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[martinuzz]

Trump recieved word that Iranian secret service is planning to assasinate him.

In response he said that if he is president, he will destroy the largest cities and reduce the whole of Iran to a rubble if they attack a former president, or a presidential candidate.

[Telgin]

Which is what his supporters want to hear anyway...

Still, it does seem at least plausible that it's true that Iran is trying to have him assassinated.  Seems like a very dangerous game for them to be playing.

[Lord Shonus]

It isn't plausible at all.

Assassinating a major political candidate would essentially guarantee war between the US and Iran. It would be bad in any election, but in this case a fair chunk of people would be howling that Biden was behind it. He'd have to massively retaliate just to keep this country from boiling over. Not that major retaliation wouldn't be very likely in any case, but there'd be no room at all for negotiation.

[martinuzz]

Director of the joint intelligence services said that Iran plans to assasinate Trump to create chaos (or civil war) in the US

[Frumple]

... do you have a source on that one? As near as I can tell, we don't... have... a director of joint intelligence services.

[martinuzz]

I am sorry if I don't type the correct term for it in english. 'ODNI', office of the director of National Security.

I translated the dutch 'directeur van de samenwerkende nationale veiligheidsdiensten', director of the cooperating national security services.

Not sure if you can access the Volkskrant live blog from the US:  https://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/liveblog-nieuws-amerikaanse-verkiezingen-trump-republikeinen~b005888b/

copy pasta: Bedreigde Trump dreigt Iran ‘aan gruzelementen’ te schieten bij aanval op presidentskandidaat

De Amerikaanse oud-president Donald Trump heeft hard uitgehaald naar Iran vanwege een waarschuwing die hij kreeg over bedreigingen vanuit Teheran tegen zijn persoon. De Republikeinse presidentskandidaat zei Iran ‘aan gruzelementen’ te schieten als dat land een Amerikaanse oud-president of presidentskandidaat schaadt.

De directeur van de samenwerkende Amerikaanse Nationale Inlichtingendiensten (ODNI) heeft Trump gisteren ingelicht over ‘specifieke en reële’ dreigementen om de oud-president te vermoorden. Dat schreef zijn campagneteam in een verklaring. Het plan zou zijn bedoeld om chaos te veroorzaken in de VS.

Het hoofd van de inlichtingendiensten bevestigt dat er met Trump gesproken is, zonder uit te weiden over de inhoud. Het is niet duidelijk of het gaat om een nieuwe dreiging. In juli ontvingen Amerikaanse veiligheidsdiensten al informatie over een mogelijk Iraans plan om Trump te vermoorden.

‘Als ik president was, zou ik het dreigende land, in dit geval Iran, laten weten dat als ze ook maar iets doen om deze persoon pijn te doen, we hun grootste steden en het hele land aan gruzelementen schieten’, zei Trump tijdens een campagnebijeenkomst in North Carolina.

BBC reports it too:  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0z2394ey2o

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/25/trump-iran-assassination-plot

Al-Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/25/big-threats-trump-briefed-on-alleged-assassination-threats-from-iran

[Frumple]

Yeah, that... seems to be some kind of translation thing, maybe? The reporting's noting trump's campaign is claiming that, but they don't seem to have source from the actual organizations involved and, well... trump's campaign is not a reliable source of information. At all. Maybe we'll see some kind of clarification eventually?

[martinuzz]

Sounds legit though, if Trump wanted to give a Trumpian spin to it it would have been more like 'Iran wants to prevent Murrica from getting the bestests president ever', instead of 'want to saw chaos in the US'. ODNI confirmed they spoke to Trump.

[Lord Shonus]

National intelligence agencies are going to speak to Trump often, because he's a Presidential candidate. Keeping somebody who is on the shortlist for "next POTUS" in the loop is important, because you don't want to be trying to get him fully up to speed in the two months between election and inauguration. Just having them communicate with him is not in and of itself support for this claim.

[McTraveller]

Uhh... I don't think they can do that though? Former presidents don't have security clearances for new information.

I think they can only get information directly relevant to their situation, due to their "protected by the secret service for life" status.  Seems like he should only have the information "we have credible evidence of a threat" but no more information than that; otherwise all kinds of "leakage" ensues.

But as I've never been part or party to such things, this is mostly speculation.

[Starver]

Most dealerships don't make all that much money (as a percentage of their revenue) on selling the car. They make it on service contracts - and the majority of the stuff that gets routine maintenance on cars simply doesn't exist on an EV.

...you know, there's this garage that sends me a 'kind' offer, via SMS, to do an aircon regassing every year. Which is more frequently than it should ever need to be done.

(I wonder if EV vehicles use a peltier/thermoelectric cooling/heating element, or are still not entirely solid-state and cannot make use of the usual ICE heat...)

[Lord Shonus]

(I wonder if EV vehicles use a peltier/thermoelectric cooling/heating element, or are still not entirely solid-state and cannot make use of the usual ICE heat...)

Most use a conventional resistive heater, which is one reason that heating the cabin genuinely is a big hit to battery life. I got mine late last winter so I was mostly able to get by with preheating (while still plugged in) and relying on the heated seats otherwise, we'll see how annoying it is in a full winter. I suspect it will be manageable but noticed, especially once I get another two kilomiles on it and unlock the full battery (a software protection on older models of the Bolt is to restrict you to 80 percent for the battery's first six thousand miles, to make sure the system has empty cells to direct current to if one turns out to be defective - there was a manufacturing error at the Samsung plant that caused a lot of problems).

Much more efficient heat pumps are becoming more common on newer cars, but any way you shake it heating an EV really is a problem compared to an ICE car, entirely because the propulsion is so much more efficient that it doesn't produce useful amounts of waste heat. The flip side of this is that you also don't have to dump any of that waste heat so you don't have to worry nearly as much about coolant. Batteries typically have a cooling system, but it is entirely closed-loop and just needs flushed every ten thousand miles or so.

[Random_Dragon]

Needless to say, heat pumps remain one of those things a lot of companies overlook both for cars and for homes, when they're much more efficient than resistive heating (though extreme temperatures diminish their effectiveness, whereas a resistive heating element will always suck to the same extent pretty much no matter what).

Insert obligatory mention of Technology Connections and Alec's love of going on tangents about heat pumps here.

[McTraveller]

Heat pumps aren't overlooked, they suffer the same thing as EVs: In the long run they are more efficient but they have a higher up-front cost.

Governments don't seem to have a good policy framework for helping manage the higher up-front cost. They do offer some tax credits, but they are pretty small (something like $500 for a heat pump, if I recall correctly).  Using tax income to subsidize this is a bit mathematically problematic, because yes it helps society at large but it's not readily apparent that it will either increase tax revenue in the future or reduce tax outlays in the future, so it's a hard sell. In the US, our illustrious congress killed all the tax credits for EVs (wonder why EV sales tanked? The loss of the $7500 tax credit is a big factor... because effectively no manufacturer was eligible for it any more).

Same thing for basically any other "personal efficiency" measure. I'd love to put solar on my house, but we're already an "efficient" house so our payback period is like 15 years or something.  The home market also doesn't value solar installs, so it's not like this increases the selling value of a house either which would make that payback period more or less irrelevant; instead you really do need to look at the direct ROI.  Same thing for heat pumps; they don't increase the value of a home.  Instead home value seems to be only about aesthetics and location, not on actual tangible efficiency or anything of that nature.

[Starver]

Heat pumps aren't overlooked, they suffer the same thing as EVs: In the long run they are more efficient but they have a higher up-front cost.

Air-con basically is (as active cooling is required) a heat-pump, in the sense of vapour-compression refrigeration system being used. That's what they want you to regas.

I was just wondering if the Peltier-Seebeck effect was ever used as bidirectional temperature adjusted (it doesn't need topping up, or moving parts except for the airflow bits, though not sure it's energy-efficient and might be awkwardly dense).

And that is what I want to hear discussed on the floor of Congress. Because there's no other reason why I would mention all this here in AmeriPol, obviously, and this wouldn't actually be a rather strange drift of topic that everyone here will affirm that it would be so unusual for me to participate in and encourage.