NASA just made a rocket - the Space Launch System. It was ridiculously more expensive than SpaceX’s rocket. And the Space Shuttle before that was also very expensive and suboptimal.

I am not a private sector fundamentalist (fuck privatized healthcare), but rocket launches is one area where the private sector has proven better than the public sector.

This was BH’s giant rocket, the biggest in history

New Glenn is large-ish, but it is not the biggest rocket in history. Starship is much bigger, for example.

I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it was unconscious guilty avoidance as opposed to intentionally lying,

As I understand it, that is pretty much the definition of narcissism. Narcissism is defined by an underlying inferiority complex, which gives the narcissist a mental block preventing them from consciously realizing (and acting on) their own imperfections.

Very much behavior shown by narcissists, as I understand it.

A narcissist would often do it at an unconscious level. But it could also be psychopathy, where the psychopath completely deliberately lies to gain advantage. In the specific case cited by OP, the mom has no rational advantage of her behavior, so it would be narcissism and not psychopathy.

“Gaslighting” is a lie told where the victim knows it is a lie. So could be.

But with one subtlety: If the “liar” is a narcissist, then the “lie” is often believed by the narcissist themselves, making it not a lie as such - since “lie” implies they know it is untrue.

Bought from Russia with no plan for an alternative supplier of gas or electricity, of course.

Regards, Angela Merkel.

Are we sure they don’t just mean that you can’t use the Amazon store to download new books? I know that is not what they literally write, but it is likely what they mean.

I agree that Google removing “don’t be evil” is bad. But mentioning that change in this context is a non sequitur.

So not giving away 15GB of free storage is evil? How does that even work…?

I thought being evil was about doing, like, evil things?

oh no a 24 hour ban!

So they didn’t do the worst censorship they could possibly do. But it is still censorship.

Submarine cables exist because it is superior

Submarine cables are usually cheaper and simpler at intercontinental scale, especially because they avoid negotiating rights-of-way across many countries. But unlike oil tankers, internet traffic is not physically constrained to the Strait of Hormuz itself. Capacity could be rerouted over terrestrial fiber links around the Gulf if the economics changed enough.

The bigger issue would probably be the time, permits, and infrastructure investment needed to build enough alternative land routes. Not any physical impossibility of carrying the signals over land. The cables themselves are likely pretty cheap.

And permits should be quite easy to come by, in the empty desert of the Arabian peninsula.

But Iran would be pissing off everybody - for example China and India. Not just the US.

War is pissing other people off. But does Iran want to be at war with all other countries in the world?

Seems pretty short term gain for Iran by pissing everybody off.

Because surely the cables can relatively easily be rerouted over land, instead of paying Iran’s tolls. Unlike the tankers, the Internet signals do not need to go though the water.

And how would Iran even justify forbidding the cables from going through the part of the strait which is not their territorial waters? The same way Iran “justifies” forbidding ships from doing that? - as in, no real attempt at a moral or legal justification.

I don’t know why the U.S. gets shit for using the system that our colonial overlords forced us to use in the first place.

When America was colonized, the metric system did not exist. Saying that your “colonial overlords” forced it on you is silly - there were no better options at the time.

In fact, the metric system was created after US independence. So the US can only blame itself for not adapting it, unlike the UK which mostly adapted it.

The article says “partly joking”, but it would be insane to not take the US President seriously when he says stuff like that.

True. But it still looks symbolically bad.

Not really. Iran are blockading non-Iranian ships. The US is only blockading Iranian-bound ships.

So a priory there was no reason to think that the US would block the Russian ship. And it would be illegal under international law.

They’ve received all the best equipment and ammunition and they’ve made zero progress.

So Ukraine fighting the “second army of the world” to a standstill, instead of winning, can only be explained by extreme corruption?

And Ukraine did not receive the best equipment in the world. The US (and Europe) has refused to give Ukraine tons of the most potent weapons, like Tomahawk missiles.

Maybe your and my idea of what private means is different.

In this case, I mean that they are not the state. The state itself censors all mentions in their own communications. And the state also censors mentions by people who are not the state, i.e. private persons.

why would any government be okay with people commemorating an attempt to overthrow them?

Because that is free private speech. That is what free speech means.

You are allowed to commemorate Jan 6 in the US. I think you are an idiot if you do so, but that it still your right to free speech.