people refer back to desert storm in 1994 or the 2003 invasion of iraq without appreciating the logistics associated with both of these invasions. in both cases, the US took 6 months or so to get set up before entering iraq en mass. iraq was absolutely not in a position to attack invasion forces pre-emptively. Iran would be entirely different - the americans would not be able to arrange their forces in the region without being attacked with missiles and the like. It would be a major operation just to put boots on the ground in iran, let alone have an effective invasion force.
Fully mission capable means way more than just being able to fly, it's a whole pile of stuff. Fully Mission Capable means that a piece of equipment can do all the missions it's designed for. In the case of fighter jets, that may be air to air interception, air to ground attacks, etc. for an F-35 that is supposed to be a stealth aircraft and whose stealth surface is finicky and requires a lot of maintenance, an F-35 could easily be not defined as fully mission capable but still be able to fly.
This isn't to say that Israeli F-35s are all good (or not), just that looking at average FMC rates of F-35s or any air asset is not a good way to estimate how many might be grounded during an attack.
I lived in a place that suffered a severe flood (nothing like NC but something like 10k homes worth of people displaced) and the smell was like nothing else. The whole city smelled like sewage for a solid couple weeks after the water receded. Then, even after the water receded, the sediment layer leftover was this fine, shitty silt that smelled terrible. When you swept it up you had to wear a dust mask or it would irritate lungs and make you sick, and if you got any in cuts or scrapes it would infect. Floodwater is not like regular water, it's awful.
the significance of 19th century/early 20th century political dynamics in europe on WW2 are poorly understood by the population at large. there is this idea that through the 30s and into WW2 that germany was fascist, the USSR was communist, and by implication/omission, the rest of the continent was just doing its thing, being 'centrist'. but in reality, socialist movements, weaker or stronger, were present across europe and so was the fascist reaction. germany really did have potential to become socialist as it had a strong socialist movement. the strength of that movement is why it was cracked down on so violently through fascism. it isn't correct to understand fascism as some uniquely german thing, it is better to understand fascism as the reaction to a more or less nascent socialist movement that was present across europe.
War is something that happens to brown people, it's like the weather
in Canada news, there is an upcoming election in the west coast province of British Columbia. Currently the province is led by David Eby and the NDP, a party best described as 'progressive' in the parlance of imperial democracies (i.e. center left neoliberal, not vocally fascist though supporting many reactionary policies). The election looks to be close between the BC NDP and the BC Conservatives. The BC Conservatives spawned from the reactionary slop leftover from the implosion of the BC Liberals (the previous BC conservative party) and BC United, the failed rebrand of the BC Liberals. BC politics have historically been more left than the rest of Canada, hence the BC Liberals being the major right wing party in the province and the BC NDP being the more left wing party.
With that background out of the way, as this has been a contested election, the BC Conservatives have been putting their best foot forward:
Globe and Mail: Rustad (BC Conservative leader) wants B.C. Indigenous rights law repealed. (First Nations) Chief sees that as 40-year setback
"...Rustad “explained” that adopting an international framework such as UNDRIP wasn’t the right fit for B.C.’s context, with more than 200 unique First Nations and vast traditional territories that aren’t covered by treaties."
The Conservative statement last February starts by saying the changes were an “assault” on private property rights and the right to access shared Crown land.
“Conservatives will defend your rights to outdoor recreation – and your water access, as well as B.C.’s mining, forestry, agriculture sectors and every other land use right,” said the statement posted by Rustad.
The specific law they are talking about is the legislation that adopted UNDRIP in the province. While the concepts of UNDRIP are absolutely not codified and integrated into BC law (see the use of state violence against Wetsuweten land defenders for their protests against methane pipelines across their traditional territory for example), the rollback of this legislation would nevertheless be a major setback for Indigenous rights in BC.
Well, that flag was no angel
I don't see how anyone believes this is possible though.
The American/imperial electorate is brain poisoned by generations of propaganda that undermines any actual understanding of politics.
Modern fascism has a lot more to offer to young men than young women. The return to tradition explicitly pitches a vision of society that centers on the patriarch that provides for his brood mare(s). I don't think there is anything special about the medium of the message (music vs sports vs video games vs other forms of influence), it's the message itself that people respond to.
SCMP: Huawei’s AI chips take another step forward as Chinese firms look for Nvidia alternatives
The Ascend 910B chips, which Huawei has called on par with Nvidia’s popular A100 chips, have become a top alternative in multiple industries across the country. Its Ascend solutions were used to train roughly half of more than 70 of China’s top large language models as of last year, according to Huawei.
I'm curious if non-Huawei execs agree with the assessment that these ascend chips are comparable or closely approaching the A100. In any case, this trend really seems to imply that 2-5 years out, the age of Western chip domination will be over, if it isn't already.
A honeymoon period measured in femtoseconds
the density of bazinga brain there is approaching that of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy