Zoraptor

Apartheid era South Africa did have nukes*, whatever NATO said. And for that at least it seems that the US/ west genuinely made an effort to stop them no matter how tepid the other anti apartheid measures were. *Most probably obtained in whole or part from a similarly minded apartheid state.

Three grocery companies have 90% market share? Absolutely jealous. And don't get me started on the number of NZ products- like cow juice, sold via a monopoly because obviously that's the best way to get competition per the free marketers in the government- that manage to toodle literally half way around the world to be sold cheaper than here. Two supermarket companies have 95% market share here. It's- apparently- an absolute mystery to NZ's politicians why there is not competition between those two and they make $1 million per day in excess profits. They talk a lot about breaking up the duopoly, but never do anything. They've quite literally talked about it and given their buddies high paid consulting jobs on panels for twenty years when the solution is trivial- demerge. And debundle distribution while you're at it. That latter because, aside from the monopoly cow juice supply, NZ supermarkets absolutely fleece suppliers as well as consumers, because your options are sell to them at the price they dictate- or watch your crops rot for nothing.

Ukraine could build deliverable dirty bombs in, basically, minutes given they do have nuclear reactors and long range drones, rockets, missiles etc. For all but the delivery system Fiji could build one in weeks as well. There's a lot of radioactive material around if you're a state player even without a reactor, eg in health care; even smoke alarms have some. They wouldn't be effective battlefield weapons of course, but that isn't their purpose. Their purpose is to terrorise civilians populations. For that you don't even really need them to be dangerous in reality, you just need them to be dangerous in perception; and the word radiation provides the heavy lifting for the perception of danger. Ukraine doesn't use/ build them because it would alienate everyone except the staunchest NAFOids. Indeed, 90% of the discourse about them has been about them being used as false flags by Russia or Ukraine for that very reason.

The country looks like an economic miracle, and to a large extent that is what is important*. Mostly because economics is a spectacularly non rigorous field of study/ expertise with more similarities to religion than science. Same reason house price inflation was massively encouraged here- it made the economics look good though it was utterly unproductive and a very real drain on the practical economy because it sucked up all the investment. Worse, the houses were made from over priced materials and didn't fill the actual need (ie were built to appeal to appeal specifically to 'investors'). Why start a business when you could buy a house at 5-10% return y/y + rental with the knowledge that the government would prop you up? When house prices started to stabilise because no one could afford them the government started importing massive numbers of people to create artificial demand to keep the bubble inflated. Because economists mostly look at GDP nominal the fact that GDP per capita was actually dropping got ignored and then people wondered why everyone felt poor. Also why politicians and economists try and tell us that $10 butter in a country which makes 20x the amount of butter it needs is great, and everyone should be happy about it- it makes the country look like it's doing well economically. It'd be true if we had 1-2 million people and a quarter of them were involved in selling unimproved cow juice products like in the 50s and 60s, but we don't. Doesn't do much to dispel the old saying that there's one type of person who believes in infinite expansion in a closed system: economists, politicians and idiots. *eg you can borrow a lot more money at better rates because typically lenders look at GDP nominal as to whether you can pay the money back. Much like religion a great deal of economics is getting people to believe in stuff.

Reminder: the only GDP that really matters is the Purchase Price Parity variety. And really, GDP (PPP) per capita since that tells you how well the people it's relevant to are actually doing- or at least, is the best general and handy measurement of it there is. China is 78th, there. GDP (nominal) is an awful measurement and it's use is responsible for a lot of extremely bad economic management.

There has been a certain amount of revisionism about Ukraine 'giving up her nukes'. It- and the offer to Belarus and Khazakstan too- was not really an offer. One way or another they were not going to have them. And that was policy not just of Russia but of everyone else too. People tend to forget the very real fears about nukes disappearing post soviet break up because it didn't end up happening, and one of the main reasons it didn't was them being consolidated.

That always seemed to be a bit of a deliberate? misinterpretation of the NATO/ Article 5 like statement from Witkoff, given Trump said categorically there would be no NATO membership. A guarantee from the 'coalition of the willing' plus the US would effectively be NATO, plus Japan/ NZ/ AUS/ Palau/ FSM/ Nauru/ El Salvador/ Argentina/ and maybe ROK. And that would not seem likely to be a starter in any way shape or form for the Russians.

It's all Elon's fault, one of his cost cutting measures via DOGE was getting rid of all and any secure portable printers. Mind you, the subscription to HP was doubling the budget deficit. Heh. Five times more than that ingrate Volodomyr. via the transcript: "I would like to thank once again my American counterpart, for the proposal to travel out here to Alaska." "We're thankful to the citizens and the government of the U.S. for carefully taking care of their memory." "I would like to thank President Trump for our joint work, for the well wishing and trustworthy tone of our conversation." "Thank you. Thank you."

Putin is unlikely to actually give much. The winning side's usual concession is not taking all that they could if they kept on fighting rather than handing stuff back. The fairly small bits of Sumy and Kharkov oblasts are about all that can be reasonably expected and those only in exchange for something else.

It isn't intuitive to cancel standalone Prime Video either if you don't have a home Amazon. Has a separate prime video website, but you can't cancel from there and have to cancel via an Amazon mothership, using a profile category you'd never use otherwise due to not having a home Amazon and mainline Prime not being available. Also, it's completely unintuitive to get Amazon to change where it thinks you are if it's got it wrong.

You simply cannot get Prime in some places like, well, New Zealand since we don't have our own Amazon subentity. Which is kind of funny because they always, always offer me a free month of it every time I buy something and thought I lived in Australia (which has amazon.com.au) when it came to apps for their streaming dongle. NZ billing address seems to be enough to stop you getting it. You can however get Prime Video here. Presume it's the same in other places that don't have a 'home' Amazon site. Though whether it's the same as standalone Prime Video if mainline Prime is available I don't know. Contrary to the Euros' experience it didn't have much rental/ pay to watch stuff at all that I could see, though that was a year ago now.

Presumably, any 'security guarantees' now would be more robust than the 'security assurances' given then. But, one of the main reasons there's unlikely to be an agreement is because a truce/ peace interlude will massively favour Ukraine. Their current replacements in pretty much every category are below required/ desired level. That's thirty days of stockpiling artillery rounds, drones, patriot/ irisT etc interceptors and thirty days of digging and improving defences; plus thirty days of training for new recruits and thirty days of getting those new recruits. Hence Ukraine's insistence on an unconditional ceasefire. If their artillery supplies are, say, 50% what they want then a 30 day pause gives them 15 full days supply, and they can get it to the front without fear of interdiction. Budapest memorandum was flagrantly violated by everyone. Can't really say that the US and UK isn't interfering in Belarus' internal politics or using economic coercion on it, for example, and didn't do the same for Ukraine when it had leaders they didn't like. Though of course that's a special and unique case since it's us doing it of helping the Ukrainian/Belarussian people, and thus not an abrogation... For that matter Minsk I/II was violated by both parties as well.

Not sure there's that much cause for genuine optimism. It's more that, well, both sides want to sound more optimistic and more conciliatory for Trump so he doesn't throw a tantrum. There's more chance of a deal now than there was when Zelensky was insisting on unrealistic scenarios like Russia evacuating Ukraine wholesale or going back to status quo ante 2022 as he was until recently, and shows some acceptance of the situation on the ground and geopolitically with Trump, but the list of differences between the sides is still an extremely long one with multiple issues that seem insurmountable. The best that seems likely, and it isn't very likely IMO, is one of those patented Trump hand waving 'victory' agreements where there's basically no detail at all and the whole thing is aspirational. (Since Trump mentioned it, one example would be territory swaps. What territory is Ukraine going to swap? Even their most optimistic mapping supporters have them holding a few tens of square km of Russian territory. Hard to see Z getting much for that. Politically it's doubtful he can even if he were personally willing to; ordering troops to up stick and leave without a fight is... difficult at the best of times, let alone when you've got a hard core of capital N Nationalists to deal with. Similarly, is Russia going to give up, say, their territory in Zaporizhie oblast for territory in Donetsk they could take anyway? Is Russia going to accept a ceasefire during which the west can rearm Ukraine? Seems unlikely, given the result of that happening during Minsk II. And there's plenty more.)

Modi to visit China for first time in 7 years. The man responsible surely deserves a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize.

That is a rather different concept to what RFK was talking about though. Well, probably, he doesn't seem to have much in the way of grasp on one or all of semantics/ reality/ science, and practicality, so who knows what he really means. The concept of having vaccines target something fundamental in virus families to reduce the effect of mutation and target the whole family (eg orthomyxoviridae/ flu) at once is far from new, certainly. But he's talking about a 'universal' vaccine apparently as an actual universal vaccine, not just for a family. Flu virus and coronavirus are not closely related at all- at viral Kingdom level- despite both being ssRNA viruses. The corollary would be something like wanting a universal solution for piranha and lions because they both eat people; and share many other similarities that surely can be targeted, like a spine and haemoglobin? There has been a lot of work on targeting reverse transcriptase which is the enzyme that turns viral RNA into DNA and could, very theoretically, target any RNA virus. But even that wouldn't be universal since there are DNA viruses too. Overall, more practical than horse dewormer or injecting bleach, but not that much so.

There is no international obligation to aid in ethnic cleansing though. Everyone knows that if Palestinians go anywhere outside of Palestine they'll never be allowed back and will be there permanently- we've got nearly 80 years of history demonstrating that fact. Doesn't matter anyway, it's an existential matter for Sisi and no matter what is offered or what his theoretical obligations might have been he cannot accept it. It's hard enough keeping the lid on sympathy for the Palestinians without being seen to obviously and actively aid the policies of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich against his own country's interests. He'd get Sadat'ed by someone in the military, and be extremely lucky if that was all he got since a lot of his population would happily Gaddafi him instead. Yeah, no credible way to spin it, instead of no way at all. Of course there's been no credible way to spin a lot of stuff that Israel has done but that hasn't stopped their rubbish being reported without pointing out that it's rubbish, until now.

Kind of weird watching a news report from our state broadcaster yesterday where they didn't use 'according to the Hamas run health ministry' but did mention western media being banned from Gaza by Israel. It had been nearly two years of steadfastly refusing to acknowledge exactly why there was never any corroboration of anything from western journalists on the ground so they had to- had to- both sides everything no matter how obvious the truth was. Guess they realised there was simply no way to spin emaciated children and flattened cities as being precise and humanitarian action by the only democracy in the ME any more.

Yezhov_disappears.gif Not sure there's anything geopolitically funnier than the current US v India stoush. All that work at bromancing Modi and all those poor photons and elctrons working overtime about how Russia was losing India and it's back to 1971 because Trump has the mentality of a 7 year old*. If it's hard work isolating China without Russia it's absolutely impossible without India as well, let alone if you manage to drive an actual rapprochement. It's also the fundamental problem with buddying up to strongman populists- they know their popularity relies on Nationalism and appearing strong, so they cannot be seen to back down from public threats. Doubly so when it's a country that has been a colony within (just) living memory. It's not even like there's a major pro US party other than the BJP in India. *It'd be interesting to know if the views of those in the EU who thought they rolled over for Trump on the tariffs would change if that was the cost for imposing secondary sanctions on those trading with Russia**. Because that would be an alternative reading besides Trump hating BRICS and not being given his tendies diet coke and well done steak on a silver platter with sufficient subservience. **Excepting, of course, the EU's trade with Russia. It really is a mystery why the rest of the world think the west are a bunch of hypocrites.

Probably worried Canada will burn down the White House again. Though on reflection that seems unlikely. Given Trump thought the US Revolution involved airfields his knowledge of history is suspect. Maybe he watched some South Park to see what all the fuss is aboot?

There is some theoretical value in getting 14-1 votes in the Security Council instead of 10-1 and 160-10 votes in the UNGA instead of 135-10 at least, if only for the optics of it all. But yes the sort of people in power in Israel- and to be blunt about it the sort of people Israelis elected, as the Only Democracy in the Middle East™ and have consistently elected pretty much this entire century- are not going to fundamentally change their minds unless forced to by more than mere optics. If they were that sort of person we wouldn't be in this situation. Until something actually happens it's all lip service anyway and the absolute barest of bare minimums* that they think they can get away with to placate the populace seeing starving children on their screens. If Israel stopped tomorrow it would all go away, when it really, really, shouldn't. Leaving Palestinians in the state they've been in for the past 70+ years is a sad indictment on pretty much everyone involved, but we all know the collective west would be perfectly happy to leave them that way so long as it isn't actively embarrassing. If they weren't that sort of people we also wouldn't be in this situation. *Similar to the ICC response really, they've done the barest of bare minimums to paper over accusations that they're western puppets and that's all. They haven't even updated to include new (eh, not that far away from his anniversary in the role) Defence Minister Katz yet let alone added anyone else, despite the very obvious evidence.

The union as in the EU itself? The EU as a whole has definite advantages for weaker members- developmental funding, large free trade bloc and the like- which make staying in it a positive trade off. Or, perhaps, a trade off that is seen as significantly safer/ less risky than the alternative. A proper single economy would have advantages for them too, similar to how somewhere like Alabama in the US is subsidised federally by California's stronger economy; it's the weird hybrid thing that doesn't really work well. The union as in the monetary union? Arguably, Greece would have been far better off leaving the Euro during its crisis. Instead of having its currency tied to Germany's and effectively having money pumped out they could have set their own exchange rates to improve competitiveness and inflated their debt away at the same time. With a floating independent currency and a weak economy you have a weak currency, and competitiveness improves since you'd get more drachma for the olive oil you sell to Germans and they'd get better value for their holidays so would be more likely to visit. But with a weak economy and a strong currency Middle Eastern or North African olive oil is cheaper, and it's cheaper to holiday in Turkey. It's extremely risky to leave though, and there would be a lot of the more, hmm, strident Europhiles who'd want anyone leaving the Euro out of the EU as well. That's a particular risk for a single, relatively small country like Greece though, not so much if it was the whole PIGS+ since Italy and Spain are too big to kick out. It's certainly a bad thing if your economy is weak though. Ultimately the problem is the same as it's been since its inception: the Euro is weaker than it 'should' be for its strong economies, which improves their competitiveness and stronger than it should be for the weaker ones, decreasing their competitiveness. That's a classic viscous* circle for the weak and not really a virtuous one for the strong since the benefit for them lasts only until the time the weaker ones start pulling them down. *sigh. I knew one of these days I'd actually write it

The Euro is a massive net disadvantage for its smaller/ weaker members because monetary policy of the Eurozone is run for the larger, stronger members. That's true of just about every EU policy. If it's a choice between benefiting Cyprus, Portugal, Malta, Finland, Slovenia; or Germany, then the decision is automatically made to favour Germany. Most of the PIIGS have never really recovered from the 2009+ financial crises- 16 years ago now- and Ireland only did by stealing tax revenue off everyone else. Current EU is an awful worst mish mash of federalism/ ad hoc integration and independent policies that is the worst of both worlds.

Yeah... there is one way it could work. Rebadge Russian hydrocarbons. Already being done extensively by Azerbaijan, India and Turkey at very least. You know Trump would love to be in on that rort considering how much cash it's making the Aliyev and Erdogan families. (OK, even that would struggle to get to 250bn p/a, but it would get a lot closer)

I suspect a lot of professional reviewers only watch the episodes they're given for advance screenings. If you do that you get a rather skewed view of quality*. There's also potentially the, hmm, Game of Thrones S8/ Bethesda effect of reviewers not really wanting to give something with a Reputation bad reviews. Many of the complaints about nuTrek by their nature require extended watching- or at least, multiple episodes to be watched- to come to the fore. Things like the massive plot holes, inconsistent plotting, logic gaps etc are often only evident when you can compare them with what happened previous/ after. Fans, by their nature, tend to both watch the whole series and notice their issues because they spend more than a few seconds thinking about it. Some will forgive anything of the subject of their fandom, some start a Cato Censoriusesque [programname] delendam esse campaign. *imagine watching the TNG episode about warp destroying the fabric of the universe, but in isolation and with little to no background on the series. With that proviso it's not such a bad episode because you wouldn't know half the stuff that makes it bad. In context though, it's awful. That would, of course, also require you as showrunner/ publicist to think that Force of Nature was the best episode to show reviewers...

I was a bit unfair on Picard S1, up to a point I rather liked it. I think a lot of people wanted TNG S8 instead though. Once at the point I didn't like though... people say you can't retroactively ruin episodes you've already seen, but I reckon Picard S1 (and for that matter, Discovery S1) is a good argument you can.