as strong as the people normally making the argument would claim, but on respecting sovereignty it isn't nonsense, there is a real argument there. Less so on the democracy question.
Ukraine? Maybe its just because they haven't had a lot of time or a lot of power as an independent country but they haven't done much in the way of infringing on anyone's sovereignty. As for democracy they are far more democratic than Russia, corrupt maybe but a solid democracy, at least until after they were invaded and large sections of their country occupied by a foreign power (when they outlawed pro-Russian parties as traitorous)
tfowler11
1yr ago
The Soviets talked about joining NATO as early as around the time of its foundation. Their idea though was to either exclude the US from NATO or to require unanimous agreement for any NATO action, either way gutting NATO.
Putin did indeed at one point talk about joining NATO. He asked when they would be invited to NATO. Was told that it didn't work that way that countries applied to join. Then Putin said "Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”
In addition to not wanting to follow the process, I'm not sure Russia would really want to be in an alliance where another country was the dominate member (Russia would be 2nd in population, and military strength, 3rd in PPP GDP, and 7th in nominal GDP).
And I'm not so sure it would have qualified for membership -
While there is no membership checklist for interested nations, NATO has made clear that candidates for membership must meet the following criteria. Interested nations must:
Uphold democracy, including tolerance for diversity;
Be progressing toward a market economy;
Have their military forces under firm civilian control;
Be good neighbors and respect the sovereignty of other nations; and
Work toward interoperability with NATO forces.
https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_970815members.html
The first and 2nd to last points have been questionable at best for years and has become more so lately. And I'm not sure Russian leadership would care to change the way their military operates to fit with the last point.
tfowler11
1yr ago
And generally you can just keep reading their articles if your delete your NYT's cookies.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Boomers were born as early as 1946. Its more GenX that came of age in the 80s
tfowler11
1yr ago
Using percentage of GDP makes sense in certain circumstances, such as when your trying to analyze the burden the spending puts on the economy but I agree it makes less sense when your comparing national education spending to see who spends more, or when you considering whether spending is increasing over time and how rapid the increase is.
Alex Jones just lost a lawsuit for defamation for claiming that Sandy Hook was a hoax and the reward was $965bil (after a previous $50mil verdict so its over a billion) for defamation and emotional damages. Jones is a kook, and his claim was both false, and outrageous; but I'm not 100 percent sure he even should have lost. Esp for the emotional damage part. I don't think people should be entitled to damages because they feel hurt by what you say. As far as the defamation part if he claimed particular people created the hoax then I can understand a loss of a defamation lawsuit, but if its just a general comment along the lines of "I think it's a hoax" I don't think he should face any legal penalty for it. And a billion dollars for spouting off some nonsense seems ridiculous to me.
I suspect that he will appeal (I understand he tried to appeal the previous case all the way up to the Supreme Court, who refused to accept the case), and that the case won't be overturned on appeal, but perhaps the damages will be reduced.
There was also some talk about harassment and death threats against people suing Jones. If it can be proven that Jones was behind it I suppose that could be ground for a lawsuit (and perhaps even criminal charges depending on the details), but that would be a separate issue than defamation or emotional distress over the original comment.
tfowler11
1yr ago
The quotes are pretty meaningless. "Bring an end to it" meant to get it decertified. And it wasn't said about Nord Stream 1. The Thank you, only implies that he believed that the US did it and is happy that (he thinks) they did. Just one person's opinion. As for heavily controlled, while its not an ocean, there is still a lot of water out there. A sub, or a nondescript looking boat with divers could go the area without attracting notice. Confirmed that there was an explosion != confirmed that someone planted explosives or used a weapon against it. And explosion is a rapid expansion of material, which can happen without C4, TNT, ect. The size of the explosion could be an argument against methane hydrates but not just that there was an explosion.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Biden was talking about getting Germany to decertify Nord Stream 2, which happened shortly after the Russian attack.
tfowler11
1yr ago
The US pushing European powers to handle more of the defense of Europe long precedes Trump as president. Trump just increased (but didn't create) the public statement of the idea.
tfowler11
1yr ago
NATO is here to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down
That might have made some sense in the 50s with memories of WWII fresh. Its thoroughly obsolete now when many of Germany's partners, including the US, would want Germany to do more in terms of building up its defense capabilities not less.
tfowler11
1yr ago
It was more of a revolution than a coup, and it doesn't seem at all like she engineered it, instead of coming in later and trying to take control and get some credit for what happened.
As for decertifying it, the US had been pressuring Germany to do so. Biden could have said "Germany will decertify it" but he wanted to make a statement where it was the US or him doing something rather than Germany, and also probably wouldn't want to announce Germany's policy before they did. Wanting an active and tough sounding statement he could have said "we'll make Germany decertify it" but that could have pissed off Germany, and possibly have even sabotaged the effort to get it decertified.
As for mind reading, its no closer to that than thinking he meant that it would be blown up.
"Germany is the enemy here" was very unlikely to be what he was thinking.
Germany will have enough gas to not freeze in the winter if they (as I suspect they will) prioritize residential over industry. That will have a heavy short term impact on their industrial production (and risk losing some markets for a smaller long term impact). But its not deindustrializing, which would imply that they would have no industry, or at least much less industry, afterwards.
tfowler11
1yr ago
those who value hunches more are more likely to “hold religious or paranormal beliefs,” AKA be right-coded
Traditional religion yes, but "paranormal beliefs"? Its possible my understanding about what "right-coded" means is incorrect but I don't think any belief in the paranormal or supernatural outside of traditional religions is right coded.
Social Security and Medicare amount to a 15.3% tax if you're self-employed, though most people have about half that amount paid by their employer
Which may not really matter much in terms of the effective impact of the tax. If it costs more to employ you that puts downward pressure on you wage or salary. If a change was made now to put it all on the employee, its not like all employee compensation would automatically or even quickly change but in the longer run the amount going to employees might not change much.
A large chunk of most state transportation budgets, however, is fuel taxes
Fuel taxes are also used to cover non-road transportation, so it may be the case that that large chunk is actually in a sense over 100 percent. (Yes the actual road expenses only cost 100 percent of what they costs but the fuel tax could be more than 100 percent of that cost.)
You cannot possibly confuse a destroyer for a Liberty cargo ship unless you have no idea what ships look like whatsoever.
When your calmly looking at them with no thought of risk or pressure for immediate action, its rather unlikely. In war under certain circumstances is quite possible. Also that isn't even necessarily what happened. The person actually seeing the ship could report it as an enemy ship, and then others could think it was a destroyer.
Egypt might not have owned any liberty ships but they did own small merchant ships and likely enough converted merchants ships or ships similar enough that a flyby might not notice the difference.
tfowler11
1yr ago
Actually you do. A coup existing in the past doesn't inherently make a latter election not free and fair. It could easily create conditions to have an election that is neither, (or to not have any elections at all) but doesn't by itself or automatically make subsequent elections not free or fair.
Also "a foreign backed coup" isn't a very accurate description of what happened in the first place.
tfowler11
1yr ago
That would explain the first problem, I still have an issue with the size of the explosion as well.
OTOH an explosion of that size was hardly needed for sabotage if someone taking it out had direct access to the pipeline they could have cut it open or used a fairly small shaped charge. Even an unshaped charge wouldn't really need to be that big.
Yes by decertifying it and never bringing it online, as stated by someone who wanted to sound tough rather than measured and technical.
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