domain:savenshine.com
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
12hr ago
Who would Gaddafi have nuked? France?
He could have, and that might well have been enough to keep NATO out of it.
alqueda controls syria
they're no longer a threat to the United States
not because of bombing and killing their leaders, it's because the US pays and supplies them and uses them against their enemies like they did before they started attacking the US
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
12hr ago
The Houthis haven't attacked commercial shipping since December and haven't attacked US ships since the bombing campaign.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
12hr ago
It did work on Al Queda; they're no longer a threat to the United States. It won't work on Hamas because Israel would have to kill basically every Palestinian before they got to a point where the remaining ones won't re-form something like Hamas, but I don't think Iran's enmity of the US, while deep, is quite that deep. Iran's enmity with Israel might be, though.
zeke5123a
12hr ago
American weapons guided with American intelligence have hit Russian targets. I fail to see how different that is to bombers dropping bombs.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
12hr ago
Start the war during the Lunar New Year when Seoul is nigh-deserted, problem solved.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
12hr ago
And supplying the Houthis with weapons to attack shipping in the Red Sea.
wayfarer
12hr ago
Also, many ways things that made war profitable (at least to winners) are far less valuable nowadays or treated as not acceptable.
Slavery? Used to be absurdly profitable and OK, nowadays it is neither. Except extreme fringe cases.
Looting? Looting modern factories gives you nearly nothing, Russians stealing fridges in Ukraine resulted in mockery, not envy.
The same for occupation, glory, rape and so on - now occupation is clear net negative for basically all involved. Glory? There may be a bit, but not much and many will hate you. Rape? In general opinion here changed in direction similar to slavery and it got less useful with sexual revolution.
Saudi Arabia wants nuclear weapons because of Iran, not because of Israel. It's hard to accept the NPT/MiddleEast is lynchpinned by Israel when they lied, schemed, and betrayed their allies into nuclear weapons 60 years ago but it's been 60 years and all of the countries mentioned do not have nuclear weapons.
If Israel surrendered its nuclear program, I doubt it would change the landscape much. Iran has a latent capability because of the US, not because of Israel. Previously they had a latent capability because of Iraq, not because of Israel.
Iran has so far resisted joining any defensive block and their cooperation with other great powers has been pretty minimal in order to maintain their sovereignty and independence. I would guess they will have offers of assistance and they're more likely to swallow the costs now and it will make the world worse as a result.
The US/Israel continuing down the path of behaving insanely and the world relying on other actors to be reasonable to avoid catastrophe is eventually going to end in disaster.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
13hr ago
AOC has concluded that a president ordering an airstrike without congressional approval is grounds for impeachment. Fetterman thinks it was the right move. Both are, I suppose, on brand.
I suppose AOC would be (tautologically) right if she had the votes, but she doesn't. As I read it, the War Powers Act only requires notification after the fact in this case.
On the one hand I don't think Iran has provided the US sufficient reason to attack them (at least not one that's recent and public). On the other... eh, Iran's government sucks and I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
Maybe in the sense that as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps becomes ever more entrenched as a state-within-a-state, the corruptive influence of all that money and administrative self-interest will secularize it like the Egyptian Army?
Of course, then you get dynamics where the IRGC's perks and privileges derive from a permanent proxy-war footing, which merely means they'd increasingly rationalize sustained proxy conflicts on increasingly secular grounds, as Pakistan does.
wayfarer
13hr ago
who some speculate killed our President in 1963 in order to secure nuclear weapons
and some speculate that moon landing was faked, "some speculate" is worth nothing
do you believe this nonsense? Then at least state it openly. Do you consider it as nonsense? Then why you mention it?
Rov_Scam
13hr ago
The unemployment rate for blacks with a bachelor's degree is a few points higher than the overall rate for similarly situated people. This cohort also only makes about 80% of the income. These numbers hold at every education level. So yes.
wayfarer
13hr ago
has an agreement that they could get a shipment of nukes if they ever decided to ask for them.
if that is true (I doubt) that is an awful lot of trust
wayfarer
13hr ago
which part you are being confused about? Or disputing?
That seems snarky but reasonable description of Russian approach to warfighting.
wayfarer
13hr ago
Probably answer is highly dependent on case.
Selling software? Maybe direct payment can eliminate nearly all overhead.
Selling live chickens? Probably transport eats nearly all trade costs anyway.
Selling missiles? You have so many transaction costs, starting from bribes, that it is not funny.
Excellent addition. Especially as not only have the costs of war risen since then, but so have the costs of occupation post-'victory.'
AKs and RPGs were enough to break the cost-benefit logic of emperial economies, and IEDs and manpads could make even 'less total' occupations prohibitively expensive. The modern development of drones are an even greater obstacle to projecting power at a, well, global scale.
This doesn't mean a 'world war' is impossible, but it really does beg the question of who is going to be fighting where how. The US ability at power projection is absolutely going to be hemmed in in the weeks/months/years/decades to come, but so is everyone else.
The linchpin is Israel: a country with an undeclared nuclear weapons program in violation of international law, who some speculate killed our President in 1963 in order to secure nuclear weapons, who stole our own uranium to create their weapons, and a country that we provide aid to in violation of our own laws which prohibit us from providing aid to countries with undeclared nuclear programs in violation of the IAEA.
Israel’s illegal nuclear weapons and behavior in the region compels every sane country to pursue nuclear weapons, especially when they see what happened to Iran, a country which could have pursued but did not pursue nukes. Saudi Arabia apparently has some agreement with Pakistan to obtain nukes whenever requested, because they originally invested in its nuclear program. According to Russia yesterday, there are other countries interested in supplying Iran nukes, perhaps China, or perhaps this is a bluff.
Can you give me some examples of how Turkey is a more Islamic country today than in 2001?
Hagia Sophia. Erdogan keeping interest rates low during could also fall under this but I have a suspicion that he used it so his allies can inflate their debts and buy bankrupts business for cents on the dollar.
What are these “secular people” in Turkey going to do once in power to please you?
Committing to hardline Kemalism. Again. So we can finally accept Turkey in the EU. Before saying something - I don't believe in freedom of religion, but in freedom from religion.
Edit: yeah kebabs are good but they are good literally everywhere. Is Erbil the only place you ever visited in the Middle East or something?
Hmm... here is quick shawarma/kebab comparison from the places I have been. We don't discuss in europe because it is mediocre at best. And in north africa I don't have much impressions. Aside from Erbil - in Istanbul they are meh, in Ankara are really good, ditto in Ismir, bland un Dubai, forgettable in Oman, let's not talk about pakistan, surprisingly decent are the afghani ones, but probably the best are in Uzbekistan. The kazah one i ate them from the other side of the border with china - so can't comment. Lahmacuns, kunefe, gozleme and pide are other beer - the only place in the world they make them right is in Turkey (everywhere).
Turkey is too powerful and Erdogan is eyeing parts of the Balkans and probably Cyprus. So I either want the country to be weaken or to self secularize. I also don't want pro western middle east - weak and busy with infighting also gets the job done. Greece is too weak to be counter balance, so is Bulgaria. And I doubt that NATO will do shit if he attacks any one of those two countries.
So yes. I want Turkey to have problems east and south, as to not look north and east
Bleep
14hr ago
The reason Westerners see an Iranian nuke as a lynchpin is because if Iran proves it has nuclear weapons, then Turkey and Saudi Arabia will quickly also get nuclear weapons and essentially the NPT will fall apart; however, given the US attacked IAEA inspected sites in direct violation of the treaty, I believe they've hastened its demise anyway.
I am skeptical the US used any MOPs or even B-2 bombers. One, of the images/videos I've seen, these attacks look like cruise missiles and the damage appears mostly superficial. Two, the US didn't even use B-2 bombers against the Houthis in the failed campaign against them. If I had to guess, the Trump admin even warned Iran when and where they were going to attack and basically begged them to not retaliate and to allow this to be a one-off attack.
This appears to be a made-for-tv theatrical performance to claim something was done and to hope that's the end of it. In my opinion, this is going to lead to Iran continuing their daily attacks against Israel and withdrawing from the NPT. I don't think they'll directly attack US assets in the area, but I do think they'll close the straight of Hormuz for any European or American traffic. And I also think the Houthis will resume their attacks against any European or American ships in the Red Sea.
Trump admin behavior during this ordeal has been profoundly unserious, counterproductive, and dumb. If this strike leads anywhere other than stopping here, I'm going to predict a major loss for Trump and the GOP in any upcoming elections. This move allows Democrats to pivot from defending criminal illegals being deported and other losing 80-20 issues to claiming the anti-war mantle (however silly that is given recent history) and it will work. Of the MAGA and Trump supporters I know, they are not happy and will simply refuse to show up and vote at all unless Trump manages to deliver something big.
quiet_NaN
14hr ago
There were two main dynamics to the state of geopolitical affairs that let WW1 be WW1.
Another reason for WW1 is that for millennia, being belligerent was a net positive to states in most cases. I mean, obviously having a war was always net negative (unless the alternative was starvation, perhaps), but in earlier times, it had at least been a good deal for the elites (and arguably even some of the commoners, though not the commoners finding themselves in the path of an army) on the winning side. The militant nationalism of the 1800s was a consequence of that.
But by 1910, the underlying reality had changed, because weapon systems had gotten a lot more deadly and railroad logistics limited the land gains made from offensive operations, leading to the trench stalemates. Suddenly being belligerent was maladaptive. Few politicians or populations would have been enthusiastic about starting WW1 if they had known the meat grinder it would become. Instead, they were enthusiastic -- finally a chance to kick some hated foreigner's butt again, like in the good old times. Instead they got Verdun.
When WW2 started, there was a lot less enthusiasm all around, because most participants were not looking forward to more industrialized warfare.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
14hr ago
Iran originally decided to pursue 60% enrichment after Israel attacked their nuclear sites in 2021. This attack happened 3 years after Trump ended an agreement to inspect Iranian nuclear sites, which was criticized by NATO, EU, France, the UK, etc, but was clearly requested by Trump’s Zionist funders. Iran’s radiopharmaceutical industry is genuine — they commercialize isotopes that only Germany has been able to produce. Iran needs to pursue its own cancer treatments because sanctions prevent access to state of the art treatments.
I hope Iran gets a nuke now. We can’t have religious extremist states have nukes — Israel is well on its way in becoming majority Haredi, whereas Iran is on a clear secularization path. A nuclear Iran would counter the power that Israel exerts in the region and may even prevent the genocide of Palestinians.
Originalism isn’t strict textualism. It is trying to understand the public meaning at the time of enactment. To understand that, you obviously look at the words but also the entire context.
Note that even textualism (for reading statutes) tries to ignore strict textual conclusions. Scalia and Garner wrote a book on how to interpret texts from a textualist perspective. Strict literalism is something that caution against. Doesn’t give license to ignore the words but there ought to be an attempt to give the most reasonable interpretation of the words that puts the words in proper context.
More options
Context Copy link