Especially Cheney pushed hard for this, ignored the intelligence communities assessments, then got his own source, a burned source, Ahmed Chalabi to fabricate reasons for an invasion.
The U.S. can't win this war. John Kiriakou did a nice analysis on this on his recent podcasts. "Iran just has to prolong the war and survive it to win". Trump on the other hand needs a decisive win fast, or the economic and political fallout will be too big. As long as Iran can launch cheap drones and keep a small but steady pressure there is just no path out of this for the U.S. except to go home.
> This is the second sudden bombing campaign the country has suffered in as many years – they do not want there to be a third next year and a fourth the year after that. But promises not to bomb them don’t mean a whole lot: establishing deterrence here means inflicting quite a lot of pain. In practice, if Iran wants future presidents not to repeat this war, the precedent they want to set is "attacking Iran is a presidency-ending mistake." And to do that, well, they need to end a presidency or at least make clear they could have done.
Can they do that: yes, keep Hormuz shut until much closer to November, and "the economic and political fallout will be too big."
While it can very well be true, I wonder if we don't exagerate the will of the iranian regime and its ablity in the current time to think this far ahead. I see them more in survival mode, I'm not sure they fight for future deterence, maybe the goals align currently but seems to me to be happenstance. They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling. Of course, I wouldn't have done this war, and I certainly would stop it now.
> They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling
While neither of us have any special insight into that, and no-one has certainty, I urge you to read the essay linked, as this topic is in fact discussed with historic examples. "There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad ... There is a great deal of ruin in a nation."
You are right that the the Iranian regime's short and longer term goals align. But, happenstance or not, they are aligned and likely will stay that way.
> I wouldn't have done this war, and I certainly would stop it now.
That’s the thing there is no stopping it now. Trump walks away and Iran taxes every barrel that goes through the straight. There is no return to normal.
> That’s the thing there is no stopping it now. Trump walks away and ...
Right, Short of unconditional surrender, it is very hard for one party in a war to just end it without the other side also agreeing to cease. Otherwise, walking away just lets them target your back.
This is so interesting. Especially since it's kinda weird to train a robot to mimicking human play. I wonder what a perfect robot what actually behave like.
It wouldn't need to split-step to activate muscles, the footwork would probably be minimal. I imagine a lot of different unusual looking swings to confuse human players, while still making perfect contact. It could make really late drop shots or even rotate the racket at the last moment for crazy angles.
The humans in the video shot easy balls to the robot, which returns more difficult balls. It's the human that is doing all the running. The robot is quite static. However with better software and better hardware is possible that the robot will be so fast that it will miss no ball, and so strong to return balls faster than any human can reach. So there is no need to play fine shots. That could be a goal if we want to provide automated training partners to humans. If we want to win games against humans, stronger and faster is more than enough.
I don't know much about tennis, but the perfect opponent is probably some form of slightly concave wall that will always bounce the ball into the court no matter the angle you send the ball at it
Another big problem is the mentality. "We have always done it this way" and "I don't want to change it" is extremely prevalent. I say this as a German.
This is also reflected in the big political parties, which would rather keep these beliefs alive than inspire change.
I really don't see a solid economic future for Germany when enough other countries implement more progressive economic policies.
The willingness to change is there, it's mostly the motives and what is being targeted where the problems are.
We as a country lost our balls.
Decisions are increasingly made on an emotional basis, and the poster child for this has been the politically calculated exit of nuclear power based on the Fukushima accident to gain an election win.
Most of senior management is trying to act like suddenly they are some cool nimble startup CEO that can burn through cash until the subscription fees for lane keeping assists and heated seats are paying the bills.
It's all buzzwords being thrown around without anyone really caring for reality.
Just looking at how the "dress code" changed over the last 10 years in automotive is funny by itself.
Hefty statements, zero backing and ever shrinking balls.
I somehow have the feelings that you two actually agree quite a lot. Because there are two populations there: one who'd be able and willing to change, and the other busy to protect their own accounts and after me the deluge. It's all which one of these are at the buttons, and I reckon it's the second.
> Another big problem is the mentality. "We have always done it this way" and "I don't want to change it" is extremely prevalent. I say this as a German.
Interestingly it's not only the domain of the conservatives (e.g. CDU/CSU) to cut any discussion this way.
Social democrats (and their voters) use the same argument, just in instances where it fits their program (e.g. labour laws).
> I really don't see a solid economic future for Germany when enough other countries implement more progressive economic policies.
The only party suggesting any such policies consistently fails to clear the 5% threshold as of late. Evidently, the electorate is satisfied with the status quo.
Yeah, I would call both CDU and SPD conservatives, SPD is just a left-conservative with a focus on labour rights. CDU is a bigger problem though, because their voter base is more loyal, and the only way their voters are going to migrate if CDU loses its grip is towards the far-right.
A bigger issue than the fine (which Much didn't have to pay because he won in court) is that the police thought it was a swell idea to search his house.
The fine was wrong, too, and the amount (6000€!) was absurd.
She should have challenged him to a duel instead. That would have been a lot more fair than mobilizing the state to fight battles that should never have been fought AND it would have put the risk where it should have been, namely on her shoulders (and stomach and thighs) instead of on his.
The German police thought it was within its rights to demand that a foreign social media platform hand over identifying information on a user that apparently called her "well-rounded" in a less polite manner.
I don't think the German police should search citizen's houses or demand identifying information about people who say things that aren't nice (but true).
Oh, it's really percentage of all produced. Weird that they worded it in a way that makes their argument weaker.
>Based on available studies, an estimated 4-9% of all textile products put on the market in Europe are destroyed before use, amounting to between 264,000 and 594,000 tonnes of textiles destroyed each year.
Of course, they would. If the administration asked Bezos, and he gets a benefit out of it. He will task his marketing team to come up with something which tries to frame it in a positive light. Knowing that even if a few people make a stink this will blow over eventually and when it rolls out, he can always say it is just about puppies and neighborhood security. Nobody cares.
I meant that the admin would ask Bezoz for the surveillance, and he would tell his marketing team to find a frame which makes the surveillance look good.
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