… That’s a very good point actually. Vacuums are rather insulating. Without convection cooling from a fluid, you’re relying on radiative heat transfer for cooling, and that’s piss poor.

Easy loophole. Tell Eastern European countries they can do whatever the hell they want. I think several have a score to settle with Russia.

But seriously if Putin would prefer to not have deep strikes into Russia, then maybe we could meet him halfway – send a NATO coalition to Ukraine and steamroll Russia out. Including from Crimea.

She already wrote “the smallest man who ever lived”

Why Travis? Taylor can probably beat his ass without any help

/s?

Nukes are such a terrifying weapon that after being used, the world collectively shit its pants and said “maybe we’ve gone too far”. Truman fired a general who suggested using nukes in the Korean War, and everyday military personnel stopped a misunderstanding from causing a nuclear exchange in the Cold War.

Country X doing a shitty thing did not entitle countries A-Z to also do that shitty thing. If it was terrible of X to do it, it’s terrible when anyone else does it, and they don’t get a pass just because of how shitty X was.

Edit: Oh my god you’re serious. What the fuck.

… Well. That was short lived.

Fighting oppression is a good act on its own, but it doesn’t need to be done by good people.

Well said. I just like to differentiate between Hamas itself and the Palestinians freedom fighters, because there is a difference. At the end of the day though, maybe it isn’t a distinction that matters a whole lot right now.

Oh I don’t disagree there. I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here actually. I was just saying that Hamas isn’t some pure hearted rebellion group. But I do think they are the lesser evil.

Actually, surprisingly not badly. US generals like Milley took precautions to prevent Trump from doing even more disastrous things. Military leadership is generally respectable.

That isn’t Hamas though. Their leadership lives it up in Bahrain I think and has a dictatorship over Gaza. Before the pandemic there was a protest by the Palestinians and it was brutally oppressed. Hamas hasn’t held elections in a long time.

Don’t confuse Palestinian freedom fighters and civilians seeking revenge with Hamas.

I don’t think they intentionally would, but indiscriminate bombing has the tendency to create unintentional deaths for everyone involved.

There’s apparently a very rancorous debate in Israeli politics right now about accepting a ceasefire and a lot of people are angry that they’re not making more concessions to get a ceasefire.

It’s blatantly clear that Netanyahu has no desire to rescue the hostages.

Afghanistan may be among the most humanitarian deployments the US military has done. The infant mortality rate fell significantly while the US was there, and women had the freedom to go to school and participate in the economy without violent oppression.

Our mistake in Afghanistan was that we didn’t build a lasting change. We gave arms to the wrong people. We should’ve been training and arming the women to fight back and protect their democracy. Not men who were going to be fine either way.

The US military is very apolitical. They don’t get involved with campaigns or politics. I think it may actually be illegal for an active serviceman to make statements with any political leanings. Certainly in uniform I think.

So for them to say this much is actually a big deal.

Yeah for them to say this much is a big deal considering they like to stay out of this stuff. It’s pretty much a harsh repudiation coming from them.

And China would’ve been completely in the right if they shot those balloons down. It was a violation of their sovereignty. An ironic one, considering China did it first, but nonetheless, it enters their airspace without permission. China would be totally justified in shooting them down. I’m not sure why you think this is some sort of gotcha.

Additionally, they didn’t panic at bad press. They were waiting for the balloon to clear land so that when they shot it down, the debris wouldn’t rain down on anyone.

Once again, if these were truly just weather balloons for research, the university conducting the research and the Chinese government are incredibly negligent for not at least informing the US. For innocuous scientific research, there should be no problem with open communication.

To say Boeing has gloriously fucked up is an understatement

At least this time they aren’t claiming most of the South China Sea and ramming Philippine fisherman boats.

Are we doing the “Chinese Weather Balloon” hysteria again?

If the US sent a bunch of weather balloons into Chinese airspace without any warning and they approached government and military sites, would you say the same thing?

Without explicit permission from the government it is a breach of sovereignty. The US had the right to annihilate all of those balloons the instant they passed into US airspace – just like China has the right to destroy the hypothetical US balloons as soon as they pass into Chinese airspace.

For how often China beats the drum about sovereignty, they should know this.

Settlers like this have forfeited their status as innocent civilians. This makes them active aggressors in my eyes.