Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

One day I'll take a solar powered 20-minute hyperloop ride from Columbus to Cleveland to see the Indians play. Or maybe my kids will. In any event, there's still gads of money to be made with good ideas and plenty of different stages to hop in.

[iam416]

And while discussing technological advances in areas that are essential to maintaining and advancing the human condition -- like energy -- let me put in my standard plug for the advancements in food production. We are at a point where we eschew forms of heat because it's not clean enough and mounds of food because it's not healthy enough. We're only a few generations removed from that being unimaginably stupid waste.

[iam416]

Politics of the day-wise, I really can't figure out the move by D states to allow abortion up and until delivery. If they were fighting over 24 weeks, ok. I can at least understand it. But, shit, man, this is a really unseemly look. There's no conceivable way to spin this as moral or needed or anything else. It's just bad. And I can't believe even a majority of folks living in NY or RI or soon-to-be VT agree with it. But, if they do they do. It's a terrible national issue and the problem is that the D platfom will include it.

I keep looking for ways the Ds are going to snatch defeat from the jaws of an almost assured victory, and fuck if they aren't out there doing there fuckall to throw PDJT a lifeline. Pump the brakes, bitches. First you get the power, then you can go batshit crazy.

[iam416]

The US withdraws from the INF pact with Russia re deployment of intermediate-range missiles: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ty/2737306002/

The move was with strong NATO backing. It seems as if there's zero dispute that Russia was cheating on the agreement for a prolong period. The only dispute is the course of action, I guess.

Domestically, the January jobs report is through the roof: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/01/nonf...uary-2019.html

DSL must be trapped in the snow somewhere on the side roads of Fairfield County listening to Garrison Keillor podcasts. Fucking sick of doing his job for him.

[Kapture1]

those are some big jobs numbers

[Jeff Buchanan]

The INF withdrawal is interesting. Peacenicks will deride it. They will be wrong..... like they almost always are.

The Ruskies have been holding on to battlefield nukes since Ronnie and Gorbie hugged each other and signed this thing. Of course, in good faith, we destroyed all of our battlefield nukes. The Ruskies didn't. Fuckers.

What are battlefield nukes? These are detuned A-Bombs. They have smaller radioactive yields and blast potential. They are still nukes - a battlefield nuke, sometimes called a tactical nuclear weapon, will take out central Ann Arbor and leave the city covered with some level of radioactive material for decades; people within, say 50 miles of the blast center, will be irradiated with potentially lethal doses of radiation at most, long term cellular level injury at the least. Outside that, ehh. One of the main purposes of tactical nukes is area denial - you plant a couple of these where the Russians would likely start an invasion of Western Europe, in Tallinn and Riga, the capitals of Estonia and Latvia, things get harder for them.

Strategic nukes would take out all of columbus and and if the thing hit down town, the blast radius would flatten the entire city and lethal doses of radiation would extend out 150-200 miles. Not pretty. The use of these nukes you want to deter. So, nuclear powers (there is now a long list) hold strategic nukes in a "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) mode. You attack me with a nuke I will melt your country into oblivion. All of this sounds terrible. It is not and the concept of MAD persists today on a strategic defense level although it has gone through a bunch of iterations - another discussion.

Then you get the argument that nuclear weapons are immoral and should all be destroyed. Welp, that is dumb and that the Russians cheat as bad as the SEC is proof positive that kind of thinking is dumb.

So, withdrawing from the INF is an interesting gamut by the Trump Presidency since a large number of people think DJT is an idiot and in Jon's case, "Putin's Cockholster." (Jon, Hi). Why would DJT flip Putin the bird? We do know that Trump is not a deep thinker. On a National Security level, Trump is absolutely doing the right thing. Fuck Putin - he's a dangerous MF. But he's most likely acting on the advise of Bolton's team with the support of the JCOS. Plus, Trump loves power moves - throw something out there and see who jumps. I can almost guarantee that the Trump team sees this as a political move to help distance Trump from Putin - or at least create such an impression. No collusion. Nope.

Anyway, I think its a good move and here's a decent article explaining in more detail why - and of course we have the Dem take on this, quoted below:

"We do not view nuclear weapons as a tool in warfare," Adam Smith, now the Democratic chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a speech in November. "It makes no sense for us to build low-yield nuclear weapons."

Adam Smith, not that Adam Smith, is fucking wrong. Any Dem resistance in Congress to this is going to get rolled. Thank goodness.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/01/690143095/the-u-s-and-russia-are-stocking-up-on-missiles-and-nukes-for-a-different-kind-of?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news

[Dr. Strangelove]

I actually got more snow this round than either of the last two weekend storms. Had to work from home.

RE: The INF Treaty. I thought this was more about China than Russia from what I'd been reading. Namely that China has never agreed to any restrictions and both the US AND Russia no longer see a value in hamstringing themselves if Beijing has free rein.

[froot loops]

I'm not sure Garrison Keillor podcasts are allowed in the MeToo movement, if DSL is secretly listening to those then we'll have to confiscate his Progressive Card. You're better off listening to reruns of Stuart McLean(R.I.P.) talk about the adventures of Dave and Morley.

[iam416]

RE: The INF Treaty. I thought this was more about China than Russia from what I'd been reading. Namely that China has never agreed to any restrictions and both the US AND Russia no longer see a value in hamstringing themselves if Beijing has free rein.

I think it definitely has to be viewed in the context of China and Russia. I don't know enough about it to have an absolute opinion on it, but as visceral matter, if Russia isn't abiding it and China isn't even obligated to limit intermediate-range deployment, I'm not sure why the US should be.

[iam416]

I'm not sure Garrison Keillor podcasts are allowed in the MeToo movement, if DSL is secretly listening to those then we'll have to confiscate his Progressive Card.

It's his greatest torment. He only survived the brief Aziz Ansari scare in state of constant panic. To lose the wonderful tales of Lake Woebegone, though, is too much. Does that mean DSL condones the occasional pimp-smack? Does that mean DSL condones roofies? Does that mean DSL condones the evils of the white patriarchy? Well, yes. Yes on all counts.

[froot loops]

I never found the tales of Lake Woebegone to be all that.

[iam416]

Neither did I, but nor do I find Lake Cayuga to be anything other than big pit of fecal-laced water lacking even the utilitarian charm of a strip mine swimming hole. So, whatever.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Oh as if the Olentangy is anything other than a sewer culvert and Mirror "Lake" possess all the wondrous natural beauty of cigarette butts floating in tobacco juice.

[iam416]

Your Fairfield County snobbery shall meet its fate at the end of my Preston Brooks Cane of Justice!

[THE_WIZARD_]

horrible