Miscellaneous News

KYli said:

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Anyone who has the slightest inkling of "The Art of War" probably already knows this.

145 vs 7, no idea what happened to Hungary.

Being a sycophant of the US and Israel, India pretty much forfeited its opportunity to be a leader of the Global South.

From 3 to "countless":

Obviously the Philippine Navy cannot find a better symbol.

LMAO - its like complaining that motorcycle riders have no ideal how to drive.

Today's "Putin Fell Down Stairs, Soiled Himself" investigative report award goes to the Washington Post.

Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack​

Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s special operations forces, was integral to the brazen sabotage operation, say people familiar with planning​

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supercat said:

From 3 to "countless":

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1723082769193202006

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At this rate I'm expecting numerous red banners in SF welcoming President Xi, something along the lines of 热烈欢迎习近平主席莅临视察

For those Wumaos living in SF, now is your chance to get the attention of the CPC, you might finally get to cash out your Xi bucks.

tamsen_ikard said:

Still cannot win presidential elections if TPP and KMT continue to divide voters. TPP becoming a political force has been the biggest disaster for China.

KMT being the grand old party will never give up its candidate to an upstart like TPP.

Ko is on the rise, so he will never give up his hope of winning and give up his candidacy for KMT.

So, DPP victory is inevitable.

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I don’t think that the internal politics of the island matters much to PRC. Friendly government is helpful, but ultimately irrelevant.

China is offering wages up to 3 times more than island employers. This is even for simpler occupations such as teachers let alone something like experienced semiconductor engineers.

No party has any means to rebalance this.

supercat said:

From 3 to "countless":

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1723082769193202006

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Most likely 0/3 have ever set foot in Xizang

bajingan said:

Xi and Biden will ban the use of A.I in autonomous weapons and nuclear weapons control, which is too bad considering soviet dead hand system is a great way to ensure nuclear retaliation after leaderships has been decapitated in a first strike

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It's still very very risky to leave the nuclear button in the hands of AI, especially since we still haven't got a really perfect grasp on what the AI is truly capable of. For weapon systems that are capable of ending entire civilizations, it's always prudent that humans be the final decision maker regarding its usage, rather than leaving that to the robots.

However, I'm not quite sure about the "ban on the use of AI in autonomous weapons" - Many major military powers around the world are already deeply invested in the development and procurement of future autonomous weapons, so I do find it hard that they, especially the US and China, would just give up on military use of AI.

Besides, I believe that there are also much more specific details on "ban on the use of AI in autonomous weapons" than just outright blanket banning AI in autonomous weapons. Hence, I think we should wait for a while for the details to come up before making any inference or conclusion on the matter.

Ex-Nato chief proposes Ukraine joins without Russian-occupied territories​

Rasmussen denied the move would freeze the conflict, ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia. He said: “The absolute credibility of article 5 guarantees would deter Russia from mounting attacks inside the Ukrainian territory inside Nato and so free up Ukrainian forces to go to the frontline.”

He said: “To make article 5 credible there would have to be a clear message to Russia that any violation of Nato territory would be met by a response.” He said in some ways the proposal is similar to imposing a no-fly zone on Russia so that it could not fly over Ukrainian territory or send missiles into Ukrainian towns.

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As their Ukraine plan implodes. They get more unhinged as years of planning their grand chess board goes straight into the landfill.

Ukraine join NATO with what they control,
Threaten Russia with Article 5,
Stops attacks on territory controlled by Ukraine,
Move all Ukrainian forces to frontlines,
Seize the rest of Russian controlled territory.

FriedButter said:

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As their Ukraine plan implodes. They get more unhinged as years of planning their grand chess board goes straight into the landfill.

Ukraine join NATO with what they control,
Threaten Russia with Article 5,
Stops attacks on territory controlled by Ukraine,
Move all Ukrainian forces to frontlines,
Seize the rest of Russian controlled territory.

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Article 5 is just a promise, and just like any promise, its not worth anything if its executers do not have stomach to actually fulfill it. Nothing prevents Nato from fighting russia now, without an article 5.

So, somehow they will magically impose an article 5 and then fight Russia, a nuclear power with 140 million people. Go ahead.

Taliban ready to provide Iran with Wakhan corridor for transit of goods to China​

Deputy Prime Minister of the Taliban movement, which controls Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund, at the head of the government delegation, has completed his visit to Iran,

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informs with reference to Interfax.

Official representative of the movement Zabihullah Mujahid spread the information on social networks.

The Taliban declared their readiness to provide the Wakhan Valley (Afghan province of Badakhshan, bordering China) for establishing direct trade and economic relations between Iran and China; the parties agreed to create joint groups to speed up ground and practical work in this direction.

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Supposedly a photo of Afghan embassy in Beijing which a "white" flag on the flagpole.

Wait, I though Taiwanese is not Chinese?

So why are you guys stealing the Chinese language from China?


"Taiwan's language"
"Taiwan's Mandarin"

What an oxymoron lmfao

An interesting piece I came across. Trump is probably the least warmonger US president in a long time.

“You’re Telling Me That Thing Is Forged?”: The Inside Story of How Trump’s “Body Guy” Tried and Failed to Order a Massive Military Withdrawal​

In an excerpt from his new book, Tired of Winning, Jonathan Karl reveals how officials were stunned when a presidential directive pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Somalia landed on their desk. Of course, they’d later learn that it wasn’t exactly Trump’s idea.

To understand what a second Trump administration would look like, consider Johnny McEntee, the cheerful and upbeat young aide who became Trump’s essential man in the waning days of his presidency. In McEntee, Trump had the ultimate loyalist: He never hesitated to carry out the president’s orders, and he made it his mission to find and remove anyone in the executive branch who was not as devoted to the president as he was. If Trump makes it back to the White House, it would likely be McEntee—or someone like him—doing the hiring and enforcing loyalty.

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Before leaving for the Pentagon, Macgregor sat down in McEntee’s office to go over the acting defense secretary’s sweeping agenda for the final seventy-three days of the lame-duck period before Joe Biden would be sworn into office. As first reported by Axios, on a piece of paper, McEntee jotted down four quick bullet points that, if carried out, would represent a dramatic shift in the global order:

• Get us out of Afghanistan.
• Get us out of Iraq and Syria.
• Complete the withdrawal from Germany.
• Get us out of Africa.

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Three days after Macgregor arrived at the Pentagon, he called McEntee and told him he couldn’t accomplish any of the items on their handwritten to-do list without a signed order from the president.

“Hey, they’re not going to do anything we want, or the president wants, without a directive,” Macgregor told him, emphasizing the need for an official White House order signed by Trump. The Pentagon’s stonewalling made sense, of course: You don’t make major changes to America’s global defense posture based on a glorified Post-it note from the president’s body guy.

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The order, Macgregor added, should focus on the top priority from McEntee’s list—Afghanistan—and it had to include a specific date for the complete withdrawal of all uniformed military personnel from the country. He suggested January 31, 2021.

McEntee and an assistant quickly typed up the directive, but they moved the Afghanistan withdrawal timeline up to January 15—just five days before Trump was set to leave office—and added a second mandate: a complete withdrawal of US troops from Somalia by December 31, 2020

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Upon receiving the order from his chief of staff, Christopher Miller called Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley to his office to discuss next steps. After reading the order, Milley told the January 6 Committee, he looked at Patel, who had just started working at the Pentagon three days earlier.

“Who gave the president the military advice for this?” Milley asked him. “Did you do this?”

“No,” Patel answered. “I had nothing to do with it.”

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Milley turned to the acting defense secretary. “Did you give the President military advice on this?” he asked.

“No. Not me,” Miller answered.

“Okay, well, we’ve got to go over and see the president,” Milley said, noting his job required him to provide military advice to the commander in chief. “I’ve got duties to do here, constitutional duties. I’ve got to make sure he’s properly advised.”

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Trump’s backers will likely read this story and see yet another example of the “deep state” thwarting the president on an issue important to him and the people who elected him. But in reality, the episode demonstrated once again that the president of the United States couldn’t get the people he appointed to carry out his policies because he couldn’t be bothered to learn how to implement them. As soon as he realized an Afghanistan withdrawal would require more work than having McEntee scribble up a note, he dropped it entirely.

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More important are reservations about the Ukrainian strategy of taking the war to Russia by the bombing and killing of not just military but also political targets. Kyiv’s calculation is that this will begin to turn Russians against the war, but many in the West believe it could do the opposite and play to Vladimir Putin’s anti-Ukrainian rhetoric.

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Took them a while to finally admit that Kiev wanted to assassinate Russian political officials. Even more delusional is that they believe Russians will turn against Putin if they kill political figures.