The strategic reality of Russia’s neighbours is obviously that they can’t change their geography and have to find a way to live with Russia. That should be obvious to anybody with even a minimally functioning brain.

Yes? We’re in agreement here. The neighbors are happy to get their oil at a discount. They would not be getting this discount were it not for the sanctions, since there would be more competition in the buyer’s market.

The war in Ukraine is a direct result of Europe acting in the American interest and participating in expansion of NATO.

If Russian leadership was under the illusion that NATO was secretly an offensive alliance, and thus needed to preemptively invade Ukraine, it should be clear with this Hormuz straight business that it really is a defensive alliance. Trump tried to get the NATO members to help and they all told him to pound sand.

Meanwhile, the report you yourself linked clearly shows that Russian energy exports have remained stable overall.

They’re down year-over-year, with the biggest hit coming in the first year. The sanctions did what they could (forced Russia to offer big discounts) and now they’re stable in their effect.

The harm that’s been done to Europe is far greater than any profits Russia has lost over the past 4 years.

I mean, this is an argument fraught with “nuh-uh” and hand-waving on all sides. “Worth it” is very subjective, especially when the harm to both sides is relatively minor, in the grand scheme of things. Both sides have adjusted to the new reality.

Not only that, but with Russian supplies cut off and now the Gulf, Europe finds itself entirely dependent on the US which is a predatory power.

The European oil sources are super diverse, there’s no need to make this a false East vs West thing. I’m literally just here to explain that Russia is selling oil at a discount because it has to, not because it wants to.

That wasn’t a moral judgment of the Russian invasion, it was just pointing out a strategic reality for neighbors. Likewise, Gazans would probably have issue with buying Israeli products if given choice.

Still, I don’t know what to tell you. Russian carbon energy export profits have fallen hard since the beginning of the invasion, with much of the losses coming out of their pipelines.

See this graph in this article/report. You can find quite a lot of other articles talking about how the recent spike in prices from the Hormuz bullshit is a huge boon for Russian carbon energy.

They’ve been selling oil and gas this entire time, there isn’t any need to secure customers, they already have them. The discount is essentially the effect that they have a smaller pool of buyers, and those buyers piss off a number of other players (countries, buyers, sellers, insurance, etc) by buying from Russia. A few buyers have to also contend with paying a country that has demonstrated a willingness to invade their neighbors. Many of the former Soviet states, for example, have continued to buy Russian oil this entire time, while putting in big efforts to transition away. Their oil and gas purchases have been heavily criticized by people who don’t understand how long it takes to change energy sources.

Yes, that’s what the sanctions are intended to do. Russia should struggle to make any profit from their gas and oil. It would be ideal if they couldn’t sell at all, but forcing them to sell at steep discounts is still very good. This Hormuz straight business has unfortunately caused the price of oil to go up, which will significantly increase the price Russia can sell at.

Similarly, the communists would have praised her as an examplary citizen.

I am out standing in my field. Lotta grass.

“No money for healthcare” is inconsistent with how the American healthcare system works. Switching to single-payer universal healthcare would save money. The high cost of housing is not a lack-of-money problem, but a refusal to build supply problem. In many places it’s straight-up illegal to build more housing. You need to remove the regulations, not spend even more on housing.

I have replaced a number of broken parts in my house using my 3D printer and it’s so nice.

I think you’re right, but now we’ve got the issue that such a spectrum makes zero sense for a pure compound. Why can’t my memes be scientifically perfect???

What in the heck is that graph? Abundance as a function of time?? What? But the data looks a lot more like some kind of EMR spectrum?

Couldn’t you make it a bunker buster?

https://seattleareafelinerescue.org/decoding-stink-face/

My guess is this cat is doing it because it’s a real big smell.

Ah, yes, this would be a frustrating map to try and actually use.

They still do. Military exercises are not about determining which side is better. It’s about learning things, practicing things, simulating things, etc. Often times one side will fail and then the exercise will continue on as if they succeeded, because, again, the point is not to score wins and loses. It’s fact-finding. It’s training.

It’s kind of like of the F35 loses in dogfights to older planes whenever they test that scenario. If the F35 is in a dogfight in real life, a completely unrealistic number of things have lined up and gone wrong for that pilot. In real life the F35 would just shoot the older planes out of the sky from the other side of the horizon.

It’s a much closer approximation, anyway.

Denovo Techniques in Waste Generation and Cost Overruns: A Look Into the Walrus-Dragon Lab Methodology

It wouldn’t. They just added that in there for the scaries and they probably didn’t think it through much.

Also we’ve been doing it for millennia. The evolutionary pressure is already there. These are just the ones with the random mutations that make them slow enough to slap.

It’s like asking why gazzel aren’t fast enough to outrun a lion.

It’s my understanding that the specific direction on this relative motion graphic is just made-up, but it does do a good job of reminding people that we’re orbiting the galactic center.

It really depends on which trade-offs you consider worth it. Reducing economic friction has huge benefits, even if you have to give up some national financial tools to get it.