Recent content by wdolson

I would recommend this book. I went in as an extreme skeptic, but he told the idea...

Historically Christian countries/kingdoms have been very intolerant of other religions. On balance probably more xenophobic than Muslim ruled places were. It was only really in the last century that some Christian dominated countries have moderated on the antisemitism and many have legally...

The article is a bit off, but there are limits to US weapons. I've been quick to tamper down expectations from each "game changer" that has been announced. The US finding out much touted weapons had problems in combat is nothing new. At the beginning of US involvement in WW II the US had to...

I've been busy the last couple of days. I wasn't able to respond. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. I was not accurate, but the history of Jewish people in Muslim lands can best be described as "complicated". At times and places, they were treated fairly well and at others quite...

Not I did say at the start that it is a Kobiashi Maru scenario. The reason that bit from Star Trek made it into the common lexicon because it is a test at the Star Fleet Academy designed to be a no win situation. Israel is not going to win over the Muslim world anytime soon, but they could...

Many other automakers are up while Tesla is down. Some of this is due to growth, such as Rivian which was just starting production a year ago. But I also wonder if some of this is due to Elon Musk. I do know people who like Tesla cars, but won't buy one because of Elon and his craziness the...

The Germans and Japanese didn't have TikTok and the Allies were not fighting an insurgent force. Civilians are going to die in wars. Especially wars like the one in Gaza. That can't be prevented. What can be done is to do all you can to limit civilian casualties, which precision munitions...

I thought his US politics were a bit blind to the realities we're facing and was somewhat overly partisan. I thought his analysis of the Israeli situation was fairly good. I'm a centrist who is not a member of either party too, but one party has gone off the deep end IMO. The other has...

That looks just like my partner's ex's Honda Odyssey! It really looks that trashed. He took everything out of the back and uses it as a panel van. He's very hard on cars, but he hasn't managed to kill the Odyssey.

Ukraine, Russia, and Imperial Japan were all state actors. Their militiaries are arms of their governments. All those countries to one degree or another have/has their own military manufacturing sector of their economies. In the case of Japan (and Germany), the Allies destroyed the ability of...

It wasn't a battery, it was just the launch system. Total loss was only about $100 mil max (if a full load of missiles was also taken out), probably less than that. Some of the cost of a Patriot system is also due to the volume of production. The F-35 cost per unit was brought down...

I bought a Buick Roadmaster new in 1992 and kept it until I got my Model S in 2016. It was a great car. Very reliable. My mechanic wanted to buy it from me, but unfortunately the car outlasted him. He died of a heart attack about 2 years before I was ready to sell the car. When I got my...

There is a separate thread for cryptocurrencies and this discussion should be there. But when one currency is much more widely used than another, a rise in the smaller currency does not mean that the larger currency is being devalued. The Argentinian Peso has been a mess for a while due to...

I stand corrected, there are some Chinese car imports, but the cheap EVs Chinese companies are over producing are blocked from the US market. Mostly because they don't meet US safety standards and probably won't for some time. A co-worker of my partner is a Vietnam vet who believes in buying...

This makes more sense than the video on Russian artillery production that was posted here yesterday. Russia has ramped up production, but I think Trent makes some good observations here. There is a lot of hand wringing about the volume of Russian artillery, and it is a problem, but Russian...