The subsidies are things like emissions credits and tax credits for purchases. They applied to units already manufactured and sold. There's no conceivable case for fraud if they decide to stop making EVs.
This is an urban legend. Safety defects have to be remedied by the manufacturer for a period of 10 years, but that remedy doesn't have to involve replacement parts.
Not closing Guantanamo is, unfortunately, an example of democracy working. Public support for closing it has never been anything close to a majority. Obama got elected despite, not because, of that promise. Congress blocking his attempts to do so was a reflection of the will of the people, even if perhaps coincidentally.
When it comes to extremely rich people, "political prosecution" generally means that the behavior was absolutely criminal, but that it's usually something they let rich people get away with.
It can also mean it's political. Famously (whether you think he's guilty or not) John Kiriakou pled guilty because he knew John Brennan was going to throw the entire might of the justice system at him. When he talks about the experience, his decisions are made with consideration to the fact the president's inner circle wanted him in jail and he wasn't fighting a fair battle.
I understand that, but I'm talking about the intersection of both. When an extremely wealthy person is subjected to a "political prosecution," that usually means they're guilty as hell, it's a serious crime, and it's just one that other extremely wealthy people got away with.
You can't track individual coins, so you'd have to "taint" entire wallets. Using a mixer would taint the mixer and every wallet it sent to. I'd think this would end up tainting almost everything before too long.
Bitcoin also doesn't require the receiver to authorize a transaction, so if you had control of a tainted wallet, you could taint other wallets at will, wielding it like a weapon.
Doesn't seem feasible. Not that this always stops legislators.
It was at least in theory an issue when they tried to sanction mixers. In fact people would purposely send tainted crypto to well known wallet addresses of celebrities etc. making them technically run afoul of OFAC
Depends on your goal. If you want to keep the system going while blocking "dirty" money, it's not going to work. If you want to use that as a stealth method of banning the whole system, then full steam ahead.
It seems to me that the people who want the unblockable currency out of government control are not the same people who want to block money transfers to countries like Iran.
Sue for peace? All wars are a racket meant to benefit the military industrial complex and corporations - Major General Smedley D. Butler spelled this out for all of us quite clearly in his book War is a Racket.
The war in Ukraine is no exception, and has been in the works for decades (since the collapse of the soviet union at the very least, if not longer). IFM structural adjustments and World Bank loans destabilized the nation. When Ukraine wanted Russia to bankroll their loan instead of the IMF, a CIA-backed coup known as Euromaidan followed and kicked the entire conflict off in 2013/14. Again - I'm not excusing Russia here, obviously they escalated the situation with the invasion, but wars can't be viewed in a vacuum.
I know that most people don't want to discuss the actual reasons the war started and is being fought, and instead want to go with the reductionist and feel-good, Russia bad Ukraine good logic. As I said in another comment, there are no good guys in corrupt and evil wars and the war in Ukraine is definitely one of those.
What conditions would be acceptable for ending the war? Surrender the whole country? Surrender part of it, then wait for the Russians to violate the agreement again?
Ukraine will cease to be a country without a working-age male population. What agreement are you referring to when you say again exactly? The war started in 2014 over Russia offering to bankroll a loan that was previously issued by the IMF / World Bank, and was up for renewal (with structural adjustments of course). Also the ousting of former president Viktor Yanukovych during Euromaidan played into it.
I’m referring to the Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia and the other signatories agreed to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for giving up their nuclear weapons.
So, what’s the answer? What would be acceptable conditions to end the war?
The Budapest Memorandum provided security assurances, not guarantees. As I said in one of my previous comments, the situation is far more complex than Russia bad, Ukraine good. If you want to talk bout the Budapest Memorandum you also have to talk about NATO expansion, what has gone on in Ukraine since the memorandum was established, the diplomatic policies of Western powers involved in the Memorandum and NGOs.
Acceptable conditions to end the war would be whatever prevents the sacrifice of Ukraine's working-age male population. Otherwise, as I also said in my previous comments, there will be no more Ukraine.
“The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and The United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
It’s not complicated. I don’t care what you want to call it, they pretty clearly violated it.
What conditions would do that? You say they should end the war. How? What exactly would peace look like in your view? Or are you just vaguely wishing?
If you asked me how Putin could stop the war and preserve his country, I’d be able to answer that easily. But I have no idea how Zelenskyy could. Educate me.
Do you know what the difference between an assurance and a guarantee is? There was no formal treaty declared. Russia could say that Ukraine violated provisions in the agreements, and has said so. Who is right?
It actually is quite complicated, but you choose to reduce the situation to black and white. There's unlikely to be peace by design - because the war isn't about Ukrainian sovereignty it's about genociding slavs on both sides of the conflict.
You clearly haven't read the book War is a Racket, which is why you don't understand that all wars - including the one in Ukraine - are fought to benefit a select few at the expense of the populations of the nations involved. Your proposed solution for stopping the war is a non-starter because that's not how wars work - it's delusional to think it would ever happen.
So what does peace look like? You say he should sue for peace. Does that mean proposing that Russia retreat to pre-2014 borders? Pre-2022 borders? Borders at the current front lines? Something in between? What do you think would work?
The fact that you can’t describe what Zelenskyy should do to stop the bleeding beyond a uselessly vague “sue for peace” tells me that your objection isn’t really Zelenskyy’s handling of the war, your objection is to the fact that he exists as the leader of a place that Russia wants.
> So what does peace look like? You say he should sue for peace
Yes, if he actually wanted peace and to preserve the lives of his working-age male population he would concede some territory for some sort of security guarantee (not assurance). Instead he traps his entire working-age male population in the country and conscripts them off the street.
If Russia wanted peace and to preserve the lives of their working-age male population, they would be more willing to negotiate terms of surrender for Ukraine, or withdraw from the Ukraine completely.
Clearly neither side wants peace. So the war continues. Every single time peace talks happen, one side or the other sabotages them. This is by design.
> your objection isn’t really Zelenskyy’s handling of the war, your objection is to the fact that he exists as the leader of a place that Russia wants
No? The conflict is not about Russia wanting Ukraine or Ukrainian sovereignty as I have stated multiple times. It's about genociding slavs. There's a reason that negotiators on both sides of the table share something in common in terms of their identity.
Wars aren't organic, they are orchestrated by certain factions of people that want to create a society / world in their ideal order. The Ukraine conflict is part of their plan. It's been written and spoken about many times in recent decades. If you haven't figured that out yet and are still relying on the Putin bad logic to explain this conflict, I don't know what else I can tell you.
Do I think Zelenskyy suing for peace is at all realistic? No. You also asked a completely unrealistic question, because the goal isn't peace or territorial gain, it's genocide of slavs.
I'd reply to your comment directly, but HN is preventing me for whatever reason.
Hysterical reply though! I'm sure you said that elites trafficking children to an Island was crackpot bullshit too, until it wasn't. I understand that you need your worldview to fit into a tiny, neat little logical box that makes you feel virtuous and safe. Unfortunately for you, reality has other plans.
Oh, I don't feel safe. It's just I'm worried about realistic threats like global war caused by a bunch of idiot assholes becoming heads of state, not some shadowy cabal orchestrating a pandemic in order to force vaccines on the population.
There are some jobs where the outcome is the point, and others where having a person actually do a thing is the point. Priest is very much the latter sort of job.
Forget about AI for a moment and let's consider a more mundane tool, like an industrial robot. Is it OK to use a robot to perform some step in assembling a car? Certainly. How about programming that robot to perform Communion? Not so much. Not because using a robot to do things is inherently immoral, but because the human priest is supposed to be an integral component of Communion, it's not just a matter of transporting a cracker and some liquid into people's mouths by whatever means you choose.
reply