rabas

You naively assume events outside of the NATO block do not threaten NATO members' well being or security. All threats to NATO and in turn the world at large are external to NATO. Of course Russia's invasion is a major threat to NATO, Europe, and freedom everywhere.

For those who claim Western media bias and still believe any truth can come from Russia, listen to an independent audience in neural India react to Lavrov's "truth".

"Most chips are made on a substrate of polysilicon" Not IC chips, which I was discussing. Nearly all IC chips require single crystal silicon otherwise they won't work. They also require a massive Western based technology pyramid as I explained. Neither is true of solar cells. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocrystalline_silicon "A single continuous crystal is critical for electronics, since grain boundaries, impurities, and crystallographic defects can significantly impact the local electronic properties of the material, which in turn affects the functionality, performance, and reliability of semiconductor devices by interfering with their proper operation."

You bought an Apple computer designed in the US, made with US chips manufactured in the free world but chips themselves are the tip of a technology iceberg, little of which comes from China. So what companies dominate this iceberg? Do you see China in the list? I seriously doubt either country would dare start a technology war but if they did, China would be deader. Legitimate competition and trade are a benefit for everyone, which was understood in the 60s. The problem has been teaching the CCP the meaning of legitimate.

"The version of TikTok raising all these concerns is not available in China itself. In an effort to protect Chinese students from the harmful effects of social media, the Chinese Communist Party has issued a rule that limits the time students can spend on TikTok to 40 minutes a day. And, they can view only videos with a patriotic theme or educational content such as science experiments and museum exhibits." Fortune: Is America overreacting to TikTok with all of its new bans at high schools and colleges? Probably not. The app was created by ByteDance, which is based in China and has ties to the Chinese government.

Some info on fingerprints and databases. Putting fingerprints into computers goes way back and is trivial. They manually mark each point where a raised ridge stops or bifurcates. That produces pairs of numbers like (88, 102) that are used to search. I would assume Thailand has had computerized fingerprints all along. The time to find a print with a computer depends on database size. If Thailand is only looking for people who have been banned in the past it would be instantaneous (on an old PC). The fastest current search methods using an Intel CPU exceeds 1 billion prints per second. I would not assume Thailand can't easily find prints from the 1990s especially for a small important group of people.

Washington Examiner Maybe that's why you are not hearing much, Chinese censors.

Possibly encouraged by the release of a top prize like Viktor Bout? Russia wanted Viktor Bout back, badly. The question is: Why? WaPost "There is little doubt that Bout is a top prize for Russian officials ..."

The Pentagon's recent interest and openness towards UFOs is likely due to rapid human technology advancement and increasingly aggressive adversaries, not aliens. They are hoping public awareness will lead to more citizen reporting. UFOs no longer in the Shadows What we should do is get the aliens to help us identify these adversarial flying objects, AFOs.

'War is a perfect timing for military and criminals to engage on armaments black market.' Viktor! I wonder how Viktor Bout is doing. Last I read, he pledged undying love for Mr. Putin, who now owns him, and rushed off to Ukraine saying he truly believed in what Putin was doing there. He didn't specifically mention utter human brutality and destruction. I assume he is on a special mission. But therein lies your difference. Putin employing the most corrupt people imaginable for his illegal war. Zelensky ridding his country of corruption.

"How russia can threaten Norway by blowing up their own pipeline?" From the start, the simple answer for those willing to see is that Putin blew them up to blame America and thus divide NATO, which was Putin's original purpose in building the pipelines. After his attempts to threaten Europe with energy starvation failed big time, the pipelines would never be used again as long as Putin remained in power. You can't move pipelines so their only remaining value to Putin was a false flag operation to finally split NATO. To Putin, everything is about NATO, even his Ukraine war. If he is willing to kill 100,000s of Russians in Ukraine, what's a couple of now useless pipes?

They came very close. Look at the video. Looks like they severed the array connection to the balloon and let the electronics mount free fall. Note: the camera view is from below. With all the flat panels, it probably fell fairly slowly. Real pros. Take that, Xi.

If it came down slowly it would have fallen outside of US territory. And it can be very slowly. The Canadians once shot 1000 rounds into a large errant weather balloon and it still made it across the Atlantic. Thwarted 3 nation's Air Forces. [ref]

WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. general responsible for bringing down a Chinese spy balloon said on Monday the military had not detected previous spy balloons before the one that appeared on Jan. 28 over the United States and called it an "awareness gap." reuters Air Force General Glen VanHerck, head of U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northern Command, said the latest balloon was 200 feet (60 meters) tall and the payload under it weighed a couple thousand pounds. VanHerck added that U.S. intelligence determined the previous flights after the fact based on "additional means of collection" of intelligence without offering further details on whether that might be cyber espionage, telephone intercepts or human sources. --- So they recently learned of the earlier 3 baloons by rummaging through data, as one forum member suggester earlier.

The term "at least" in "at least three times during the Trump administration" suggests some uncertainty so there could be more. Now it's being reported in the NYT and elsewhere: "The information on the three balloon transits in the Trump years was discovered after that administration had left, a senior Biden administration official said on Sunday night." NYT Sounds like they may be digging through old surveillance data.

Of course they shot it down. I'm sure the military and intel agencies want a look at it. Shooting it down over water may better preserve the spy equipment. On the detente front: It was shot down by a single A9X sidewinder air to air missile. The A9X shot down it's first target drone at China Lake, California in 1952. It's first combat roll was during the second Taiwan Straight Crisis against China successfully shooting down many MIGs. wiki

Sounds like a little Putin puppet.

Yes, I did. I renewed my five year licenses in September in Bangkok (Jatujak). I was told the system has changed and now you must first get a queue number. Thai can get a Q number on line, foreigners must go in person to get it, at which time you must take all your paperwork except the medical certificate. They check the paperwork, and if correct give you the Q number. The queue wait at Jatujak was 2 weeks. Can be longer elsewhere. Good luck. Edit: Now see the article above about new nationwide LDT walkin. You might still want to ask if it applies to foreigners though.

The last U.S. airline to use the 747 for passenger flights was Delta, which stopped using the jets in 2017, though other international carriers continue to fly the popular plane. There is speculation that retiring 747s may be bought up by a new airline, Omicron, to carry on the Delta line.

A true measure of Russian military ability, offering huge bribes just to shoot the enemy.

You're right, I only remembered the BP article. That source was 15.7 TeraBecquerel (420 Curies), 1000x times stronger that the lost Australian source. Three dead and many more suffered serious radiation poisoning. The source's initial radioactivity when new was 196 TBq, 10000x stronger than the Australian source. It was replaced because it had decayed to 10% its original strength.

I was wondering the same. I think the capsule is 19 giga-becquerel or 1.9x1010 becquerels wiki. That's equivalent to 0.51 curies and would be a danger to some one who picked it up and kept it close for a significant time. Global headline news seems to be an overreaction. Several years ago Thailand lost track of the source of a radiation therapy machine abandoned in a junkyard. That would have been significantly more radioactive. Only made the Bangkok Post.

DePape opened the door, probably at Pelosi's request. You can see his hand retract from the door handle area then travel underneath Pelosi's right arm. He then places his hand at his side, only later on the hammer and Pelosi's right hand (also on hammer), Look at the bottom of the door, DePape's feet are at the exact distance required for the door to swing open. Note Pelosi's demeanor. He first stares as DePape (som nam na) then to the police and begins smiling as if humored. The whole time Pelosi is carrying a glass in his left hand. DePape had been in the house just over 21 minutes. Looks like Pelosi, an intelligent man, was working hard to keep the situation with a crazy as relaxed as possible after having called the police unbeknownst to DePape. Pelosi's demeanor is understandable as he had just outwitted a crazy guy threatening him. Unfortunately, this likely triggered the hammer attack, which likely would have happened at some point without the police. Nothing inconsistent with the reported news.

Probably to mount an 'offense' against Russian forces illegally occupying parts of Ukraine.

... at Ukraine's request.