Uber was found liable under the doctrine of "apparent agency" -- although Uber drivers are independent contractors, they are presented to the end user in a way that conveys a strong impression of acting on behalf of the company -- being agents of the company. Therefore, their independent contractor status is no obstacle to holding Uber responsible for their conduct.
They certainly wouldn't allow EU tech companies access to the US defense market, while of course insisting that the EU and other NATO members buy US built weaponry.
This is really ridiculous. There are many successful EU vendors of defense technology to the US military. Safran, Schmidt & Bender, Heckler & Koch, Saab, Glock, Fabrique National -- there is a long list. The USA has built real partnerships in these areas.
One amusing example is the C7 and C8. These are AR-15 (M16) variants made by Colt Canada and adopted by the militaries of the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway; and used by special forces in the UK.
Where are you getting your information from, that the US wouldn't allow wouldn't allow EU tech companies access to the US defense market?
They're going to the US for the VC funds and the capital markets, which is America's great competitive advantage globally. In the few industries I went through (PaaS, Health, Finance) what I got was that the regulatory environment in Europe was welcome for being stable and clear, or existing at all in a few cases. There's been one case where I've seen regulation being an issue and preventing business from being fully conducted in Europe, and that was related to banking (in that instance that company had to be set up in Dubai).
Tell me which NATO country came crying, triggered NATO Article 5 and as a consequence a good number of EU NATO (and even non-NATO) soldiers have died for the sole interests of said country?
Why are you moving the goalposts from your parent's point?
Yes, the middle eastern wars were a huge issue form the US, but that doesn't explain EU own goaling itself for 20+ years with terrible policies and choices, with or without helping the US in the middle east.
I am saying that for last 30 years actions of European NATO counterparts was not "undermining the relationship".
Also since 2014 there was a 10 year plan devised to get everyone to strictly follow 2% budget commitment. Which happened before you and I even heard about trump starting a presidential campaign (or even if it was there was nothing about NATO, etc). This happened (better later than never) due to ruzzian attack on eastern Ukraine and with a nudge from Obama administration.
Due to 2022 total war from ruzzia against Ukraine - I believe right now there are talks to commit up to 5% in long run, with at least up to 3.5% in next decade.
I know that Europe doesn't have great PR team, but USA is getting better and better at gaslighting (ruzzia has decades of experience in divide and conquer tactics) that Europeans are allegedly freeloading. Europe has it's problems, but it's solving them democratically, whereas USA needs to see herself in a mirror, before it's too late.
My understanding is that the 2% budget commitment was met or exceeded by all NATO countries only as late as 2025. The Obama administration ended in 2017.
Europeans not taking care of themselves has been "undermining the relationship".
I see -- when you wrote "Which happened before you and I even heard about trump starting a presidential campaign..." you were referring to coming up with the plan, not meeting the target.
The right play is to maintain relationships (including arms trading) with multiple major powers - as Canada's PM very deftly pointed out at Davos. Getting closer to China doesn't mean exchanging one master for another - it can and should be a way to increase the alternatives available, without going all the way in the other direction.
> The EU would also have opposed it if the US bought Russian, Chinese or Iranian weaponry.
This is such an implausible counter-factual that I can't even begin to imagine what would have actually happened. Still, I doubt any more than some "public letters" would have been issued, whereas I'm sure that the opposite would have resulted in actual economic pressure from the USA against the EU/NATO country that would have dared, under any administration.
I mean, you offered a basically similar, implausible counterfactual. I think we can agree that it is at least parties that the EU would have opposed purchases of Chinese, Russian or Iranian weapons by the USA and vice versa -- but Russia and Iran have been sanctioned for long periods of time (Iran, basically continuously) by both the EU and the USA, and Russia is the main territorial threat to the EU, so maybe only China is really an interesting possibility here.
Arms trading with China is probably not a good idea at all.
I don't see much sign of the EU becoming a Chinese vassal as in relying on it for defence in return for being told what to do. Trading with China is not the same thing.
It really did not mean that -- it meant to increase spending to the targets set by NATO and to meet realistic defense needs.
A lot of EU weaponry was and is produced in the EU and the US has known that all along, cooperated and fostered it. The Leopard tank, the Eurofighter, the Rafale, the Lynx, the FV432, the Gazelle -- there is a long list of domestic weapons systems. I'm not sure if they still can do it, but the English made nuclear submarines. The US has at various times partnered with Europe on the development of these systems, and Europe has been able to produce almost all major weapons systems continuously since the end of World War 2.
Europe's much weakened defense posture -- and weakened defense industry -- are their own fault and the result of their own choices. At one time, European countries had much, much larger militaries and could sustain manufacturing of their specific weapon systems -- their own tanks, APCs -- but not after the military drawdowns following the end of the Cold War. There are at least 3 major domestic European tank types -- the Leopard, the Challenger and the Leclerc -- but only the Leopard is manufactured anymore. Europe should probably have consolidated on the Leopard a long time ago.
The US weapons are not "overpriced", and certainly not compared to European weapons, beyond the sense in which basically all western weapons are overpriced. One reason we see consolidation on US weapons in Europe is that the US weapons are frequently very good, having received a lot of use, but also because the US still has some scale in its manufacturing capabilities.
> I'm not sure if they still can do it, but the English made nuclear submarines.
Not really. The Polaris and Trident SLBM systems as well as the nukes they carry are US designs that the UK is allowed to use. And while their current PWR2 reactor is a British design, it is lacking. Therefore the next PWR3 design will be based on US S9G reactors.
The Trafalgar class were nuclear attack submarines made at Barrow-in-Furness shipyard in Cumbria. The current Astute class were also made there.
A nuclear submarine is one with nuclear propulsion, not nuclear weapons (just like a diesel-electric submarine is one with a diesel engine and batteries, not diesel weapons).
Yes. The tracking works via plugins to keep it generic. Here is a rough illustration:
File change -> Plugin (detects changes) -> Lix
It works surprisingly well because most standard file formats have off the shelf parsers. Parse a file format, and et voila, it is trivial to diff. Then pass on a standard schema for changes to lix and you end up with a generic API to query changes.
Writing the plugin seems to be a hard problem. It’s not clear from the link if there are non trivial plugins written for real formats, not toy not POC but a for reals plugins
Case: 2:2025cv04276
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/arizona/azdce/2:2025cv0427...
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