Reference: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/tsa-precheck So there are several trusted traveler programs the US government offers, mainly TSA Precheck, Global Entry, Nexus, and SENTRI. TSA Precheck is for airport security Global Entry is for US customs, and usually includes Nexus usually includes Global Entry and TSA Precheck along with expedited travel to Canada, but only includes Precheck if …
Monthly Archives: March 2025
Chaos as strategy
Yesterday Russia attacked a Panamanian flagged ship which was docked in Odessa. During normal times the sinking of a ship flagged with a member of the Rio Pact would be front page news and would make people question whether the United States was about to go to war to protect a country we have mutually …
What is wrong with South Korea
People often say anything increasing in price is a bubble, be it housing, education, anything really. I was just watching a video talking about how so many South Koreans go to university, creating a bubble. South Korea is not even the highest level in the world, even though it is one of the highest, with …
If Bobby had lived
If Palestinians had citizenship in a UN member state, Bobby would never have been assassinated. If Bobby had lived, he would have won the primary and the presidency. If Bobby had lived, South Vietnam might have lasted, which would have prevented the Invasion of Afghanistan. If the Invasion of Afghanistan had not occurred, the Taliban …
Visa reciprocity
Visa reciprocity is practiced by many countries, but is it a desirable policy? Let’s examine three scenarios: Travel between democracies Travel between a democracy and an authoritarian regime Free trade vs tariffs Travel between democracies Here are our rules to generate our table: Implementing a visa on another democracy will reduce your utility, but also …
How we ended up with unpopular politicians
Politics is about keys to power and interest groups. The more keys to power you hold, the more likely you will win. Your positions win or lose you constituencies, leading to whether you win or lose office. This is how politics works in every country. It is such a powerful concept that Keys to the …
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America was doing great
And now we have shown that once and for all that invasion is a legitimate path for territorial gain. Taiwan should prepare to be invaded, the arms race in China is now on. Yes, it looks like Europe has failed to properly respond to Trump’s call for a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine withdrew …
We must counter anti-urbanist regulations
This is the history of basically all of our anti-urbanist regulation in the US and Canada which makes it exorbitantly expensive to build, while funding the building of highways but making transit building regulations unfunded mandates. As soon as ordinary people realized the promise of cars were fake in San Francisco they built BART, and …
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Macron is the de facto leader of NATO
I calculated great power status based on GDP per capita, population, military expenditure, GDP, and surface area. I calculated the percentile of those 5 variables and averaged them out to get a great power score of each country. The top 10 countries are, along with marking the indicators they fall short of 90% on: The …
Musings about BRICS
BRICS is basically two things: An investment bank A payment system which is an alternative to SWIFT BRICS was founded in 2009 just after Russia invaded Georgia. The entire purpose of BRICS is to give Russia a way to move around European and American sanctions because of their military endeavors in Europe. BRICS comprises 10 …