Random Thoughts. The Return.

[JohnOsbourne]

It's pretty clear that the US is starting to cut its losses in the Ukraine, as evidenced by this mainstream piece that pretty much repeats what I said above:

Russia and Putin's Ukraine war may have been preventable (msnbc.com)

And when even the Poles tell you to chill out, you know it's gotten beyond absurd.  (The US keeps saying Poland will transfer fighter jets to the Ukraine, which would obviously drag Poland into the war, but to their credit the Polish government is calling bullshit on it.  I guess the Polish leadership finally learned the lesson of 1939, when they accepted an empty and cynical British guarantee against Germany.)

The response of the MSM to the invasion has been shocking, I've never seen anything like this, it's orders of magnitudes worse than the cheerleading they usually do, e.g. with the Iraq war.  But the cartoon story cannot be supported anymore.

[redrum]

28 minutes ago, hummingbird69 said:

page not found  : ((

I'll repost it when it's uploaded there. 

[redrum]

16 minutes ago, jabe said:

How's everyone's gas prices?

Today I saw 3.79-3.99/gal. in my area.
Glad to be retired... this would be ripping me a new one
as my business involved much travel mileage.
I feel for those who have to commute to-and-fro daily.

On the bright side: *"Transitory Inflation."*
 

$4.29 for regular and $4.89 for diesel. So much for driving my old Mercedes diesel.

[hummingbird69]

39 minutes ago, redrum said:

$4.29 for regular and $4.89 for diesel. So much for driving my old Mercedes diesel.

yesterday 4.03  today 4.29

[BobDobbs]

1 hour ago, JohnOsbourne said:

Put simply, no, it's not our problem.  The US is not the world's policeman, I thought you agreed with me on this?  In truth, it is stupid US policy (not to mention the utterly corrupt Ukrainian government) that bears a lot of responsibility here.  The situation is ultimately no different from the Cuban Missile Crisis, or if Mexico tried to enter into a military alliance with China.  (Do you have any idea what would happen to Mexico City in such a case?) The Russians said clearly:  no more NATO on our doorstep, and instead of sensibly backing down (what US security interest requires having Ukraine in NATO, anyway?) and dealing with our own numerous problems, the US government encouraged the Ukrainians to keep pushing the matter.  And now they continue to provide false hope to the Ukrainians, when it is obvious none is forthcoming.  The US values Ukraine more as a propaganda device than a real ally.  

And BTW:  where is your concern for the horrendous humanitarian crisis inflicted on Yemen by the Saudis with our full support?  The amount of crocodile tears and hypocrisy here is just appalling.  

I do not support the Russians here, I simply say it's none of our business.  I will say this much:  you can expect to see many more "Russian trolls" when gasoline hits 10 $/gal.  What will you do then?

First, I never said we should get directly involved militarily, I believe we should utterly destroy their economy with the rest of the worlds support. If were not for their nukes Finland could probably beat them in a war. Their equip. sucks, their soldiers are lied to and demoralized, they have zero coordination between units and logistics failures across the board. Plus, with the almost complete lack of air power after the first few days, it appears certain military commanders are simply telling Mr. Putin to piss off. This is about what is right vs. what is wrong. This is not 1939 and it is not in any way ok to invade another nation. It was not ok when we did it in Iraq & Afghanistan, in fact, I believe the Iraq War was just as illegal as Russia invading Ukraine. Also, I completely support Yemen in it's fight against Saudi oppression and I have brought up several times this fact, and that we should sever ties with the Saudi government since they were directly responsible for 911 through funding at the very least. 

It's not about fighting Ukraine's war, it's about supporting a sovereign nation in it's hour of need. We are capitalist after all, sell them a shit-ton of weapons to fight with, sell them satellite intel regarding Russian troop deployments (we did it for Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War), and strangle Russia's economy. Once those oligarchs start feeling the pain where it counts for them, this shit will end. That's the great thing about oligarchs, they are very predictable...they like lots of money and insanely lavish lifestyles. You can't have either when our assets are seized, and your economy is in ruins. Nor can you have either in a nuclear wasteland, no party baby, just a bunker and shitting in a bucket if your lucky.

If this were the old Stalinist days I would worry, but Putin is no Stalin and the oligarchs are no Politburo circa 1935. Putin was put there by those oligarchs and they will remove him if necessary and by the looks of the current situation inside Russia, it's starting to look very necessary.

[rm2551]

Great analysis from this group who I have been watching (their usual youtube geo-political bites) for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPZsas53QeU

 

[chillumpuffer]

5 hours ago, jabe said:

How's everyone's gas prices?

Today I saw 3.79-3.99/gal. in my area.
Glad to be retired... this would be ripping me a new one
as my business involved much travel mileage.
I feel for those who have to commute to-and-fro daily.

On the bright side: *"Transitory Inflation."*
 

In the UK it is the equivalent of $8 per gallon. The Russians are threatening to cut off the gas supplies and If NATO imposes a no fly zone in Ukraine, the consequences are too frightening to type

There is no bright side.

 

[rm2551]

It's as high as it's ever been here, but has been for about 2 months, so maybe about to skyrocket.

WFH helps a GREAT deal, and wifey works 10mins away, so not too bad.

I saw a clip today that showed every POTUS back to and including Nixon giving the "We must end our dependence on foreign oil!" speech. Seems it has just been too damn hard up to now. Why even fucking say it?!?!?! 

[SteveAJones]

10 hours ago, JohnOsbourne said:

The response of the MSM to the invasion has been shocking, I've never seen anything like this, it's orders of magnitudes worse than the cheerleading they usually do, e.g. with the Iraq war.  But the cartoon story cannot be supported anymore.

The MSM and Zelensky should get a room. They report everything he says as if it's gospel though he routinely lies about everything. 

 

9 hours ago, BobDobbs said:

First, I never said we should get directly involved militarily, I believe we should utterly destroy their economy with the rest of the worlds support. If were not for their nukes Finland could probably beat them in a war. Their equip. sucks, their soldiers are lied to and demoralized, they have zero coordination between units and logistics failures across the board. Plus, with the almost complete lack of air power after the first few days, it appears certain military commanders are simply telling Mr. Putin to piss off. This is about what is right vs. what is wrong. 

It's not about fighting Ukraine's war, it's about supporting a sovereign nation in it's hour of need. We are capitalist after all, sell them a shit-ton of weapons to fight with, sell them satellite intel regarding Russian troop deployments (we did it for Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War), and strangle Russia's economy. Once those oligarchs start feeling the pain where it counts for them, this shit will end. That's the great thing about oligarchs, they are very predictable...they like lots of money and insanely lavish lifestyles. You can't have either when our assets are seized, and your economy is in ruins. Nor can you have either in a nuclear wasteland, no party baby, just a bunker and shitting in a bucket if your lucky.

If this were the old Stalinist days I would worry, but Putin is no Stalin and the oligarchs are no Politburo circa 1935. Putin was put there by those oligarchs and they will remove him if necessary and by the looks of the current situation inside Russia, it's starting to look very necessary.

Seriously -- you should be doing stand up comedy, but you really need some new material.

[1975NQ]

The word "iconic" is overused and has been for 10 years now. The "writers" don't even know what the word means, and neither do the readers. The mission to continually dumb down the country continues to be a success.

Webster's Dictionary defines iconic:

1. Relating to, resembling, or having the character of an icon or (Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Terms) (of memorial sculptures, esp those depicting athletes of ancient Greece) having a fixed conventional style

2. A conventional religious image typically painted on a small wooden panel and used in the devotions of Eastern Christians

I think the above definition leaves out an important piece which is that said icon should carry some level of fame/resonance in popular culture and society and not just be any old image. Example: Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name with his poncho and hat on  - at this point, fair to call that image iconic. Vin Diesel in .. anything. Not so much. 

[paul carruthers]

I think the term GOAT is thrown around too much these days, but maybe that's just me....

[Stryder1978]

5 minutes ago, paul carruthers said:

I think the term GOAT is thrown around too much these days, but maybe that's just me....

No, you are correct sir!  Some athlete has one good season and they are bestowed that title nowadays!

[BobDobbs]

5 hours ago, SteveAJones said:

The MSM and Zelensky should get a room. They report everything he says as if it's gospel though he routinely lies about everything. 

 

Seriously -- you should be doing stand up comedy, but you really need some new material.

Seriously, you need to get a life Mr. 8-Track

[SteveAJones]

23 minutes ago, BobDobbs said:

Seriously, you need to get a life Mr. 8-Track

Projecting again.

 

[BobDobbs]

2 hours ago, SteveAJones said:

Projecting again.

 

Ouch, another third grade level response from the 8-Track man

[Walter]

5 hours ago, Stryder1978 said:

No, you are correct sir!  Some athlete has one good season and they are bestowed that title nowadays!

Truth. GOAT is long term greatness or achieving something that has never happened before. Not just the current “champion”. 

[redrum]

1 hour ago, Walter said:

Truth. GOAT is long term greatness or achieving something that has never happened before. Not just the current “champion”. 

Bach  or Beethoven? 

[JohnOsbourne]

21 hours ago, BobDobbs said:

First, I never said we should get directly involved militarily, I believe we should utterly destroy their economy with the rest of the worlds support. If were not for their nukes Finland could probably beat them in a war. Their equip. sucks, their soldiers are lied to and demoralized, they have zero coordination between units and logistics failures across the board. Plus, with the almost complete lack of air power after the first few days, it appears certain military commanders are simply telling Mr. Putin to piss off. This is about what is right vs. what is wrong. This is not 1939 and it is not in any way ok to invade another nation. It was not ok when we did it in Iraq & Afghanistan, in fact, I believe the Iraq War was just as illegal as Russia invading Ukraine. Also, I completely support Yemen in it's fight against Saudi oppression and I have brought up several times this fact, and that we should sever ties with the Saudi government since they were directly responsible for 911 through funding at the very least. 

It's not about fighting Ukraine's war, it's about supporting a sovereign nation in it's hour of need. We are capitalist after all, sell them a shit-ton of weapons to fight with, sell them satellite intel regarding Russian troop deployments (we did it for Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War), and strangle Russia's economy. Once those oligarchs start feeling the pain where it counts for them, this shit will end. That's the great thing about oligarchs, they are very predictable...they like lots of money and insanely lavish lifestyles. You can't have either when our assets are seized, and your economy is in ruins. Nor can you have either in a nuclear wasteland, no party baby, just a bunker and shitting in a bucket if your lucky.

If this were the old Stalinist days I would worry, but Putin is no Stalin and the oligarchs are no Politburo circa 1935. Putin was put there by those oligarchs and they will remove him if necessary and by the looks of the current situation inside Russia, it's starting to look very necessary.

You don't really address my main point, which is that the context behind this mess is essential to determining "right vs wrong".  Ukraine is critical to the Russians' security interests, it affects ours in no way whatsoever.  We also have no way of realistically helping Ukraine now, apart from pressuring (blackmailing?) our European satellites.  It is the height of cynicism, then, for the US to have encouraged Ukraine to seek an alliance with us.  It was obvious that the whole thing was going to end badly.  Again:  Russia did not just wake up and decide to bully a smaller neighbor, the roots of this problem go back to America's insane drive to empire.  None of this defends or excuses Russia in any way, I should add.

To some of your other points:  I wouldn't rely on the MSM's shocking agit-prop to gauge how well the war is going for Russia.  (Americans should probably be a bit more circumspect about crowing about these things after Afghanistan.)  E.g. we know stories like Snake Island and the Ghost of Kiev are horseshit.  Simple common sense suggests Ukraine is losing quite badly.  E.g. countries winning a war typically don't encourage untrained civilians to go on suicide missions against tanks on the first day.  And of course Kiev's desperate insistence on a no-fly zone, which would drag many other countries into the war, obviously is not being made from a position of strength.  At any rate, I don't think there's any doubt the Russians could turn Kiev into Stalingrad if they wanted.  Not because they're nice guys, but because it doesn't serve their interests here, which are fairly limited and do not involve completely subjugating Ukraine.  They simply want a neutral buffer state on their western border, and it's pretty clear they will achieve this.  Remember:  it took the US 3 weeks to capture Baghdad, and they had the help of the British and were going against a country with far fewer resources.  The wealth gap between Ukraine and Russia is not nearly as large, and Ukraine has been the beneficiary of a load of high quality lethal aid the last several years.  

It's a big mistake to think that we can crush Russia's economy without affecting our own.  I'll say it again:  moral posturing is a luxury, when people find the cost of their basic necessities going way up, they're going to start asking a bunch of uncomfortable questions (uncomfortable for the US political and ruling class, who seem determined to escalate this thing).  But ultimately, sanctions can't work against Russia because China is still trading with them.  The US political class seems shocked by this, which shows how stupid they are.  But they're also panicking over it, as well they should be.  The empire's dominoes are falling one by one.  Are we going to enter into open conflict with China now?  It's lunacy.

At some point this all seems like a drunk who decides to challenge everyone in the joint to a fight.  It's not going to end well for him, he should know when to go home.

 

[jabe]

2 hours ago, Walter said:

Truth. GOAT is long term greatness or achieving something that has never happened before. Not just the current “champion”. 

Agree.
The Beatles 
Led Zeppelin 
Nick Saban
Air Supply

[JohnOsbourne]

Another conspiracy theory becoming fact:

Shehzad Younis on Twitter: "US is working with Ukraine to prevent biological research facilities from falling into the hands of Russians — Nuland https://t.co/onrqFclF9W" / Twitter

A few days ago the claim that the US was building bio-weapons facilities in the Ukraine was dismissed as absurd.  Now they admit it's true, but we have to keep them from falling into the Russians' hands!

[BobDobbs]

3 hours ago, JohnOsbourne said:

You don't really address my main point, which is that the context behind this mess is essential to determining "right vs wrong".  Ukraine is critical to the Russians' security interests, it affects ours in no way whatsoever.  We also have no way of realistically helping Ukraine now, apart from pressuring (blackmailing?) our European satellites.  It is the height of cynicism, then, for the US to have encouraged Ukraine to seek an alliance with us.  It was obvious that the whole thing was going to end badly.  Again:  Russia did not just wake up and decide to bully a smaller neighbor, the roots of this problem go back to America's insane drive to empire.  None of this defends or excuses Russia in any way, I should add.

To some of your other points:  I wouldn't rely on the MSM's shocking agit-prop to gauge how well the war is going for Russia.  (Americans should probably be a bit more circumspect about crowing about these things after Afghanistan.)  E.g. we know stories like Snake Island and the Ghost of Kiev are horseshit.  Simple common sense suggests Ukraine is losing quite badly.  E.g. countries winning a war typically don't encourage untrained civilians to go on suicide missions against tanks on the first day.  And of course Kiev's desperate insistence on a no-fly zone, which would drag many other countries into the war, obviously is not being made from a position of strength.  At any rate, I don't think there's any doubt the Russians could turn Kiev into Stalingrad if they wanted.  Not because they're nice guys, but because it doesn't serve their interests here, which are fairly limited and do not involve completely subjugating Ukraine.  They simply want a neutral buffer state on their western border, and it's pretty clear they will achieve this.  Remember:  it took the US 3 weeks to capture Baghdad, and they had the help of the British and were going against a country with far fewer resources.  The wealth gap between Ukraine and Russia is not nearly as large, and Ukraine has been the beneficiary of a load of high quality lethal aid the last several years.  

It's a big mistake to think that we can crush Russia's economy without affecting our own.  I'll say it again:  moral posturing is a luxury, when people find the cost of their basic necessities going way up, they're going to start asking a bunch of uncomfortable questions (uncomfortable for the US political and ruling class, who seem determined to escalate this thing).  But ultimately, sanctions can't work against Russia because China is still trading with them.  The US political class seems shocked by this, which shows how stupid they are.  But they're also panicking over it, as well they should be.  The empire's dominoes are falling one by one.  Are we going to enter into open conflict with China now?  It's lunacy.

At some point this all seems like a drunk who decides to challenge everyone in the joint to a fight.  It's not going to end well for him, he should know when to go home.

 

Problem is, who decides Ukraine should join NATO, or be a buffer state for Russia, or just tell everyone to F-off? I would think only one player has that right and that is Ukraine. Russia had no reason to invade Ukraine, they were not a threat and Zalynskyy agreed that Ukraine would not join NATO but Putin still sent in the clowns. Fact is, there was nothing Ukraine could do to prevent this as Putin's one driving desire is to re-constitute the Warsaw- Pact satellite nations back into the fold, Ukraine is only the first and he will not stop until it's 1953 again. If we don't stop him now a major war in Europe which will likely go nuclear is on the horizon. And even if we do stop him now a nuclear response from Putin is still very likely.

There is only one problem here, Vladimir Putin. As long as he remains head of the Russian state, he is a serious threat to human existence. That is not hyperbole as his very own words convey. The last time Russia had someone this mad at the helm was in 83' with Andropov and you know what they did to him. Hopefully history will repeat itself.

[cryingbluerain]

47 minutes ago, JohnOsbourne said:

Another conspiracy theory becoming fact:

Shehzad Younis on Twitter: "US is working with Ukraine to prevent biological research facilities from falling into the hands of Russians — Nuland https://t.co/onrqFclF9W" / Twitter

A few days ago the claim that the US was building bio-weapons facilities in the Ukraine was dismissed as absurd.  Now they admit it's true, but we have to keep them from falling into the Russians' hands!

Hmmm, and not a peep out of Fauci lately..

[JohnOsbourne]

42 minutes ago, BobDobbs said:

Problem is, who decides Ukraine should join NATO, or be a buffer state for Russia, or just tell everyone to F-off? I would think only one player has that right and that is Ukraine. Russia had no reason to invade Ukraine, they were not a threat and Zalynskyy agreed that Ukraine would not join NATO but Putin still sent in the clowns. Fact is, there was nothing Ukraine could do to prevent this as Putin's one driving desire is to re-constitute the Warsaw- Pact satellite nations back into the fold, Ukraine is only the first and he will not stop until it's 1953 again. If we don't stop him now a major war in Europe which will likely go nuclear is on the horizon. And even if we do stop him now a nuclear response from Putin is still very likely.

There is only one problem here, Vladimir Putin. As long as he remains head of the Russian state, he is a serious threat to human existence. That is not hyperbole as his very own words convey. The last time Russia had someone this mad at the helm was in 83' with Andropov and you know what they did to him. Hopefully history will repeat itself.

No, Ukraine has absolutely no say in the matter, they are irrelevant.  (That is simply geopolitical realism.)  It is up to NATO (really, the US) who joins, and it is in neither the US nor Europe's interest to have a corrupt basket case, whose entry serves no purpose other than to antagonize a nuclear power that it shares a border with, in the alliance.  No one has a "right" to join such an alliance (and the alliance in question should be disbanded anyway).

I'll ask you again:  if China helped install an anti-American government in Mexico and encouraged it to seek a military alliance with them (along with subsidizing cartel violence across the border, much like the US supported real neo-Nazi groups in the Ukraine), how do you think the US would react?  How should they react?  What should Kennedy have done during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

And Putin is no Hitler or Stalin, this idea that he wants to reestablish the USSR or Russian Empire is just hyperbole and cartoon history.

[JohnOsbourne]

40 minutes ago, cryingbluerain said:

Hmmm, and not a peep out of Fauci lately..

He's been written out of the script for the upcoming season.

[SteveAJones]

8 hours ago, BobDobbs said:

Ouch, another third grade level response from the 8-Track man

If so I'm at least two grades ahead.