Turkey and other countries including the USA see the PKK (Kurdish workers party) as a terrorist group after they tried to form their own Kurdish state. Turkey thinks all Kurds are PKK or have ties to PKK.

The US has been adamant that not all Kurds are linked to the PKK. Specifically the YPG and YPJ which are male and female militia groups respectively. YPG and YPJ are predominantly Kurdish but have lots of ex US and UK military, among others, volunteering with them because of their fight against ISIS and work to bring order to and stabilize parts of Iraq and Syria.

There are many good docos about the YPG and a few about the YPJ.

The USA has said for years that the YPG and YPJ are not linked to the PKK. Now that they're no longer useful they're all linked to the PKK.

Conveniently forgetting that hundreds of YPG fighters are volunteers from the US, UK, etc.

Of the screwy stuff that went down this election, the technicality of not having a full accurate count of mail in, military, provisional, and even still uncounted early votes within 30 minutes of polls closing barely rates mention if not for Republicans fighting tooth and nail to invalidate thousands of votes due to slow clerical work by unpaid volunteers and accusing those volunteers of fraud with with no evidence beyond biased supposition.

Don't believe the unofficial details you hear/read on Fox, they aren't news, they're entertainment (to some)....you know this....notice the url includes the disclaimer "opinion" so they can be fact free.

Compared to the Texas voting machines changing straight party democrat ticket votes to Cruz, Broward county's issues are nothing. There's certainly not any infraction there that merits denying tens of thousands of citizens their right to not only vote, but to have that vote counted.

A big part of the Zero's reputation came from racking up kills in China against a lot of second-rate planes with poorly-trained pilots. After all, there was a reason that the Republic of China hired the American Volunteer Group to help out during the Second Sino-Japanese War – Chinese pilots had a hard time cutting it.

The Wildcat was deficient in many ways versus the Zero, but it still had superior firepower via ammo loadout. The Zero carried very few 20mm rounds, most of it's ammo was 7.7mm. There are records of Japanese pilots unloading all their 7.7mm ammo on a Wildcat and it was still flyable. On the flip side, the Wildcat had an ample supply of .50 cal.

Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa was able to score seven kills against Japanese planes in one day with a Wildcat.

Yes, the discovery of the Akutan Zero helped the United States beat this plane. But MilitaryFactory.com notes that the Hellcat's first flight was on June 26, 1942 – three weeks after the raid on Dutch Harbor that lead to the fateful crash-landing of the Mitsubishi A6M flown by Tadayoshi Koga.

Marine Captain Kenneth Walsh described how he knew to roll to the right at high speed to lose a Zero on his tail. Walsh would end World War II with 17 kills. The Zero also had trouble in dives, thanks to a bad carburetor.

We were behind in technology for many reasons, but once the Hellcat started replacing the Wildcat, the Japanese Air Superiority was over. Even if they had maintained a lead in technology, as Russia showed in WW2, quantity has a quality all of it's own. We were always going to be able to field more pilots and planes than Japan would be able to.

As far as Soviet rockets, once we were stunned by the launch of Sputnik, we kicked into high gear. You can say what you will of reliability, consistency, and dependability, but exactly how many manned Soviet missions landed on the moon and returned? Other than Buran, which was almost a copy of our Space Shuttle, how many shuttles did the USSR field?

The Soviets did build some things that were very sophisticated and were, for a while, better than what we could field. The Mig-31 is a great example. We briefly lagged behind but have a much superior air capability now. The only advantages the Mig and Sukhoi have is speed, they can fire all their missiles and flee. If they are engaged however, they will lose if pilots are equally skilled.

As @newtboy has said, I am sure that Russia and China are working on military advancements, but the technology simply doesn't exist to make a Hypersonic missile possible at this point.

China is fielding a man portable rifle that can inflict pain, not kill, and there is no hard evidence that it works.

There is no proof that the Chinese have figured out the technology for an operational rail gun on land, let alone the sea. We also have created successful railguns, the problem is POWERING them repeatedly, especially onboard a ship. If they figured out a power source that will pull it off, then it is possible, but there is no concrete proof other than a photo of a weapon attached to a ship. Our experts are guessing they might have it functional by 2025, might...

China has shown that long range QEEC is possible. It has been around but they created the first one capable of doing it from space. The problem is, they had to jury rig it. Photons, or light, can only go through about 100 kilometers of optic fiber before getting too dim to reliably carry data. As a result, the signal needs to be relayed by a node, which decrypts and re-encrypts the data before passing it on. This process makes the nodes susceptible to hacking. There are 32 of these nodes for the Beijing-Shanghai quantum link alone.

The main issue with warfare today is that it really doesn't matter unless the battle is between one of the big 3. Which means that ANY action could provoke Nuclear conflict. Is Russia going to hypersonic missile one of our carriers without Nukes become an option on the table as a retaliation? Is China going to railgun a ship and risk nuclear war?

Hell no, no more than we would expect to blow up some major Russian or Chinese piece of military hardware without severe escalation! Which means we can create all the technological terrors we like, because we WON'T use them unless they somehow provide us a defense against nuclear annihilation.

So just like China and Russia steal stuff from us to build military hardware to counter ours, if they create something that is significantly better, we will began trying to duplicate it. The only thing which would screw this system to hell is if one of us actually did begin developing a successful counter measure to nukes. If that happens, both of the other nations are quite likely to threaten IMMEDIATE thermonuclear war to prevent that country from developing enough of the counter measures to break the tie.

I feel that he probably won't make it. Sadly once you are accused of sexual anything with a female, you are pretty much fucked. There is no more innocent until proven guilty. Were I him, even though it has been scientifically proven that lie detector tests are inherently flawed, I would have volunteered to take one just to push past this.

On the flip side, the possible next nominee is Judge Amy Coney Barrett and there is precedent for them to completely skip the committee vote, so there is a good possibility that we can still get a conservative judge on the court. She has not been as harsh towards abortion rights either, so there is a silver lining.

I've been following this story here. Sure was happy when they were found alive -- I had started to lose much hope after they'd been gone 4+ days.

The bad news today is that a Thai volunteer diver, a former SEAL, died on a return trip from setting up extra air supply tanks along the route. BBC coverage is very good:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44734385

Most cave diving experts think that it would be extremely risky to try to move the kids out by diving. One of the on-scene people from the US has said that none of the boys know how to swim, let alone dive, and the conditions in cave diving make it so that panic can quickly lead to disaster.

Unfortunately, a new complication has come up. Oxygen levels in the chamber they are in are now at 15%, down from the usual 21%. They are working to get piping in to supply fresh air, but logistics of that are difficult since they need about 3 miles of piping. And to make matters worse, heavy rains are in the forecast, which will further stress the pumping that they are doing to keep water levels low in the cave.

The Thai head of the Navy rescue operation was quoted today as saying that "At first, we thought the children could stay for a long time... but now things have changed, we have a limited time." If that is correct and can't be resolved (due to dropping oxygen levels, rising water, or whatever), they may have to opt for the risky exit via diving. So definitely not out of the woods yet.

Not sure how he's a trigger happy vigilante...do shovels have triggers now?

It's worth mentioning this is likely scripted, and not real. A real defendant would be insane to volunteer that race was such a factor, or that he attacked a kid with a weapon from behind.
Googling their names, or neighborhood watch attack with shovel turns up nothing. Seems like this would have been big news if it happened.
Color me suspicious.

Hello, I'm ashamed to admit it but I have had jerk off many times with the rape scene, with that said, I once thought that maybe even the film's director is trying to put the blame on the woman's side, since from a wicked interpretation it's her fault to have changed the more quiet and polite guy for the sexually aggressive and still wanting to have him being down like the other guy and since she did not get that treatment she left the party and insisted to go without company even though her ex-boyfriend volunteered to accompany her, I'm not trying to justify that violence, rape is bad, no matter the background of the victim, men should not rape under any given circumstance

If he is "following orders", then the top brass needs to get their shit together. There's no reason they can't organize the volunteers and dispatch them so they know who/where they are and what areas have already been helped. But I guess when your town's underwater, fuck help from Yankees.

Part of me wishes the driver would have just said, "There's a nice way to do that". I can't speak for the officer, but on it's face the interaction is shitty. Maybe he's super stressed about his own stuff. Maybe he's upset about having to help others and no one to help him. Maybe he thinks his orders (if there are any) are really stupid and is at odds with his superiors.

Whatever the case, ultimately he ends up doing a poor job of representing his dept., the city, and cops in general. Hope he and others learn.

Did he volunteer for that? That dude gets his man card for sure.

If Hinkley Point C is any indication, you're not going to find someone to finance/build a nuclear power plant, not in a capitalist society.

It's a massive upfront investment that private entities are basically allergic to; it cannot be insured due to the massive damage caused if things go south on you, so you need the government to act as a backstop; the price you'd have to charge per MWh is humongous compared to solar/wind, so you need massive subsidies, and that's without the ridiculous amount of rent-seeking corporations insist on nowadays.

That, to me, sounds like private is out. Hinkley Point C is being built by EDF, aka the French state, and EDF is struggling not be dragged into the abys by Areva, after the EPR in Flamanville is nothing short of a financial disaster. And we're not even talking about the troubles they are in for having fudged the specifications on the pressure vessels of more than 20 French power plants. Cost-cutting measures, as always.

So, which capitalist state is going to pick up the tab? Any volunteers? Over here, we cannot even get bridges fixed before they collapse...

And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I would want a profit-oriented enterprise or austerity-supporting government construct something like an NPP these days. Look at the construction sites at Flamanville and Olkiluoto, they are modern towers of Babylon, with subcontractors of subcontractors from 30 different countries working for povery wages. Anyone think either of these, should they ever be finished at all, will come even close to the safety standards layed out in their official plans?

LOL, East Palo Alto. I volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club there for a year when I lived in Mountain View. Two cops got shot and East Palo Alto had the highest murder rate ever that year. It's utterly insane how on one side of the 101 you have these multi-million dollar mansions and Stanford University and on the other side you have gangland.

Meanwhile, back on topic, when I moved to Mountain View in 2002 my rent was $800 a month for a studio apartment. The rent went up by $100 a year every year until I finally called it quits in 2007 when they wanted to charge me $1300 a month. I gave up ever actually being able to own a home in the Bay Area (let alone rent) and left in 2009.

In Japan now, and things aren't quite as bad as the Bay Area, but we've been house hunting recently and we're shocked at the disparity between what we want versus what we can actually afford, even with both us being full-time professionals. I know that 2nd place he goes to is supposed to be a joke but it's not that far off from the truth, at least as far as our experiences go. While the places we've been shown by the real estate agent are certainly habitable, they aren't particularly nice. So we're going to have to decide whether we want to live someplace not so great with the advantage being the mortgage will be paid off by the time we retire or just rent in a place we're comfortable with and wind up having to really budget hard after retirement since rent will consume a sizable portion of our pensions/social security.

United totally, 100% disagrees with your assessment. They say they were absolutely wrong and the passenger shares zero responsibility for what happened to him, something that never should have happened and never will again (according to the United President).

Edit: Also totally convinced United did the wrong thing, their shareholders. Ignoring any legal rights, the publicity this gained for them has cost United hundreds of millions in market value.


The guy went to the check in counter to discuss volunteering to fly later, and refused when he was told he would not fly until the next afternoon at best, not in a few hours. That was not acceptable and would cost him money and patients, which he told them. Then he got back on without incident.
Then he was forcibly removed.
Then he got back on again without incident, rambling and bleeding, now diagnosed with a broken nose, missing teeth, and a severe concussion.
And you support the company that had him attacked and concussed and let him back on the plane twice, not the one even United calls "the victim".

Also, why is no one upset that he managed to re-plane twice with no one even noticing?!? That's an insane security failure.

What the world must look like to you when you insist on being on the wrong side on every issue. You really must exist in a living hell.

Truth be told, I don't have a problem with airlines over booking flights. The ONLY condition I would place on it, which I had wrongly thought was already the case, is that they must find volunteers if the flight ends up with too many passengers. Sorry, but if you paid for a ticket and your at the boarding terminal the airline doesn't get to just abandon the contract. They should be required to continue offering larger and larger incentives to volunteer until somebody does. Being able to just boot paying customers for no reason except that the airline screwed up while trying to maximize profit isn't acceptable. Make it volunteer only and the airlines have to balance what people are willing to pay to skip the flight against the profit from overbooking.