Zoraptor

Koreans, Tibetans (and Vietnamese for that matter) sure, but the mongols and turkics gave at least as good as they got, historically. Three out of five of the last dynasties of the 'Chinese' Empire were turkic or mongol, and the mongol invasion killed more people than WW1 (maybe WW2 or the Taiping/ Heavenly Kingdom rebellion too) at a time when the world's population was much lower. Not going to get any argument from me over them trying their luck with their neighbours now though, only observation I'd make is how monumentally stupid and counterproductive antagonising all your neighbours simultaneously is and how antagonising India specifically lead to far more damage than the possible benefit gained. Same with the wolf warrior diplomacy, plays well at home and seems effective there where the rhetorical playing field is so very slanted as you can just throw anyone disagreeing in jail, and it makes you feel strong. But it makes everyone else think you're a bit of a knob, at best. I thought you weren't going to talk modern politics? (If it is then so is the WB/ IMF. At least the B&R stuff goes into actual concrete projects; for most of their existence the IMF/ WB gave money to despots that they 100% knew would be simply stolen, to create a debt trap and prop up western friendly regimes via arms purchases etc)

I liked the original a fair bit, and while I had some issues with its 'morality' system it was a step up over This War of Mine in that respect.

Erdogan definitely tries to play the US and Russia against each other. He's not going to do any of the stuff that would really cut Turkey loose like quit NATO though, and the US has no desire to try and force them out when all they really have to do is wait for Erdogan's mistakes to catch up with him (and at the moment there's only ~5% between Erdo's AKP and the CHP in opinion polls). Same with Poland, whatever the issues are they'd prefer to wait them out if at all possible, and the issues aren't that serious compared to even just the S-400/ F-35 issue.

Poland is nowhere near the level where the US would cut them loose. Far too useful as a proxy in Europe and as a stalwart attack dog v Russia. (Compare with Turkey/ Erdogan, the US isn't anywhere near cutting them loose despite their shenanigans being a lot worse, for much the same reasons. Different leadership in either and the whole situation changes)

Eh, Ethiopia has a very strong sense of national identity. One of the few African countries that does. It just doesn't stop the different ethnics from fighting each other. That's especially true when the rebels are getting a lot of help from outsiders hoping they'll blow up the Grand Renaissance Dam. China had the largest economy nearly continuously from the 15th to the late 19th century, that's a fact. Largest GDP/c... probably not, but it would have been up there, and for the time period it's a... limited way to measure things*. Many of the apparent challengers actually had ludicrously small Gross DOMESTIC Products because they were colonial powers whose money was made overseas, indeed the lack of Gross DOMESTIC Product was precisely what sent Spain bankrupt a dozen times despite having massive amounts of New World gold flowing into the country. *Consider the British Empire. Exploited its colonies, starved 100 million Indians, and- if you include all its colonials- its GDP/c was pretty low. Wouldn't call the BE poor by any measure except that though. Or the Roman Empire. The economic conditions of the vast majority there were pretty awful, and it ran on literal literal slave labour. It was also incredibly rich in absolute terms.

Governor Deathantis, surely. It's even a homophone. If you've got a lisp.

Pretty much nothing new there even if they have got a tablet. Not like anyone's mercenaries are renowned for their adherence to the rules of war, that and the deniability factor are precisely why they are used instead of regular forces. You can also tell a lot by what has been left out. ie, no mention of Pantsirs. Because they were absolutely 100% documented as having come from a UAE purchase and supplied to Haftar along with Wagner operators. Of course, the UAE is a strong British ally, so the fact that it was them rather than Russia supplying and paying for Wagner in Libya is just a bit too inconvenient to bother mentioning.

Taliban add 2 (3) new provincial capitals to its recent captures. The most recent and significant capture- Faizabad- isn't mentioned in that article; it was absolute core Northern Alliance territory previous and never came within 100+ km of being captured in the war of 1996-2001. Mazar-e-Sharif is also under siege, if that falls all the previous long term NA territory is gone. That leaves the Pakistan border as the one least (overtly) controlled by the Taliban. You would have thought the US would have had a plan to get the Uzbeks/ Tajiks to prop up their minorities via the NA as the Russians had last time, the only conclusion to be drawn is that this time that isn't what the Russians (or Chinese) want and the Uzjiks have made the calculation that US influence is gone permanently and unlike the Russians they can be ignored. The US envoy is now desperately trying to get the Taliban to hold off capturing the whole country until after the US formally withdraws, hard to see them lasting that long though with every supply line either cut or under threat.

Ten is far too many. The 5 (?) top tier leagues in Europe- Germany, Italy, France, England, Spain- are clearly miles better, but the secondary level not so much since they tend to have super clubs that massively skew perspective. The MLS sides might struggle to beat Celtic/ Rangers for example, or Ajax/ PSV, or Benfica/ Porto- but then so do the other teams already in those domestic leagues. (to be honest, the whole european model is kind of broken in that respect and the US one typically results in a far 'flatter' comp, and I say that as someone who dislikes franchise type set ups on principle. The average MLS team would probably perform fine against the average tier 2 Euro domestic team though, the only one I'm sure is better is the Dutch one though that's based on a couple of years ago when we had both MLS and a bunch of little e european leagues on free to air)

Yeah I know, I just can't resist taking comparisons to their logical conclusion. And unfortunately the logical conclusion from a comparison between covid vaccines and the world's anti doping approach is that you can justify testing and disclosure (etc) using that example, but, you'd also end up allowing a bunch of exceptions to the practical results/ effects of that testing and disclosure based on the same comparison. Why indeed. I'm not entirely sure if I were appointed God that I wouldn't make vaccines compulsory, but then I could just vaccinate everyone with a wave of my finger. From a practical political standpoint it almost certainly isn't worth the effort it would take to enforce in the vast majority of situations because vaccine uptake is already high enough.

Yep, hence things like the 'original' Toyota War, AKA the Chad Chad vs the Virgin Libya.

I can't see anti doping as being a great parallel for making vaccines compulsory- since there are so many exceptions to the anti doping rules granted. More than a third of elite cyclists have through dedication and hard work overcome the horrendous handicap of asthma, purely coincidentally, by having to be allowed to take performance enhancing salbutamol. The obvious comparison is that if you have 33% of cyclists allowed to use salbutamol due to exceptions you end up with... 33% of people allowed not to vaccinate due to exceptions. Which is actually worse than in many countries. (Personally, I'd sack every last border worker here that refuses a vaccine. It's their choice but it's also their consequence; and they don't have the right to potentially kill several thousand of their fellow citizens)

The 'funny' thing about the ISIS blitzkrieg were the Toyotas (well, Ford in the most famous case) that were advertising random plumbers and the like because they never got the sign writing removed when the CIA shipped them off to help the 'moderate opposition' in Syria- though not quite as funny as the US government having the balls to ask Toyota how ISIS were getting them when Timber Sycamore existed.

Taliban have taken 5 Afghan provincial capitals since Friday. Somewhat to be expected, especially if they were in the south, but two were ~heartland Northern Alliance holdings in Kunduz and Taloqan (albeit Kunduz had been briefly taken before).

The bad ref/ judging issue has got a lot better since Seoul with its ludicrous boxing tournament. That was too much even for Samaranch era IOC. Glorious New Zealand 12 13th on the medal table (thanks Brazil, now we'll get three years of bad luck). Or 4th on the proper, per capita, measurement (and as some wag put it, the rest of the top of that table is the start of a Beach Boys song). For the next three years I will be able to live vicariously on the achievements of others, which is certainly the most low effort way to live. Funniest result has to be Non Official Russia outperforming Official Russia's last 4 Olympics. Guess the moral of the story is to get caught BALCOing more often.

That isn't going to be changed. The Russians push it because of multiple reasons including their olympic 'ban', but also for more...objectively reasonable ones too such as Sharapova getting banned for taking a prescribed medicine in meldonium that has no confirmed performance benefit- while medical exemptions were and are handed out continually for others. Indeed, not only have a disproportionate number of (western) elite athletes overcome ADHD to achieve greatness, coincidentally requiring that they take ritalin, but many have also overcome asthma, coincidentally requiring that they take an otherwise banned drug (salbutamol) to open their airways and improve their breathing.

The protests tell you who really has the support. Anti lockdown protests may not have the best turn out, but pro lockdown protests never have anyone turn up to them.

Probably more likely to not get paid because their commander has pocketed their wages. That was the situation in Iraq when their army collapsed at Mosul for example, most of the nominal troops had literally deserted and a whole division existed only on paper as a way for its commander to embezzle funds. There are also a couple of major differences between the ~2000 situation and 2021 in Afghanistan which are having a big impact in how things are playing out. Prior to the western intervention while there may have been a lot of anti Taliban lip service in the west their role as clients of pro western interests (Pakistan, Saudi) and perhaps even more importantly an anti Russian/ Iranian bulwark meant there was no practical support for anti Taliban forces from the west, but plenty from Russia/ Iran and the neighbouring 'stans. Hence the Northern Alliance's main strength and holdings were in the north, along the border with Tajikistan, and there was an open insurgency against the Talibs in the west and around Herat supported by Iran. The Taliban now are getting support from their traditional Pakistani backers for traditional Pakistani reasons (and, let's be frank, as geopolitical utu for the US intervention taking out their pet project) and their traditional enemies in Russia and Iran because the Afghan government is a western puppet. Hence you have areas that were held continuously by the NA (or up to just before Sept 2001) around Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz, Faisabad already taken and only the cities barely holding out, for the moment. There's also been somewhat of a shift away from ethnicity- the Northern Alliance was largely Tajik (vs mostly Pashtu Taliban) and held the NE of the country pretty solidly on that basis, but as above almost all the territory it held is now held by the Taliban, excepting the cities. At the moment the division seems to be almost completely along rural/ urban (conservative/ less conservative) lines instead, with cities being pretty strongly pro government and rural areas almost completely pro Talib.

Might upset an agenda based narrative, but the best that was expected of her here was maybe a bronze. She was well behind at least two other lifters in terms of form and PB. And as I mentioned elsewhere, there was never any question of her transitioning just to get an advantage which is the usual knee jerk accusation. I do hope the olympics now do a proper review of their guidelines instead of ad hocing everything. Compare the situations of Hubbard and Semenya and it makes the organisation look extraordinarily stupid.

In what can only be called an utterly surprising move* Pfizer and Moderna have jacked up their vaccine prices by $5 a shot in their latest EU contract. Good to see the benefits of mass production and competition resulting in lower prices, as always. That increase alone is more than the total cost of an AZ dose. Still the $40bn+ windfall for Pfizer and Moderna from the EU alone will do wonders for their share price. Oh, and Sky News Australia has got themselves a week ban from Youtube due to covid misinformation. A Murdoch media outlet spreading misinformation, big pharma jacking up prices in a crisis and politicians helping big pharma jack up prices by nobbling the opposition and passing the cost onto their citizens; not exactly the most unpredictable news ever. *also really surprising is that Pfizer claims that 2 doses and both sufficient for long term protection and that an additional booster is required, depending entirely on whether they're talking to potential or existing customers.

Definitely time for the dead wood to be cut. All the Russian modules should be removed and then we'll see whose bits of the ISS last longest.

We know how effective they are since there have been independent studies of them (eg Chile). They're the least effective class but the best vaccine during a pandemic is the one that's available, and reducing hospital admissions by 85% is more than worthwhile. They're also an order of magnitude cheaper than the mRNA vaccines. Should also be said that 'effectiveness' depends a lot on metrics. The reason the advice on masks has changed again in the US is because the gold standards likely aren't stopping enough vaccinated people becoming infectious, so from that perspective they aren't effective either.

I've done a related subject to Masters level and done some epidemiology and modelling, but I'm not a virologist. The general rule is that pathogens get less deadly but more infectious as time goes on. It's very much a general rule though. I'd be reticent about making any predictions about how long or if this coronavirus will go into the background like the common cold coronaviruses- and it also has to be pointed out that despite the general rule it appears that delta is both more infectious and is worse/ deadlier.

At this point for some reason I feel compelled to mention the AIM-54 Phoenix.

Australia, rock bottom amongst OECD countries? Bloody Ockers, always trying to steal New Zealand's thunder. We may be slightly ahead in terms of full vaccinations doses thanks to going all Pfizer, but Aus is ahead in total doses/ capita. Kind of sad seeing Sydney's troubles, even if Gladys is so extremely unlikeable that you kind of want something mildly unpleasant to happen to her on principle. Must be wishing they'd locked down when the limo driver got infected despite the embarrassment that would have had, same as Fiji must wish they'd done it despite it potentially causing them problems. I've said it before, but I do have some sympathy for Scovid over the vaccine situation. No way to predict that the hatchet job on Astra Zeneca would be so effective, and the low vaccination rate can also be blamed on ATAGI contributing to the AZ FUD- which looks potentially very short sighted now, and they're meant to be actual experts rather than politicians. Them basing all their thinking on Australia always being covid free was naive. Our back up plan is the 4 million J&J doses we have, and we specifically haven't had our advisory board telling people those should only be given to over 60s for the last 8 months unlike ATAGI.