I wanted to get back to you on this to thank you for the sources. Much appreciated.

Do you have any sources I can read up on? This is the first I hear of this.

Especially because he has always been a staunch atlanticist with a ton of connections in the US. That and the fact this comes from Germany, the most pro-US country, barring the UK, in Europe, gives his words extra gravitas.

Our tabby cat doesn’t even try to go for plausible deniability and goes straight for a mouthful of cat leg, preferably when the other cat is chilling.

Ah yes, his wife who made the unforgivable crime of being born black.

I thought they were dropping the tpm requirement. I even have a W11 iso at work that doesn’t have it, provided by an official Microsoft partner.

England and the UK have shown throughout the centuries they stand by these types of treaties. I don’t think this is just posturing.

As Bron so eloquently stated in Game of Thrones: “There’s no cure for being a cunt.”

Non-paywalled: https://archive.is/GeXcI

Ordinarily I would agree. But this is Argentina we’re talking about. Over 40% of Argentinians worked for the government and it was and probably still is the most regulated country in the world. For decades the unions had policy in an iron grip and the Peronites would pass one subsidizing law after the other while not having the money to pay for it all. So they printed more money. And more. And more.

And this kept going for decades, almost a century now (this started in 1930 with a military coup). Since then, Argentina has defaulted on its foreign debt obligations so often they lost all outside investment while having rampant inflation. And subsequent governments just kept printing money and introducing more regulations and social programs.

Argentina is sitting on a ton of natural resources, the country should be rich as hell, but because no foreign investor will touch it, nothing happens. And I haven’t even mentioned the rampant corruption and clientelism yet, which is also a massive problem.

Milei is a strange character, but his chainsaw politics are absolutely warranted and he is going after corruption as well. I just hope he manages to see it through so that Argentina can stop being an economic backwater. He only cares about the economy because the economy of Argentina is so completely and utterly fucked up, there is little else he should care about.

He technically didn’t brainwash them into setting him free. He convinced the pirates to double his ransom and to let him walk free around the camp, where he often and loudly told them that he would come back and have them all killed, once his ransom was paid and they let him go. Then he did exactly that.

I don’t really like Gnome as I like to tinker with everything, so I use KDE. I also have a laptop with Cinnamon, which is also pretty good.

I don’t get why you are being downvoted. That is exactly what his position is, which would be clear to anyone who actually read the article.

www.wsj.com Exclusive | Chinese Ship’s Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles to Cut Baltic Cables Bojan Pancevski 7 - 9 minutes

A Chinese commercial vessel that has been surrounded by European warships in international waters for a week is central to an investigation of suspected sabotage that threatens to test the limits of maritime law—and heighten tensions between Beijing and European capitals.

Investigators suspect that the crew of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier—225 meters long, 32 meters wide and loaded with Russian fertilizer—deliberately severed two critical data cables last week as its anchor was dragged along the Baltic seabed for over 100 miles.

Their probe now centers on whether the captain of the Chinese-owned ship, which departed the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15, was induced by Russian intelligence to carry out the sabotage. It would be the latest in a series of attacks on Europe’s critical infrastructure that law-enforcement and intelligence officials say have been orchestrated by Russia.

“It’s extremely unlikely that the captain would not have noticed that his ship dropped and dragged its anchor, losing speed for hours and cutting cables on the way,” said a senior European investigator involved in the case.

The ship’s Chinese owner, Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, is cooperating with the investigation and has allowed the vessel to be stopped in international waters, according to people familiar with the probe. The company declined to comment.

The damage to undersea cables occurred in Swedish waters on Nov. 17-18, prompting that country’s authorities to open a sabotage investigation. Russia has denied wrongdoing.

Investigators have established that the ship dropped anchor but remained under way in Swedish waters on Nov. 17 at around 9 p.m. local time. The dragging anchor cut the first cable between Sweden and Lithuania shortly afterward, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

During that time, the ship’s transponder, which charts its movements on the so-called Automatic Identification System, shut down in what is known as a “dark incident” in marine traffic jargon. The ship then continued even as the dragging anchor greatly reduced its speed, according to satellite and other data reviewed by investigators.

Investigators say that at around 3 a.m. the following day, having traveled about 111 miles, the Yi Peng 3 cut the second cable between Germany and Finland. Shortly afterward, the ship started zigzagging, raised anchor and continued. Danish Navy ships then set out to pursue and intercept the Yi Peng 3, ultimately forcing it to anchor in the Kattegat Strait, which connects the Baltic and the North seas.

A review of the vessel’s anchor and hull showed damage consistent with having dragged its anchor and severed cables, people familiar with the investigation said.

“Given the mild weather conditions and manageable wave heights, the likelihood of accidental anchor dragging appears minimal,” according to an analysis prepared for The Wall Street Journal by Kpler, an analytics company that provides real-time data on international shipping.

While such incidents have been handled confidentially in the past, the damage to the internet cables last week quickly prompted public interventions from top European leaders.

The crew of Yi Peng 3, which is captained by a Chinese national and includes a Russian sailor, hasn’t so far been questioned, according to people familiar with the probe, but a member of a Danish pilot ship briefly boarded the ship before it was anchored in the Kattegat Strait.

Several Western law-enforcement and intelligence officials said they didn’t think the Chinese government was involved in the incident but that they suspected Russian intelligence agencies were behind the sabotage.

“These are absurd, unsubstantiated accusations,” the Kremlin press office told the Journal. The same Western officials who point fingers at Russia were silent when Ukraine blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the press office said in reference to the 2022 sabotage of the conduit for Russian gas to Europe.

“I would like to reiterate China’s consistent support working with all countries to maintain the security of international submarine cables and other infrastructure in accordance with international law,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters on Wednesday.

The Chinese bulk carrier is now guarded by a small flotilla of North Atlantic Treaty Organization ships belonging to Denmark, Germany and Sweden.

Previously neutral, Sweden is one of the newest members of NATO, having joined the military alliance in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Under international maritime law, NATO ships can’t force the Yi Peng 3 to sail into one of their ports. Swedish and German authorities are negotiating with the ship’s owner to obtain access to the vessel and question its crew.

German police also dispatched the Bamberg, a patrol vessel, to investigate one of the incidents with underwater drones. Swedish and Danish ships have also examined the sites on the seabed.

European authorities must tread carefully because of their commitment to the freedom of navigation and upholding international law that underpins global trade, according to several European politicians, as well as security and law-enforcement officials familiar with the probe.

Since the launch of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has been accused by Western officials of waging a shadow war on NATO territory in Europe to destabilize the West, including orchestrating attacks on undersea pipelines and data cables in the Baltic and the Arctic.

In October last year, a Chinese-registered vessel called Newnew Polar Bear cut the Balticconnector gas pipeline and a telecommunication cable connecting Finland and Estonia with its anchor, according to people familiar with the investigation into the case. Some officials briefed on the investigation said Russian sailors were aboard the Chinese ship at the time of that incident.

Newnew Polar Bear was allowed to proceed toward Arctic Russia because authorities in Sweden, Denmark and Norway didn’t want to halt the ship without sound legal backing, according to officials.

But in the case of Yi Peng 3, the Danish Navy decided to intervene quickly to stop the ship after the second cable was damaged, people familiar with the investigation said.

Yi Peng 3 had operated solely in Chinese waters from December 2019 through early March 2024, when it suddenly changed its pattern of operation, said Benjamin L. Schmitt, senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.

The Chinese ship then started carrying Russian coal and other cargo, making calls in Russian ports such as Nakhodka on the Sea of Japan, several trips to the Port of Murmansk in the Barents Sea and a trip to the Baltic Sea. At present, the ship is loaded with Russian fertilizers, according to Kpler data.

“While this alone is not enough to provide evidence of Russian involvement, the fundamental change in the ship’s operating region to Russian ports after years operating solely in Chinese waters should be a key area of investigation for European authorities,” Schmitt said.

Write to Bojan Pancevski at [email protected]

If you can see an F-22, you weren’t the target.

Nato has had advanced drone capabilities for a long time now, but was mainly focused on stealth and reusability rather than mass production. I know drone swarms to accompany stealth fighters and navy ships have been in development for some years now, but the mass use of disposable drones is not something there was a real need for. But I have no doubt that modern infantry training will start including drone usage and tactics, if that isn’t the case already.

Cat to F5

I usually like your posts, but this is a crime.

No, not the euro, but China did peg the Yuan to the dollar for years to ensure their exports remained cheap.