The slide towards far-right fascism continues...

Democracy is when you get to choose between voting for genocide and voting for fascism.

That government was put in power after a US-backed coup overthrew the democratically-elected Isabel Perón. Henry Kissinger was instrumental in orchestrating the coup.

"Prisoners detained without charge" sounds an awful lot like "hostages"

“Were there no Israel, there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world who is safe,” says the president, to loud applause.

153 member states voted in favour, 10 against and there were 23 abstentions.

The 10 against:

• Austria
• Czechia
• Guatemala
• Israel
• Liberia
• Micronesia
• Nauru
• Papua New Guinea
• Paraguay
• United States of America

The 23 abstentions:

• Argentina
• Bulgaria
• Cabo Verde
• Cameroon
• Equatorial Guinea
• Georgia
• Germany
• Hungary
• Italy
• Lithuania
• Malawi
• Marshall Islands
• Netherlands
• Palau
• Panama
• Romania
• Slovakia
• South Sudan
• Togo
• Tonga
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom
• Uruguay

Notably, Canada switched from abstaining in the last UN resolution to voting in favour of this one.

Israel used U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions in an October attack in southern Lebanon that injured at least nine civilians in what a rights group says should be investigated as a war crime, according to a Washington Post analysis of shell fragments found in a small village.

The Pentagon requires partner militaries to acknowledge obligations under international law when they accept U.S. weapons, “including that these munitions are only to be used for lawful purposes such as signaling and smoke screening,” a U.S. defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

It is unclear when the United States delivered the munitions to Israel. The official said no white phosphorous munitions have been provided since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

White phosphorus fell onto several homes and ignited fires, incinerating furniture and stripping appliances to scorched metal. Remnants of the sticky, black chemical littered the ground 40 days after the attack and combusted when residents kicked at it.

In 2013, the Israeli military pledged to stop using white phosphorus on the battlefield, saying it would transition to gas-based smoke shells.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Dec. 2 that Israel’s use of the munition has “killed civilians and produced irreversible damage to more than 5 million square meters of forests and farmland, in addition to damaging thousands of olive trees.”

No, it’s the filters in the engines’ intakes. The filters keep dirt and debris from fouling and wrecking an M-1’s delicate—but powerful—engine. They require constant cleaning.

If an Abrams’ four-person crew neglects to clean its tank’s filters every 12 hours or so, it might so badly damage the engine that the battalion has no choice but to remove the engine, and potentially the transmission, and ship it away for a lengthy overhaul.

The solution to the sand-ingestion problem was the twice-a-day pulse-jet cleaning process. It works just fine, as long as crews rigorously adhere to its schedule. Even when they’re getting shot at.

"All those things can be taught to the crew, but if ever they make a mistake—and they will—it blows a million-dollar engine that can't be repaired in the field," Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army general, told The Kyiv Independent.

Forced prison labour is the foundation of a number of economies, including the US'. It's explicitly not prohibited in the Constitution.

China can't use prison labour to undercut global markets because they have a smaller prison labour pool than their key economic competitor (the US).

Is this supposed to be a response to the propaganda leaflets that got dropped on North Korea?

I wasn't aware that had happened recently, but I know it was a thing in the past.

"Especially during this period, we call on the media to show responsibility in their reporting and base their news only on official sources."

Separately, the Israeli censor unit, affiliated with the army's intelligence department, sent a letter to the press on Oct. 26, imposing restrictions on news related to Gaza.

They said all news and visuals concerning the course of the war in the Gaza Strip and activities of the Israeli army should be sent to their censor unit before publication.

China is on track to reduce their electricity production from fossil fuel sources by next year. They never bought into the natural gas hype for energy security reasons, and that's a good thing. Whereas other countries have used the claims of clean natural gas to increase electricity produced from fossil fuel sources at astonishing rates, China does not have the luxury of domestic natural gas sources and so has opted to move towards plateauing fossil fuel use as a whole.

As is fairly well known, fugitive methane emissions from natural gas are a huge and largely underreported source of GHGs. Moreover, methane is somewhere on the order of 80x worse than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period (methane decays more quickly than carbon dioxide, though, so over a 100-year period it's only about 30x worse). Based on all-in estimates, natural gas might only become emissions-equivalent to coal after 100 years.

Saudi Arabia shouldn't have bothered. Nobody except China is even trying to make a cost-competitive EV (in fact, every other country is trying to block the import of those cost-competitive EVs). Poorer countries are stuck with ICE because the "developed world" refuses to develop cheaper clean alternatives that poorer people can actually use. Instead, we get Rivians and Lucids and Teslas supporter by billions of dollars in incentives and subsidies and no reason to meaningfully drive costs down. All for the sake of profit at the cost of progress.

The shooting of Castleman, who in security camera footage is seen kneeling, raising his hands and flinging open his shirt to indicate he isn’t a threat, underscores what critics say is an epidemic of excessive force by Israeli soldiers, police and armed citizens against suspected Palestinian attackers

The fact is that this was a conscious choice, even recently. The switch to natural gas that everyone is touting is one that is designed to cause higher short-term emissions.

Methane is really bad over a 20-year time frame and only really lets natural gas equal coal over a 100-year period (assuming typical fugitive emissions rates). The transition from coal to natural gas is accelerating the rate at which we boil ourselves alive.

Who cares about Tate?

Because fuck the environment, we gotta keep the farmers happy.

The people arrested will have been charged, right?

‘At that point, it was clear to me that our role is to be a human shield between our forces that arrived and them (Hamas),’ says Hadas Dagan

"I will never forget the children's screams" Dagan said, with tears falling down her face, as she described the moment of the twins' death.

Why was the EU stockpiling so many while Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America were reliant on the Sinovac/Sinopharm/CanSino vaccines?

Lmao a big problem is that a lot of these influencers aren't actually wealthy. They can't actually afford their lifestyles, and the Chinese government has been trying to control "fake Internet personas" for a while.

China views social media as an extension of in-person relationships rather than it's own independent entity.

One explanation is that SMIC has low-yield early production for 5mm (which is why the Qingyun L540 is only being sold to government agencies: limited scale, like Intel's 10nm chip back in 2018). The other explanation is that Huawei for some reason decided to stockpile 5nm chips and disable the 5G modem in them to put the thing in a laptop (rather than in a phone), maybe because they now have domestic 7nm and no longer need a stockpile... But that this stockpile was evidently not very big since they're not selling it to consumers. Both are in the realm of possibility, but if the former is the case then SMIC is moving shockingly fast.

Intel was stuck on DUV 10nm for almost a decade (and indeed, DUV 14nm was also a struggle because of the need for dual-patterning). SMIC would have now not only matched Intel 10nm (Intel 10/7) with SMIC's 7nm process, but leapfrogged Intel (who is yet to ship Intel 4 to customers). I'm somewhat skeptical, but with the wave of TSMC engineers who have jumped ship to Chinese firms for higher pay in recent years, I wouldn't be surprised.

At the same time, TSMC is basically tapped out for their FinFET process: N2 is estimated to only be 10-15% more dense than N3. Intel and Samsung are in a similar position with their newer processes.

The race for Surrounding-Gate Transistors (SGT) is on

AA is just translating a Hebrew interview given on Channel 12 in Israel. Channel 12 (Keshet 12) is the most viewed TV channel in Israel.

LNL demonstrated ignition and EAST demonstrated minute-scale high confinement. This is the most promising period in fusion research in a long time.

Interestingly, these innovations continue to be driven by government-funded research institutions rather than private industry.

"Affiliated with Hamas" also seems to include people working in public service (e.g. for the Gaza Health Ministry, the postal service, etc.)

Tax dollars at work everyone

Western ammo stocks at ‘bottom of the barrel’ as Ukraine war drags on, NATO official warns

Really makes you wonder...

250 155mm artillery shells;

One LUNA NG reconnaissance system;

10 VECTOR reconnaissance drones with spare parts;

6 border protection vehicles;

8 Zetros trucks;

100,000 first aid kits;

70 70mm grenade launchers.

Everyone knows that gases are the most convenient option, too. None of the logistical issues of solids and none of the messiness of liquids.

Depends on how you view "closing the gap"

"The entire river crossing is under constant fire. I've seen boats with my comrades on board just disappear into the water after being hit, lost forever to the Dnipro river.

"We must carry everything with us - generators, fuel and food. When you're setting up a bridgehead you need a lot of everything, but supplies weren't planned for this area.

"We thought after we made it there the enemy would flee and then we could calmly transport everything we needed, but it didn't turn out that way.

"When we arrived on the [eastern] bank, the enemy were waiting. Russians we managed to capture said their forces were tipped off about our landing so when we got there, they knew exactly where to find us. They threw everything at us - artillery, mortars and flame thrower systems. I thought I'd never get out."

"Every day we sat in the forest taking incoming fire. We were trapped - the roads and paths are all riddled with mines. The Russians cannot control everything, and we use it. But their drones are constantly buzzing in the air, ready to strike as soon as they see movement.

"Supplies were the weakest link. The Russians monitored our supply lines, so it became more difficult - there was a real lack of drinking water, despite our deliveries by boat and drone.

"We paid for a lot of our own kit - buying generators, power banks and warm clothes ourselves. Now the frosts are coming, things will only get worse - the real situation is being hushed up, so no-one will change anything.

"No-one knows the goals. Many believe that the command simply abandoned us. The guys believe that our presence had more political than military significance. But we just did our job and didn't get into strategy."

"Mostly our losses were mistakes - someone didn't climb in that trench quickly enough; another guy hid badly. If someone isn't switched on, he'll be immediately targeted from everywhere.

"But thanks to our doctors, if we can get an injured soldier to the medics - he'll be saved. They're titans, Gods. But we can't get the remains of the fallen out. It's just too dangerous.

"At the same time our drones and missiles inflict a lot of losses on the enemy. We took prisoners of war once, but where to put them, if we have no way to cross the river even with our own injured comrades?"

"Several brigades were supposed to be posted here, not individual companies - we just don't have enough men.

"There are a lot of young guys among us. We need people, but trained people, not the green ones we have there now. There are guys who had spent just three weeks in training, and only managed to shoot a few times.

"It's a total nightmare. A year ago, I wouldn't have said that, but now, sorry, I'm fed up.

"Everyone who wanted to volunteer for war came a long time ago - it's too hard now to tempt people with money. Now we're getting those who didn't manage to escape the draft. You'll laugh at this, but some of our marines can't even swim."

"I got out after getting concussed from a mine, but one of my colleagues didn't make it - all that was left of him was his helmet.

"I feel like I escaped from hell, but the guys who replaced us last time got into even more hell than us.

"But the next rotation is due. My time to cross the river again is soon."

O&G once again is the key driver behind foreign policy around the world: the US in the Middle East, China in the South China Sea, Israel in Gaza...

The renewables transition cannot happen quickly enough.

Methane leaks

Something like 3-10% of all methane production leaks. Methane is about 80x worse than CO2 over a 20-year period.

They cite their sources:

In China, the cost of a single-dose vial of Toripalimab is around 2,000 yuan (US$280), according to Chinese cancer informational websites. The cost of a single-dose vial in the US will wholesale for US$8,892.03, Coherus wrote in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The American price is more than 31 times the price of the same drug marketed in China.

Ignoring a source because you disagree with their political position rather than the facts being presented is, frankly, dangerous.

Meanwhile us Canadians sit idly by as right-wing American "independent think tanks" dump billions of dollars into buying out our politicians and directing policy. Fuck.

Italian company blames Turkish company blames Chinese company. Typical.

No country in that entire supply chain is known for being reliable lmfao this was plain cost-savings and corruption all the way down.

It's only genocidal when they say it

Why, exactly, do you think the US would require a stockpile of 203mm shells? The M110 was retired from service decades ago.

Maybe, just maybe, Brazil shouldn't keep chopping down rainforest to extract iron/oil and grow soybean/chicken/cow? Brazil needs to rapidly industrialized their economy because resource exploitation is clearly unsustainable.

Recently, Chinese companies have started to rapidly expand their Brazilian manufacturing footprint, but it's not enough.

Naturally, our closest ally did what it does best and told us children (Canada and India) to stop fighting because they had more important interests in Asia.

More important than the literal fucking assassination of Canadian citizens on Canadian soil by a foreign power, apparently. More important than supporting it's single largest trading partner in the world. More important than supporting the country that forms the other half of NORAD.

Then again, the US DOJ literally pushed Bombardier (a Canadian jet aircraft company and massive Canadian employer) to insolvency because it might compete with Boeing. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.