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In short, a laughably ridiculous number of people without any particular clearances have access. Any government or gang that has people willing to maintain silence and do the time for the crime (if they get caught) can probably get access.

Data miners can get whatever they can breach, or persuade a person to provide (bribery, blackmail). The only guaranteed way to protect information is to not collect it in the first place. A prudent way to live today is to assume that some of your personal information has already been...

Turkey isn't going to "break up". The three countries with the major portions of what might be "Kurdistan" have all behaved egregiously towards Kurds, well beyond the kinds of indifference or insult that occasionally have Canadian sovereigntists/separatists sniveling and preparing manifestos...

Producers can, if they choose, eat part of a cost out of their profits, which is why I included both sides. "Costs will be passed onto consumers" is common rhetoric (I use it), but it isn't actually the only possibility.

The market implications are amusing, if Iran continues tolling ships after the US departs. Producers and/or consumers of Gulf oil will be the ones paying the tribute demanded by Iran.

If a country takes money from its taxpayers and gives it to its domestic businesses so that they can sell more cheaply to Canadians, every Canadian purchaser benefits by the amount of the subsidized price difference he keeps in his pocket. Then he can buy more other stuff, paid for by other...

~10 years (US involvement), ~9 years, ~9 years. Come on, hobbits. Long ways to go yet. Realistically, it won't go on that long because Trump attention span is so short.

Prediction: no matter how long this goes on and how painful some of the costs become, everyone is going to be shocked at how well "the invisible hand" prevents the big catastrophes and mitigates the lesser ones. Recessions, sure. Global starvation, nope - not unless governments start...

I doubt a negotiated exit could be concluded before Trump leaves office, at which point the bluster disappears and economic sense is mostly reasserted no matter who wins the presidency.

The case for AB not leaving is strong enough without trying to overstate or invent negative consequences. AB wouldn't crumble. There would be a contraction, and then the cultural factors that help to make AB prosperous would re-assert themselves and the climb back up would begin. AB's...

Right. And their prosperity continues to race away from us. Well-played, Canada.

There's always a price. I'm unpersuaded that the senior members of the IRGC don't want to enjoy the pleasures of life.

There isn't really a hundred-percent-assured way of preventing any country from getting a nuclear weapon. There is only persuading it that it isn't worth the cost. Undoubtedly the current government has a price, just like every other one.

The US doesn't do capitalism perfectly. Oh dear. They will have to hang their heads in shame. The US does do capitalism better than almost every other country, though, and that is all that matters. For all the talk about "races to the bottom", a lot of people are content to ignore the fact...

Regime change isn't necessarily the aim. Air power can certainly help to close the gap on capitulation, and it's no longer necessary to carpet bomb to knock things out.

Not necessary. If the US wants capitulation, it just needs to stay on the path of breaking things from the air. The "military advantage" sought is capitulation. Either the government can capitulate, or perhaps it will be replaced by one that will. It isn't really Iran that decides whether...

The Iranian government has been prone to fits of threatening to destroy Israel, isn't religiously tolerant at all, and seems to have a particular problem with the existence of Jews. Settle the war short of Iranian capitulation, and then what happens? I expect to arrive at a point in the future...

China favours natural gas over coal because of pollution, which is a factor which cannot be ignored. "Energy security" depends in part on where the raw material is coming from. Some sources aren't situated in perennial conflict zones adjacent to troublemakers. Countries may insist on trying...

When political advantage is at stake, it does. It is an exception to the rule/fallacy, which is relevant as an ideal, not a practical gambit. A democratic polity likely cannot long tolerate one party behaving badly and thereby gaining political advantage which is unanswered by other parties...

Why not? Vive le Kurdistan libre.