That’s an interesting comparison I hadn’t considered, but isn’t it more like the current EU than the hypothetical federalised EU under discussion?

To be fair, any air superiority scenario is always about some kind of specific geographic area, and Russia is big enough that there are likely to be targets beyond the range of the fighters that enforce air supremacy

Also there is a third country which operates strategic bombers: Russia. It has been using them against Ukraine, and Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb (the raid with trucks full of drones) was specifically an effort to take out a big chunk of that strategic bomber fleet

“Lol no. Actually it was exactly what you said”

Mate the EEC was one of the European Communities, and it ended because it became part of the EU. That’s not a separate attempt. That’s the same one.

…so there has not been an attempt like the EU

I’m no expert either, just trying to assume that the experts in charge of each country are operating rationally (which I assume you’re doing too). As far as I understand, the advantages a full-on human-piloted jet has over drones for something like striking Russian oil refinieres are:

• Far bigger payloads. A drone can damage the refinery, but you need a shitload of drones or one big plane to destroy it

• The ability to get past air defence. Ukraine has been rapidly switching up where it attacks to avoid Russia’s air defences. Hit one place for a while, Russia moves anti-air stuff to defend it, start attacking somewhere else. If you’re attacking with something much more capable, you can choose the targets that you think will hurt Russia the most rather than the ones Russia is defending the least

Russia has substantial drone production of its own and hasn’t stopped using its own air force. Similarly, Ukraine is still absolutely using what aviation it has

It’s also worth remembering that we hear a disproportionate amount about drone usage because a) it’s new and b) they inherently all have cameras on them streaming to a computer, so it’s incredibly easy to get footage of them working

In what fucking world was Napoleon’s attempt not a series of conquests?

Which attempts have been similar to the EU, and not just conquests? The closest I can think of is maybe the Habsburg dynasty, and I think we can agree that that had its own unique issues going on

For what it’s worth, there have been many United States that aren’t the US of America. Mexico’s full name is United Mexican States, and historically there have been USes of Brazil, Belgium, Colombia, Indonesia, Central America, and a few more

That said, I’m a native English speaker and the article is in Spanish. I don’t know if the original Spanish has an implication of “be like the USA” or if it’s just a way to say “Federalised EU”

Ukraine doesn’t have the numbers of advanced jets that NATO has. Drones have proven to be an astonishingly useful weapon, but it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily the best weapon for any given job, it means they’re the best weapon that Ukraine has access to at sufficient scale.

Western donations of jets to Ukraine are certainly not nothing, but Russia had a colossal aviation advantage going into this war. Ukraine’s air force does not have the ability to shut Russia’s down and fly where it pleases like the collective NATO air forces do

You’d lose a lot of other stuff with it. You’re meant to leave wine open for a bit before drinking because air contact changes the flavour. This is less of a thing with white wines, but not not a thing

A bit of a weird situation. As I understand it:

• Denmark itself has banned whaling
• The Faroe Islands and Greenland continue whaling, but both do in ways compatible with the international moratorium on whaling
• For Greenland, it’s the allowance for indigenous subsistence whaling
• For the Faroes, it’s by hunting smaller whales that aren’t covered by the moratorium
• Both Greenland and the Faroes decide their own law on the matter, Denmark can’t make them without partially rescinding the home rule acts
• Nonetheless, Denmark is often quite obstructive to making actual progress on limiting whaling

I went to read the actual report to try to make sense of this. The EU has added loads of renewable capacity, it just wasn’t funded by this specific program

Completely inept writing by Euronews to be so unclear

Launch sites away from the equator are good for some different orbits. The Molniya orbit, for example, is very useful if you’re trying to observe areas at high latitudes

My only suggestion is to try to get their front paws above your elbow so that you can you use that arm to (gently, of course) hold them to your chest. Overall though, if the cat’s weight is being supported by their feet and they’re not falling off, you’re all good!

I suppose it could have been that he got himself covered in something not easily washed out, like paint or glue

It is dumb, yes, but humans aren’t always rational about such emotionally intense things as that scale of national guilt

If you’re only trying to get a measure of how much sound the thing is putting out, sure, but presumably the concern here is actually how much sound they’re putting out that gets to where people live. If the racetrack had a magic completely sound-proof bubble around it, any noise complaints from nearby residents would be very silly no matter how loud it was inside the bubble

He’s like someone got into the universe’s character creation menu and turned the Cat slider up to 200%

55 dB and 109 dB seem ridiculously low and high respectively. If 55 dB is the legal limit, running an aircon unit is right at the line of legality and normal car and bus traffic is well beyond it. Similarly, if the F3 event is generating 109 dB then that surely has to have been measured right at the trackside, because that’s about the level of operating the kind of big power tools that require hearing protection. I’ve been at an F3 event, they’re definitely loud but they’re not that loud