President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that France would send Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Ukraine, in what would appear to be a significant increase in his country’s direct military support to Kyiv....
While any aircraft sent to ukrane is nice, I sure hope they aren’t paying much for them. That airframe is about 60 years old with the last major design overhaul in 1990 and its last electronics upgrade in 2000. They would be better off buying F15e’s or even the new f15ex. He’ll, even getting some last Gen f16’s or f18’s over there would be as good or better, but cost probably more. The f15 though is probably the best multiroll jet for the cost.
Now, if we are talking about sending some OG Mirage 2000 fighters over there, then that sounds like the ultimate white elephant gift France could give. The US could sent some F4 phantoms over while we are at it.
The big news I the training of 4500 pilots. That is huge. If they could do that, then the mirage 2000 could basically turn into their base fighter trainer and use it as the training wheels to get the new pilots experience and into bigger and better things.
As much as I say fuck the billionaires, they have actually already had methods of doing this for about 50 years. Only the dumb billionaires who registered the planes in their name were annoyed about the rules. They could have always registered it under a trust, like almost every other rich person private jet out there. People can still figure out the plane tail registration and track you through that, and that will never change. So the billionaires that are happy about this regulation change still have their tail numbers known by the public to be associated with them and can still be tracked. Now they just have to change their tail numbers (giant pain) and wait for people to do slightly more difficult digging to figure out what plane is theirs.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
What regulated American militia do you belong to? We have been so quick to jump to defend the later part of the amendment that we have completely dismissed the first part.
I am a gun owner. I love my ar-15. I was in the Army. I did 2 tours to Afghanistan. I am also very liberal. If a law was passed that expanded on the actual enforcement of the well regulated militia text, I would support it. Instead, we have no regulated militias in America at all, and a bunch of gun nuts that keep screaming “shall not be infringed!!” While ignoring all the rest of the text.
One man’s terrorist group is another man’s freedom fighter. This is why many new organizations that are big on neutrality normally shy away from calling anyone terrorist groups. You could just as easily frame Israel as a terrorist group with the same justifications listed above.
I always know someone doesn’t know anything about Afghanistan and its people when they refer to them as Afghani’s.
An Afghan is a person. Afghani is a currency. Anyone who calls them Afghani doesn’t even know the right term to call the people. It is a giveaway to how little you know about them when you don’t even know what to call them.
Meanwhile all the Chineses and Viet Congs are turning in their graves right next to the Afgani.
This is a huge deal for India. They are the world’s second largest exporter of refined oil, and the largest in asia. This means a lot of buisness is about to shift to them. This is also after India has been negotiating cheap raw oil off Russia due to a combination of sanctions and the occasional case of exploding refineries leading to excess raw oil in Russia
It isn’t just about the pumping. You can pump crude all day and still be broke. Look at several of the middle east smaller countries or even most south America pumpers. The refining is where the industry and money is really at. Cars don’t burn crude oil, it has to get refined. Plastics don’t come out of the ground, they have to get refined. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest crude oil exporter and they still have to rely on others to refine.
In fact, here is a direct quote from OEC-
“In 2021, Saudi Arabia imported $7.43B in Refined Petroleum, becoming the 27th largest importer of Refined Petroleum in the world. At the same year, Refined Petroleum was the 2nd most imported product in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia imports Refined Petroleum primarily from: India ($2.17B), Greece ($1.09B), Russia ($892M), United Arab Emirates ($835M), and Egypt ($689M).”
fruit (lemmy.world)
Supreme Court rejects challenge to abortion pill mifepristone (www.cnn.com)
France will send Mirage fighter jets to Ukraine, Macron says (www.politico.eu)
President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that France would send Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Ukraine, in what would appear to be a significant increase in his country’s direct military support to Kyiv....
Congress Just Made It Basically Impossible to Track Taylor Swift’s Private Jet (gizmodo.com)
Legislation just signed into law has made it exceedingly to difficult to track private jet activity.
Stop Arming Cartels Act makes it unlawful to make, sell, possess a rifle ‘capable of firing .50-caliber ammunition’ (www.wavy.com)
David Cameron urges BBC to describe Hamas as terrorist organisation (www.theguardian.com)
Foreign secretary’s call comes after group releases video of British-Israeli hostage it says died after being wounded in Israeli airstrike...
FBI data shows America is seeing a 'considerable' drop in crime. Trump says the opposite. (www.usatoday.com)
Russia says US support for Ukraine will end as ‘humiliating fiasco’ like ‘Vietnam and Afghanistan’ (thehill.com)
Hasbro 'talking to lots of partners' to find developer for Baldur's Gate 3 sequel (dotesports.com)
Russia to ban gasoline exports for 6 months (www.reuters.com)
Ukrainian drones smashing into Russian refineries lately seems to be having an effect.
Games rule (lemmy.world)
Machines don't know their place (lemmy.world)