This is superficial. Neither Russia nor China are particularly antagonistic to Israel or the Gulf states, even if they see the US as a foe in their own region. Russia for example is very careful about balancing its relations with the Gulf, Israel and Iran. China, views Iran as a potential foothold to the region, but China actually benefits from the US presence, it is far more energy import dependent than the US and has no desire to fuel instability by helping Iran pursue offensive goals.

The actual reason that Iran and the USA are enemies has to do with the US’ sectarian alignment with Sunni powers and Jewish nationalism, and more complicated reasons relating to politicial and religious struggles in the entire region that Iran happens to be one side of (i.e anti-monarchism, clericism, etc). And an institutional (and not necessarily rational) hatred of Iran in the US top brass due to its role in helping Iraqis and Lebanese fight American soldiers.

You cannot talk about this issue in terms of “Russia-China-Iran” balancing without mentioning the deeper and much more relevant issues that make US-Israel relationship exceptional on a globsl level: post-Holocaust philosemetism, anti-Islamism, anti-Arabism and (very underreported) Christian piety that actually motivates US-Israel policy. And the Israel lobby, which is so deeply engrained that Israel is treated more or less like the 51st state.

Politics goes far beyond amoral power calculus. You could have justified a ceasefire and even an embargo on Israeli arm transfers in accordance to amoral power calculus, but for Biden, Blinken and the rest, this is a moral question relating to a transcendent moral and religious cause, steeped in centuries of historical memory.

I have zero doubt that Joe Biden believes that by helping murderous racist Netanyahu slaughter and expel the people of Gaza, he has placed himself in the company of Cyrus the Great and other deliverers of Jews rather than Idi Amin and Radovan Karadzic. The GOP puts such things in explicitly religious terms and thus appear less rational or calculating. But it’s not even that well-hidden in the case of Biden and Blinken given what we know of their careers and lives.

Nothing he has done is exceptional. He was a lame duck and his accomplishments are middling.

There is really no reliable way to calculate the long-term costs for solar and wind because production is dependent on international supply chains and international energy prices. Even fossil fuels can prove pricier than expected over time due to supply shocks (like what Germany experienced in 2022-today).

Often the transmission lines and opportunity cost of so much land usage isn’t included in the LCOE of renewable. You also can’t run certain important industries on unreliable energy sources like solar and wind. Even being initially long to build and pricey, nuclear is the best investment to ensure uninterrupted, invariable baseload power for a very long time.

The US builds plants rather idiosyncratically, instead of using a standardized cookie-cutter model, and the sector is overregulated. In Japan and China, nuclear plants take only a few months longer than gas-powered plants to be up and running. Just north of the US, Ontario province in Canada successfully commissioned 20 CANDU plants in 22 years. They have been on schedule with all their refurbishments too.

And let’s not forget that renewable need to be renewed. They rely on smooth international production and supply chains. Good luck getting cheap solar panels if the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait become a free fire zone.

If we want to talk about the real problem with nuclear energy, the key issue is nuclear weapon proliferation, which is enormously underplayed even in serious scholarship on civilian nuclear programs, but it’s not a pressing concern when it comes to nations who have nuclear weapons or operate under a nuclear umbrella.

I played launch version which had it. I didn’t unlock all perks this time around. There really isn’t a major diff between launch and current when it comes to the things discussed in my post except for the insane number of bugs removed.

Wow! NYT has an in-house mind-reader!

Yes, you can actually see the disappointing number of so-called liberals who make a mockery of the concepts of humanitarianism, anti-racism and the rule of law.

I agree with you about BoTW. I played the whole thing. It is actually overrated. Maybe I just needed to soace it out a bit since I played it a ton in college.

Wow! Now that I know the Biden administration implemented a new anti-redlining framework for banks that may come into effect in 2026 (provided Trump doesn’t scrap it) I realize that he wasn’t a lame duck! He was the most transformational orogressive president since FDR! LOL.

“We want to see the end of the (Israeli) investigation before we speak to that, which does not mean that it is an open-ended timeline,” State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said during a daily press briefing.

So they’re giving them an open-ended timeline.

Yes, I do agree that European diplomats are generally more intelligent than US diplomats. But when you say stuff like “he also mentions his stay in Afghanistan, confirming that war is a terrible thing” I start to wonder if you don’t work for him.

I think the “breath underwater” perk in a game with literally no missions where you need to touch water except one - where you have a divesuit anyways - is the best example of how shallow the game is.

Hahahaha that’s an opinion piece, not a piece of legislation make your own arguments for yourself. Tax breaks for green energy! Wow! Something that even fucking broke third world nations have in place! Bravo!

It’s a little telling that you have yet to refer to a specific one that you find to be earthshatteringly awesome.

So what makes him special lol? Everyone and their grandmother is giving Russia “sharp retorts”. Sikorski and his wife are both idiots.

Did Sikorski pay for this article himself? LOL. Almost all the criticism is about his wife. They even neglect to mention the time he created a minor diplomatic kerfuffle by joking that Obama’s grandfather must have been a cannibal.

Good news: Man standing in direct path of avalanche puts on snow shoes

What they actually said is not that VPNs are banned, but using them to access blocked content is. First they mention porn, which is straightforward religiously, but then they also state that accessing blocked “disinformation” is also haram, which is gibberish and has no basis in either religious or secular morals.

The IRA was a bipartisan effort

Had Trump been president a similar bill would have been pushed through due to a post-COVID consensus and a concern over falling behind China. Everything else were accomolishments around the margins outweighed by serious damage to public trust, international stability and affordability.

Biden’s abysmal approval ratings are not a failing of Americans to give him proper credit. That’s the same argument Reoublicans made during the boom economy of 2017-2019.

Oh yeah, definitely, it’s all just Republican propaganda that both of the two parties in a two party system are co-responsible for national and international policy disasters. For sure. Biden definitely wasn’t a lame duck president who decided not even to fight for major proposals he promised and instead squandered political capital to defend Bibi and kill babies. Yup.

In some ways migrant successes and not failures are bigger fuel for nativist paranoia. Decline of living standards for locals, malaise, substance abuse, opiod crisis etc. are all policy failures, and nativists are terrified that instead of fixing those issues so they can live well in their own nation, the government is happy to let foreigners with more drive and less baggage move in - after all, deindustrialized Ohio is infinitely better than Haiti currently is.

Of course the racial superiority and bigotry play a huge role (in my view the primary role) and economic precarity is a very poor excuse for the insane racism they’ve subjected these migrants to. They aren’t responsible for the policies.