It’s insane that a country which suffered so much under a fascist dictatorship would want to return fascists to power.

F16’s won’t give Ukraine much of an advantage until sufficient numbers of pilots are a trained. There are two weapons that could immediately change the battlefield landscape. GLSDB’s and ATACM’s are long range precision bombs that would allow Ukraine to target Russian supply lines and ammunition stores far behind the front lines, including into Crimea. They both have backup inertial guidance systems in order to mitigate GPS jamming… which is a big problem for their current guided munitions.

My parents were British and they used to have two washing bowls. Pile the dirty dishes into one and fill with warm water and dish soap. Clean water in the second bowl for rinsing. After a while the second bowl builds up residual soap so it needs to be emptied and refilled. I figure I use the same amount of water rinsing under a running faucet. But the soak thing is a great tip - leaving dishes in water to soak makes cleaning them so much easier.

The Patriot Front is one of the groups that perpetuate the conspiracy theory about the secret Democratic cabal of child sex abusers. So the emphasis here is quite relevant. It’s like saying “anti-LGBTQ man arrested for soliciting gay sex” (something that also seems to happen with depressing frequency). If membership of a group is relevant to the alleged crime then or course it should be noted.

This isn’t Haiti … this is a US organization called Black Alliance for Peace. Apart from advocating against sending troops to Haiti they also want to abolish NATO and close all overseas military bases.

If it were a Bible or a Torah that was burned we wouldn’t be having this conversation now because it wouldn’t have even made the news. There is only one major religion that reacts violently to incidents like this. I think that’s the point OP was making and it’s a valid one.

Turkey won’t allow military ships to pass the Bosporus in any direction while there’s a war on. This prevents Russia from reinforcing their Black Sea fleet but also prevents Western navies from entering.

The cruise line is concerned about upsetting their passengers, that is all.

Those are countries that care about free speech. They would also allow burning the bible or the Torah … it’s not just the Koran. The inference in the headline is flawed.

It ends with Russia losing. As long as NATO makes it explicitly clear they will not attack Russian territory nor violate Russian sovereignty Russia has no basis to escalate beyond Ukraine. A nuclear war between Russia and NATO would result in the total destruction of Russia (and everything else of course). Russia wouldn’t start one unless they felt their existence was threatened.

In Israel the right-wing government is currently using the same argument to try to muzzle the supreme court so it can push through legislation. It’s always a bad idea. Anytime we Democrats remove these mechanisms it always comes back to bite us. In 2013 Harry Reid led a vote to reduce the Senate supermajority requirement for bench appointments from 60 votes to a simple majority. The direct result of that was the Republicans removing the supermajority requirement for the Supreme Court which culminated in the mess we have today.

The founding fathers built in these safeguards to force us to seek compromises. The alternative is rule by the extremes which is what we see today.

Apart from a front end language like Python it’s always good to know basic SQL. A lot of engineering software uses some sort of relational database and it’s handy to be able to query the data source directly. If you’re going to be doing any kind of data analysis then look at R also.

“Vested interests create “checks and balances” primarily to make political systems non-responsive to demands for social reform.”.

It is thanks to checks and balances that we don’t currently have a dictator Trump running this country. Anyone who thinks checks and balances are a bad idea need only take a cursory glance at the world over the past few years to realize we would be far worse off without them. From Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Boris Johnson in the UK, would be autocrats were thwarted in their quest to remain in office by these same checks and balances.

The big advantage of these weapons for Ukraine is that they can be fired directly from the western -suupplied Howitzers and HIMARS they already have without needing modification. Ukraine’s problem is that they are running out of shells. Cluster munitions go further since they are area weapons.

No matter which side you are in the statement “The Taliban’s successful opium ban is bad for Afghans and the world.” is objectively true. The shortfall in opioid production will easily be made up from other sources, likely adulterated with synthetics that cause more harm. As for the Afghan farmers who grew the stuff they’ve not been given another alternative…they just had their crops destroyed and have no other sources of income.

Russia has used cluster munitions from the start of the war and Russia is the invader. Ukraine should be allowed to do the same in this case.

Your Democratic vote is the only thing preventing this country becoming a theocracy. We had one term of Trump and look at the damage he caused. Imagine what a second term would look like.

Both Russia and Ukraine have been using Soviet-era cluster munitions since early in the war. The US made versions have a lower failure rate so it’s preferable that Ukraine use those instead.

Ukraine (and Russia) have been using Soviet-era cluster munitions since the start of the war. The US versions are more reliable (fewer unexploded bomblets) which should make things better not worse for civilian populations.

So if corporate greed is responsible for things like high oil prices what happened on April 20, 2020 when oil prices touched 0.01 per barrel? Do you think the oil companies were suddenly overcome with a spirit of charity?

It’s true there may be some profiteering during times of economic instability but those are exceptions and they certainly don’t account for the high profits experienced after the pandemic…those were a result of supply chain bottlenecks and a release of pent up demand. Corporate profits are now trending back down, at least in the US. Do you think the companies there have suddenly become less greedy?