Posts by Chris Waugh
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
the US invading Cuba to end Castro’s revolution
Tried that in '61, didn't work out too well (Of course, using proxies again, but even so... ), and it didn't spark any kind of Soviet march on West Berlin, not even a subtle encouragement of the GDR to have a go. Then again, West Berlin was the British, French and US sectors, and remained so until reunification. Then (yet) again, that didn't stop the Soviets from blockading West Berlin....
-
Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I think the idea is that it’s rather better that they have the “nuclear option” of a veto than the actual “nuclear option”.
I certainly don't disagree with that.
But you're going to have to work hard to persuade me that the Security Council setup is what stopped the US and USSR from blowing us all up - they came awfully close to it in 1962. It reminds me of arguments I've heard from an ex-USMC enlisted man that MAD stopped the US and USSR going to war. Maybe directly, but they certainly did seem to enjoy a good proxy war.
As for northern hemispherians, they are a bit weird with geography. They seem to think the world ends at the equator. And I say that as one married to a northern hemispherian.
-
This morning’s cloudscape.
And 15 minutes later.
-
Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Howard Edwards,
Ban frivolous vetoing
The permanent members don't seem to use their vetos terribly often. They seem to be more often held up as a threat, a kind of nuclear option to encourage negotiations to head in a more preferable direction. Even so, abstentions seem to happen far more often than vetos.
-
Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Veni, vici, delinqui.
Oh, I thought it was something much more mundane sounding, like "British Empire".
-
Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Russell Brown,
78 miles. That map is way too small and clicking on the most accurate spot you can way too fiddly.
-
Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Russell Brown,
They knew who was doing it and who would be killed, but they dithered.
I would suggest the Brits had a fairly good idea of the communal tensions in India in '47 too. I do sometimes idly wonder if the Kashmir issue was left unresolved at least partly out of spite...
-
OnPoint: BTW, the NZ Police can use…, in reply to BenWilson,
Was he looking simply for a picture or content within the picture? Because "chris"'s two examples above are a technique for posting sensitive content to Weibo, the idea being that the keyword filters that alert the censors can't read text in an image file because it's a picture, or at least that's how I understand it and I could well be wrong. I'd be worried if they could look for particular content in an image, though.
-
Capture: Spring Breaks, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
the magnolias
Yes. Beijing edition here, but I agree.
-
OnPoint: BTW, the NZ Police can use…, in reply to "chris",
That strikes me as two textbook examples of Chinese internet censorship evasion - also evading Weibo character limits, but more importantly getting stuff out there in formats the censor spiders won't immediately pick up on rather than regular text. Well done. Especially the second.
