I collect these little predictions that are given to me and store them so when they prove to be right or wrong, I recognize whom said what. And so far you’re batting zero, my friend. — NOS4A2
That's the lie that people believe in. The truth is that you are better off with international trade than you are without it. In the end, Trump is just hurting Americans. But this is what Trump has been thinking all his life, that foreigners cheat the US. He will continue with this, now when there's nobody taking the executive orders from his desk that he then forgets.Yup it's not about the world, but about America first. — ChatteringMonkey
The two countries are neighbors, they have had good relations and Russia desperately needs now China. As you say, they cannot be too picky. And the likely outcome is that Russia will perhaps thank the US for giving Ukraine to it, and then continue with China.Ask China. They seem to be thinking of Russia as a stable partner. — ChatteringMonkey
That's not going to happen. What Trump will do is to alienate it's allies and wreck the American economy. And Russia will be very happy about it.If they take Greenland and Canada, divide Europe together with Russia, then European countries probably don't pose much of a threat to them. — ChatteringMonkey
if they can balance the budget it might just save the government from insolvency — NOS4A2
Net interest has been exploding over the past few years, with payments rising from $223 billion in 2015 to $345 billion in 2020 before nearly tripling to $881 billion in 2024. In 2025, CBO projects net interest will total $952 billion, a near-record 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and interest will eclipse its record as a share of the economy in 2026.
This is what Trump's America is.The latest corruption: Trump has pardoned a campaign donor, who's represented by AG Pam Bondi's brother:
Trump pardons Nikola founder Trevor Milton
Milton and his wife together made contributions last October to President Trump's reelection effort totaling over $1.8 million, federal records show. — Relativist
Assuming the Kingdom of Denmark gives away Greenland. If not and Trump takes it anyway, that is an annexation.The proper term in English is “cession”. — NOS4A2
:snicker:Given the constant shift towards totalitarianism in Europe at the present moment — NOS4A2
Good.It's from the horse's mouth. — Hanover
I'd hope at sometimes when the actual primary source is a Facebook posting or heck, a Signal-posting, then the actual source could be referred than to a news article concerning this. I find it good that moderator discretion is used.The main concern is quality. Embedding YouTube without original content will get it deleted. — Benkei
This naturally shouldn't be done. And if you have a video, please explain in written just what it says or tells or what is the meaning for you to post it. If it's a longer one, good way is to give actual time when somebody says something that you think is so important.I've seen this pattern too, people just posting videos (sometimes hours long videos) without explaining anything about why they're posting it, how it's relevant to the topic, anything. — flannel jesus
I've participated in the thread far longer that you have been a member, and I'm one of the ones that is an optimist here... if optimism means that you don't believe in the end of the World.So why are you worried about a little bit of global warming? — Agree-to-Disagree
No, the sun will not kill all life on this planet for some 5 billion years or so. The future after that is bleak for life on our planet. — ssu
Yet the fact is that Putin is a gambler. He did gamble with the annexation of Crimea and that worked well. He gambled with Syria and lost. He gambled again with Ukraine with the invasion in 2022 and that didn't go so well. But if he can snatch victory (thanks to Trump), why wouldn't he gamble more?His gamble didn't pay off, but then there would probably never have come a better moment... I think it was pretty calculated. — ChatteringMonkey
Do notice the huge difference: Trump talks of annexation, of enlarging the territory of the US. That is totally different from the usual neo-imperialist playbook. It really is 19th Century imperialism. In neo-imperialism you make regime changes and focus on the trade and security agreements, not the territorial expansion of your own country. This is what makes this so strange and the war in Ukraine so different.I think you are giving Trump to much credit, the Greenland to Panama Canal idea of total security for the American continent has been floating around for a long time. — ChatteringMonkey
So now the US is the enemy?I think it does make sense if you see the global liberal democratic order, NATO, as a problem in itself that needs to be dealt with... — ChatteringMonkey
A more stable partner? Did you notice how stable it was when Prigozhin made his coup attempt? Did you notice that the prior leader Yeltsin had to fire with tanks his Parliament? A country where in the last 125 years one and only one leader of the country has normally retired from office without being deposed or killed or then died at old age while still in office. That you call a stable government?If you want a less globalized world and reduced involvement of the US, Russia could be a more stable partner in a multi-polar world. — ChatteringMonkey
In polls, 70% of Americans don't want to annex Greenland and 84% of Greenlanders don't want to join the US. Notice that even our own MAGA-follower here hasn't come to defend Trump's great ideas of annexing Greenland tells how the MAGA people think about this subject. It's not what they voted for Trump to do and spend time on.I suspected someone has told him it’s not going to happen. — Punshhh
“When the American consulate called yesterday to ask if the wife of the U.S. Vice President, Usha Vance, could visit our store on Friday, we replied that she was welcome. After all, everyone is welcome in our store.
“However, upon further consideration, we have now informed the consulate that we do not wish to host her visit, as we cannot accept the underlying agenda and do not want to be part of the media spectacle that will inevitably follow,” it read.
“No thanks to [a] nice visit… Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders,”
Ok.I don't think that scaremongering and exaggeration accompany those views. — Agree-to-Disagree
What exactly you mean by this?If anything there is reassurance that things don't need action and understating any possible risks. — Agree-to-Disagree
? ? ?Here are the questions:
Why do most people go on holiday to places that are warmer than where they live? Do these people have a death wish?
Why do many people retire to warm places like Florida? Do these people have a death wish?
Why are these scientific facts true? — Agree-to-Disagree
No. It's just a hobby. — Agree-to-Disagree
I accept that climate change is happening but I don't like the scaremongering, exaggeration, and bigotry that usually accompanies it. — Agree-to-Disagree
If Putin is so reasonable, why did he attack Ukraine? Why did he think it would take only a few weeks? The fact is that he thought and what was briefed to him was that the Ukrainians wouldn't fight back, that it would be like Crimea all over again. Or Czechoslovakia in 1968 again.Here is where I disagree. Deterrence is not messaging on its own. It's messaging with the threat of actual military force to back it up. I think Putin has a reasonably good idea of what we are capable of without the US, and probably knows we would have a hard time pushing back Russia on our own. In poker they say, you can only bluff or represent a hand that you could reasonably have considering how you played up to that point... we haven't exactly shown a lot of strenght up to this point. — ChatteringMonkey
This actually is the real problem, because Trump actually doesn't see any value whatsoever with NATO. He doesn't seem to understand that he is giving the ultimate prize to Russia and China by crippling US power himself. It's quite evident that Trump or his supporters don't realize how much prosperity the US gets from the dollar being the reserve currency, and it's role isn't because the US is so economically awesome.There's not much pressure from the US now, that's right. From the point of view of Europe that is a fact we need to deal with. Maybe we could have tried to convince the US with a more coöperative and less antagonistic approach, but it would likely not have mattered much considering the ideological hate they seem to have for Europe. — ChatteringMonkey
It's a mistake to believe that before modern police and law enforcement or written laws there was just total anarchy without any laws. The benefits of having rules is evident in any society, be it family, a tribe or a larger entity of people. Protecting your property and your family members or members of your pack is obvious, actually even with animals.then what were preventing these tendencies in the past (prehistoric times) if there were no police, law enforcement, or laws protecting their livelihoods?
That would only be the imaginary part? — Shawn
:100: :up:Trump has zero interest in balancing the budget, by all projections the national debt will balloon under his proposals. I'm not going to respond point by point, other than to say that I think the Trump Presidency is an absolute disaster for both America and the world, and that Trump and Musk between them are doing terrible damage to fabric of society. If that's 'hyperbolic' then so be it. — Wayfarer
Exactly.Or the limit concept. — jgill
Yes, many say the same thing and question why we feed the troll.Fucking trollery, nos4. — tim wood
A military serviceman or an intelligence officer using Signal-app to forward timetables of future military strikes, an issue obviously classified in any sitution, would be severely punished. Likely that serviceman or officer would lose his or her job because of his or her recklessness of not following opsec-rules.Then if you’re going to make such an accusation, quote one of them or describe how one of these three were disrespecting the military and the intelligence services. — NOS4A2
Wasn't it how to make Egypt and Europe pay?By far, the most newsworthy statement in the whole chat? — NOS4A2
This is correct. And the obvious idea for the supporters is that because nothing would happen otherwise, Trump needs an Elon Musk, to go through "the waste" by a chainsaw, even if accidents happen. They don't care that this isn't how the Constitution says how these things should be done.I think probably you're missing that a great number of people do not think your take on his policies are that way. I mean, I can see objectively that some are vindictive, by definition, but that doesn't actually make them bad so people are open to interpret a bit differently. — AmadeusD
Juxtaposition is easy. The use of "us and them". Populism succeeds if the "other", the "evil elite" is small. If it is just the few modern day robber barons, that doesn't brake up social cohesion. But once those "evil people" who are against the ordinary people are a larger group, then it get's truly ugly and becomes a monster as it tears apart the fabric that holds a society together.That said, I think its pretty obvious populism is what people do. There is something to the notion that people crave strong leaders. And most people are not that smart (shame, but true). — AmadeusD
But that doesn't answer the questions we have about infinity. If we have countable infinity and then uncountable infinity, Cantor argues there's this hierarchial system of larger and larger infinities (from aleph-0 to aleph-1 and higher). Is that really how it goes? And the Continuum Hypothesis is a hypothesis, it's not a theorem.Take the rationals in [0,1] and form the union with the irrationals in [0,1] and you get a continuum. They are complementary in the complete interval - which itself is a complete metric space with the usual metric. — jgill
I agree. I would just say that he's not losing. It's a stalemate, actually. But that's OK for Putin.Putin has no reason to stop because he is winning. — ChatteringMonkey
And you said it yourself: "What could persuade him to consider a deal is pressure from the US and to a lesser extend from Europe."A cease-fire is tactically not advantageous for the party that is winning, because it gives the losing party the time to regroup and/or rearm, and thus level the playing field. What could persuade him to consider a deal is pressure from the US and to a lesser extend from Europe. That is why I would push for a peace-deal now while the US is still involved. — ChatteringMonkey
Not exactly. It's been a stalemate. But if the US shuts down intel, ceases weapon shipments and at worse, starts to bully European countries that are supporting Ukraine, then Russia will prevail. That's the reality.Russia is winning as it stands. — ChatteringMonkey
It's the messaging you send. Deterrence is messaging. It's the whole point. When you falter already when there is no actual or only little pressure, who would think you would have this turn around when a push comes a shove, or a blow? Already you are caving in.Why would appeasing them now mean we will never have any credible deterrence? — ChatteringMonkey
Well, if Ukraine would be in NATO, we would already be in WW3. Yet where do you think the alliance will be once Putin has carved up what he wants from Ukraine and has a puppet regime in Kyiv? Or should we then say Kiev, as in the Soviet times.No it's not the same because Urkraine is not an ally, we have no alliance with them. — ChatteringMonkey
Again, nope.Fair enough, but these people are all former military — NOS4A2
One would hope that.None of that happened though, and I doubt this sort of leak or the use of the Signal app will continue given these concerns. — NOS4A2
(Atlantic) At 11:44 a.m. eastern time, Hegseth posted in the chat, in all caps, “TEAM UPDATE:” The text beneath this began, “TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.” Centcom, or Central Command, is the military’s combatant command for the Middle East. The Hegseth text continues:
“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”
The Hegseth text then continued:
“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
“We are currently clean on OPSEC”—that is, operational security.
“Godspeed to our Warriors.”
Shortly after, Vice President J. D. Vance texted the group, “I will say a prayer for victory.”
That Canada would join the US? Or annexed to become one state of the US? That wouldn't be delusional? Or NATO might be crumbling down?I think you need to focus on something else for a while. — frank
What he said in his inaugral speech is something that he wants to do. He wants to enlarge the territory of the US. That's it. Let's really think about this. Because with Canada and Greenland the US WOULD BE THE LARGEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. The new US would surpass Russia in size. Heck, only Greenland is bigger than Mexico.You can see why we're so desperate to have Greenland. It's too crowded here! — frank
Incorrect. Don't trust some stupid "Brainyquote" to get things right, NOS4A2:It reminds me of the Schwarzkopf line “Going to war without the French is like going hunting without an accordion.”. — NOS4A2
(See here)Whenever the U.S. favors military action that France opposes (such as the disagreement in April 1986 that saw France denying U.S. F-111's overfly permission on their way to a bombing mission against Libya), jokes and sardonic comments about the prowess and fortitude of the French military inevitably ratchet up several levels in the American media. Hence the latest pithy anti-French quote making the rounds, this one emphasizing American frustration with France and expressing the attitude that having French support in military ventures is ineffective and irrelevant — "going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion."
These words were spoken by Jed Babbin, a former deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration, during a 30 January 2003 appearance on the political talk show Hardball. The full comment (offered during the course of a discussion about differences between U.S. and European policy towards Iraq) was: " . . . you know frankly, going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind."
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Danish media it was "positive that the Americans cancelled their visit to the Greenlandic society.”
“Instead, they will visit their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that,” he said.
Yep, it's an easy way to understand the whole thing.OK that makes sense seeing it like that rather than the muddle I wrote. — Moliere
If your smart and observing, it should!!! It is confusing.It's still a concept that confuses the hell out of me, but this gives direction if ever I'm tempted to talk on it again ;) — Moliere
Apart from going through attack plans on Signal, before the attack was implemented. Perhaps simple Waltz mixed up "JD" and "JG" and nobody of them noticed anything. Too hard for anybody to check who is on the Signal-group! :grin:Michael Waltz screwed up. There's no evidence of anyone else doin:grin: g anything nefarious. — Relativist
No, you truly don't seem to understand it:Jesus* man, can't you see how extreme your position is? What is it that makes you so imperivious to all reason on this topic, do you hate them so much? — ChatteringMonkey
But you would be OK that actually no ally will come to help you. So what's the point of talking about an alliance?Of course I wouldn't be happy with it. — ChatteringMonkey
Hybrid attacks shouldn't be tolerated. If you turn a blind eye to them, you don't have deterrence. There isn't going to be the time that you will change your posture from appeasement.Hybrid attacks are not the same as a conventional invasion. — ChatteringMonkey
:roll:And I'm also not saying we should keep appeasing Russia as a general strategy going forward, just that at this particular moment that makes the most sense — ChatteringMonkey
And there's a 1-to-1 correspondence:But then the set "Even numbers" is defined by whether or not they are divisible by 2. So if we have the set of all natural numbers and the set of all even natural numbers then, if there's a 1-to-1 correspondence, we ought be able to lay out a function like the above -- such as f(x) = x * 1 million — Moliere
OK, basically how Cantor showed that real numbers are uncountable is the way to do this.But if you're willing to continue....
How could we show that Moliere-numbers are uncountably infinite? — Moliere
That's not misuse, nor is it a problem. — Metaphysician Undercover
I do get that point, sure. But do actually notice that Zeno belonged to the Eleatic School. Platonists were on the camp of infinite divisibility. The Eleatic School was different.The problem is in Zeno's application, when things like distance, and time, are assumed to be infinitely divisible. — Metaphysician Undercover