I have to confirm this as a nerdy french person: I don't like sports and it always felt awkward because it's not something I enjoy, people keep asking for it and it makes me uncomfortable.
I tried hard to fit in though: I tried judo, tennis, swimming, running, rowing.
But couldn't make any stick, 2 years each (except judo for a few years).
French moms really force you to exercise and my immigrant dad always felt weird about it.
To be very honest I'm tempted to downvote this , not because I would disagree if this was the topic at hand, but because it seems like a deranged rant that's very loosely related to the comment it's replying.
Not to mention, if you compare the US, its citizen's intentions, and its government's intentions, and yes the DnD's intentions to all but a tiny handful of countries, the US is a golden boy of good.
Compare today's US to, for example colonial powers. The US is pure in comparison.
Compare the US to what happens to journalists in Russia, China, Iran. The US is a beacon of justice.
Is the US perfect? Nope. But do a little comparative analysis, and the result is that the world has never, ever seen such a peaceful empire.
The rancor often displayed on such comments makes me wonder.
While I agree that the tone of parent is... unhelpfully agitated and aggressive. The broad strokes critique of US foreign (and domestic) policy is on point.
The US began as a corporate colonial project - Virginia Company, London Company, Plymouth Company, Massachusetts Bay Company etc. It proceeded to expand through genocide of indigenous populations and wars of conquest - Cherokee–American Wars, Mexican American War, Spanish American War, Quasi-War with France and on and on.
From the first the US (contrary to domestic myth) was colonial, expansionist and interventionist. US involvement in theatres around the world has initiated, prolonged and expanded conflicts - from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to Iraq and Afghanistan. The US has toppled literally dozens of democratically elected governments and helped elect numerous authoritarian dictators. The list of countries where the US has engaged in 'regime change' is so long it could fill up this comments character limit but to cite a few Hawaii, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, Philippines, Korea, Venezuela, Libya, Palestine, Syria etc. America has funded (and continues to fund) genocides, death squads, torture sites (its own as well as those of its allies). The US has replaced democratic leaders in countries as friendly as Australia as recently as 1975.
At the risk of turning this comment into a letter to the editor of Foreign Policy - the US is not remotely a 'golden boy of good'. On balance Pax Americana has kept Europe at peace, but at the cost of keeping Africa, Latin and Central America, and parts of South East Asia impoverished and constantly at war.
Is it China? Is it Russia? No. Would they make worse imperial powers? Almost certainly. It's a unique kind of tyranny, one that manages to convince it's own elites against all historic evidence it's a 'force for good'.
Not to mention, if you compare the US, its citizen's intentions, and its government's intentions, and yes the DnD's intentions to all but a tiny handful of countries, the US is a golden boy of good.
Note the conditionals. "intentions" and "compared to all but a tiny handful of countries".
Also note the context where I was careful to say "Compare today's US".
In these contexts, the history of the US is meaningless, and only today counts. And I was referencing "colonial powers", which are historical, to us actions today.
I know all the US has done. I also know all the British Empire did. I also know how Russia, China, Iran, and various tiny dictatorships around the world act.
Yes, the US is very much a "golden boy of good" in reference to, and comparison to these things.
Anything and anyone can be made a monster taken out of context.
Sincere question: Is the second half of your assertion that U.S. government is directing/coordinating the conduct of the Israeli military or that their lack of action makes them makes them equally culpable/complicit in said actions?
Ah, the backwards world view, where people defending themselves from relentless aggressors, including ones that call for an end to their existence, are somehow wrong to end those endless attacks.
Israel would be nuts to leave even a wisp of Hamas in power in Palestine, and yes attacking innocent ships gets a defensive response.
Next up! Man attacked by machete wielding lunatic punches him in defense, how dare he!
I initially read your comment with the opposite meaning to what you intended, since it's so well known that Israel has been relentlessly attacking and settling Palestine for over 70 years.
You are forgetting the Ottoman Empire, the Byzantine empire, the Roman Empire, the Ptolemaic Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the British Empire, the Canaanite Empire, and all the others I have neglected to mention.
That both are just random dates? That borders shifted continuously for thousands and thousands of years, and were called different things?
How do you arbitrarily pick a point in time, and say "Oh, this is the point land was stolen!". It's absurd. The same thing is true in every single country on the planet. There are people there, that took the land from other people!
I have some Scottish blood. The English took my land, 500 years ago. My ancestors were kicked to the curb, or killed in battle. Do I blame them? Or is that OK? What about the fact that the current English took land from the Romans? And endless waves of invaders between? Or war after war fought? Or the Romans from people before both?
Where does it end?
It's the same in every country on the planet!
Does all this mean that if Israel stands with static borders for .. what, 100 years, then no one can complain, ever, even once? Or is it 200 years? How long? What's the official time when the latest guy is the bad guy, but everyone else is pure and perfect?
The problem here is we're both unsure, but you're pointing at the UN. I'm throwing my hands up and saying, that no country on the planet can stand if the metric is "They took my land".
The time is generally 'reset' after a fairly long period of peace, but that doesn't prevent people declaring their own independence. You'll note Scotland had a referendum on this.
How long must Putin occupy parts of Eastern Ukraine until it's 'his'?
Throwing your hands up is just surrendering to the strongest power.
I believe when they say the squatters have a "right to housing" it means "right to use a unit of housing that's not theirs as if they paid for it", which essentially means doing what you suggest would be illegal.
The reality of the legal dimensions is probably much more complex though, but it's helpful to have a simplistic mental picture of what's expected to happen.
That's a great catch ! Thanks for this. For anyone wondering, 25 years is pretty common as a baseline for PV [1] but a good amount of them should be able to go for longer, say at least 30 years. As a comparison, the average nuclear power plant in France is 37 years old, and the french authority considers obvious a 50 year life expectancy, and 60 is being floated [2], but no idea where they got 80 from probably from the US extensions being floated [3] — 92% capacity factor are official measurements though, it's not unrealistic [4]
And it's not like solar panels stop working at 25 years. The biggest reason to replace solar panels at 20 years or so is that new panels are so much better than old ones. If technological process stopped we'd keep panels for longer.
One aspects to consider I think could be damage from external sources. Like freak hail storms that could be more common. If these sort of events regularly destroy panels with other accidents like fires due to failing installations average age could drop even if some panels are still functional.
Outside most extreme events nuclear plants in general are repaired if some component fails.
A freak hailstorm could take an entire solar farm out, but otherwise they are pretty resilient. There are pictures of Ukrainian solar installations that continue operating after missile strikes. The panels that got hit stop working, but the rest keep supplying power.
Folk in my area replaced panels on their 15yr old install. I didn't get hard metrics from them but, they said it's worth it. Got some state provided rebate too.
I've got a weird relationship with market socialists because I generally think they're much more sensible and convincing than the average "destroy evil and create utopia" socialists, but ultimately it's hard to understand whether their efforts to rebuild society would yield much better outcomes compared to European style welfare capitalism with more taxation and welfare spending.
I suppose they're trying to build a grand theory of social market economies / social democracy, which is nice.
Even if you dislike markets as a mechanism, education is very tricky because it's very very expensive, and prone to important moral hazards when it's free.
Think your passion is economics or psychology and drop out after 1.5 years ? You've just cost the equivalent of 8 years of tax money from the average joe (ex: France median after tax income is 25k, roughly 2k of tax money, each college year is 10-12k).
It turns out there aren't enough average joes to give every kid the opportunity to try multiple studies, so we have to share the burden, at least a little bit. The average joe can pay 70%, and the students 30%. Or the average joe pays 90% of the first curriculum, but if you "reset" once (change majors without transfers), then the average joe no longer pays that share and only pays 50%. But you have to accept that education isn't free and there should be some incentive, even if small, to make sure you're picking something you'll commit to and make it work.
Even if you dislike markets as a mechanism, education is very tricky because it's very very expensive, and prone to important moral hazards when it's free.
Education is not inherently expensive. The student loan mechanisms are what allowed the vast expansion of colleges as capital intensive enterprises. You can find a multitude of discussion about how cheap both public and private education was in, say, the 1960s. And that was with primarily state/institutional regulation. Which is to say the student loans were moral hazard crack to compared to state regulation.
For most subjects, one needs an informed teacher, a class room and some books. Somehow this costs vast sums now. Guess why?
More details:
You need practicing, so you need experiments/computers/supplies/projects — this is true both in engineering and art school, any time you do anything that's not completely pen and paper.
You also need to divert time from your researchers to teaching activities. You need to pay for classrooms, that's real estate, plumbing, electricity, etc.
Keeping up with the state of the art in research isn't cheap, and using part of those funds to purely teach and not compete with other countries is an investment that's not neutral.
My guess is they're talking about regional monopolies ?
There's generally a misunderstanding from left wing voters — when people say "markets" they understand "crony capitalism and monopolies with regulatory capture" when most other people just mean "fair competition between suppliers".
We'll all agree the second option isn't easy to get, but the disagreement often comes from the fact one team thinks it's impossible or even undesirable, and something more radical should be preferred.
It's funny because I just got out of a professional training session where the instructor told us sale-leaseback agreements are a common business practice and helped a few companies he worked for secure long term growth.
Let's use a metaphor HN might understand: sale-leasebacks are a bit like migrating to the public cloud from an on-prem setting, and in some cases the government pays you for migrating to the cloud. It helps you balance capital expenditure among other things.
French moms really force you to exercise and my immigrant dad always felt weird about it.
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