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Latvian PM calls on EU to end all tourist visas for Russians
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ … r-russians
Belarus's Lukashenko warns Ukraine, deploys troops with Russia
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/be … 022-10-10/
China calls for de-escalation in Ukraine following attacks
https://financialpost.com/pmn/business- … ng-attacks
Avoid Non-Essential Travel To And Within Ukraine: India Advises Citizens
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/russia- … ns-3419069
Joe Biden moved mountains to sign the Inflation Reduction Act. It may not be enough to win the midterm elections.
https://mothership.sg/2022/10/joe-biden … elections/
After OPEC oil cut, Washington Post claims Biden’s foreign policy with Saudi Arabia has ‘failed’ ‘badly’
https://www.foxnews.com/media/after-ope … iled-badly
AZ Senate candidate Blake Masters: I will shutdown the government to force Biden to address border
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl … order.html
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-10-10 12:53:17)
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When it comes to made in America the chances of an assembly to not be completely American is a problem when we are not making these parts but are buying them. So long as no one knows where we are using them it's not a problem.
US Allows Deliveries Of Lockheed's F-35 Jets After Objection Over Use of Chinese Magnet
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SpaceNut,
Is someone at Boeing worried about Chinese-made magnets "spying" on Lockheed?
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The problem with having a supply chain with any Chinese components is that it is unlikely to be around much longer. The US-China trade wars did the right thing for the wrong reason. China is no longer the minimum cost supplier of anything. The next decade will see its manufacturing economy collapse due to a shrinking and ageing workforce. Anyone that is still dependant on China for vital componants at that point will lose their shirt. The Trump trade war at least gave western businesses a head start in divesting from China. Anyone that didn't get the message will soon find themselves shackled to a sinking corpse.
Last edited by Calliban (2022-10-11 04:46:06)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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New Zealand's government on Tuesday proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change.
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How many planes can you build when the part is engineered into a design and now it's being withheld by the vendor of it, and we cannot make one to fill the design specifications without a design change or years to make a suitable replacement that is American made.
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SpaceNut,
It's a magnet. We make plenty of permanent magnets here in America of all major types in common use, Fe / AlNiCo / SmCo / NdFeB / Fe16N2, they simply cost more money. I promise you we can make one here, to whatever specs are required. This is about money, not capability, plain and simple. Anyone who says otherwise cannot perform a simple Google search to see if the claim is true. Since US-made magnets are routinely used in US satellites, we can safely conclude that the claims are either specious or half-truths. They don't wish to lose one dollar of profit on their fixed-bid contract by paying an American firm to make their magnets. Some of the raw materials may be sourced from China, but again, a quick Google search will show that the finished products are made here and we do have the capability to mine the materials, but no desire to do so, mostly on environmental grounds and cost. Beyond that, we now have Fe16N2 magnets that do not require any rare Earth elements and perform about as well as NdFeB magnets, but without any rare Earths.
How much of this material do you think is actually required?
They use these things in electric motors and much smaller amounts in some types of instruments. There are no great big magnets being used in fighter jets. Any EV motor contains a lot more rare Earths than a fighter jet, so there's already a very healthy supply in-country, if required.
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If you can't get enough votes to win, cheat the voting system.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/how … -elections
German left wing politician suggests that AfD be banned.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/lef … popularity
“The time is ripe,” Marx told the dpa news agency. Above all, she said, the Thuringian state assembly must act quickly.
Marx. A very Jewish name.
Last edited by Calliban (2022-10-13 02:34:37)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Ranked Choice Voting is merely another scheme to change the rules to get radical leftists elected by subverting the voting system. It's merely the latest en-vogue form of election rigging to get party-donor-approved candidates elected. Democrats say they think the majority should have their say. In the case from the article, the majority said they'd rather have their chosen Republican candidate in charge, so the election rules were changed to ensure that the majority vote no longer went to the Republican candidate who actually won the election, by vote count.
There was no electoral college or any other system in place to blame, in this case. The Republican candidate received the plurality of the votes and the Democrats know they can't achieve a plurality of votes in Alaska because their policies are so abhorrent, so they worked to change the election rules to throw away votes where only the Republican candidate the voters wished to vote for was listed as the voter's first and only choice on their ballot.
I have a feeling that when that Dominion programmer said, "I made damn sure Donald Trump won't win", that some electronic vote tabulation scheme similar to this was used to screw with our 2020 Presidential election results. It would not have been done everywhere or to all voting machines, because that level of fraud is far too obvious and would've been easily detected. It would've been done only in swing states and only using votes that were improperly counted to begin with. That's why the election took days instead of hours to tabulate. When you're rigging the election, you need extra time to manipulate the count. In states where everyone already knew that the outcome was a foregone conclusion (California, Texas, etc), there's no need to rig the count, and of course, those counts were quickly and easily tabulated. If the ballot counting had proceeded to completion, then Biden would've lost. After it was apparent how many ballots were required to overturn the results, the counts were manipulated accordingly, where required. The mail-in ballots were an integral part of the same scheme. They were used to make up any deficits, and why the actual counting process had to be hidden from view of the public in so many cases.
When everything is above-board you don't hide what you're doing by covering the windows, change the rules, refuse to allow poll watchers to observe the counting, and assert that you cannot present evidence in court because you have no standing. These are all the activities of cheaters, and if this was a school test, you'd receive a zero grade and likely be dismissed from the university. Somehow, all the same protections afforded to ensure the fidelity of a scholastic examination process are excluded when it comes to voting tabulation. I don't have to wonder why.
Calliban,
Being Jewish has nothing to do with this. A large number of Jewish people believe in communism. There are far greater numbers of Christians and atheists who hold the same beliefs. Anyone who asserts otherwise is as ignorant as the communists are.
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Calliban,
Being Jewish has nothing to do with this. A large number of Jewish people believe in communism. There are far greater numbers of Christians and atheists who hold the same beliefs. Anyone who asserts otherwise is as ignorant as the communists are.
I don't doubt that. But given the disparity in numbers between the two groups, it is more than just coincidence that members of the tribe can always be found behind left wing attempts to undermine democracy and end freedom of speech. Those violent anarchist and communist groups that are agitating riots in US cities are largely Soros funded.
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Calliban,
The family of Karl Marx was originally Jewish, but they converted to Christianity before he was born, so that was the only religion he grew up with. Communism as an idea appeals to the Jewish people as a way to "band together" against the relentless persecution they've faced over thousands of years. Karl Marx himself was a pretty hard core atheist. Unlike his fellow communists, he viewed religion not as a threat to communism, but as "faith in people and in god, in spite of the harsh reality of an exploitative and cruel world", hence "the opium of the masses", or something like that. For some reason, his viewpoint on religion was contorted into "oppress and murder everyone who is religious".
Real life communists, who were mostly "evil little bastards" rather than "starry-eyed idealists", intent on total domination and control over the people viewed their faith in each other and in god as a threat to the state's bid to subjugate and exploit them. The depth and scale of the exploitation and brutality by the communists would probably have given Karl Marx pause, had he lived to see the end results of his ideas. I see no meaningful differences between the two. Their governments were / are filled with mass murders, rapists, and robbers. There's no level of depravity that communists and nazis will not devolve to. The nazis and communists are two sides of the same blood-soaked coin, which is why I find all of them equally repulsive.
The "disparity in numbers" which you speak of, is mostly all the various White and Asian people who profess to believe in communism. They've tried to sell communism to black people relentlessly, mostly without result. Given what's been done to them by whomever was in charge, it's not hard to understand why most of them don't buy into it. Selling a fundamental lie to people who have been lied to for generations, turns out to be a lot harder than it would superficially seem.
Soros is a nutjob, according to him, and after what he's been through, that's understandable, even if his behavior is no less abhorrent. Would he be any different had he not been party to what the nazis did to his fellow Jewish people? That's impossible to say with certainty, but I think it's probable that he'd be a very different person. I think a lot of communists truly believe that they're "anti-nazis", but they're simply "equal opportunity" savages. The nazis thought some savages were better than others. Human history is filled with morons who believed that.
The nazi party was all about wanton violence and general mayhem, because that's what they caused. That's hard for most people to process, regardless of prior experience. Imagine how hard it was to believe that your own countrymen wanted to murder loyal fellow Germans. They clearly didn't care about "winning" anything. They picked fights without finishing them, attacked people who otherwise would've been allies, and sent ballistic missiles, made by concentration camp slaves, after non-military targets that they knew would contribute little to nothing to winning the war, kinda like Russia is doing in Ukraine right now (firing off hypersonic missiles against shopping malls, apartment buildings, and other pointless targets with near-zero military value to anyone). Both the nazis and the communists were more interested in violence and mayhem for political agendas, which makes them terrorists, regardless of how clued-in or ignorant their people were, about what was going on.
Look at what all those antifa / blm / anarchists actually do to people, like attacking random passers-by who otherwise have no interest for or against them, and tell me those people aren't terrorists. Our Police / government simply "gave up" control over large parts of Portland, just to see if they'd actually run the place, which resulted in a bunch of rape / robbery / murder victims in short order. I fail to see what value they brought to anyone. Basically, the only people involved in these anarchist / communist / nazi movements are street thugs. Normal people should immediately recognize that these are the very last groups of people who should ever be in charge of anything.
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Some on social media say he has managed to get hatred from both sides on Vladimir Putin’s Hit List and Elon Musk Placed On Unofficial Ukraine ‘Kill List,’ maybe for posting something they found politically offensive like 'calling for peace'. There will be propaganda on all sides during war so take any gossip or 'news' with a pinch of salt.
'Musk: will keep funding Ukraine, even though Starlink is losing money'
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/musk-kee … 54251.html
Iran denies supplying drones to Russia as Ukraine says they destroyed six
https://www.newsweek.com/iran-denies-su … ix-1752163
US leaders praise bravery of Iranian women in protests
https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/u … -protests/
Moscow says volunteer soldiers killed 11, injured 15 at Russian military firing range
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-fi … -1.6618111
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Mars_B4_Moon,
Ukraine would be well advised to not threaten to murder any Americans. If the Ukrainian government attempts to murder an American citizen like Elon Musk, who is providing part of their war materiel support during their time of need, then their support from the American people will dry up faster than an open jar of moonshine. The stuff they've received from America's other NATO allies is important, but America is footing most of the bill for this war, especially since many of those NATO nations which donated their old equipment are now receiving new American equipment as replacements. Elon Musk is asking, and only asking, that both sides to consider a peace treaty. Otherwise, they're condemning a lot more young men and women on both sides to a brutal death in a war that's already claimed far too many lives while accomplishing precisely nothing.
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After a grumpy day Elon Musk has backtracked and will continue support in starlink to the Ukrainians as Crimea was request for use inside there border.
Another back track was in Saudi Arabian government announcing humanitarian aid to Ukraine valued at $400 million, days after U.S. President Joe Biden publicly accused Riyadh of allying politically with Moscow by favoring a cut in oil production.
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SpaceNut,
Saudi Arabia is an American ally, not a Democrat Party ally. Saudi Arabia is not obligated to increase oil production to arbitrary figures to help Democrats win elections in America after those same Democrats made inexcusably poor decisions with regards to domestic energy production. Your political party should've considered the consequences of applying theatrics and ideology over sound energy policy, as it relates to domestic oil and gas production. Stop lying to yourselves about there being a viable replacement for gasoline or diesel or kerosene. No such animal exists. Oil and gas are here to stay, in one form or another. If you want emissions reductions, then follow the sound advice I've given over and over and over again, even if some of it upsets a handful of ignorant and ideologically mentally disabled people within your political party who are far more concerned with their ideology than the people it hurts.
If your Democrat Party had taken that $392 billion dollars and applied it to liquid hydrocarbon fuel synthesis plants using atmospheric or ocean CO2, they would've been assured of winning the next election. Heck, I would've voted for them at that point, because that would let me know that they finally "get it" and have given up on pointless endeavors that do not move the needle in the right direction.
I've noticed that Democrats (the ones who will win) are already back-tracking on finishing President Trump's border wall, funding law enforcement to appropriate levels, that "Made In America" (whether that's two words if you're Joe Biden, or three words if you're someone who can count) is the best idea imaginable, and that economics is the bedrock upon which all other "bigger and better things" are built. I've not seen any candidates who will win their seats on "woke-ism". Democrats don't have to "Come to Jesus", but they'd had better come to their senses and stop doing self-destructive things.
Democrats had a chance to make some real improvements, but they largely squandered that possibility by fighting amongst themselves, trying to buy off voters with public money (that those same voters will eventually be forced to pay back), threatening and harassing their political opponents, and throwing money at lost causes. The other 50% of us have had enough of that, and we're going to let you know what we think of that in November.
The "gas tank", regardless of the "fuel" used (gasoline or diesel or electrons or whatever), shall remain full at all times. That is the point. Unless the tank has a pinhole in it, in which case it must be patched, there are no other acceptable excuses for running out of fuel. In aviation, running out of fuel can only ever be the fault of the pilot or ground crew or both. The pilot is responsible for making sure the tank is not leaking, has sufficient fuel to take him / her to wherever the plane should be, and fuel management. The ground crew is responsible for filling it with the correct quantity of fuel, with input from the pilot, as well as repairing the tank if it's leaking.
Running out of fuel is a human error, full stop. Since the Democrats are the ones in charge of piloting our economic and energy policies right now, they're the ones to blame, period. We were a net oil exporter under President Trump and our Strategic Petroleum Reserve was filled to the top. Since Democrats took office, President Biden has drained our Strategic Petroleum Reserve and now we have to import oil from countries that have their best interests in mind, not American interests. There's only one way to view that error. Anyway, as I said, be prepared for the people to exercise their managerial authority to fire non-performing managers.
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The chart below is provided courtesy of Peak Oil Barrel. It charts declining oil production for all of the world, minus the five biggest OPEC countries + USA.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/up … 7532-1.gif
The problem we are facing is that to keep oil supply flat, the big five + USA must increase supply every year now just to offset the decline of the rest of the world. We have reached the point where it is probably no longer possible to expect that to continue.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/up … 7535-1.gif
The Saudis have publicly admitted that spare capacity is now razor thin. They do not have the ability to pump much more than 10mb/d. The US shale patch outside of the Permian is in decline. And even if oil companies could pump more, they will only do so if prices are sustainably high enough for them to profit by doing so.
Part of the problem is underinvestment in new capacity due to ESG craziness. However, depletion is making it more difficult and expensive to increase capacity. The first US oil wells were onshore and only a few hundred feet deep. Today, most new conventional oil wells are offshore and have drilling depths of tens of thousands of feet. Most newly discovered oil is in reality condensates, that are rich in naptha and LPG, but poorer in middle distillates that provide diesel. This is due to the cracking that naturally occurs in hydrocarbon resources that exist at high temperatures and pressures, deep within Earth's crust. Oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s. Today, the world discovers only 1 barrel out of every six that are produced. And new discoveries include progressively fewer supergiant and giant fields. New deposits are increasingly marginal fields with much higher development costs.
Last edited by Calliban (2022-10-16 07:13:56)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Saudi Arabia is an American ally
Kbd512,
I would argue that Saudi Arabia is not an American Ally and they behave much the same way as a deceptive enemy or like one of those cartoonish Arabs behave in one of those old 'Offensive' politically incorrect Bugs Bunny Cartoons. When Bugs Bunny sees the Arab the Arab has this wicked grin, 'hello how are you very nice' the Arab says he's all friendly very 'nice carpet'? 'you buy'?? and as soon as Bugs Bunny turns his back the Arab tries to stab him in the back. The Quran or Koran has shaped the morality of the Arab moslem, it is a book of camel jacking, a book of pedophilia, theft and killing of people by raiders, looting of towns, it is a book of political oppression, cultural invasion, it is a book of war and deception, they take this stupid book so serious they will even chop each others heads off and burn down embassy because they took offense to a song or book or even a Bugs Bunny style cartoon. This book and other so called 'holy' islamic texts have helped wire, program and shape the minds of mohammedans, sending their minds backward even today in year 2022. The difference between Saudi and the Iranians is simply business, the US political elite can be bought and corrupted for as little as 700 bucks that's how much it takes to buy a politician these days.
Politics has even gone as far as to cover up for mass murders by terrorists, 'Khobar Towers bombing' for example, although Saudi was named by some, al-Qaeda had been described by some sources as the likely culprit, the official possibly corrupted statement by the United States named Iran and members of Hezbollah as responsible? '28 pages' censored from the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of of 911, there is still a Whitewashing of sections, names blacked out but as more and more becomes unclassified we see that some of the September 11 hijackers received financial support from individuals connected to the Saudi Government. Not all mohammedans or terrorists will be Low IQ individuals that act like cavemen, chop of each others heads and stone each other to death, some of them will be skilled at what they do. Some are somewhat higher IQ despite having such a dumb religion they can make IED bombs, they helping others invade the West by immigration and legal support. The hijackers in the September 11 attacks were probably reasonably high IQ people, they had to learn another language, they had to blend in, they had to go to flight school, pass exams, get pilot-trained but maybe it also took a level of incompetence and letting your guard down on the US side as the local police, NSA, CIA, FBI had to fail to do their jobs just as they failed in 1993 World Trade Center bombing, they can slip under the radar. There will be other enemy who act like friend but then go jihad and stab you in the back and maybe other enemy again hate dislike you but at least have to decency to try fight you face on or stab you in the front. I don't know if any country ever really has a true 100% ally, I don't know for example if the United States of America truly has allies maybe its only true friend is itself and even then it has so many idiots within helping failures, sometimes a 'friend' can be stupidly friendly or overzealous maybe like a silly loyal dog, loyal does not always mean wisdom, loyal but does not offer good advice.
For example take the British, why did someone in all the years of English history and education and sailing around world experience not put a word in the ear of George Bush jnr? Why didn't they in a Leftwing Tony Blair government vs a Rightwing Bush government not say ...you know this 'Nation Building' thing in Afghanistan, why didn't they say 'I'm not sure its a good idea', or the War in Iraq.
I'm not someone who does this whole Left vs Right politics and don't think it is correct to blame 43rd president Bush jnr for everything I will also say Barack Hussein Obama was a 'Bad' President, even going on Live Tv to praise jihadi way of mahomet life and say in his address to the United Nations mentioned that "the future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam". The French subject has come up many times from long ago in newmars forums I have been in many of the old French Fries Freedom Fries threads and as annoying as they are or were at least push some form of 'Common Sense', Secular Atheism against islamism, they at least tried something else even if it is not working I give them credit. The French at least were trying and maybe in the end France will fail and the islamics continue to breed in France but at least they have looked at a different idea. The French spoke out and maybe that's what a friend is supposed to do, warn you of something, a warning about other Empires in Afghanistan or of colonialism and the nation building they tried and failed in North Africa even if you don't want to hear it. I don't know the answer to power, fuel, resources, energy but I know some like Germany are going completely the wrong way with the war in Ukraine and I have never really been against a source unless there is a political problem to pay. Solar, Fossil Fuel, Wind, Sugars Corns Natural biomass materials, Nuclear or Fusion if one day possible. I think its a good idea to have as many sources as possible, if we get ColdFusion we won't have a power problem. I will say that buying stuff from some peoples or cultures can come with a price. I have come across many belief or political movement or systems or religion and I never came across something as backward or 'demonic' as islamism and the Koran or Quran, I say 'demonic' for lack of a better term. I might be getting somewhat 'spiritual' here but I think buying that demonic black blood under the sands of Arabia comes with a price, you give power to those you don't want to give power to. Maybe the stories are best told as a kind of analogy in fictional words of Dune a sand planet Arrakis, the money demand for medical Melange, the 'Spice' powering spaceship and all those stories in Dune universe. Putin is another Emperor, Dictator, Tsar invading and killing, paying for his fuel funding an invading war machine, Patriarch Kirill going 'Holy War' and saying Dying In Ukraine 'Washes Away All Sins'. France tried to get away from 'Spice' it derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy. Could Thorium be an answer, it seems there was less investment in Thorium and it could have made nuclear power more safe, it is far more difficult to make a bomb with Thorium. The French also have an interesting record with Nuclear whatever they have been doing has resulted in far less accidents when compared to other nations.
Another back track was in Saudi Arabian government announcing humanitarian aid to Ukraine valued at $400 million
Why did the US government mostly Refuse Aid from certain places after the 911 attacks...think about it for a sec...why would they do this?
??
I honestly think No Aid is better any than 'Aid' from Saudi Arabia, tens of millions or hundreds of millions might find their ways into other mohammedan bank accounts. Ukraine news feeds I see are already flooded with video footage of islamist jihadi mercenaries from both sides screaming out "al Lah hu Akbar," which means "the Moongod al Lah is greater" they have been shouting this war cry of death, rape and murder for 1400 years as they killed other Jews, Christians, Atheists, Pagans and Hindus.
For a while Clinton was in the Balkans, he fought a dictator a Serbian and Yugoslav politician Milosevic bombing his army with NATO and today UN troops try keep the place together. Then a while later another unreported war broke out Macedonia or North Macedonia, people from all over the world pouring into Eastern Europe, jihads from Pakistan, Libya, Arabia, civilians killed, hundreds killed in fighting thousands injured, 140,000 people displaced...so what happened, it seems these young psychotic jihadi Albanian men already given a second islamic nation in the heart of Europe called 'Kosovo', yet islamism wants more! You just gave the Turk Albanian Tatar leftovers from long ago a new place, was the Inquisition or Vlad the Impale guy not strong enough, they still after thousands of years refuse to assimilate? cultural jihad invaders and they need a new country? but secession Balkanized movements of 'Montenegro' are different its only 10-20% islamist jiihadi? Bosnia and Herzegovina which might become a failed jihad multi cultural mix like Lebanon, UN troops trying to keep the lid on a pressure cooker, some of these people now lean Russian they distrust the West. So these jihad people and their Hijrah, Hegria or Hijra, they wanted a third and fourth and fifth islamo nation and all those muslims brought from around the world starting shootings and bombings and risk making Bulgaria and Greece and other former East Roman Orthodox Slavic regions unstable.
Every time the West gets knifed in the back by this islamo jihad culture and refuses to learn lessons?
Russia is doing crimes it is an invader and imperialist. Surprisingly you might not know there were 150 + mosques and places of jihad islamo Sharia Law worship in Ukraine, with all the other chaos going on it probably wouldn't take much to ship guys in from Chechnya, Turkey, Arabia make some kind of a Autonomous Oblast Parish or Rabbinic Mishneh Torah observance Halakha or Church religion jurisdictions but just for the jihads....not that I think they would last long on any battlefield. However is this other culture from outside Ukraine, the jihad one with cash, the correct 'culture' to asking to fund war or to be sending to 'Liberate' Ukraine people?
New deposits are increasingly marginal fields with much higher development costs.
The Environmental Protection Agency started with President Richard Nixon, over the years and across much of the world it became more of a socialist Green politic thing, I think Greens rather than thinking logically they have turned into Luddites.
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-10-16 08:47:42)
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A different world the USA still young as a power, British India, Beiyang Peiyang Republic of China Government, a Dominion of Newfoundland, Principality of Serbia, Kingdom of Montenegro, Italy, Japan, Russia, France, Armenia, old Kaiser German Emperor, Monarchy, Austrio-Hungarians, islamist jihadi Ottomans, Tsardom of Bulgaria.
WWI German U-boat discovered off US coast 100 years after it sank
https://www.livescience.com/german-wwi- … ered-in-us
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Mars_B4_Moon,
If you try to find associations between a government and the people, then normally you can, because there is a relationship there. However, as it turns out, there are a lot of people in Saudi Arabia, as well as many other countries, who behave quite unlike those in power and quite unlike their fellow citizens or subjects.
For example, we once considered Iraq's government an adversary, but when we went in to remove that country's government from power, the only significant resistance we received was from their Republican Guard units. The nonsense about them not knowing how to fight or having the ability to fight back, as their internal Civil War in 2006 proved, was just that. They didn't care that America invaded, because they saw Saddam as vastly more evil and oppressive, which was true. Normally that's an indicator that not everyone in the country holds the same viewpoints or opinions, otherwise the Iraq Wars would've gone much the same way for us as it did for the Russians in Ukraine, because Iraq has a veteran military force with lots of experience. We still would've won, but at what cost? We're better at logistics and have some very sophisticated weapons, but for the most part the people living in Iraq did not, at least at the time of the invasion, view America or American troops as "their enemy".
As far as "who got the oil" from the entire Iraq Wars, it wasn't the US. Lots of other countries benefited, but the US was not the primary beneficiary. China, for example, received more oil than we did. An objective analysis would show that it wasn't solely about oil. We didn't go to war in Korea for oil, or Viet Nam, or Grenada, or lots of the other places we've sent troops. There's no oil to be had in Ethiopia or Somalia, for example, but what goes on there does affect overall global stability. Our military strategy, if you could call it that, is to fight an entire series of smaller / less consequential wars, to avoid a major global war that leaves all or most of the industrialized world in ruins, because otherwise most of the people in most places (Asia, Middle East, Europe, Russia) starve to death, and nothing good will ever come of that and that's the one thing that seems to be consistent between different administrations. Basically, it does not benefit America or the rest of the world, if the rest of the world is in ruins, even if everything in America remains untouched by the ensuing consequences. I don't know if that's a good strategy or not, but up to now we haven't had WWIII.
There are most likely people in any given country that would wipe America, or any other country they disliked, off the map if they had the ability to do so. Thankfully, most of the time those people don't hold any significant military power. There are people in Saudi Arabia who would do that, but they don't control Saudi Arabia's military. If anything, those people are hunted by their own government and they are not more than warlords, the sort of medieval characters you portray.
If Islam as a whole was particularly militaristic and belligerent, then they'd be a much greater threat, but they're not. It's more like medieval Christianity, except that Christianity moved on while a comparatively large portion of Islam did not. I don't think you'll find many organized religions without belligerent sects that want to exterminate all the "non-believers". It's readily apparent that those sects are smaller in other religions, but they still exist and they are still a threat. The various forms of socialism, national variety or otherwise, are a much greater threat, because they're better at selling "the big lie" (that they have all the answers, or "the best answers") than most religions are at the present time.
Russia is not pro-Islam or anti-Islam, but if you're terribly worried about violent Islamists, then Russia does a reasonably good job of dealing with them. The various Islamic sects know that Russia kills jihadis, but doesn't otherwise care if they practice their religion or immigrate, so long as they understand that they do not make or enforce laws, and that Russia will not kowtow to any demands that they do. Russia's government is largely anti-western, so the jihadis mostly leave Russia alone or suffer the consequences if they don't. Russia does a lot more human intelligence than America, so their security forces follow up and either kill the families of the jihadis or destroy the training camps of the jihadis and kill their associates.
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Many of those lamenting the weak GOP performance in the mid-terms (relative to the sweep that was expected) fail to grasp the bigger picture. It now looks like Ron DeSantis is on course to be the leading Republican candidate heading into the next US presidential election.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/de … ts-pour-in
Had the Republicans achieved their anticipated red wave, then 2024 would have seen another Trump presidency. Trump is just too old and has too many character flaws to be a really effective president (though he did save the US from Hillary Clinton). De Santis is in his early 40s, has excellent organisational skills, far fewer character flaws than his older competitor and yet shares all of the essential MAGA values and ambitions. And the 2024 election will take place against the backdrop of a global recession that Sleepy Joe will carry the can for.
I think the mid-terms achieved the best outcome possible for the Republican side. They are likely to achieve sufficient majority in both houses to halt the gross mismanagement of the country that the dems were inflicting. Yet the relatively weak victory destroyed the prospects of another lame Trump presidency and makes way for a far more capable presidential candidate. This could herald the begining of a new American golden age.
Last edited by Calliban (2022-11-09 18:43:23)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Calliban,
The reckoning is here. The Biden Administration is effectively neutered, which is all I really care about. All legislation and funding originates in the House. Now that the Republicans have taken the House, they can tell our DinC (Dimwit-in-Chief) to take a flying leap whenever he wants money to do something stupid or pay off his donors. Democrats will throw their usual hissy fits, especially Pelosi and Schumer and Schiff, but the Biden Admin is now officially a lame duck presidency. All his administration can do is veto bills. The last two years of the clown show were enough.
I don't really care if President Trump or Governor DeSantis becomes President in 2024. I'm interviewing and hiring someone for a job. They're not dating my daughter, they're not my best friend, I'm never going to have a beer with them, I'm not donating one red cent of my money to either of them (or any other politician for that matter), and they're not coming over for a dinner party, so how they conduct their personal affairs is their business.
I feel the same way about President Biden. If President Biden and his wife have a spat with each other, then I could care less, so long as it doesn't affect his ability to run the country. President Biden's son is a mess, but nobody from his party seems to care enough about their own people to straighten him out, which is sad, because he's clearly in trouble, and I'm not talking about the FBI, who will do nothing because Democrats are involved. Democrats are expected to act like spoiled children, and they do, because those who should hold them accountable refuse to be "the bad guy". Anyway, it's very clear to me that they don't actually care about people. The people they elect do a good imitation of "caring", just long enough to gain power, and then they're right back to "full-on sociopath mode".
Both President Trump and Governor DeSantis are far better and more capable men than any of the current crop of mentally-disabled Democrats who spend more time fighting amongst themselves about how they will spend other peoples' money, than doing anything remotely useful for America. President Trump was a Democrat for almost his entire adult life until it was plainly apparent that the Democrats were no longer behaving as if they were still Americans. After he was elected President as a Republican, he became "literally worse than Hitler", although I seem to remember Hitler being responsible for kicking off the events that killed a good 70 million people or so. Ponder on that for a moment. All you have to do to be "literally worse than Hitler" is to get elected by running for office using the same tactics that the Democrats have used for the past 10 years or so.
John Fetterman is the second mentally-disabled man who Democrats have voted for. If there's another one of those elected who can't formulate the words required to complete an English sentence on a regular basis, then it will show a pattern of Democrat electorate behavior, of simply not knowing or caring if the person they voted for is minimally capable of speaking / reading / writing / thinking clearly. Whether I agree with what's being spoken or done is irrelevant to the fact that Democrats are incapable of electing people who are not mentally disabled. That is the most disturbing new trend to come out of this election cycle.
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Calliban,
One other painfully obvious takeaway is that the government in Arizona can't run an election. There are so many screwball issues with Arizona's voting systems that they need to be investigated after this cycle, regardless of who wins. If Kari Lake does win, then her first order of business is auditing Arizona's elections board, in order to figure out how brand new computerized vote tabulating machines, which are supposed to increase accuracy by reducing human errors associated with repetitive tasks, as well as drastically speed up repetitive tasks, have somehow slowed to an absolute crawl. What used to take one day now takes a week to a month, which is utterly ridiculous. Restoring faith in election integrity is no longer optional, and we're no longer taking anybody's word, regardless of political affiliation.
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News announced some 3rd world countries want financial compensation from developed countries for climate change, including damages for extreme weather events. That's ridiculous! Weather is no more extreme than it was in the first half of the 1800s. Or any time before the industrial revolution of 1855. Scientists will tell you weather was extreme and far more chaotic for thousands of years; it was unusually mild and predictable in the 20th century. Turns out that was caused by the blanket of pollution, soot from coal burning in the stratosphere. The soot caused the stratosphere to heat up, and shade caused the surface over land to cool down. The blanket of soot also meant we didn't get full sun, so didn't heat up so quickly, as well as trapping radiant heat in so we didn't cool off as quickly either. Now that the pollution is gone from the stratosphere, we have the same extreme weather as our planet had from the end of the ice age until the industrial revolution. So this extreme weather actually *IS* our natural climate and natural weather.
So to those who want tribute in payment for weather events: <insert string of expletives here>
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An alternative perspective.
https://www.unz.com/aanglin/republicans … a-mystery/
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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Well, we may wish to be aware of such potentials Calliban, even if they are not yet very real, so much, I think.
Good post Robert. Helpful.
Done
Done.
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