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> That sounds better than no delay

That depends on what Iran does in the meantime, does it not? If Iran effectively turned their missile program into a true deterrent then negotiated delay is worse, because it would remove the ability to stunt the development through military means. Which is very much the argument being made for the “why now” of this war.


> I've never seen Iran care one bit about influencing or bothering any country outside of its sphere of influence.

There’s this weird attitude I see where people claim “realpolitik” to give other nations colonial rights to their neighbors while denying the same to America. If you buy into “spheres of influence” as a concept it’s time to accept that the US, as the world’s preeminent military and economic power, has a sphere of influence that spans the globe.


I enjoy Dubai, but it’s is part of a state where showing a stranger the middle finger is punishable with jail and deportation, nevermind an expat criticism the emirs. It’s pretty telling to consider that safe but to be afraid of showing your passport to CBP.


I'm not defending their regime or implying that they have more freedom than in the US, but from the purely practical perspective of a traveler, the fact is that it's much easier and less disruptive to avoid showing anyone the middle finger or criticize the local government during a short trip than to go through social network profiles, IM conversations, etc. to remove any memes or negative opinions about Trump or the US.

In short, the thing is that countries like UAE are predictable. Follow their laws and don't mess with them, and they won't mess with you. The US has become unpredictable, hence more dangerous.


All we gotta do is show passport to the CBP and that's it, we get in? All people avoiding travel to the USA are doing so because they have a bad photo in their passport? :)


Statistically, yes. Take a boogeyman from this thread - electronic device searches.

Less than 0.01% of travelers to the US have their electronics screened. A similarly small fraction of travelers get turned away at the border. It's remarkable how big of a story it is for how much of a non-story it is, especially when you consider the fact that similar laws exists in the UK, France, most of the Middle East, East Asia, and more. The only story here is that America is (regretfully) becoming more like the rest of the world.


Dubai is predictable evil. You know what to do to avoid trouble.

The Trump admin acts like it is on cocaine. Many people - and I think this can be a highly rational preference - prefer predictable more evil of chaotic less evil.


More accurately, Israel was going to attack Iran, and US intelligence stated that Iranian retaliation planning was to target US forces, along with most gulf nations and shipping lanes, so US preempted that retaliation.


If the retaliation was preempted they wouldn't have retaliated, but they have. What the US actually did was provide justification for the retaliation against US bases in the region by joining in the opening salvo.


> If the retaliation was preempted they wouldn't have retaliated, but they have

Most of the retaliation was preempted but they didn't get all the missile launch sites. They have blown up most by today though so you barely see any Iranian missiles coming out of the country now.

If they didn't do the opening salvo you would have seen much more death and destruction than we saw now.


> They have blown up most by today though so you barely see any Iranian missiles coming out of the country now.

That's not true at all, the only reason we don't see any footage is because Israel is censoring it. Here is CNN last night admitting that they're not allowed to show you the impacts:

https://x.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/2029173685563564407


That's quite a preemptive form of preemption! Was the US intelligence from the same source that stated that Iraq was acquiring "yellowcake" from Niger?


Preempting Israel seems like it would have been a much smarter strategy.


Maybe you haven't noticed but they have not preempted anything.


>We know, we had the Nazis.

Yes, I keep thinking about the bastion of free speech that gave birth to the Nazi movement. If only the Weimar Republic had anti-hate speech laws, perhaps the Shoah could have been avoided? Oops, turns out it did have those laws, and those very laws were subverted to suppress dissent.


I think tourer was arguing that the Nazis were a template for how to use speech restrictions to maintain power.


> While many other countries employ pay by QR code which is free.

In which countries is this service free? Alipay and Wechat are probably the biggest actors in this space both take a cut.


Child care.


that's not either

See the first row in this table: https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06075

Compare 2 adults (1 working) 3 kids to 2 adults (both working) 3 kids

First off, you'd expect it to be

     1 adult = X
     2 adults = X + X(0.?) 
Where 0.? is something less than 1 because 2 adults need less than 2x the money

Similarly for kids

     1 kids = Y
     2 kids = Y + Y(0.?)
     3 kids = Y + Y(0.?) + Y(0.?)
You'd expect 2 kids to be less than 2x 1 kid. And you'd expect 3 kids to be les than 1x + 2x 2nd kid. Each kid is cheaper for various reasons like hand-me-downs etc...

But instead, under 2 adults 1 working we see

     1 adult  = $29.31 (from one adult)
     2 adults = $41.83 (so X + X * 0.42)

     2 adults 1 kid  = 50.47
     2 adults 2 kids = 54.77 (so + $4.30)
     2 adults 3 kids = 63.97 (so + $9.19)
Why does the 3rd kid cost more than the 2nd?

Then you can also compare 1 adult 3 kids with 2 adults both working + 3 kids

     1 adult + 3 kids                 = $107.95
     2 adults (both working + 3 kids) = $55.67
Assuming that $55.67 is wages for each that means we're comparing

     1 adult + 3 kids                 = $107.95
     2 adults (both working + 3 kids) = $55.67x2 ($111.34)
We already established that above that adding one adult is only $12.52 a month yet here, suddenly that adult only costs $3.40 a month.

Again, these are nonsense numbers.


Is that the point? Seems to me that if US citizens abroad pay taxes, they should be entitled to US government protection from censorship.


> displacing any local population

Why displacing? Greenland is 3x the size of Texas and only 60k people, mostly concentrated around a single village.


Because there's absolutely no infrastructure where noone lives. For good reason

The mineral dream is a dream for a reason. Americans have tried. The Chinese have tried. The Danes have tried. None have made a profit, and none have kept up operations

But I'm sure the US will be able to do it this time. Afterall the US has someone with an acute sense of realism in absolute power


Nuuk is small but not really a village considering it contains thousands of people


My most recent Deutsche Bahn train was announced as being 3 hours late. I watched a few passengers leave the station to grab coffee nearby. The train arrived 10 minutes later, and left 5 minutes after that. The whole system seems broken.


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