As to the Musk Starlink Crimea blocking, it brings up a new issue:

[applegrove]

private ownership of infrastructure not only doesn't have the interest of the people in mind necessarily, it may geopolitically have opposite interests of the country (or countries) where the infrastructure is located. Musk obviously has ties to the Russian market. He's trying to sell Tesla's in China. What happens to Starlink as Taiwan may soon find itself in the fight of its life?

[bucolic_frolic]

1. History repeats. "The Sovereign State of ITT"

https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-State-ITT-Anthony-Sampson/dp/0812815378

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosthenes_Behn

According to Anthony Sampson's book The Sovereign State of ITT, one of the first American businessmen Hitler received after taking power in 1933 was Sosthenes Behn, then the CEO of ITT, and his German representative, Henry Mann. Antony C. Sutton, in his book Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, makes the claim that ITT subsidiaries made cash payments to SS leader Heinrich Himmler.

ITT, through its subsidiary C. Lorenz AG of Berlin, owned 25% of Focke-Wulf, the German aircraft manufacturer, builder of some of the most successful Luftwaffe fighter aircraft. In addition, Sutton's book uncovers that ITT owned Dr. Erich F. Huth GmbH (Signalbau Huth, Berlin), which made radio and radar parts that were used in equipment going to the Wehrmacht.

Behn, along with his brother, Hernan, built the Two Brothers Bridge —Puente Dos Hermanos in Spanish— in San Juan. The bridge links the districts of Condado and Old San Juan.

Colonel Behn and Ludwig Roselius, founder of the company Café HAG, owned 74% of German aircraft manufacturer Focke-Wulf after the company reconstitution in 1936. Barbara Goette referred to Colonel Behn as a huge global player but never trusted him as he was involved with Hitler.[3] Sosthenes Behn met with Hitler on 3/8/1933 and in 1936 there was a high-level meeting in Berlin where it was proposed that Behn through ITT gain 50% of Focke-Wulf and oust Café HAG completely, but after Barbara Goette intervened with Hitler, Ludwig Roselius' life was spared and he became majority shareholder in Focke-Wulf with 46% and a massive capital injection occurred.[4]

[brush]

2. Agreed. This private citizen playing geopolicis that...

results in foiling Ukraines war effort against his favorite, Russia, a US enemy, has to be reigned in and told in no uncertain terms that he has to be neutral in that war or suffer severe consequences as he's causing Ukrainian deaths by Russia which monstrously attacks private citizen-occupied targets like aprartment buildings, shopping areas, transportation stations, etc resulting in thousands on innocent people killed, including children.

Ukraine has had the humanity and discipline to attack only military targets, and are nearly sitting ducks as they have just minimal air support and are limited from attacking targets inside Russia as NATO is afraid of lifting those restrictions in fear of Putin starting a nuclear war.

That puts Ukraine at a distinch disadvantage but they still fought Russia, fine times it's size, to a near stalemate..

[magicarpet]

3. Capturing, changing, and revamping U S foreign policy...

... to better suit your investments and by enhancing your rates of capitol returns.

America should shoot e-loon's satellites out of the stratosphere forthwith. Don't fuck with foreign policy issues. Especially since you did not contact Washington DC first.

Fuck you, fuck your satellites, and fuck your rockets.

Play with Tesla and X (Twitter) and see if you can keep your nose clean and your nose out of foreign policy issues - while coddling up to the needs and interests of the enemy.

Nationalize his operations as detrimental to foreign policy because he acts like a Fascist lunatic gone off the rails more often than not.

[mitch96]

4. I think the pentagon is watching this with interest The US military owns all it's "toys" and they

have final say on what's going on. I thing the military is seeing that bus size military satellites are not as necessary as a shit load of smaller cheaper ones. Also harder to knock out in space. I wonder if the US is gonna send up a bunch of small satellites over contested areas to get a good looky loo.
Also I wonder how this is gonna effect the military and space x relationship. Eloon's got them by the short hairs when it comes to sending stuff into space. Russia or Space x..
m

[applegrove]

5. True this.

[crickets]

6. K&R for visibility. 🤬