Only a guess: Russia needs more guns and bullets & DPRK makes lots of AK knockoffs & ammo. Russia's arms industry is led by oligarchs, fake corporations that actually are like every other major Russian industry: a front for a Putin owned scheme, where Putin's money cut comes first then his oligarchs' cuts come next. It's an inefficient way to run any business and this war reveals that secret liability.

If ever there was sn opportunity to drive the FSB crazy, this is one of the best. Anything that could keep FSB paying extreme attention to Vladivostok (like dozens of sham threat alerts all over the region where Kim & Putin are) and dozens of others around Moskva & Petersburg, would allow cover for Ukraine to stage surprises in Donbas, Zaporizhia, Melitopol, Crimea, and occupied Kherson to be popped open as soon as Kim is back in DPRK.

Rescinding part of the previous thread, as the original news story was just corrected yesterday to add this:

Musk weighed in, writing, "At no point did I or anyone at SpaceX promise coverage over Crimea. Moreover, our terms of service clearly prohibit Starlink for offensive military action, as we are a civilian system, so they were again asking for something that was expressly prohibited."

Musk added that "SpaceX is building Starshield for the US government, which is similar to, but much smaller than Starlink, as it will not have to handle millions of users. That system will be owned and controlled by the US government."

But the concern still exists over how much Starlink knows about Its network's users locations, movements and the content of communications carried over its network.

Good comments.

This highlights the risk of complete reliance on monopolies and private sources for mission critical capabilities. It happened to the auto industry at the start of the pandemic, when its supply chain for electronic sensors collapsed.

If NATO relies on Starlink as much as Ukraine's military does, it must consider that reliance as a critical vulnerability - as much for its operational reliability and for its info security reliability.

Here's why: What seems really sinister about the story is this: How did Elon Musk (or whoever was operating the Starlink network) know after the apparently secret operation began that underwater drones from Ukraine were on their way to the Russian naval port? Logically, no one would have told Musk that a Starlink-dependent set of vessels was on its way to a Russian naval facility. But if no one did, when and how did Musk's Starlink operators realize a secret operation was in the works in time to thwart the attack?

The mid-operation timing of the Starlink satellite's shutdown suggests that Starlink is compromised and that Musk's company has the ability to analyze who and what's using each satellite's link to the network far better than Starlink's users know or trust.

Moral: We've grown up assuming that privacy is a right. Big Brother doesn't care. Is Elon Musk one of the world's newest Big Brothers?

Is it better for the public good to allow local governments to issue building permits supporting infrastructure to serve the growth of disaster prone places and the loss of open space where in normal situations these floodplains and coastal areas could serve as green space for common recreation uses.

If only Putin's monolithic propaganda machine could be disabled long enough to quell the incessant jingoistic drumbeat from Russia's hardline nationalists.

This pilot hero should be entered into a witness protection program and made a consultant to the masters of soft power influence to figure a way to crack Putin's public information apparatus.

To those who dismiss the defection of a Russian helo, don't deride its significance. With an army so up its rear logistically, every loss of a helo further degrades Russia's logistic abilities.

X is not dysfunctional, it's a strategic scam to increase users of its app.

I have tried to read user agreements of any app I contemplate putting on my mobile device. They're absolutely scary!!!

I highly recommend everyone read these gigantic and hard to parse documents as closely as a lawyer would.

Once you install an app on your mobile device, you are virtually giving up all your rights to privacy to anything that's on your device. Making access to a website available only vis app potentially monetirs as much contact info as possible.

As PT, Barnum said, "S sucker is born every minute.." Elon Musk needs more suckers, so he wants more people to access X by the app.

The numb skulls! How many of them would pass a Civics-101 test? Or a US Citizenship exam?

Only a small percent of Putin's political enemies get murdered. A lot of them are just clumsy, especially when staring out of open windows in multi-story buildings.

Where's Tucker Carlson's name in this article?

About time! But if this got to SCOTUS, would Alito et al exonerate the SOB?

The nobly cloaked Society is no "charity". It's a RICO racket to turn back long-accepted constitutional rights and to strengthen the privileges of the powerful and to perpetuate a caste system in American society. And 6 of 9 SCOTUS justices owe their appointments to Leo, Calabresi, et al.

About time! But if this got to SCOTUS, would Alito et al exonerate the SOB?

The nobly cloaked Society is no "charity". It's a RICO racket to turn back ling accepted constitutional rights and to strengthen the privileges of the powerful and to perpetuate a caste system in American society. And 6 of 9 SCOTUS justices owe their appointments to Leo, Calabresi, et al.

So, I have mixed concrete before and never thought something as simple as baked (pyrolyzed?) used coffee grounds could help make a slab or retaining wall foundation stronger. Maybe I bake a couple of pounds and try adding to the mix for my retaining wall project this fall?

Is pyrolyzing simply achieved by applying high heat to the point of carbonizing organic material? Hmm?

I'm not sure if Ukraine could handle so many challenges at thevsame time, but would it be possible for Ukraine to leave the heavily entrenched Russians stuck in their pisitions in Donbas and instead begin the liberation of Crimea, and the eviction of interlopers who moved in after Russia's 2014 occupation?

It seems that the border there is less fortified than the minefields in depth on the Donbas front, and that Crimea's pre-occupation Ukrainian population would appreciate liberation from their Russian thugs.

Oh great! RUSSIA, CHINA, & IRAN. Where do they get off trying to create a multilateral financial network, when they all represent police states and lawless government autocracies. South Africa, India, and Brazil ought to be ashamed of affiliating with this collection of intrusive, dangerous police states.

If Trump had been physically less obese and young enough he still wouldn't have had the ethical and emotional stability to even enter boot camp, nevertheless run for any office of the public trust.

Candidates for US Senate and for the Executive Branch should be required to pass a government Background Investigation before their name is placed on an Election Day ballot.

A cursory background check is required before recruits enter bootcamp. The least intrusive check requires honest completion of the SF-85, "Questionnaire for Non-Sensitive Positions" to initiate NACI investigations to support Low Risk positions. This de minimis requirement should be required for all political office candidated and its results made publicly available.

And candidate for high office including the presidency, should be investigated for their trustworthiness, reliability and competence to have access to sensitive information. At a minimum, such candidates should be required to complete the SF-86, "Questionnaire for National Security Positions", a form used to initiate the clearance process for High-Risk Public Trust positions and for all three levels of security clearances. It asks for personal identifying data as well as criminal records, illegal drug involvements, financial delinquencies, mental health counseling, alcohol related incidents and counseling, civil court actions, misuse of computer systems, and subversive activities for seven to ten years with some questions having no time limit.

What a narcissist! In the course of a 3-hr slice of airtime was probably aired for all of 6 seconds which is 1/10th of a minute! Waaa! Tchumpy baby wants a binky??

#9: "Catholics" aren't the reason the Court is so radically conservative. It's the fault of the Federalist Society dominating the GOP's judicial selection pocess and conservative PACs & non-profit!( ?!) lobbying groups like the Heritage "Foundation" and private corporations like Koch Industries serving so effectively to boost right wing causes and strengthen the powers of the wealthy.

It's not Catholics, who before Roe v Wade had a large population of clergy & followers dedicated to social justice and equality and human rights.

Although 6 justices are Catholic, one, Justice Sotomayor is not a Federalist Society clone. Also while Ketanji Brown Jackson refuses to make her faith anyone else's business, part of her K-12 years were dedicated to extracurricular activities sponsored by her hometown's RC diocese. Obviously those ties didn't make her inclined to shred America's longstanding tradition of separation between church & state.

Oh, btw, tyrants throughout history have tried to spread the message by collaborating with friendly media, hobbling or squashing unfriendly media, by scapegoating opponents easiest to scapegoat, & by marginalizing its opponents through lies, exaggerations and declarations that only those loyal to the dictatorship are "patriotic" (or in Abbotts's case, "True" Texans). All "others" are "enemies of the state".

We have "news" corporations willing to carry such messages for these causes. Can you name them all?

This is reminiscent of the ways Germany & Italy slid into fascism. Those countries were pluralistic semi-democracies before their waves of right wing radicals. Once in power, the fascists took away the rights of those who opposed them and installed the converse of institutionalized checks & balances. Instead the "elected" dictators ensured that their loyalists became legislators and judges. As that happened, laws changed and any wift of pluralism was quickly extinguished.

So TX, with a staunchly illiberal governor, legislature and state judiciary now wants to override the state's constitutional guarantee of home rule rights to its cities. And how can the cities fight that? What's a constitutional right if the governor, and by a nartiw but stable majority of the legislature and courts agree with the governor?

As the article says, this law follows a surge of broad preemption bills in conservative GOP-controlled states like Florida, and Tennessee & sets up other states to follow the strategy that works so well for dictators like DeSantis, Mussolini and Putin.

#27 & #11: Your examples of rude American tourists happen too often.

I've traveled afar most of my life and always tried to blend in and respect the locals & their culture. Having grown up in a very multi-ethnic and multi-national metropolitan area, I grew up with family, neighbors and friends speaking various languages including French, Spanish, Ukrainian, Cantonese, Italian, Creole, Gaelic, Polish and Roma. In church, services were in Latin or in the language of the local congregation. With that exposure I could pick up bits and pieces of other languages.

But, few Americans have grown up with such multicultural exposure, and that's part of what makes our seeing rude or ill-mannered American tourists cringingly embarrassing. In my first trip to Madrid at 18, I cringed when an American lady repeatedly shouted in English to her husband and a street vendor outside the Prado that she wanted an ice cream. Ugh.

And #8, bad-mannered tourists come from many other parts: "Businessmen" from PRC can act badly as you mentioned, some Brit hooligans on holiday give English speakers a bad rap, and often rude Russians, Israelis and Saudis can act like they're the center if the world too.

Wherever I've been, except perhaps for my first days in some parts of Japan, where it took me time to adjust to some seemingly rigid, almost OCD-like customs, it's rarely been a problem to get by with an appropriate smile and low key respect for the local folk.

We shouldn't be debating religions. If you've been brought up in a culture that respects others right to life, liberty and the unselfish and harmless-to-others pursuit of individual and family harmony and happiness, then your religion is yours to cherish and no one else should deny you your belief.

Conversely, while no one should deny anyone like us our beliefs, we should not deny others the right to peacefully find spiritual guidance in their own ways even if we believe differently.

The US Constitution's Freedom of Religion clause of the First Amendment protects both believers and non-believers. It is partly derived from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended Europe's Thirty Years' War, a period of religious violence that killed eight million people. To avoid such senseless inter-religious violence, this "Right" formalizes the founding father's intent for a free society to progress through institutionalized neutrality between religions, as opposed to any establishment of state-mandated religious denominations, doctrines or dogmas.

Under US law and the UN Declaration of Human Rights, peaceful spiritual belief or non-belief is protected for all people of good will.

Continuing for my above friends, this variously paraphrased proverb (16:18) is instructive for the Tchump's ever diminishing sphere of advisors:

"Pride cometh before ruin; a haughty attitude brings destruction."

Of course, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner no longer cares about his wife's daddy's well being now that the Saudi sovereign wealth fund invested $2 billion in his mysterious leveraged investment company.

For my conservative evangelical christian and orthodox jewish friends whose support for this evil, immature and easily piqued orange headed jerk always mystifies me, I have these words of wisdom from their faiths' guidebooks:

"Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered." (Proverbs 22:24)

Association with always angry Don Tchump will bring you doom, my theocratically inclined but Trump supporting friends.

A surprise to Westerners whi'ce grown up in a Freedom of Speech & religious neutral society is that at least half the world doesn't follow that ethos.

The Koran, however, is no joke to many of the most deeply traditional of conservative Muslims. To them the Koran (Quran) isn't just print on paper nor electrons on a screen. It is the living "miracle" of Islam, the transcribed words that illiterate but very intelligent Mohammed received from the Archangel Gabriel as he told them to his scribes when Arabia was still a polytheistic tribal land.

It's perhaps akin to the Eucharist miracle, where devoted Catholics believe that Christ is among his believers in the communion "host". To disrespect the "cost" is as bad as destroying the Quran would be in intensely devout conservative sects of Islam. To convince them otherwise, would be nearly futile.