CPslograd

Ah, thanks bud, I was sitting at my daughter's swim meet when I typed that and got interrupted by by "first call for...."

China is a semi autonomous part of the PRC. Taiwan is a completely independent country, albeit one that no one recognize s at the UN.

This is the biggest threat to the chicoms in decades. It's not simple for them to squash it either, because they are dependent on the capital markets in Hong Kong. And those capital markets are dependent on the rule of law.

In general I agree about Midwest versus West liberal divergence. But Minnesotans are whacky.

Corey Booker was the most over hyped college recruit of all time. And his rent control Ponzi scheme is assinine

Another bogus stat. Nominal dollars isn't useful in comparing defense spending. Has to be done in PPP, and even then its not perfect. What's is the salary of a PLAN infantry man, versus an American? What is the cost for an American shipyard to build a ship versus the far larger and more efficient Chinese yards. I'm not advocating more defense spending, or making the Chinese out to be more than they are. But cherry picking the nominal dollars defense spending stat is very misleading.

Bogus stat. Vast majority of education spending is done by the states.

A lot of people our age seem to have this belief that American dominance is a birthright. They will say things like Mug was saying. And act as if war is fought by people lining up their armies and navies and air forces, and fighting it out in the open. That's not how it works. Look at the dominance of the Royal and US Navies on paper in the North Atlantic, and look how desperate that battle was for years against the Nazis.

It's a lot more complicated than that bud.

Converts basic premise is correct, we stopped developing anti ship missiles because there was no other navy standing after the Cold War. China is building ships faster than us now, and their equipment no longer sucks. Whether the PLAN has the training, leadership, and tactics for a peer conflict is an open question. They definitely do the gray zone stuff better than we do.

A missile having a 500 km range and having the sensors to Target a moving ship from that distance are two different things.

It was stupid of the university to return the money.

If the Red Army had defeated Germany without American involvement in the war (which is a proposition I am skeptical of) I highly doubt Stalin would have stopped at Berlin and not occupied Western Europe. Anyone who has a read a history book knows 9 out of 10 wehermacht casualties came at the hands of the Soviets. But you can't cherry pick that stat and pretend American involvement didn't decisively impact the war in Europe. The Germans had to fight multiple fronts, which affected every decision made by the Germans in the war.

Putting tariffs on Mexico over immigration is stupid. The tariffs on China, which is over trade practices, is more complicated. I still think an aggressive TPP would have been a better way to mitigate Chinese trade practices than tariffs. But I prefer tariffs to doing what we were doing. The original sin was letting the Chicoms in the WTO before they had adopted internationally recognized rules and laws.

If you think Mug is so awful, then go to another board.