Racism
noun
noun: racism

the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

You and a probably the whole political pile of humam debris in Washington should really read your dictionaries.
Thre are only three races, period.

The incoherent babbling of the word racism has pretty much made the word meaningless and pointless.

I’m sorry that the world doesn’t conform to your simplistic 19th century view of things (tell me, are you into phrenology too?)

The strange thing is that, as ‘conservatives’ are forever, and inexplicably, reminding us in the manner of a child stumbling upon an unexpected object, racism exists in other cultures as well. Yet your simplistic claim that there are only three races would erase the great majority of this racism and would indeed leave Caucasians as the undisputed masters of that ignoble realm, when the reality is altogether more complicated.

Conservatives are a funny lot. Their worldview is (supposedly) all about tradition and preserving what is worthy about the past, yet most conservatism relies upon a studied ignorance, distortion or denial of that very history.

How a new interceptor is considered a higher priority than a VLO bomber is beyond me.

Another great piece from Coates on the relationship between police and black America:

Last month, the Obama administration accused Donald Trump of undercutting American legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Trump’s call to ban Muslims wasn’t just morally wrong, according to Vice President Joe Biden, it called “into question America’s status as the greatest democracy in the history of the world.” President Obama followed Biden by asserting that Trump’s rhetoric “doesn’t reflect our democratic ideals,” saying “it will make us less safe, fueling ISIL’s notion that the West hates Muslims.” His point was simple—wanton discrimination in policy and rhetoric undercuts American legitimacy and fuels political extremism. This lesson is not limited to Donald Trump, and it applies as well abroad as it does at home.

Last week, 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson murdered five police officers in Dallas. This abhorrent act of political extremism cannot be divorced from American history—recent or old. In black communities, the police departments have only enjoyed a kind of quasi-legitimacy. That is because wanton discrimination is definitional to the black experience, and very often it is law enforcement which implements that discrimination with violence. A community consistently subjected to violent discrimination under the law will lose respect for it, and act beyond it. When such actions stretch to mass murder it is horrific. But it is also predictable.

To understand the lack of police legitimacy in black communities, consider the contempt in which most white Americans hold O.J. Simpson. Consider their feelings toward the judge and jury in the case. And then consider that this is approximately how black people have felt every few months for generations. It’s not just that the belief that Officer Timothy Loehmann got away with murdering a 12-year-old Tamir Rice, it is the reality that police officers have been getting away with murdering black people since the advent of American policing. The injustice compounds, congeals until there is an almost tangible sense of dread and grievance that compels a community to understand the police as objects of fear, not respect.

What does it mean, for instance, that black children are ritually told that any stray movement in the face of the police might result in their own legal killing? When Eric Holder spoke about getting “The Talk” from his father, and then giving it to his own son, many of us nodded our heads. But many more of us were terrified. When the nation’s top cop must warn his children to be skeptical of his own troops, how legitimate can the police actually be?

[….]

In the black community, it’s the force they deploy, and not any higher American ideal, that gives police their power. This is obviously dangerous for those who are policed. Less appreciated is the danger illegitimacy ultimately poses to those who must do the policing. For if the law represents nothing but the greatest force, then it really is indistinguishable from any other street gang. And if the law is nothing but a gang, then it is certain that someone will resort to the kind of justice typically meted out to all other powers in the street.

And your defining line of white is what?

You cannot say Caucasian, so where do YOU draw the geographical or political lines.
A Latino is not white only to bigoted persons OR Latinos who deny their physical appearence.

Racism isn’t about skin colour, never has been. Look at the Irish, who used to be discriminated against in the United States as well as here (Australia) and in England. Same with southern Europeans. In all cases racism is about creating hierarchies amongst peoples. To be “white” in the Anglo-American context doesn’t mean to have white skin (not least of all because nobody has white skin) but rather it means to be part of a group of people that considers itself superior to all others. The definition of who is and isn’t allowed to be white changes over time — again, see the Irish and southern Europeans — and other societies have their own forms of racism: their own hierarchies in which the politically dominant group places itself, inevitably, at the top. Skin colour is often a convenient marker by which the inferior other is identified and discriminated against, but is not essential to racism.

I have not heard about anything about DC plans to inflict a cold war.

Really? Where have you been since the mid-90s?

This just in: Washington and Moscow can end a good proportion of life on this planet at any time (and Washington at least claims the right to do anything it likes, not sure if Moscow claims a similar right) and have been able to do so for fifty years now.

How to tell which websites have most honest figures for Eurofighter?

Spanish air force official website claims, for example, 11,5 tons as empty weight figure.
German air force official website claims 11 tons as empty weight figure.

Spanish AF site claims mach 2 as top speed.
German AF site claims mach 2,35 as top speed.

Then RAF web site claims mach 1,8 as top speed.
While Eurofighter consortium web site claims mach 2.
Neither of these two offer any info on empty weight.

Spanish “empty weight” figure probably includes stuff the German one doesn’t, e.g. lubricants. There is a similar issue when comparing American with Russian figures as I recall.

Similarly the German top speed figure is probably the “real” one. There are several reasons why a figure lower than the “real” maximum might be listed — different combat load assumptions, peacetime restrictions, official secrets, etc. — but only one way you’re going to arrive at a higher figure, i.e. by making stuff up. And I think the Germans are probably above that.

Gripen E wasn’t turned down for being too expensive for a jet fighter. It was rejected for being a jet fighter. The No campaigners in the referendum argued that any money spent on new fighters was too much, because Switzerland didn’t need them. So F-35 would stand no more chance than anything else unless the public mood changes.

Gripen was pretty much the only candidate that made sense at the time or in the near future.

Now if they want to replace their F/A-18s around 2030, that’s another story, and F-35B would be the leading candidate.