41–50 of 215 posts
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No, there's a new mass troop mobilization coming, the grain deal was cancelled, Russia is firing on civilian shipping ports (including ones right on the border with NATO ally (EDIT: meant member) Romania), and Belarus is performing provocations across the Polish border. Unfortunately, I think things are just getting started.
NATO member Romania, to be clear.
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No, there's a new mass troop mobilization coming, the grain deal was cancelled, Russia is firing on civilian shipping ports (including ones right on the border with NATO ally (EDIT: meant member) Romania), and Belarus is performing provocations across the Polish border. Unfortunately, I think things are just getting started.
Warning: rampant speculation. Why is Belarus performing provocations on the Polish border? Seems to me that Lukashenko is either doing it for himself, or for Putin. I can't see why he'd be doing it for himself. He might see Poland, flawed but still something of a democracy, as a threat to inspire those seeking democracy in Belarus. But it seems to me to be more likely that he's doing it for Putin. (This also might in…
Plus creating chaos in general seems part of the goal. Russia was losing (well, lost) hegemony in Ukraine post 2014, but damned if it's going to permit its success outside of of Russian control. Absolutely laying waste to Ukraine will not bring Ukraine back under Russian influence and has turned even formerly pro-Russian people in places like Odessa into Ukrainian nationalists. But this matters little to them, because Putin/Lavrov have already clearly bargained on losing them. ... So instead, create chaos not only in Ukraine but across all of Europe, making an example out of them and sewing destruction in order to prevent further splintering of Russian influence.
And it plays well to the domestic audience, and to the blindly "stick it to the West" types. Bitter ethnic animosity between Russians and Poles works for jingoistic demagogues on both sides of the border. Talking shit about Poland keeps Putin's domestic support strong. And (basically explicitly fascist) Wagner's philosophy of might-makes-right and chaos-making clearly plays well to the audience at home, so two birds one stone, sticking Wagner next to Poland to rattle some sabres.
The question is whether ultimately NATO falls for Lukashenko and Putin's stupid trap, and the next time a provocation like this happens, a helicopter or two is obliterated or a ship in the Black Sea is sunk (again), and then the hyper-nationalist audience at home can froth at the mouth some more and Putin's ratings go even higher.
But I think NATO leaders are smart enough to see the provocations for what they are.
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Really? Putin seems to slowly change his mind, even as far as the aims of his "special military operation" are concerned. It looks like he is slowly realizing what he got himself into and his aim is to keep Ukraine unstable to prevent its association with the EU.
There have been some incidents on the Polish border recently that put the whole thing on a knife edge.
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You’re in for a treat! Check out his “Things I Won't Work With” series.
One of the classics, his take on Chlorine Trifluoride (!!!!) https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo... "It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water --- with which it reacts explosively." - John D Clark, Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants
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I think humanity deserves it after so many consecutive weird years
I doubt the extinction of the human race via a runaway technological event will turn the planet into a wonderland paradise for the rest of the species that inhabit our planet. The planet itself, being a rock, doesn't care, at all.
You're right if you define a planet as its rocks, and would also be right to assert that humans don't care if you defined a human as its skeleton.
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One of the classics, his take on Chlorine Trifluoride (!!!!) https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo... "It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water --- with which it reacts explosively." - John D Clark, Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants
That’s a very interesting book if you have a passing knowledge of chemistry. Findable on the web in pdf form.
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It is probably too late with record high temperatures, every few years, for centuries to come.
And maybe record high atmospheric CO2 concentration every few years as well. We're still on an increasing trajectory. The 2007 IPCC climate change synthesis report specified a deadline of 2015 for peak CO2 in order to meet the lowest mitigation scenario. Of course we've blown past that date and it's still full speed ahead with business as usual. Alas, I try not to blather on about the severity of the climate situatio…
I admit it's a longshot, but I think it's the only chance we have. The superconductor news is welcome, we just need to see it get truly confirmed without a doubt.
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I think humanity deserves it after so many consecutive weird years
I doubt the extinction of the human race via a runaway technological event will turn the planet into a wonderland paradise for the rest of the species that inhabit our planet. The planet itself, being a rock, doesn't care, at all.