it’s crazy that after the mod purge you’re just now realizing they can do that.

everyone who would care was purged years ago.

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/65B4-2AA3-5F37-4227

well that didn’t take very long

man I wish we could convince the entire GOP to go. imagine that timeline…

it literally gave clinton a cudgel to use against the right just months later - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It’s_the_economy%2C_stupid

this is one of the stranger ironies I’ve observed - couples I thought would make it crumbling, and, toxic / terrible matches staying married to hate-fuck the other as long as possible.

people genuinely need to split sometimes. and people should stay together if they can make it work, sometimes, but it often doesn’t seem to be the right crowd for each use case. Oof.

Yep. It’s all about infrastructure and change.

I do wonder if they’ll get everything hooked up to AC right as the AMOC collapses and send the UK and europe into a mini-ice-age.

I wonder how many decades of blowback this shit will return to US and Israel. I remember bombings in the 80s attributed as payback for events in the 70s… and thinking, man, we haven’t seen anything yet. oooof

when the alternative is the shitscape in the US, I’ll take the dutch’s attempt any day.

it’s a genuine inquiry about your response - China has long desired to recapture their ‘lost’ island (never was theirs but set that aside) and continues to run all kinds of pressure campaigns from political interference in Taiwanese government to artillery attacks on the outlying islands to pressuring the vast majority of the world to ignore their existence.

Taiwan has shown incredible resilience over decades and decades.

Now, if Trump robs them of the support and legitimacy, throws them to the wolves, all bets are off. Perhaps Taipei sees the writing on the wall - but man, I don’t see that going well either. Hong Kong illustrated - there is no separate peace, you get china, you get chinese rule and it’s not light handed.

It’s a shit sandwich, and the US has made it all worse with the iran bullshit draining our magazines, fleet deployments, and most importantly, resolve to stand up for our allies.

China will conquer Taiwan from within

if they could ever do that, don’t you think they’d have done it already?

do you have any evidence to support the idea that taiwanese attitudes have changed?

I’d be amazed if they wait that long. It would give us a chance to rebuild stockpiles.

I don’t think Taipei is at risk tomorrow, but holy hell this is gonna be a fraught year…

what’s wild are the killed vs injured ratios on the russian side… for years, they’ve just been leaving tremendous numbers to die on the field, and even when they’re recovered from the battle and recuperate, there’s no respite - they send the dumb bastards into the fight on crutches and torture anyone who objects.

I’m convinced we are in WWIII,

the preamble perhaps. the conflict that sets the stage.

fml, the idea that putin/bibi/trump ally so closely in their desire to destroy their own countries, and xi is like: let’s make more terawatts of solar power and help cuba - the world is stranger and darker every day.

ebola may finally hit globally, thanks to stupid cuts at cdc/who/usaid

and then there’s taiwan… just sitting there, all tempting, and the US having expended tremendous amounts of our arsenal for the iranian folly… gee whiz…

DEW weapons are always ‘just about to be deployed’ to change the situation.

It’s never as simple as generating a directed pulse (regardless of the wavelength) if you don’t acquire the target at range, and, environmental conditions are compatible with your weapon system.

I think it’ll get there, but would discourage anyone from believing it’s around the corner until we see shaheeds melting in the video feeds.

they’re taking a page from ukraine on asymmetric warfare and just following the playbook russia and ukraine have been escalating with drone warfare. and iran can get fiber optic from china just like russia.

this is something people aren’t understanding, the disparity in costs - sure western customers can shoot patriots at incoming, but if it’s a $12k shaheed the cost disparity is nosebleed, but you can’t NOT shoot at incoming because the costs of targets on the ground is also nosebleed expensive.

Fuck, iran bagged an E3 sentry awacs on the ground! Millions of dollars of STRATEGICALLY valuable asset, nuked on a fucking tarmac, because some dumbfuck decided to follow Israel into this shitshow.

china has stepped up with shittons of solar.

we should give the orcas torpedoes… and a list of targets lol

I know a couple who both cashed in all their retirement to buy a boat and sail from place to place; their kids are ‘home schooled’ on the boat. they are not rich by any stretch, but they’re living their dream. not my idea of fun but, eh? the husband now just does odd marine jobs to keep their house floating. I respect their desire to live their way.

then leave. bye