Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[froot loops]

Everyone had the same idea about returnables, I got lucky to get half of them returned.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The Outlaw Ribeye from Longhorns is better than Ruth’s Chris - by a wide margin - at half the price. The only chain premium steakhouse that has a better bone-in ribeye than the mid-tier Longhorns is Perry’s.

Never eaten at a Ruth's Chris. The Outlaw is a big meal though.

[Dr. Strangelove]

REAL AMERICA. NO SISSIFIED COASTAL ELITES HERE.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Totally off-topic but I'd never heard of this before and it's inconceivable by modern standards. Between December 1909 and March 1912, William Taft appointed literally 2/3 of the Supreme Court

[THE_WIZARD_]

I hereby appoint you to STFU...

[Jeff Buchanan]

According to the CTR I'm following that details Russian military movement inside Ukraine, As of 3 April, the Ukrainian MOD states it has rendered 2/3rd of the 70 total BTGs the Russian army deployed on the several major axis of attacks inside Ukraine either completely destroyed or with less than 30% combat effectiveness. These forces were deployed to achieve two strategic objectives: (1) capturing Kiev and (2) establishing full Russian control of the Donbas and Luhansk regions. These regions were partially controlled by the DNR and LNR and were the source of constant skirmishes between Russian supported separatists and Ukrainian regular forces since 2014 and implementation of Minsk II.

As of April 3rd, sources are reporting that Ukraine has won the battle for Kiev (Russian objective 1 defeated), yet Russian forces have made substantial gains in the east (Russian objective 2 continuing to be pursued). Ukraine’s victory in the Battle of Kyiv is significant but not decisive. For one, it suggests but does not assure that an independent Ukraine will emerge as negotiations for a settlement of the conflict between waring states progresses.

The CTR concludes that the damage done to Ukrainian forces committed to capturing Kiev as well as those deployed in the east are significant enough to prevent Russian forces from focusing enough combat power to achieve objective 2. That does not mean that Russian forces won't continue to bombard tactically and strategically important locations and systematically kill civilians, infiltrate Ukrainian towns with saboteurs who have set about capturing and killing residents - see reports in the today's news of Bucha - a town in the suburbs of Kiev where Russian forces have withdrawn following a scorched earth policy focused on terrorizing civilians, killing them in ways that amount to war crimes.

However, to seize terrain in conventional military terms means they have to put boots on the ground. That is going to be hard against a determined Ukrainian resistance. There are multiple reports of Russian units arriving from Russia made up of poorly trained conscripts not ready to join the fight or units being redirected from Kiev and cast back into battle in the eastern oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, bereft of armor, APCs, fuel, rations and ammunition, refusing to fight.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Ukraine2.JPG

[lineygoblue]

A remarkable resemblance to the Sudetenland.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The horrors apparently perpetrated by retreating Russian forces in the villages they occupied around Kiev are being exposed. The Russian official reaction to the news? Kremlin spokespersons are declaring these reports fake news alleging the pictures of corpses lying in the streets of Bucha are staged. Diplomatically, Russia has demanded an immediate meeting of the UN to discuss the Ukrainian provocations. Russians doing the talking at such a meeting this week are going to get pantsed.

Global outrage over the conduct of Russian military operations inside Ukraine are mounting and severe. EU countries will likely end the purchase of Russian gas, oil and coal. Meanwhile, the Kremlin doesn't give a fuck. Because this is about all they can do, the Russian armed forces continue to bombard cities in the S and E regions of Ukraine, lobbing cruise missiles and artillery rounds into them that have a single purpose of destroying critical infrastructure, killing civilians and weakening resolve. In areas where Russia has established some level of political control, security forces are terrorizing residents.

None of this behavior can be remotely characterized as within the scope of lawful warfare or directed by rational, civilized leadership. The call for war crimes tribunals are mounting. That's not going to deter Putin. Cutting off payments for Russian energy exports might. It might also raise the specter of a nuclear response initiated by Moscow under the belief that the west is threatening the existence of the state.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Posters here who don't subscribe to the NYTs really need to find a non-paywalled copy of the linked piece. If you're not a subscriber, you still may be able to get to it...... food for thought.

The Enemies of Liberalism Are Showing Us What It Really Means

It's by Ezra Klein. Think what you may about him, IMO, he's not easy to characterize politically. He writes in this essay that what is happening in Ukraine demonstrates what it means to fight for liberalism - as in the shared assumptions of the West: a belief in human dignity, universal rights, individual flourishing and the consent of the governed.

He describes the resurrection of right-wing radical nationalism in Europe (see Orban in Hungary, Le Pen in France, Vucic in Serbia). Makes the case that Putin's war is elevating the value of autocracy (foundational Russian nationalism) as compared to the decadence of Ukraine's west leaning liberalism. He bangs the drum of his nationalism to his listeners in Russia i,e, the threat of the West's democratic principals (liberalism) to Russia's rightful place among the sovereign states of the world. Note that while China hasn't fully endorsed Putin's war, neither is it backing away from it. That is because it advances China's own interests in the value of autocracy over those of the liberal west.

More than a month ago, I posted to understand Russian's aims one had to understand Minsk II. That's an agreement that is in the weeds as fundamentally behind Russia's invasion of Ukraine - a pretext so to speak. The real battle going on right now is one where autocracy is challenging the liberal norm that has persisted since the end of WWII.

Find Klein's essay and read it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/o...iberalism.html

[iam416]

Yeah, I'm not particularly on board with that. What's going in here is Russia has invaded Ukraine. That's what's going on here. Autocrats have existed and will continue to exist to the end of the time. What I'd find interesting is what Klein thought about the US ostensibly removing autocrats and trying to install western ideals.

This isn't some sort of life and death struggle for the fate of the globe.

Personally, I rather enjoy Kevin Williamson writing on the fatal flaws of autocracy: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/...s-fatal-flaws/

An excerpt:

The old truths remain unchanged: The free world isn’t free because it is rich — it is rich because it is free. Freedom is not only a moral good but also a practical one: Because we have a system that enables us to fail quickly and fail cheaply, we can try many different approaches to social and material problems, throwing everything we have at them and seeing what works. Authoritarian societies, in contrast, have trouble adapting to fluid conditions, often discomfited by problems that cannot be solved with bayonets. One by one, Americans and Germans and Englishmen aren’t any more intelligent than Russians or Chinese or Saudis, but the institutions of free societies — from the free press to competitive elections — enable free people to rally and deploy their collective intelligence in a way that is difficult or impossible in unfree societies.

Authoritarian societies do not even really confer the one advantage you would think they would: stability. If Vladimir Putin were to be hit by lightning tomorrow, the entire character of Russian public life would change immediately, and the country would be thrown into crisis; if Joe Biden were to throw in the towel on Monday, the United States would keep on keepin’ on. We may treat every presidential election like it is an existential dilemma, but, as you may have noticed, American life does not change radically from administration to administration. (On the other hand, if you erase three nonpoliticians from American history — Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Roger Ailes — the political culture looks very different, indeed.) That’s why Putin is scrambling around arresting his advisers and looking for saboteurs under his bed, while Dwight Eisenhower left Americans with the impression that he had spent the remarkably eventful years of his presidency playing golf: Real stability is dead boring.

A few people in the free world — mostly but not exclusively idiots — are easily ensorcelled by autocrats such as Putin and Xi for the same reason an earlier generation of Americans were impressed by Mussolini and Lenin: While the public life of a free society feels like an endless series of committee meetings, autocrats give the illusion of action. Peace, prosperity, genuine diversity — different people going about their own lives seeking their own ends in their own ways — can at times seem monotonous and boring, especially to young men, who so often define themselves not only as citizens but as men through conflict. And it probably is a great deal more exciting to be Vladimir Putin than it is to be Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany and vice principal of Europe. Things got pretty exciting for Nicolae Ceaușescu there at the end. Saddam Hussein, too. Surely such examples come to Putin’s mind from time to time, even if his Western admirers do not think of them.

They may offer excitement, but, in the end, figures such as Putin leave their nations weaker, poorer, less stable, and more vulnerable than they have to be. We saw this play out in the 1940s, we saw it in the 1990s, and we will see it again in our time. Autocracy wears a snazzy uniform, but it can’t take a punch — which is why Ukrainians are stacking up dead Russians like cordwood. Autocracy is good at knocking things down, but it isn’t very good at building things up — which is why the GDP per capita in China and Russia is lower than it is in Panama or Romania, and half of what it is in Lithuania.

[froot loops]

I don't think Russia would be thrown into crisis if Putin were hit by lightning. In these countries another autocrat emerges most of the time.

The starkest difference between these governments is you have to have all sides invested in the concept that there is a limit to how long the leader stays and all sides invested in leaving power if the lose an election. Washington leaving power after two terms was a powerful example. Putin getting the laws changed so he can stay in power is another example.

The Russian military was in tatters when the USSR dissolved. There have been 30 years of corruption since then, it's little wonder they are having problems with a campaign as big as this.

[THE_WIZARD_]

I wish someone would throw you into crisis...

[iam416]

I don't think Russia would be thrown into crisis if Putin were hit by lightning. In these countries another autocrat emerges most of the time.

The starkest difference between these governments is you have to have all sides invested in the concept that there is a limit to how long the leader stays and all sides invested in leaving power if the lose an election. Washington leaving power after two terms was a powerful example. Putin getting the laws changed so he can stay in power is another example.

The Russian military was in tatters when the USSR dissolved. There have been 30 years of corruption since then, it's little wonder they are having problems with a campaign as big as this.

I agree that Russia would likely not be thrown into crisis.

IMO, the starkest difference between the governments is the notion of who has the power. In free states, the people retain the power and bestow portions of that power upon elected officials. In the an autocracy, the autocrat has the power. Elections are part of that overall difference as is, e.g., the right of the people to strongly pushback against the encroachment upon their power, especially power they did not grant. Something that would land in Siberia if you did it in the USSR.

But, the starkest difference is broader than that -- it's exactly what Williamson said -- Freedom is a useful commodity that is undoubtedly the best way to create wealth, especially as opposed to governments that control markets.

And the point of posting this particular article -- and I think it's fairly obvious -- is that autocracies aren't going to defeat free societies. At the end of the day, one side is way more efficient at creating, building, developing and allocating resources. As evidenced, e.g., by the fact that Russian military is in tatters and before that the Soviet economy, in almost every regard, was in tatters.

[crashcourse]

true the vote starting to get some play in the 6 swing states

https://twitter.com/i/status/1509541070148976640

https://twitter.com/i/status/1509554593717530635

https://twitter.com/i/status/1509555131683164160

At least 137,500 absentee ballots were cast through unlawful vote trafficking throughout several of Wisconsin’s largest cities in the 2020 election, according to research presented last week to the state Assembly’s Committee on Campaigns and Elections by the public interest organization True the Vote (TTV).

At least 137,500 absentee ballots were cast through unlawful vote trafficking throughout several of Wisconsin’s largest cities in the 2020 election, according to research presented last week to the state Assembly’s Committee on Campaigns and Elections by the public interest organization True the Vote (TTV).

Based on his 15-month study of election practices in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Michigan, Phillips estimates that at least 4.8 million votes were trafficked nationally.

See more when desouzas film comes out 2000 mules