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I do wonder about whether the state legislatures should vote for senators but I am very skeptical of having governors vote for the President. Not sure how to fix gerrymandering, as undoing what one side has done in a state leads to accusations you are gerrymandering for the other side.

I am not engaging in any sweeping generalizations here. I pointed out in my prior posts that the right is plenty capable of being okay with oppression. My point is that when it comes to actually creating a dictatorship though, they will economically have to move to the left.

From an economic standpoint, no it isn't. That's why you virtually never see any totalitarian states with vibrant free-enterprise economies. I think you also missed where I said that the right is fully capable of a totalitarian mindset too, but to implement it at the nation-state level, they...

I will say I am not knowledgeable enough about the EC to speak about how it should be reformed. But I do not support the elimination of it as some on the left do.

At the level of the nation-state, pretty much all forms of totalitarianism will be a form of left-wing (by the economic definition). That was one of the great realizations by the late, great free market economist Milton Friedman, that political freedom and economic freedom are inextricably...

The name was a formality. It was not a "union," it was a communist Russian empire. And during WWII, Stalin appealed to the nationalist sentiments of the Russian people.

Yes, but scrapping the system will do just that as well. That leaves choosing the leader of what is a federation of semi-sovereign states to a pure popular vote. That subjects the less-populous states to a form of tyranny as they'll have little say in who becomes the leader, in which case you...

Oh I understand them very well. That BTW is actually a very oversimplified definition of fascism. Fascism, at its core, means a system where conformity is demanded, individual rights are suppressed, non-conformity is punished, and violence against those viewed as evil is (often) justified. The...

I'd say it is much of the political Left that has become neo-fascist, as they are the ones arguing to expand the Supreme Court, add additional Senators to states thus turning the Senate into another version of the House, arguing to end the Electoral College, being quite statist with their...

Another concern about China navy-wise is their shipbuilding capacity.

In a discussion on a Reddit forum I saw, they said a major problem is such behavior not only showed very poor judgement but also could set him up to be blackmailed by a foreign agent. I just find it amazing: Perisher course graduate, young sub captain, but then does those things...!?

LINK - talk about a way to torpedo your career!

I remember in a prior post Griz mentioning something about the "mad skills" the Army mountain flying school pilots had.

Think you meant succession* plan;)

I haven't been following Chinese politics much, is Xi like a dictator who controls his subordinates through real terror?

Never seen the movie myself. Will have to give it a watch. A good Stalin-related miniseries is Archangel with Daniel Craig.

Thing is though, Stalin was possibly poisoned to death by Lavrenti Beria, the head of the NKVD. Then Khrushchev and other leaders had Beria arrested and shot. Then later Brezhnev overthrew Khrushchev. And Russia is today a mafia state. So I can't imagine Putin just giving up power and trusting...

The impression I always had was that was just theater--that even with Medvedev in power, Putin was always the real guy in charge.

I agree; my point was the Russians have shown in the past a great ability to learn how to fight, so if they haven't started seriously learning by now, they probably won't. Stalin had to loosen his grip for awhile in WWII in order to let men of merit run industry and the military, whereas I don't...

Is this though an example of their actually being good at defensive warfare, or more just placing a bunch of obstacles in the way of the understrength Ukrainian forces? I mean probably anyone can be good at defensive warfare in that sense, by mining the daylights out of the terrain and placing...

Or burned alive considering how those electric cars catch fire when submerged in salt water:eek:

While Boeing insists the astronauts could return at any time, I do wonder how true that really is at this point. NASA is working on a back-up plan with SpaceX to bring them back using a SpaceX Crew Dragon if required. I think while publicly Boeing says this isn't necessary, that privately they...

I don't know if Blue Angels shows cause hearing damage to people. I'd imagine you'd have to be an up close spectator if that is the case. Pollution-wise, what he says is true, but the amount of carbon those planes put out is probably a drop in the bucket in the overall scheme of things, when you...

Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin:

What was Big Navy's reaction to this film? Also one of my favorites:)

Pacific Rim was great I thought for what it was, and I liked Hunter Killer a lot, but then I know nothing about how U.S. submarines actually function and I imagine submarine personnel were probably blowing fuses over it being fake. I've read The Hunt for Red October was meant to try to do for...

Not always. I sometimes get a decently informative AI response.

Interesting coincidence that you post that as an example and your screen name is number9:)

I would dispute that McCain really was "devoting his life to public service" in terms of his government career. I mean "yes," but he also stayed a Senator because he wanted the power, IMO. That's why they all try to stay in until death takes them. For this reason, I do not view being a...

Both Ukrainian and Western intelligence sources say Russia has lost about 70,000 troops in the past two months and about 550,000 so far since the start of the war, with a casualty rate right now of about 1,000 - 1,500 a month. At the current loss rate, they may raise their total losses to...

I always loved the message Tom Hanks gives to Geena Davis's character, when she leaves the team and he is asking why and she says, "It just got too hard," and he's like, "Of course it's hard. If it wasn't hard everybody would do it. The 'hard' is what makes it great."

They don't have that type of thing more regulated? I mean this is the U.S., not say a shoddy operation in a non-First World country.

I'd have made her exit the helicopter right there.

LINK - U.S. and German authorities foil a Russian plot to kill the CEO of Germany's Rheinmetall, the biggest German arms manufacturer and major producer of the 155 mm shells crucial to Ukraine in fighting Russia. Apparently the Russians have targeted other defense industry executives as well.

He commanded two small ships and was removed from command both times. The Navy did not have good things to say about him. EDIT: I see Flash beat me to it.

Cruise has his own P-51 Mustang too.

Not trying to be a sea lion. Nor any troll. And of course I will be civil, I am just a guest here, plus that is my general Internet behavior.

I posted an opinion, you decided to respond to it, I responded to your response, and you blow a fuse🤨

🙁

I never specifically asked YOU the question, I said it was the big question TO ME. You gave a one-word answer. Now if I had said specifically to you, "Brett, do you believe we'll ever achieve FTL travel?" and you responded with "No" well that would be different. Otherwise, you need to be a...

At near light speed it would be. But I took it that taxi1 meant at sub-light speeds, as he said about our short life spans.

Even if I could live forever, I wouldn't want to spend millions of years on a spaceship to get to my destination.

Respectfully, but you have no way of knowing this. If however you mean we won't anytime soon, than I agree. How so? You are not violating special relativity or general relativity unless you claim to exceed the speed of light. But you can get very close to the speed of light, although it would...

The big question to me is will we ever figure out faster-than-light travel. Provided we could create a spaceship that could get up to 99.9999% the speed of light, you could travel anywhere in the universe in (to you) about seven years: about 3.5 for acceleration (any faster would kill the...

Sure, but Sonog said the concept of economic expansion into the rest of the Solar System requires buy-in of the concept of unlimited fusion energy. My point was we could well still achieve this even without fusion power.

Would we need need fusion energy in order to industrialize the Solar System? I mean we could make major advancements in solar power and use advanced conventional nuclear power and even hydrocarbon fuels from moons/planets that have them occurring naturally (ex. Jupiter's moon Titan). We could...

They'll just film it at Area 51 again like they did last time.

Size of economy is one, but technology is another. Both are major symbols of prestige and overall national capability.

If it wasn't for SpaceX right now, I would question whether we really have the ability to leapfrog the Chinese. Our current space-military-industrial complex just seems so sclerotic and bloated in many ways. Look at how many years behind and over-budget the Starliner project is for example...

There was an article by the Chinese, I'll have to see if I can dig it up, where they talked about how the U.S. demonstrated raw power with one of the SpaceX launches (I don't remember the particular Chinese source).