Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Mike]

In this depiction of the US/NATO response to Vladimir Putin, the role of President Biden will played by Lt. Frank Drebin. The role of Putin is played by Hector Savage.

"Looks like he's holding all the cards, Frank"

[Dr. Strangelove]

Seen this reported a few places now so it could well be true. Putin's possibly begun the purge of those who failed him

Putin places head of the FSB's foreign intelligence branch under house arrest | Daily Mail Online

[Hannibal]

This is turning into Winter War II.

Russia is an international laughing stock.

[Obi-Jon]

On Oct. 26, 1984, Northwestern student Michael Cole attended a basketball game alone, having been unable to find a friend to use the extra ticket he had purchased for $8.50. Thirty-eight years later, on Feb. 27, Cole (now 55), watched that spare ticket which he had held onto as a keepsake, sell for $468,000 at auction. What was so special about the ticket? It just happens to be the only known intact ticket from Michael Jordan's debut game with the Chicago Bulls. Cole, whose 2012 Kia Sorento died just one week before the auction ended, said he plans to use some of his earnings to replace it with "a sensible used car." [NBC5 Chicago, 2/28/2022]

[Jeff Buchanan]

This is turning into Winter War II.

Russia is an international laughing stock.

They're good at lining up mortars, artillery and tank tubes and lobbing tons of munitions into housing areas, hospitals, schools and targeting families trying to flee. Fuck them. They're not a laughing stock. This isn't funny at all - and I know you didn't mean it to be. Russian commanders, the ones ordering this shit are fucking animals and war criminals. They will not escape accountability. NATO should be making that perfectly clear and let the Russians know that a continuation of this barbarism will result in a strong military response. Give them 5d.

Something that I haven't heard being sent to Ukrainians are counter battery radars. These things scan a sector and a pair of them can locate where a tube that just fired is. Maybe the Ukrainians just don't have the numbers in artillery they need to mount a counter battery response to the shelling using that kind of targeting. I know the Germans and poles sent them Howitzers and who knows what else. Based on the tactical errors seen so far by Russian commanders, it would seem they aren't shooting and moving. That's how you defend v. counter battery radars and counter battery fires. The tubes are generally remaining static reminiscent of WWI and WWII battlefield artillery tactics. The Russians got results in Grozy and Aleppo using that approach. NATO cannot let that happen in UKraine.

Notice that the Russians instead of trying to take Kharkiv and Kiev and are having trouble holding well defended cities in the east/south due to organized civil and military resistance, what they are doing is encircling small cites, poorly defended and shelling the shit out of them. Fewer Stingers and Strellas there means they can fly both fixed wing and attack helos into those areas without the unsustainable losses they have been suffering to their air power. Those things can do a ton of damage and produce all kinds of panic and terror - obviously their goal since they can't humble the Ukrainian defense forces. There was a BBC video of Ukrainian ordnance techs defusing a 2000lb bomb probably delivered by fixed wing ground attack. They aren't Syrian barrel bombs - you'll remember those - they are way more destructive. One of those can flatten a city block and that's happening. There's no justifiable military purpose for those weapons being delivered in civilian areas. Just barbaric.

I think the NATO strategy is hoping the Ukrainians can create battlefield equilibrium using asymmetric tactics - I've called that small unit operations with decentralized command and control. It' been effective and could force Putin to rethink his options The view seems to be that NATO wants to wait until sanctions bite and Putin loses support at home and ends up fighting two battels. It's said that the Russian commanders will adapt and we're seeing that. The wider spread the battle space is, the harder it will be for the Ukrainians to hold serve. They're holding serve now but for how long? That's one of the reasons, aside from the moral imperative to stop the horrific barbarism and war crimes being perpetrated by Russian commanders, I favor launching a NATO combined arms counter offensive NOW. If we're worried about chemical or biologic warfare, take the capability out now - it's doable covertly and overtly. Think back to Obama drawing a red line stating that if in Syria, the US would respond. Our response was to show ghastly photos of 100s of dead Syrians and whine about it. There was undoubtedly planning for that. Dust of those plans off and be prepared to execute them. Russia was behind all of that terror tactic in and around Aleppo Syria and learned the US is afraid of this kind of posturing and damned if we're not seeing it on the chemical level as well as the nuclear one in this war.

[Obi-Jon]

Time to end our pussified attitude toward the Chicoms.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-covid-health-biological-weapons-china-39eeee023efdf7ea59c4a20b7e018169

[Obi-Jon]

UAE has announced they're receptive to oil production increase to bring down prices.


Russia has shelled a mosque at Mariupol that was sheltering more than 80 people. Broadcast this throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Remind the same audience of how the Chicoms treat the Uyghurs. Give the Orcs 12 hours to stop shelling civilians areas or NATO gets mobilized.

[Jeff Buchanan]

No surprise in that article. Months ago, several journalists wrote that the word's autocrats would unite to destabilize the Pax Americana and the rules based order that has prevailed since 1945 with the US its guarantor. Aside from Putin's stated goals and justification for his "special military operation" in Ukraine, it is a play to demonstrate resolve among autocrats to replace Pax Americana and the bi-polar standoff between two world powers with a multi-polar world of autocratic nations with nuclear weapons determining the world order.

TBH, I don't think anyone knows what the endgame is for Putin and his supporters outside Russia. Clearly there's a power play developing that goes beyond Ukraine. It's too early to worry about that. The focus should be on dealing with the economic fall out created by historically unprecedented sanctions. Clear headed thinkers argue that there are means to deal with oil and commodity shocks outside Russia and limit reactive accessory economic damage to western democracies that this new coalition of Russia and China can unleash.

For now, we're just along for the ride. The horrors that Putin's army is perpetrating in Ukraine serve good purposes: keeping the democratic west and NATO focused on taking concrete steps to limit both the humanitarian costs and the global economic fallout from Putin's war. In good time, Putin's lies will be revealed to the Russian people and they'll realize he has undertaken a war that will set Russia back 100 years.

[Jeff Buchanan]

In COVID news that pretty much went unnoticed last week, the Biden administration extended mask requirements on federally regulated transportation means and hubs. I think most of us here know that the evidence that masking in these settings produces benefits that exceed the costs is weak to non-existent.

It's clear that regionally, we've reached an endemic status for SARS-2. Still, the WHO struggles with declaring the pandemic at an end and this dilly-dallying affects PH policy on the national level, e.g., the US continuing mask mandates on public transportation. Admittedly, we need new rules for dealing with viruses in the future. The over-reaction to SARS2 in the early days of 2020 was an absolute cluster-fuck.

[iam416]

Charles Cooke rather mercilessly goes after The Ds and their rampant LIES. https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/...emocrats-lies/

[Lying a]bout what? About everything, that’s what. They’re lying about inflation — which first wasn’t going to happen at all, which then wasn’t going to happen for very long, and which is now being blamed on a Russian invasion of Ukraine that started a year after prices started to rise. They’re lying about their agenda — which began as a New Deal–sized transformation of America, which was then transmuted into an “infrastructure” package that for a brief moment was sold as a $0-in-cost unicorn, and which has finally and ridiculously been recast as a means of fighting the inflation that, as of this week, the White House is calling “Putin’s price hike.” They’re lying about gas prices, for which Joe Biden is or isn’t responsible depending on the day you ask them, and which have inspired the most incoherent set of policy answers in recent memory. They’re lying about Afghanistan — which was definitely not going to be a catastrophe, until it was a catastrophe, at which point a catastrophe had been the plan all along. They’re lying about Florida’s education policy, and about the nature and scope of science, and about the motivations of the Supreme Court, and about American gun law, and about anything else they can think of that might distract the public from the mess over which they currently preside.

I do rather like how The Chairman's $3T boondoggle is a tool to fight inflation caused by Putin, a man who fears The Chairman. It would seem that if Putin were causing inflation and Putin fears The Chairman, then The Chairman could just whip Putin back into line and solve the inflation problem. No $3T boondoggle needed.

Heh.

[AlabamAlum]

It’s 24, with some snow (and worse) ice on the roads here in the Heart of Dixie.

Fuck you Yankees for sending this weather. I usually play golf every day from March-June. This weather is bullshit.

[iam416]

It's 19 w/ wind chills near 0. Ridiculous. I probably won't even ride my bike outside today. Bullshit.

BTW, AA, I've been working on my chess a bit. I don't think I'd be quite so embarrasingly bad if we played again. Then again, we'd probably have to play on some sort of Senagalese chess app given that you're likely either kicked off of all other apps or otherwise refuse to play on those apps due to some perceived trivial slight.

[CGVT]

It’s 24, with some snow (and worse) ice on the roads here in the Heart of Dixie.

Fuck you Yankees for sending this weather. I usually play golf every day from March-June. This weather is bullshit.

It's 71 here in Coastal Georgia but will fall steadily to the low 30s tonight.

Fuck you Alabama for sending this weather east. I am usually drinking on the beach from March-Jun. This weather is bullshit

[THE_WIZARD_]

Plagiarizer...you remind me of Chairman Poopypants.

[AlabamAlum]

It's 19 w/ wind chills near 0. Ridiculous. I probably won't even ride my bike outside today. Bullshit.

BTW, AA, I've been working on my chess a bit. I don't think I'd be quite so embarrasingly bad if we played again. Then again, we'd probably have to play on some sort of Senagalese chess app given that you're likely either kicked off of all other apps or otherwise refuse to play on those apps due to some perceived trivial slight.

lol. Chess.com let me back in. What’s your ELO?