Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Supposedly a bunch of international flights to and over Ukraine have been cancelled over insurance companies refusing to cover them for the time being

[Kapture1]

Happy Sunday. May God bless you all, even the haters and losers 🤣

[crashcourse]

gee what a surprise

hopefully durham gets more indictments

Republicans vow to 'get to the truth' after Durham reports Democrat-linked spying on Trump - Washington Times

[Dr. Strangelove]

State Dept just announced the Embassy is closing in Kiev and relocating to Lviv in the far west of Ukraine for the time being. Zelensky acknowledged on tv that Wednesday is the day Russia is "supposed" to attack and declared it a national day of Unity.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump's longtime accountants (Mazars) are dropping him as a client. Sent a letter last week to the Trump Org saying whoever takes over his taxes from this point forward shouldn't trust that info in his 2011-2020 financial statements is accurate. This after both an internal investigation and outside info received from the AG.

This letter is part of a filing the AG of New York made this afternoon

Trump tax firm says documents not reliable (cnbc.com)

[Dr. Strangelove]

State Dept just announced the Embassy is closing in Kiev and relocating to Lviv in the far west of Ukraine for the time being. Zelensky acknowledged on tv that Wednesday is the day Russia is "supposed" to attack and declared it a national day of Unity.

Appears sarcasm doesn't translate well and the Ukrainian govt says Zelensky was speaking tongue in cheek about Wednesday being THE day, derisively referecing hysterical press reports. Not sure he should be making quips but okey dokey

[Jeff Buchanan]

Strange, I saw the same thing then your two posts. "What we have here is a failure to communicate ...."

Just read a fascinating NYT's piece that is a renewal of a piece they did during the Trump, Clinton presidential elections. It detailed the massive disinformation apparatus at Putin's disposal that included technical aspects of it as well as details of how he carried out directed operations with proxy hackers - all of these with the capacity to plausibly deny Russian government involvement. The latest piece (paywalled) updated the capabilities for disinformation at Putin's disposal in the current crisis.

The Russians are capable of some wild science fiction shit including the ability to shape the West's perception of reality. No telling if this Zelenski confusion is part of that operation. What it's net effect is to sow distrust of what traditional sources and methods of intelligence collection or simply interpereting news releases is telling us. It's a counter to the Biden administration's recent disclosures of what it thinks are Russian intentions, this an attempt to make those assertions difficult to believe and to cloak possible Russian options.

For now, it's a cat and mouse game. A shooting war is not likely to be Putin's end game. Maybe never was but the West reacted strongly to the military build up - it fought back - and has made the costs of an incursion into Ukraine for the purpose of replacing Zelinski pretty high. High enough to dissuade Putin? Well, he tends to react favorably to effective counter punches from his opponents. Appropriate western-cyber agencies, that set up alliances several years ago as cyber-warfare emerged as a useful weapon for which western powers were unprepared for, has begun releasing information intended to warn Russia that if critical nodes (power, financial, transport) are attacked using cyber techniques, Russia could expect retaliation in kind - and you better know the west also has signficant cpacity to do that.

It's a new kind of warfare with the intent of achieving political objectives that's being waged by the world's major powers. Even though "winning" still requires holding territory and always will, those sorts of engagements, because they have become so incredibly lethal to all participants and involve risks of a nuclear exchange, have become much less likely because of the terrible costs that even Putin understands.

[THE_WIZARD_]

fuckin' Russians

fuckin' Trump

fuckin' Fox News

[lineygoblue]

So "uncle ben" Trudeau is threatening the following against truckers who disobey his orders.

1. Take away their trucks.

2. Take away their licenses.

3. Take away their money.

so........................

Does this pinhead even know how the supply chain works? Truckers need trucks to deliver, .. you know .. stuff. Stuff like food, gasoline, clothing, building supplies. So, when Einstein Trudeau takes away their trucks, licenses, and money, will he complain and fret when the above-mentioned stuff isn't getting delivered? Who does he expect to pick up and deliver the stuff that people need to live? The truckless, license-less and money-less truckers? Maybe the politicians and nimrods who support his idiocy will hop behind the wheel and deliver the stuff. Oh yeah, that's a good solution.

It literally fractures me to see how numbingly foolish the left can be at times, in order to protect their little castles of beliefs. They remind me of dung beetles that spend their entire lives collecting dung, and will fight other dung beetles to the death, to protect their own dung collection.

Take away the trucks!!! That will teach them!!!!

Teach them what?

[THE_WIZARD_]

He is a certified tool.

[Hannibal]

So "uncle ben" Trudeau is threatening the following against truckers who disobey his orders.


so........................

Does this pinhead even know how the supply chain works?
Teach them what?

Short answer -- no. He's an intellectual lightweight who was voted into his current position to make people feel good.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The big news that has markets soaring this morning is that some of the Russian troops near the border are heading back to base.

What's not getting much attention from tv media is the bigger deal, IMO. The Russian Duma this morning passed a resolution calling on Putin to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk "Republics" as independent. Putin doesn't have to sign it into law of course but this came as a surprise to the Russia "watchers" I follow. Nothing passes the Duma without Putin's approval beforehand.

If Putin claims these are independent nations they can "invite" Russian troops to come protect them. Russian troops could be able to openly support them militarily. Also, the govts in these so called Republics claim sovereignty over their entire provinces even though they only control less than half. If Russia declares that all Ukrainian troops must leave all portions of Donetsk not currently held by the separatists, what then?

On the other hand Putin may not want to recognize the independence of the Republics at all and just leave all the above as a lingering threat over Ukraine.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Give Chairman Poopypants his Nobel now...for crushing the virus...and now brokering the Russian retreat...

God Bless him.

[Mike]

Pfft! He could do it in his sleep.

[THE_WIZARD_]

.....in fact...I think he did...