Ukraine’s TV personality leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems to be doing alright. Also went into war, but not of their own doing, and he has been measured, insightful, aware, throughout this whole war.
There’s more to it than Trump being a TV show personality. Far too complex and insidious than a simple quip.
My understanding over the US/MX cartel relations is performing an invasion and “act of war” would solidify asylum status claims by Mexican residents and throw a wrench into the whole immigration scheme every administration plays.
But then again this time seems different, laws aren’t followed or upheld. Human rights are a fleeting staple.
Its mincing words a bit, but an attack targeting drug cartel assets wouldn't necessarily be viewed as a war with Mexico. It could lead to that for sure, and the Mexican government could declare it an act of war, but we did just see the US literally invade a foreign country and arrest their sitting leader without war being declared on either side.
We declared war on drugs and on terror, maybe AIDs and Covid as well? Though you're right, we haven't declared war on another state since WWII despite being in multiple wars over that time.
I assumed when you wrote "war being declared" you meant in Constitutional sense which reserves to Congress the power to declare war.
Not in the metaphorical "war on poverty" sort of way.
FWIW, examples in addition to Maduro are Aguinaldo (Philippines), Noriega (Panama), Hussein (Iraq), and Aristide (Haiti).
(Technically speaking, the US didn't recognize Philippine independence so didn't consider Aguinaldo to be its president, but instead a rightful cession from the Kingdom of Spain due to the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish–American War, where the US had made a formal declaration of war.)
(Also, the US says Aristide's departure was voluntary.)
From what I've seen in the news, and also in history books, and also from anecdotes from the family of a previous (American dual national) partner, I don't agree that Americans as a whole see the international border as "a bright line" nor "a defining point of jurisdictional change".
Some Americans may, I don't know how many, but definitely not Americans as a collective.
I tried writing a comment to explain the Chicano perspective, but since I am a non-Chicano American, I was just making things up.
Suffice it to say that the Chicano experience and perspectives on nationalism are different than that of typical Americans. And that Americans cannot understand the political relationships or the border states or the Chicano enclaves without accepting that our perspective is not shared by them, and their worldviews on race, ethnicity, culture, territory, nationalism and legal status has led us to this point in 2026.
Our national motto is "E PLURIBUS UNUM" and our structure is a republic with 50 states. But like the Internet is a network of networks, the United States is a nation of immigrants, where not everyone is playing by the same rules.
The water pact is even more specific in that at least WI I believe you have to be East of the subcontinental divide to pull water from Lake Michigan.
Another poster mentioned real estate peaking in a zip code of AZ for having limited access to fresh water. I wonder how long until real estate along the great lakes starts becoming a long term hedge.
This robot is going to put all the children out of work at the Hyundai factory in Georgia. Or maybe their child labor augments the robot for tight to reach areas?
Before I got my degree I was a machinist/ millwright and doing various things in between. Took a break after covid to go back for a little to decompress from tech but inevitably came back to programming.
Love the work but hate the pay and toll it took on my body.
Próxima Centauri is about 250 million years older than our sun. Makes it not-impossible their earth like planet had advanced entities capable of sending their own voyager towards earth. Possibly it flew by while we were still in our Mesozoic Era and all they saw were dinosaurs.
I love thinking about things like this, but we will never know!
Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine I traveled back in time to the days of the Dinosaurs and just observed how the world was back then.
But I wonder if I'd be able to survive. The atmosphere, environment, microbes, etc, would be drastically different from what we've evolved to handle. Millions of years ago is a very long time!
Edit: Apparently microbes from millions of years ago would be so evolutionary distant that they might not regard me as host.
This is how I look at Meta as well. Despite how much it is hated on here fb/ig/whatsapp aren’t dying.
AI not getting much better from here is probably in their best interest even.
It’s just good enough to create the slop their users love to post and engage with. The tools for advertisers are pretty good and just need better products around current models.
And without new training costs “everyone” says inference is profitable now, so they can keep all the slopgen tools around for users after the bubble.
Right now the media is riding the wave of TPUs they for some reason didn’t know existed last week. But Google and meta have the most to gain from AI not having any more massive leaps towards agi.
The people I know from BNSF will tell you that name stands for Better Not Start a Family.
I’ve worked with and known former engineers who left, took lower paying jobs in other industries and not one has ever said I miss it there.
Let’s not even get started on what that industry has evolved into with precision scheduled railroading and the dramatic increase in risk and real derailments that have followed.
I was considering swapping out the phone battery but this is a better alternative for now.