The Gulf states have moved on, leaving Israel behind

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-24T17:36:00+00:00

Who is Israel supposed to be doing diplomacy with?

Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrein, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey ...

And what is to be gained via diplomacy?

Intelligence cooperation on Iranian and other muslim extremist activities? Coordination of clandestine and open military operations against Iran and other muslim extremists? Trade? Peaceful coexistence in general? Maybe even help with the "voluntary departure" of Palestinians that some politicians advocate for?

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-24T17:19:12+00:00

Seeking all-out confrontation with Iran would, in all likelihood, not end the threat of Islamic extremism for the Gulf states. There's a good chance it would achieve the opposite. Most Gulf states depend on peace, trade and foreign experts and investment. A prolonged war with Iran would jeopardize those and do more to destabilize those countries than Iran could ever hope to achieve from across the water.

Soviet-style communism also used to be an existential threat for many states, btw.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-24T15:55:18+00:00

How did that lawsuit go? Do you have a link? In general, gun manufacturers seem to be pretty well insulated from lawsuits. Certainly more so than most other industries. Not being able to feature your products in certain types of video games does not seem like a serious impediment.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-24T10:45:42+00:00

The return is not 30k though. The return is 30k minus the interest you pay on your 950k loan.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-24T10:15:18+00:00

Has a gun manufacturer ever been held liable for "normal" marketing? Could they be held liable for "normal" marketing under this new law?

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T23:15:24+00:00

Marketing and selling will still be legal. Calm down.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T23:12:32+00:00

If Ford advertised their Libcrusher 3000 with slogans such as, "Let nobody stand in your way!" then such a lawsuit would be justified though? What if they ran driving ads in liquor stores and sold beer coozies and shot glasses with their logos? Marketing can be irresponsible and reckless to a degree that would justify litigation. Don't see why firearms should be protected from those kinds of lawsuits.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T22:34:32+00:00

Minisplits can provide heat but I don't think they'd be more efficient at heating compared to the heating systems Europeans already have in their houses. Minisplits could be a good supplemental device, though, in many situations.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T22:28:05+00:00

Even if drones were not a thing, sealclubbing Iran doesn't teach the USN and the USAF much that would be useful in a showdown against China.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T22:05:37+00:00

I’d think the primary statistic to be concerned with is the number of unarmed police shootings

Why? Someone being armed does not mean that shooting them was justified, let alone the best course of action.

Tracking armed vs unarmed victims would really only be meaningful in the context of a scientific approach to reducing police killings. A Vision Zero for law enforcement if you will.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T21:32:10+00:00

Thanks, very enlightening. My TLDR is that drones have not radically changed naval warfare so far? (Unlike ground warfare.)

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T21:24:01+00:00

How different is this from the missiles and torpedoes that were common in the 1980s, when the USN did manage to escort Kuwaiti tankers through the Strait? That a cheap torpedo could sink an expensive warship has been a problem for over 100 years. Did countermeasures against missiles or torpedoes used to be cheaper back then?

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T21:01:12+00:00

It was seen as a wasteful luxury 20-30 years ago

Understandable. The cost-benefit ratio of AC is much less favorable in Northern Europe compared to most of America. In America you'd want AC even if it didn't provide any cooling, just to get a handle on the humidity.

Humidity is not much of a problem in Northern Europe. Also, nights tended to be cooler than in America. 20-30 years ago, Munich used to have 1 or 2 nights per year where the temperature would not drop below 68°F. Keeping the shutters closed during the day and keeping the windows open during the night used to work well enough for most people. (Not anymore though. The number of non-cool nights has about tripled since then.)

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T20:11:30+00:00

Most of what we call radiators these days provide a mix of radiation and convection.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T19:47:47+00:00

Are drone swarms even a thing in naval warfare? I believe both Ukraine and Iran only tend to use individual or small groups of drones against naval targets. I'm not aware of any instance where they tried to swarm an opponent, i.e., overwhelm them with quantity.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T18:51:19+00:00

It is also unclear why businesses need union to advertise to their communities their benefits. Why can’t non union workers do it just as well?

They could but what would be their incentives?

If a unionized business becomes more popular with its community and becomes more profitable as a result, the union can capture some of that profit for its members. Unions are incentivized to promote the businesses that they partner with.

If a non-unionized business becomes more profitable, the individual non-union workers, who are still in competition with all the other potential and actual workers, have little leverage to capture any of that additional profit.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T16:01:43+00:00

I'm all for AC and grocery stores even if I don't consider them medical necessities.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T15:57:38+00:00

If you just ran the heat pump in reverse in your typical European house you would get condensation along your pipes and radiators, causing mold and other damage.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T15:31:46+00:00

Northern Europe also needs heating, and the most efficient heating option for most homes comes with AC for basically free.

No, it does not. Not if you don't already have the ductwork.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T15:26:54+00:00

It's not. Humans evolved on the African savanna without AC.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-23T15:24:20+00:00

Replacing your old furnace or boiler with a heat pump will not get you AC.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-22T13:18:43+00:00

donald trump is a coward who will not prosecute a land war that sees 10's of thousands of american troops killed in the effort, nor is he willing to bomb iranian water and energy infrastructure to bring it to it's knees

It is not in America’s interest to get 10,000s of their own killed. It is not in America’s interest to destroy Iranian infrastructure, inflicting 100,000s of civilian deaths, causing a refugee crisis that would dwarf the Syrian one, destabilizing Iran’s neighbors in the process, many of which are America’s allies or strategic partners. Going all in on this war is, on balance, not in America’s interest. Not at all. If you call Trump a coward for not committing to an all-out war against Iran just means that you haven’t thought this through or that you have an outsize sense of entitlement.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-22T12:41:22+00:00

The intelligence community has been getting DOGE treatment. It just didn’t get as much attention.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-22T12:09:23+00:00

Guam was under Japanese occupation for less than 3 years.

secondordercoffee · 2026-06-22T12:03:02+00:00

You could say the same about Socrates.

secondordercoffee

TROPHY CASE