SeventyTwoTrillion

Next thread here.

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I don't know if Egyptians would necessarily overthrow Sisi (I legitimately have no idea, not saying they would or would not, though I am wary of Sisi's election results which had high support for him and high turnout) but Egypt is already in an economic crisis and having to take on a million people all at once in a far-flung region would be a big drain on very limited resources.

I wish I knew more about precisely what is going on in the Egyptian government right now, because on the one hand I hear stuff like "Oh, Sisi would never take in the Palestinians for XYZ reasons, they'd sooner declare war against Israel" and on the other hand I hear "Oh, Sisi is a total comprador and is a puppet on the strings of the US, he'll do whatever Israel asks when push comes to shove" which are both plausible but contradictory

I've heard figures suggesting that something like half the population of the Gaza Strip is in Rafah. First, this seems like it would complicate operations quite a lot even if you were totally willing to kill everybody you saw, and second - the other half therefore isn't in Rafah, and is instead further north. Israeli plans are, presumably, to get every Palestinian out of Gaza and into the Sinai (and possibly beyond) - this sounds like it would take months or even years to achieve, all the while you're being attrited to death by Hamas and Hezbollah. Explains the desire for Netanyahu to bring reservists back into the army, I suppose - gotta send thousands more Israelis to their deaths.

Also worth noting that we've seen a noticeable decrease in the number of vehicles destroyed by various groups lately. This isn't due to slackened activity - actually, the reverse seems to be true, these groups are growing in activity and we get more reports every day from various groups and their achievements. The Gazan resistance is claiming that almost 1000 Merkavas have been damaged or destroyed. Is Israel essentially out of Merkavas now? It would explain why they needed to withdraw their armored brigades. This seems to be transforming into an infantry battle, which doesn't seem very fun in an urban environment with a tunnel disadvantage.

What with the bombing in Iraq and Yemen, it does feel like the Resistance is planning something, perhaps biding their time. It's not clear where US-Iraq negotiations are standing (or even if they were serious in the first place) but the Iraqi government seems pretty pissed and so do the resistance groups present there. I wonder if Hezbollah will use the efforts by Israel to remove Palestinians from Gaza as a casus belli. I wonder if Israel will take the first step and conduct an operation against Hezbollah and Rafah simultaneously. Either way, the regional war is now locked in. To use Khrushchev's turn of phrase, Israel has pulled the knot too tight, and now it has to be cut.

Ultimately, I trust Sinwar's judgement. The whole of the Resistance came together to debate the terms of the ceasefire and did not find any reason to agree with the terms, even to buy a couple months to prepare for further war. I await their plans eagerly.

I think it'll look a lot more like the breakup of the Western Roman Empire than some titanic clash between the Western and Eastern blocs like WW2 and then the Cold War was. Even during the Cold War, American military might left a lot to be desired. They were absolute experts at killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of civilians in bombing campaigns, they could do a bunch of coups without breaking a sweat and then be home before dinner, but actually winning military victories? That requires a sense of long-term commitment, strategy, a capacity for analysis and self-critique, a military-industrial complex that is out for more than just profit, and perhaps most importantly, not having your logistics chains stretching across the entire planet to reach far-flung nations. The US really is the true heir of Nazi Germany. ...well, and Nazi Germany also took after the US, so it's kinda of a Nazi ouroboros there.

I think it'll basically be the US taking one step forward followed by three steps backwards. They'll whack a country and massively degrade it (e.g. Palestine) but in the process, a couple more nations will realize the precarious position of the empire and take their chances. Then as the US has to devote resources there, too, another couple nations will try. And all this time, the US government and Congresspeople are completely unwilling to show that they're reasonable people, willing to compromise - it'll be "No, the ENTIRE PLANET must be under our boots!" They'll try and have it all, which will lead to them having nothing by the end.

#Tradle #706 4/6
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https://games.oec.world/en/tradle

yes, I do want to send in military force to crush anti-semitic pogroms in Hungary. I am literally the worst person politically, ever

A vote for Zelensky is a vote for Zelensky. you tankies might not get the concept of voting for the least harm, and I get that Zelensky is genocidal, but Zelensky would be so much worse.

I'm less confident than you, I give Biden a 75% chance of winning, 24% chance that Trump wins, and 1% chance that the nukes have dropped by then

The English media is invested in eepeatedly sharing all of these awful proposed scenarios because it is invested in defeatism and the "legal struggle".

it's make me even more active in the anti-doomer fight to compensate.

even the term "doomer" sounds immensely childish when used in the context of this war. like, "oh yeah I'm a westerner online still on twitter in 2024 talking about how I worked on Fetterman's campaign and now I'm reading climate news stories and making myself upset, I'm such a doomer, time to go on my irony-drowned discord server and go on do not disturb and set my bio to something like 'if nothing else, I demand a beautiful death' and then go scroll on my phone watching youtube shorts for the next 3 hours while getting angry at people arguing that we should vote for Biden, then--" yeah whatever dude. when you're done with that, get in the tunnels and start reading up on guerrilla warfare tactics while pedalling on the bike keeping the dim lights on. we've got a genocide to stop

edit: just to clarify: not talking about mental illness or extenuating circumstances that might cause hopelessness etc, just the kind of western leftist who engages with ongoing events only to the extent of the (very real) tragedy of the people dying and then gets miserable because of that, refusing to consider the people fighting back either because they hate Hamas and other groups, because they bought the propaganda, or in general just have that "glorious defeat" lens present at all times

Blinken is running behind Biden trying to put out the fires he's starting, Austin is just trying to get out of this mess without losing too much dignity, and Nuland and her ilk are essentially in total control of foreign policy

just wait until they learn about the Bosphorus

The proposed law aims aims to support production in Europe of technologies seen as essential to achieve climate neutrality, like solar panels, wind turbines and heat pumps.

On the subject of heat pumps:

Germany to miss 2024 heat pump target by half

Also by EURACTIV, same author.

Germany’s building sector is a climate laggard. Installing 500,000 heat pumps a year from 2024 was the political target to help with the country’s projected CO2 overshoot of some 50 million tonnes – the annual emissions of Austria – by 2030. However, due to a political deadlock over heat pump mandates from 2024 and a return to pre-war gas prices, that target looks to be out of reach.

Outwardly, the industry is mostly smiles. Last year was a bumper year for the sector, with sales topping 356,000 units – up 50% from 2022. Sales in Germany propped up the results for all of Europe. But in private conversation, the industry says that pace can’t be maintained. Selling an extra 150,000 heat pumps in 2024 to meet the government target, jointly agreed with heat pump producers and installers, will prove too challenging. “Sales have been on a downward trend since June 2023,” stressed Martin Sabel, CEO of the German heat pump industry association BWP, on 22 January. According to the lobbyist, “the most recent slump in December 2023 is particularly alarming” with a “40% drop in sales”.

A BWP industry study forecasts sales of just 260,000 for 2024 should there be “no additional measures”.

What's happened here is that gas prices have come down enough that gas boilers are now preferred from a price standpoint to the cost of installing heat pumps. These gas prices came down by sacrificing industry for the sake of the general public (not the wrong move - but the gas shouldn't have been stopped in the first place!)

So Germany has fucked up so badly that they somehow managed to thread the needle to create the worst situation possible. If gas prices were higher, heat pumps might be preferred. If gas prices were lower and the gas more plentiful, industry could be restarted. It takes genuine talent to be this incompetent.