That’s great news. The other 9 of the 10 biggest protests were were extremely successful at affecting change.

Since we made such massive progress on all the others, this is clearly a harbinger of social and political progress.

The Israelis regularly murder journalists and civilians. The danger was quite real.

“Whataboutism” can occasionally be an honest critique of a spurious argument.

When it’s just a link on it’s own, it’s almost always cover for hypocrisy.

That is completely true and also unlikely to matter.

I was born 3 decades after the end of WWII. By that point Germany and Austria had gone through great lengths to repudiate the policies of the Nazis. They had paid massive reparations. They had issued numerous official and unofficial apologies. The monuments of the Nazis were torn down in favor of memorials for their victims. That didn’t stop other kids from calling me a Nazi as soon as they found out I spoke German. To this day people are comfortable making Nazi jokes about random Germans (see Oliver Zeidler).

Similarly, we have evidence that the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by a small number of repeat offenders. That doesn’t stop the repeated mantra of, “Not all men but always a man.”

Many people, particularly in Asia, are offended that the Nazis turned the Swastika into a symbol of hatred. Most people are aware that the Nazis stole the symbol but you really can’t wear one without risking a fight, even if you have the little dots in it.

It doesn’t matter if they should or shouldn’t be assumed to be complicit; they will. People around the world will see the Star of David as a symbol of death and destruction for generations.

Is it something about hair extensions?

I don’t know what the implications of hair extensions would be.

I assume she meant exactly what she said.

Germany tried to create laws to prevent a repeat of the Holocaust. It’s a laudable effort but they’re failing at it.

The problem is that they were so specific about preventing “The Holocaust” that they ignored many other kinds of bigotry and racism. They thought that if they forbid a few key phrases and symbols, hatred would wither on the vine. Instead they just cleared the way for other aspects of racism to flourish.

I sure as hell wouldn’t want the job of securing logistics in the northern woods with a bunch of angry Canucks running around.

This guy seems like he might know what he’s talking about but is there a version that isn’t a 3 hour video?

Like an article or something?

They do work. They’ve been using them to blow up tanks.

The way they’re used there isn’t much time for that. With regular drones they hunt around for something to kill and then dive in. The wired drones stay hidden until the target comes into range and then they just come out for the strike. The defenders only have a few seconds to react.

Wire guided missiles have been in use since WWII.

Markus Reisner has a pretty good explanation of how they’re deployed in one of his videos.

They have much shorter range so they basically set them up as ambushes. The wired drone gets hidden somewhere at a choke point. An other operator flies a recon drone at long range. When they report that a good target has come into range the wired drone takes off and hits the target.

I thought this would be a thread where we post our unhinged snacks.

My goto smoothie:

• 1 banana
• 2 scoops of protein powder
• 3 heaping tablespoons of Benco cocoa powder
• 1 heaping spoon full of peanutbutter
• 2 cups of whole milk

Clocks in at about 1000 calories. It’s great if you’re the type of person who chronically forgets to eat

That’s sad but I understand.

You brought joy to a lot of people but it must have been a ton of work.

I’m confused.
That’s not a poem.

I was assured that Sprog bestows awesome poems upon the masses.

China has more rare earth deposits than the US but that’s a bit misleading. Rare earths show up in trace amounts all over the world. China has them in higher concentrations.

The bigger issue is that China has been the main refiner of rare earths for decades. That means they have all the infrastructure for actually making it available and they’ve developed a bunch of technologies and processes to do it way cheaper and more efficiently than anyone else can.

I don’t know the pricing specifics of EV motors but I have some familiarity with electric motors, in general. The technology hasn’t really changed much in a long time. We’ve have 3 phase motors and hall effect sensors for ages. They’re better than older electric motors but the huge technology leap, that made EVs practical, was the batteries.

Fighter planes are very expensive to develop.

The F-35 program cost something around $1.7 trillion. That’s several times the annual GDP of Canada. A better bet would be to enter some joint development program with partners in the EU.

From what I understand, those are fine if you’re going up against enemies that don’t have stealth (and all the ancillary technologies that go with it).

The general military analysis is that the F-35 and J-35 are superior to anything else in the air and are similar in capabilities to each other. Conflicts between them will come down to who can make more of them faster. Conflicts between one of them and an older generation fighter seems to be, they’ll blow you up before you can see them.

EU better get cracking and start making stealth planes.

What would they do instead? Get a bunch of J-35s, like Egypt?

Longer than that. China has been promoting battery technology as a strategic initiative since the 90’s.