Given their practice of restrained and selective targeting away from civilians, and public commitment against further escalation, its nearly impossible for me to imagine Iran approving (even tacitly) of an untargetted mass shooting at a transit station in a neighbourhood that is 1/3rd Arab, as an element in Operation True Promise 2.

To me, this raises the question of how the attack then came to coincide nearly exactly with the operation. It seems extremely unlikely that it was a coincidence. Was Hamas informed of the operation in advance by Iran, and they then planned the shooting to coincide with it without telling?

Absolutely, and while manpower is something which could be remedied in the next few years by throwing money at the problem (which the U.S. has) the Navy’s rotted sealift supply capacity can not. The resources a fleet consumes during war are astronomical, and American currently could not supply most of its ships simultaneously if it wanted to right now, during a relative peace. The Navy has only 33 active duty auxiliary vessels, and the majority of civilian ships in the sea-lift reserve are not currently seaworthy.

The incomparable logistics advantage the PRC would have in the Taiwan strait (because their infrastructure and industrial base is right there instead of across an Ocean) is another reason why America would be virtually guaranteed to lose a protracted naval war there.

I’m usually one to err on the side of caution when it comes to estimating America’s strength, the PLA certainly isn’t relying on wishful thinking when they assess the strength of the U.S. military; so I won’t either. However, practically all signs point to U.S. shipbuilding being extremely cooked. The best comparison of the relative effectiveness of a country’s shipbuilding industrial capacity comes from their share of merchant tonnage. From that, the PRC produces half of global tonnage in civilian ships every year, while the U.S share is 0.2%.

American shipbuilders survive entirely due to military contracts, where their performance is characterized by cost overruns, poor workmanship, and constant delays. On the other hand, the luxury of choices offered to PLANF procurement means China can launch new naval vessels at a rate and price magnitudes better than the U.S. navy. Comparing the difference in production efficiency between the two countries, and it’s like how in WW2 the USSR spent one-one hundredth the man hours to build a single T-34 as the Nazis did for a Tiger tank (not an exaggeration, the costs were 3000 man hours for a T-34 and 300,000 per Tiger). And half the T-34s wouldn’t break down before arriving to the battlefield.

What lingering advantages the United States would have in a naval conflict come down to their inertia and (IMO) still superior air power. Both edges are fading fast, and 2027 may well be what the Pentagon has determined to be their “point of no return” after which PLA dominance in the Taiwan strait will be undisputed.

In other dying empire news, the US Navy’s recently released Navigation Plan has the primary goal of preparing the Navy for war with the PRC by 2027. The plan also reads like a hybrid between marketing speak and a r/worldnews comment

The purpose of effective altruism is to provide a justification to not be altruistic. To them their decision to not tip, to work for an evil tech company, and to support reactionary politics can all be excused as necessary to support the greater good.

For effective altruists, the most altruistic course of action possible is to amass as much money as possible, so that it can be donated to prevent an evil all-powerful ai (the devil), from causing the singularity (rapture), and imprisoning human consciousness for an eternity in virtual torture chambers (hell). Conversely by paying tithes to create a good ai (god), we can create a transhuman paradise on Earth (heaven), and bring the dead back to life to live forever.

They have reinvented Christianity to such an extent that they’re even managing to steal the crown from the post-Church crowd as the worst people in a restaurant.

reminder that there’s no such thing as a Nobel prize in economics, and this guy won the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”

Letting the Biden team schedule a debate before the DNC may become an all-time bag fumble

He allowed the Dems to replace the only person in America who was sure to lose against him

no term limits

no constitution, through Parliament the ruling regime can overrule the judiciary at will and ignore human rights treaties

antidemocratic electoral system where a party winning 1/3rd of the vote gets 2/3rds of seats

state media spewing hatred towards refugees and trans people, inciting violent riots

Chairman Xi, my people yearn for freedom

The clause that “the Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour” has been repeatedly interpreted to mean that all Federal Judges have lifetime tenure, provided they are not removed, and the current SCOTUS would absolutely support that interpretation if they got a chance to.

My initial feeling is these results confirm my take that this was absolutely a winnable election for the opposition. The desire for fresh leadership is widespread enough, and hardships caused by U.S. economic warfare have created ripe conditions for opposing parties to seize advantage of.

Luckily for Maduro the counter-revolution is incapable of rallying around the sort of candidate who could win. A SocDem who claims they’ll preserve broadly popular social programs but eliminate their “corruption”, talks about standing up for human rights, and seeks to normalize relations with the U.S (but who is not ready to coup the Venezuelan government for Uncle Sam if given the slightest chance to) would have a great chance of winning. This is so obvious that even the ghouls in Washington backed Guaido because he was opposition figure closest to meeting these criteria, except of course that of not being a spineless traitor.

María Corina Machado the leader of the counter-revolution, is not that. She proudly identifies as being on the extreme right of Venezuelan political spectrum, with her central policies being to privatize the state-owned oil company (PDVSA) and eliminate welfare for the poor. She has also supported every effort by a foreign government to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

The Venezuelan counter-revolution also continues to be very clearly overtly racist against Afro-Venezuelan and Mestizo peoples, in their rhetoric and aims.

Of course no mainstream media in the Global North will examine the very clear reasons for the Venezuelan counter-revolution’s incredible streak of L’s continued today, and will instead peddle Mike Lindell tier conspiracy theories.