partial_accumen

Fact:

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to European diplomats: “China cannot afford a Russian defeat in Ukraine”.

Supposition:

The reason? Beijing reportedly fears that a vanquished Russia would allow the United States to shift its entire strategic focus onto China, a fear which is probably not unfounded given US President Trump’s openly anti-China rhetoric and policies.

I fully support Ukraine, but I don’t agree with their guess at a reason for the statement from Minister Wang Yi. I’m thinking that China needs to cement the legitimacy of invading sovereign territories with ethnically similar populations so that China can get political cover when it wants to invade Taiwan. If China is successful in getting the world to accept some or all of Ukraine being held by Russia, then there will be no grounds for the world to oppose the invasion and capture of Taiwan by China.

“trump is the highest scoring individual in a number of areas. As an example, trump is the national all-time leader in being impeached as President.”

100% agree. The biggest overlooked benefit of immigrant culture is the mirror it offers us on our own practices and beliefs. When seeing what others do it gives us the chance to reaffirm that our actions are correct, or even more important, modify our actions for the better by adopting their view on something. We get to cherry pick the best parts of cultures around the world and discard bad practices that are perhaps “traditional” because we see our immigrants have a better approach. In the end of either we get the chance to be the best versions of ourselves with constant exposure to new ideas and ways of doing things.

The paper, which I co-authored with Stephen Semler, found that 54% of the Pentagon’s $4.4 trillion in discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 went to military contractors. The top five alone — Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion) – received $771 billion in Pentagon contracts over that five year period.

…

It would be one thing if all of the hundreds of billions of dollars lavished on weapons contractors were being well spent in service of a better defense. But they are not.

This article loses credibility to me because the author cites these dollar figures spent on defense contractors, but then only talks about the weapon systems spending. “Contractors” from these companies and others (that the headline speaks to) are doing far more than building weapons. They’re running logistics systems coordinating shipping of supplies, they’re serving food in mess hauls, and staffing lots of regular office jobs all over the military.

Contractors are hired for a couple reasons over using employees (or service members in this case). A contractor could be hired to service a general labor role or possibly a highly skilled specialty unrelated to war fighting. When staff reductions are needed, they are easy to stop that spending by firing the contractors.

I widely agree with the authors that cuts to VA benefits and many expensive weapon systems are bad use of the funds, but completely ignoring where a large chunk of the money is going and cherry picking the most decisive point to disingenuously support a headline does the good reasons for the argument a disservice.

There are troubles in Russo-Armenian relations, but there’s no details of Azerbaijan distancing themselves from Russia. If anyone knows more, please let me know.

There’s a good chunk of evidence of Azerbaijan distancing themselves from Russia. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Azerbaijan is equally embracing the West though. source

This is heartwarming news that two nations which have been such bitter enemies are looking to a long term peaceful coexistence. This can only benefit both nations and their citizens.

TSA logic:

I was thinking this pullback wouldn’t have occurred until someone made an asbestos t-shirt and wore it on a tour of a government building, then casually mentioned the shirt materials on the way out. If the trump administration would have said asbestos was safe, then this wouldn’t have been a problem right? I’m glad cooler heads prevailed and asbestos ban is still on.

I’m sorry to see you go. If you change your mind, we’ll be here to welcome you back with open arms. Be safe.

“allows”

The meme game is incredibly weak compared to here (thanks PugJesus, The_Picard_Maneuver, cm0002, Stamets, LadyButterfly, etc.). Lemmy has an incredible amount of fantastic memes for it’s size.

I’d like to echo this. My entire knowledge of meme culture is supported by these diligent individuals.

I’ll also add the prior work of @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world . Miss you, squid. Hope you’re doing well in your new home.

“The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,[1][2] and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact[3][4] and the Nazi–Soviet Pact,[5] was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with a secret protocol establishing Soviet and German spheres of influence across Eastern Europe.[6] The pact was signed in Moscow on 24 August 1939 (backdated 23 August 1939[7][8]) by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.[9]” source

The time, yes, but the resources? There are monetary limits to many “firsts”.

First, I think you should stop living in an AI generated picture.

One of the most universal ideals of manliness is self reliance or independence. I’ve been shocked how the “manosphere” has convinced its followers that the best way to be manly is to depend on large petroleum companies for one of your most important consumables…instead of generating your own electricity.

Preppers are out there setting up offgrid arrays with massive battery banks to “survive the coming fall of civilization”. I think there is a significant overlap between manosphere people and preppers, but I don’t know how the preppers reconcile this of self generation hypocrisy with the rest of the the manosphere.

I’ve found the higher income of older age unlocks all kinds of “firsts” that I simply couldn’t afford when I was younger and living with a beater car and a ramen noodle budget.

Further, as I’ve gotten older the value of different “firsts” shifts dramatically. “First roller coaster” was an important first of my childhood while sitting in an office where Abraham Lincoln’s practiced law eating a piece of pie in what is now a restaurant was a much more important “first” that my childhood self wouldn’t have cared about. The pie is fantastic too!

So one could say they hobby at creating potassium iodide, but its expensive to pay to dispose of, so I dump it out of the back of an aircraft that was hired. There was no intention of actually seeding the clouds and making it rain, right?

Theres no way in hell the US will be anywhere close to first in developing stable fusion power.

Looking at the projects underway I agree with you, however the US was the first to produce a nuclear fusion reaction with a net positive energy result at the NIF in 2022. source The subsequent 5 events have increase net positive yields significantly with the 2025 experiment yielding more than 200% net energy gain.

To be able to create a energy net positive even on-demand has to be very helpful for research. I don’t know of any other country that is capable of doing that yet.

Love low taxes. Keep it up.

But enough about the ideas of the rich aristocracy leading up to the French Revolution…

Do I have to bring my own brown shirt or will they be provided? /s