Skua

That’s not true! You guys make plenty of good stuff. You make vast quantities of total crap as well, but your craft beer is cool, your wines seem popular even if I’ve never been taken by them myself, and bourbon has a great tradition

I’m not German, but my experience when I have visited is that foreign beer is a relatively minor market in Germany. They make so much beer of their own anyway, and a lot of it is pretty damn good, so why bother importing? Several nearby countries like Belgium and Czechia also have pretty strong traditions, so competition is stiff

Moonshine doesn’t really get exported at scale.

On wine, Germany is right next to France and Italy, Spain is nearby too, and there are some distinctive German styles too, so there’s huge competition. Still, if their wine market is like the UK one, then American wines are certainly present and enjoyed by plenty of people, but they don’t have a reputation for being notably strong

With all that, the American drinks most commonly seen in Europe are bourbon and light beers. It’s not an accurate depiction of the American domestic market, but it is what makes it across the Atlantic.

KalaallOut

Hungxodus

I wonder how much of this is connected to Russia’s total disengagement from Nagorno-Karabakh last year? Like did Russia lash out at Azerbaijan for humiliating it over being unable to back Armenia up?

The most recent one I got absolutely floored me, but I got it at the same time as the regular winter flu shot and I also have to take a whole bunch of immunosuppressants so it was basically the worst possible scenario. Still, well worth it to not get covid. I’ll take a couple of days of feeling sorry for myself over a hospital stay and potential death any day

Yeah same, it is odd. I’d guess it was an accident

https://www.indiegameawards.gg/ scroll down here to see the winners

Even one of the biggest releases of this year was a DLC to Elden Ring, which means the actual game is still a few years old

That number is for doing it anually for 65 years. It lists roughly 18 billion per year for the cost.

But besides that, I think you are greatly underestimating the cost of the diamonds. Synthetic ones are way cheaper than natural ones, yes, but there’s a lot of room between “natural diamond expensive” and “actually cheap”. Going by these prices https://www.diamondtech.com/products/categories/diamond_powder_price_list.html

It’s $2.5 million per tonne. I assume you could get a cheaper price per weight if you’re buying five million tonnes of anything, but it’s still two orders of magnitude more expensive than you are guessing

I mean yeah, they probably would. The words have specific connotations; murder is not just killing, it’s unlawful or unjust killing. This is like the opposite to when police shoot someone dead at a traffic stop and the headline is “black man passes away after interaction with police”

A soldier hiding in a bush is a combatant. The grenade in his hand is a weapon. It is easily discernible as such both by other soldiers and by civilians. And both soldiers and civilians will expect a grenade to explode when it is thrown at them, or at least they understand the risk of a grenade potentially exploding, if it is laying around. So they expect it to be explosive.

Yeah, sure, they expect it if they see it and know what it is. The grenade does not suddenly become a booby trap just because you throw it at someone that isn’t looking, so the target knowing about it clearly cannot be a requirement here. Again, concealment alone is not perfidy. Inviting and betraying trust is. If you disagree, then I ask you again, quote it. Kirillov had no reason to give the scooter a second thought whatsoever; there is no invitation of trust from a scooter being parked at the side of the road.

The entire bit about definitions here hinges on the word “when”. To me, “…which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs…” means that the function is dependent on the disturbance or approach. To you, it just means at the same time. So let’s look at the word “when”, since you decided to quote the dictionary

If you scroll down to the grammar notes in your link, you will see “If or when?”, a section about the usage of “when” as a conditional. So clearly we can’t just ask the dictionary here.

You know what’s much more helpful? The part immediately after that definition of booby traps.

5. “Other devices” means manually-emplaced munitions and devices including improvised explosive devices designed to kill, injure or damage and which are actuated manually, by remote control or automatically after a lapse of time.

Since manually-emplaced and -triggered munitions are “other devices”, they clearly aren’t booby traps under this protocol.

“Other devices” are still relevant to some of what you raised, particularly article 7.2 in this context. Whether a vehicle like a scooter counts as “portable” or not is ambiguous, as yes you can move them, but under their own power. You certainly can’t (easily) pick them up and carry them. Since you’ve already referenced Lieber extensively, https://lieber.westpoint.edu/booby-traps-ukraine-conflict/ provides:

Second, booby-traps may not take the “form of an apparently harmless portable object which is specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material and to detonate when it is disturbed or approached” (art. 7(2)). The U.S. Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual provides the example of “booby-traps manufactured to resemble items, such as watches, personal audio players, cameras, toys, and the like.” It observes that the “prohibition is intended to prevent the production of large quantities of dangerous objects that can be scattered around and are likely to be attractive to civilians, especially children” (§ 6.12.4.8).

In that regard, note that the provision does not bar the booby-trapping of actual harmless objects, such as cameras or houses. The prohibition only applies when the booby-trap is intentionally designed to look harmless, as in a booby-trap made to look like a camera. Nor does it prohibit booby-trapping non-portable harmless things, like a gate. And it only applies to booby-traps designed or otherwise manufactured to serve as a booby-trap. Accordingly, it does not apply to field-expedient booby-traps or otherwise improvised ones. More information on the nature of the Russian booby-traps is required to determine whether this particular prohibition has been violated.

In this case it’s discussing Russian usage of such devices, so there shouldn’t be a bias towards leniency. So by the sources you’ve been relying on:

• This wasn’t a booby trap
• Even if it was, it still wouldn’t be a war crime or perfidy

Under your interpretation, a soldier hiding in a bush with a grenade is a booby trap. There is no way you can seriously believe that that includes something manually triggered. The entire point of banning booby traps is that they are by their nature indiscriminate, which a monitored and manually triggered weapon obviously is not

Because, as I have already said to you, the device was manually triggered according to Russia. This makes it definitionally not a booby trap. If that did count as a booby trap, then a sniper waiting for someone to leave cover would be a booby trap, which is clearly nonsense.

I find it hard to understand, how you get to the conclusion that having civilian objects explode in a civilian area is somehow considered an non treacherous attack

Because the Ukrainians are under no obligation to announce what they are doing to the Russians and are therefore not betraying anything. It is not a war crime to employ stealth. It is perfidy to invite trust and then betray it, as I have pointed out to you in the Geneva Conventions and your source several times.

and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object or performs an apparently safe act.

Neither approaching nor disturbing the scooter caused this bomb to function according to Russia. It does not meet this definition of a booby trap.

Please stop misreading (or misrepresenting, whichever it is) this source. As I mentioned in my other reply to you, the only definition of perfidy given in the Geneva Conventions is the invitation and betrayal of confidence. To quote your link:

Treachery comprised a breach of confidence by the attacker in a situation where the victim had reason to trust that attacker. In that sense, it foreshadowed the distinction between ruses and perfidy that would appear in 20th-century treaties and customary law of war.

The geneva convention does not refer exclusively to inviting confidence of protection.

It does not refer to anything but that. If you think it does, quote it. Your personal feelings on whether or not it has perfidious vibes aren’t really enough here.

But being blown up by a booby trapped civilian device in a civilian area seems quite treacherous.

Russia thinks that the bomb was monitored and manually detonated, which would make it not a booby trap. As such it’s now just “combatant kills enemy combatant with a grenade from a hidden position, no civilian casualties”. The Ukrainians are not required to warn an enemy general about the specifics of how he might get hurt in the war he is fighting.

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Under your interpretation of perfidy, what kind of killing would be permitted in war? Does a soldier at the frontline have a chance to defend against an incoming artillery strike, or a sniper? Are wars to be conducted only as a series of honourable sword duels?

The mention of “clandestine” is from the Lieber code, which is not an international law. The Geneva Conventions do not use it. Ukrainians and Russians do not need to observe internal American military law.

The feigning of civilian status is possibly relevant depending on how the assassin conducted the assassination. If all the assassin did was evade notice, that is not perfidy - they must invite confidence, as you quoted, which you cannot do by not being noticed. The same protocol that your quote comes from discusses this with regard to “ruses of war” such as camouflage.

Regarding whether or not Kirillov was a legitimate target: Even if he really, genuinely did not order the war crimes he is accused of ordering, he is still a combatant under the Article 43 of the 1977 Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions. Russian government comments seem to reflect this too. Russia Today quotes State Duma Defense Committee chairman Andrey Kartapolov describing Kirillov as a “Worthy Russian general,” and a “Real officer.” Russia describes one of the responsibilities of his forces as “Causing loss to the enemy by using flame-incendiary means.” If you are the guy that orders the flamethrowering of enemy soldiers then yes, you are a combatant.

Which would not be out of character for Trump, since Kurds cannot “pay him for protection”.

It’s not just in character for Trump, it’s something he has already done. He abandoned the Kurds in 2019 when Turkiye launched an offensive against them