These days I’m usually against the death penalty, and I know it seems a bit harsh to advocate for this… but people entering in an exit door should be absolutely blasted with an Anti Aircraft gun (thanks Kim Jong Un for the idea!). It absolutely rustles my jimmies.

In no realm does the US consider Japan, Germany, or Singapore a rival. China is the only “rival” in there. The other countries don’t have the actual quantity of people or land size to be an economic rival. At best they could have a higher standard of living based on PPP or GDP per capita, but not anything that would overtake the US. You’re trying to turn a simple evaluation tool that every government should be using on its trading partners into some maniacal weapon of economic doom. There are lots of partners in this world. Just like everyone else if you act like everyone is an enemy then all you ever see is targets.

Only if you hit all three points. Otherwise it’s a monitoring list. It’s just for keeping track of finances and better understanding economies of partners and why they’re larger traders to the US. It’s in the US’ best interest to understand a major trading partners economy and currency, and it helps us better prepare for future trade agreements.

A country would meet all three if it had a trade surplus with the United States of at least $15 billion, a current account surplus of at least 3 percent of gross domestic product, and if it had engaged in persistent, one-sided intervention in foreign exchange markets.

Being on the list isn’t a bad thing. You only have to have two of the three things listed in order to be on the list and any of our major trading partners would automatically be on it. It’s simply a mechanism for the US government to have reports on other economies it does business with.

Look Steve, I don’t know what you want from them! They only had two fully loaded passenger planes dive straight into the ground killing everyone. It could have been a lot more if they hadn’t bravely covered it up.

Didn’t like a 7 year old get injured from a missile? That counts as a casualty.

Still, Israel (well, Netti Pot) is a dumbass if he does anything back to Iran. I certainly don’t want to help them fight some stupid war that doesn’t benefit me, or help their citizens other than chest pounding.

We told them there was an increased risk. They don’t need to know how we know or the specifics. They chose not to listen or act, and completely dismissed our advice as nonsense. This is on them.

I think they just took two screen shots and put them together but with the one about iOS 17.3.1 being overlayed slightly on the other.

As opposed to completely unmanaged devices with software and hardware that I have zero idea what exploits are available for it?

If it’s because you’ve had some dumbass BYOD policy then that’s a you problem. I always tell my users to not put company policies on their private devices. On company devices, and especially government, I want my capacity to control my domain better.

Supervised mode gives you basically all the cool options post IOS 12. That said, it’s been about 4 years since I’ve done any of that registration stuff and I know it changed a lot during the pandemic. So it could be easier now.

Configurator if you have a MacOS device already and want the OG. Plus it does allow for device supervision. Although you may have to register as an enterprise system for that. That’s really going to be the key thing here as last time I recall signing my org up for MDM we had to provide tax documents.

Apple uses JAMF, and their prices are so low and it’s so easy that for strictly Apple devices I’d go that route. I do believe there is an on prem version of Jamf as well, but you still pay yearly for it.

There’s also Hexcloud, whatever VMware is calling there’s now, and technically sccm can do device MDM.

Main benefits come from supervised mode. On iPads you can enable multi user support with sign in. You can remove access to messaging or other apps, but beyond that the differences between MDM and parental locks aren’t as wide.

Houthis are a rebel group and not the officially recognized government last time I checked. So if you want to bring up international law for rebel groups then I guess we can add thousands of new governments suddenly?

Because in 2022 with an 840 credit score I got .99% financing and 5k off MSRP. Which NO ONE was offering. Everyone wanted 5-10k if not more OVER sticker. Plus at the time there was only three trucks with front and rear lockers and only two with factory winches. Of which FCA/Stelantis made both. I needed those features due to my liking to go far out into the middle of nowhere without anyone else but my wife and I. I don’t want us stuck somewhere (not that I’m going to put us into those situations purposefully) so I wanted every goody available to get unstuck if push comes to shove.

Plus it’s not like the alternatives are much better now. The 5.3/6.2 from GM with DFM has problems and fails quickly, the 6.2 from Ford is OK and I haven’t heard of many problems with the 7.2 Godzilla. That said the 10 speed trans from them is problematic allegedly and the Ram has the ZF 8 speed which is both bullet proof and also readily available since BMW and VW/Audi also use it. Toyota only had the 5.7 at the time which was thirsty and old. I wanted the new Tundra, but unfortunately I knew it would be years before I could get one easily and for a reasonable cost. Now for my current truck I don’t intend to replace it hopefully ever. It gets 7k oil changes on synthetic and I take care of the paint and ceramic coat it to prevent the oxidation problems. Hemi tick is present, but it’s not detrimental. If the engine blows the good news is that every recruit that financed a 392 crashed them within months which means there’s good motors out there with low miles if I need a new one and they’re relatively cheap and easy to replace myself.

Dudes that say “hemi” still are stuck in the past and stupid. I say this as someone who owns and drives a Ram 2500 “Hemi” (don’t worry, no DUIs). It’s a marketing term at this point that dumb grunts (and I don’t just mean in the military) buy into because they feel special. It’s like dudes that say they drive a Cummins or Power Stroke (yes all of these are as erotic as they sound). It’s an engine. At the end of the day it’s kind of a crappy one too. Most Dodge Hemi’s have what’s known as Hemi-tick that is this sort of constant clicking on idle, they’re incredibly inefficient, they make mediocre power compared to their competition and the reliability on them is questionable at best. Overall good maintenance will keep these motors working fine and running for a long time, but the paint on every Ram will fade and chip, the clear coat will crap out, and the interior will eventually start to rattle and fall apart faster than the competition. 10/10 vehicles.

Have you ever talked with some of them? My whole damn family is full of this exact type of person. Do you not remember how many of those people were willing to bomb multiple countries for 20+ years just to hunt down Osama Bin Laden?

The Biden admin is joining Israeli aid with Ukrainian aid. They’re trying to get some on the right to pass aid for Israel so we can fund Ukraine.

Middle America. Specifically people in purple states. Biden is coming into an election that’s sounding like it’s going to be won by 5 votes or lost by a million. He’s trying to win support in swing states. Unfortunately those swing state voters tend to be union guys, who are more conservative. They like a blue collar guy, but they want him to have hardline stances on things. We’re hearing conflicting things from this administration for a reason. A veto on the UN makes headlines and sounds like the US is being supportive, but we’re also hearing about back room conversations where the administration is voicing their disapproval of the bombing and threatening to withhold funding. I imagine if this was before the war in Ukraine we would see a different reaction by the Biden Administration. Plus Israel gives us a launch point into middle eastern operations.

Well they are a NATO country and need to buy NATO standard equipment. So their options for who to buy from if they aren’t producing it is limited to any country producing them that is in NATO, and potentially South Korea. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

That’s kinda how it works. It’s not like I, as an American tax payer, would want them with a 2 billion US funded loan going out and buying Chinese or Russian weapons. Even Turkish weapons would be one of those thing where I’d want Turkey to give their own loans for weapons. It’s American Money, I want it to go into the American economy if we’re providing the loan. Plus based on the performance it’s not like they’re going to buy better weapons anywhere else.

With Russia leaving. They started this war. Fuck off with your “If there isn’t going to be any peace discussions from Ukraine … how does this ever end?”

Ukraine, and only Ukraine can be the one to talk about any negotiations. I’ll back their decisions whether it’s to fight to the bitter end, or stop and give up. Their people control their destiny. Russia on the other hand is the one that could simply bring an end to this by leaving. They could have brought peace in fact by simply never killing others. You’re victim blaming. Fuck off.

It looked similar to the paradise fire which took a while before we ever had an accurate count since some people were burned quite heavily or even just basically what large bones are left when they aren’t completely burned and turned to ash by a fire.