kanisatha

I recently made this point to a news interview I did on this issue. The benefit to Iran of having nuclear weapons would be exactly the benefit Russia now has with its nukes with respect to their war in Ukraine. Look at what Russia is doing. It blatantly invaded a neighboring state with no provocation or justification, and has done truly outrageous things to that country. And yet Russia's position is that neither Ukraine nor any Ukrainian ally can retaliate for what Russia is doing to Ukraine by striking any targets in Russia. So, Russia can attack Ukraine. But Ukraine cannot retaliate by attacking Russia. Why? Why does this clearly obvious double-standard work? It is entirely because Russia has nukes, and can (and does) threaten nuclear escalation if their territory is attacked (known as "escalation dominance" in international security literature). This is the true, practical benefit of a state like Iran having nukes. Escalation dominance is awesome for a state to have. But it is in practical terms very difficult and very costly to achieve. Possessing nukes is a quick and dirty way to try and gain escalation dominance (though you would need to have a reasonably large arsenal of nukes AND a very reliable and survivable delivery option for your nukes). It may allow Iran to believe it can do whatever it wants to and in states all over the Middle East while threatening nuclear escalation if anyone dares to retaliate against Iranian territory. Iranian air defences have in recent years been considerably strengthened, ironically because of sanctions-relief following the JCPOA in 2015 and as predicted by critics of the JCPOA. But that doesn't matter. If the Israelis see Iran possessing nukes as an existential threat, they will strike no matter the cost to them (and yes, the cost to them will be tremendous, including post-strike Iranian retaliation and fallout with other states in the world). Also, Trump was no true friend of Israel. Like everyone else, Israel too was useful to him so long as he gained some personal political benefit from presenting himself as a champion of Israel. It is known that on at least one occasion as president he personally blocked a covert Israeli op against Iran. He is also known to have told Netanyahu he would not support an Israeli airstrike on Iran.

Iran now has all the technology and components it needs to put together a bomb. So it is only a matter of the political decision to do so followed by the mad rush to get the first bombs assembled and operational. It is my professional view, which aligns with many other nuclear proliferation experts, that the timeline for this would be about two months, give or take. The Israeli strike on Iran is coming once Israel has a stable new government in place (or sooner if circumstances require it). In its most recent test run of the strike, Israeli F-35s were refueled in-flight by US tankers. There cannot be a bigger green light from the US Administration than that. The only way this does not happen is if Iran agrees to a return to the JCPOA without getting any of their unreasonable extraneous demands being met by the US side. I don't see Biden caving on those Iranian demands. And I don't see the Iranians giving up on those demands. I also wouldn't count out a desperate Biden 'rally around the flag' attempt in October to save his party from a rout in November.

One of my favs.

I'm here. I usually read the forum at least once a day. But yeah, despite it being my summer break (or pehaps because of it) I've been swamped with things I have to take care of.

Health issues being the problem here are of course something I'm not aware of. And if that's the case that would truly suck. I can't imagine not being able to drink a beer ever again.

I want the US government to take the lead in designating the Donetsk and Luhansk "people's militias" and "governments" as terrorist groups. That would be a good start. But eventually we are going to have to address this issue of what is Russia's very clear and obvious new strategy in recent days of trying to terrorize the Ukrainian civilian population into surrender.

As some others have mentioned, can't the alternative be some other type of beer? I myself drink beer almost exclusively. But I don't care for IPAs at all. I prefer the darker varieties, on both the ale and lager sides, but the bottom line is that both ales and lagers have a pretty wide range of options.

Long list of snipets of news stories about and from Ukraine from the past three days. Some really interesting tidbits if you have the patience to read through: https://money.yahoo.com/ukraine-news-live-fifteen-killed-034643280.html

Hehe. All I'll say is this: Based on the Drake Equation and the number of Goldilocks exoplanets we've already been able to identify, the statistical odds that we would be alone in the universe are ridiculously improbably low. But given the vastness of the universe, there's a huge difference between intelligent alien life existing out there versus intelligent alien life visiting earth. Beyond this I'd be willing to go only after I retire in about five years from now or space aliens reveal themselves to us, whichever comes first.

"Aurora" goes all the way back to the early 1990s. The rage right now is the Skunkworks' so-called SR-72, complete with pulse-detonation ramjet technology.

What about all those discs and triangles and orbs so many people keep insisting they've seen in the sky ever since 1947? They all seem to be working just fine, right? So let's see how they do against the Ruskies and the Chicoms! Personally though, as a former aerospace engineer, I really want to see the Mach 5 replacement for the SR-71 in action. Is that so much to ask for?

Hehe. Nice to see I'm not the only madman around here who can't wait to see exactly these kinds of things in action. As a scholar of great power rivalry and war, it sucks that I only get to read about it while not supposed to ever want to see it happening with my own eyes (because of that pesky 'casualties' thing).

Well, okay, perhaps Venezuela has other factors at play, but then we can also point to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Nigeria, etc. as examples of petrostates that are decidedly *not* paradices.

Sanctions are the 'go-to' option for Western liberal democracies who's leaders want to be able to tell their voters they're "doing something" in the face of some despot's nasty actions even while not having to choose the option of war/military action to counter said despot. There are warehouses full of data showing that sanctions rarely ever have the desired effect (apartheid South Africa being the one notable exception). But they are loved by democratic leaders as an ideal "middle option" between war and doing nothing. At some point very soon both Western political elites as well as Western publics are going to learn that they cannot continue to have their cake (comfortable, worry-free, problems-free indolent lives in an advanced society) and eat it (standing for their cherished liberal principles and values) too. At some point very soon there is going to be a very hard reckoning that sometimes you have to be ready and willing to fight a war and suffer its sacrifices.

Excellent point. If oil and gas sales were all it took to have a great economy, Venezuela would be a paradise.

Just returned to playing Solasta after a few months' break. The updates and the new DLC have certainly improved some things here and there. But I'm increasingly frustrated that Solasta is ultimately only a D&D 5e simulator and dungeon crawler. There is precious little to story, character development, and meaningful quests.

Hehe. Thanks. It's just the culture on that forum. The mods there effectively are all close friends of each other who think they own the forum, which may be true as Beamdog has zero oversight of them in any way. So the mods make up rules as they go, and enforce rules entirely subjectively based on if you're their buddy or not, with the most basic rule (literally; this is what they openly say) being no one can ever challenge or question what a mod says, and doing so is a bannable offence. And criticizing BG3, loved by all their mods, became a cardinal sin on the forum. I refused to be cowed and kept on with my criticizing, which I did with quite civil and polite language, even after I knew a few other fellow BG3 critics had been booted off the forum. So eventually, after "warning" me a couple of times, they banned me. But of course they couldn't say they were banning me for being a BG3 critic, so instead they banned me for saying, in a thread where someone else had posted something about many people in America being whiney and entitled, to which I responded, "Yeah, I too feel that Americans have collectively lost their minds in recent years." A mod told me this was "hate speech" aimed at a group of people and so I was banned. Go figure.

I'm surprised anyone still goes to that forum. Their forum moderators blacklisted me and then eventually created an excuse to ban me for being a constant critic of BG3 (as they did to several other BG3 critics). As such I no longer have any interest in anything Beamdog.

Too bad they're not full seasons, but I'm really happy to get even a few more episodes.

It's just so utterly despicable when people are so cavalier about other people's land and lives just so they can get back to their own decadent and carefree lives. And in this case even more deplorable as they're trying to portray themselves as supporting "peace."

You can Google Steam sales and their dates. I believe they have three big ones, summer, autumn, and winter, and then a bunch of smaller ones thoughout te year (and not counting publisher specials).

We can all now breath a huge sigh of relief because France is finally fully onboard a common Western stance. Welcome to sanity, Manny!! https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russian-missile-strike-hits-crowded-shopping-mall-in-ukraine/2022/06/28/3141e28e-f6aa-11ec-81db-ac07a394a86b_story.html

The US govt has said they did not give any concessions or rewards to Turkey. I hope so, because I definitely do not want Turkey's return to the F-35 program as I do not trust them one bit.

Steam's summer sale has been sadly lame for me this year. I've only picked up the Solasta DLC. I was thinking of grabbing Old World and Expeditions: Rome, but then decided I'd wait until all their future DLCs have dropped and I can get a good package deal. Unfortunately, about half the games on my Steam wishlist are Early Access, and I just can't bring myself to buy an EA game.

This is just plain silly. Clearly you don't have a good idea of the kinds of things that have happened and are even now happening in the world. All the US has done is some drone strikes which wouldn't even register on any scale of crimes or atrocities. And on the other hand, by the reckoning of many African country governments and African humanitarian orgs themselves, what the US did to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa during the GWB Administration literally saved the continent. And every time there's a famine or pandemic in Africa, it is the US that has led the way in helping out. Never ever any sign of the likes of USSR/Russia, China, etc. doing a damn thing to help.