Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Obi-Jon]

Margherita pepperoni. The original - no packaging, no label, 2 sticks connected by a single sheath. Smoked, not baked. Find it only at a deli. (About ten years ago they went for the masses, entombing baked single sticks in plastic for grocery stores.) Real Italian pepperoni, hard, dark, and spicy. Not really for pizza, for cooking in sauces, sliced for sandwiches, eaten in chunks with cheese. The pale, consumer version is at Krogers and Meijers here in Michigan. But go to a quality deli for the real deal.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Any time you wish, you can bring whatever pretender of a hot dog to a blind taste test, and I'll bring my off the rack Koegels hot dogs, and we'll see who is the best.

Bring Nathans, Oscar Meyer, Ballpark, Tony Packo's, whatever. Kogels will stomp them all.

I'll even leave off the Flint's Original Coney Island sauce because if I added that, it would just be unfair.

Well as we all know...liney is the Weiner Whisperer...

[Jeff Buchanan]

Ukraine: I posted up thread that there is distinct difference between what is being reported by Russian military, Ukrainian and independent sources. The Kremlin has an established record of reporting what is meant for public consumption within Russia. It goes without saying that it is unlikely that these reports are factual and there is plenty of information from independent sources that contradicts them. To clarify the picture in the Ukrainian battle space.......

First, the strategies of the two sides are markedly different and are reflections of each side's demonstrated capabilities in the battle space. Ukraine is fighting a defensive battle designed to inflict the maximum amount of attrition on Russian forces in exchange for small territorial gains. Russian forces are fighting an offensive battle that is designed to optimize the army's advantage in artillery, minimize the impact of significant personnel and equipment losses and to make gains on the ground even though they are incremental and small. That is a major strategic shift from Putin's first attempt to over-run Ukraine that his armed forces were poorly led and ill-prepared for. On balance, both sides are winning but at the cost of staggering losses.

The reality that Ukraine has achieved some success in pursuit of it's strategy has forced Putin to adjust. The most significant aspect of the change in Russian strategy is the noticeable increase in activities of the Russian FSB - specifically in occupied Ukrainian territory where various administrate mechanism are reportedly being implemented. These indicate that the political aspects of Putin's overall strategy in Ukraine are getting more emphasis while his ground forces only achieve marginal gains. It is difficult to know how successful these are.

Putin desperately needs them to be successful so that he can conscript Ukrainians in occupied territory into army service and avoid mobilization efforts in Russia outside of the poorer regions of Russia that he's depended on to fill the ranks. Urban, educated Russians are propagandized supporters of Putin's war, effectively being disabused of access to information about the war that would likely shock them. Putin has managed to keep the number of personnel losses his army has suffered, not tip his hat to them by virtue of a generalized military mobilization, such mobilization that would likely spread protests that he has so far ruthlessly suppressed. He's also managed to hide the brutality of his war on Ukrainian Slavs, Russian kin, and inflate the nature of gains his forces have made for him when in reality they are marginal at best and serve no strategic purpose.

One thing these political aspects of his war do foretell though is that Putin is planning on a long war with his plans for territorial gains in Ukraine far greater that what he has achieved so far. He thinks he can outlast Ukrainian and western resolve. Russian Nationalist mil-bloggers posting on Telegram (an emerging, mostly encrypted social media platform that affords posters some anonymity) have been critical of the Kremlin's war planning arguing that Russia should not be pursuing military outcomes on Ukraine's terms. Most of them suggest the Kremlin's objectives, after failing to take Kiev and force the collapse of the Zelenski government, are too limited and reflect a timidity on the part of political and military leadership of escalation to a Russia on NATO engagement - that military analysts in the west believe Russia would lose, especially now, such an outcome cascading to a nuclear exchange. Russian Ultra-Nationalist extremists have always believed Russia could win a nuclear war.

Regardless of the truth of that assessment, it's being argued that the Biden administration has not clearly articulated a US end-game it seeks. Lots of talk from NATO members and the US of solidarity with Ukraine until the end but no one has stepped forward to identify what that end might be. In the face of the mounting western population's concerns over food, inflation and rising energy costs, it makes it hard to get behind an open-ended conflict that is costing engaged western nations more than chump change. This is a problem over the long haul and one that takes a back seat to articulating that the established world order and liberal democracy are at stake in the outcome. This conundrum goes along with an equally important reality: A win for Putin will disregard that a brutal, dictatorial autocrat with Czarist aspirations to expand Russia's boarders to the extent of the former Soviet Union can go unchallenged. The west taking position like that accepts a toppled world order, ignores international law and discards a peace in Europe that has more or less lasted since 1945.

[THE_WIZARD_]

JB...you need a hobby.

[lineygoblue]

:::: kills wizard ::::

[CGVT]

And there was much rejoicing

[THE_WIZARD_]

I have more lives than Freddy Kruger...

[Jeff Buchanan]

JB...you need a hobby.

My hobby is reading and writing about what I read .... you should consider yourself lucky to be enlightened by my posts.

[AlabamAlum]

Read a news story about a dad who mistakenly left his 18-month-old in the car. The baby died and when he found what had happened, he brought his dead son inside and went to a wooded area behind his back yard and blew his brains out. Such a tragedy.

The article mentioned that this is the 8th child death like this this year and that over 1,000 kids have died left in cars since 1990. Or about 31 a year. I know we’re a large nation and the percentages are small, but I’m not even sure how that happens. Has it always been this high or is something different over the last 30 years or so?

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/18-month-dies-hot-car-dad-dies-apparent/story?id=85918660

[iam416]

The Chairman's Monmouth numbers are almost inconceivably bad. 59-36.

[Hannibal]

His RCP average is now -19.

[lineygoblue]

But he's building back better, and his USSC nominee was a home run!

[Tom W]

Read a news story about a dad who mistakenly left his 18-month-old in the car. The baby died and when he found what had happened, he brought his dead son inside and went to a wooded area behind his back yard and blew his brains out. Such a tragedy.

The article mentioned that this is the 8th child death like this this year and that over 1,000 kids have died left in cars since 1990. Or about 31 a year. I know we’re a large nation and the percentages are small, but I’m not even sure how that happens. Has it always been this high or is something different over the last 30 years or so?

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/18-mon...ry?id=85918660

There are some really, incredibly, stupid people among the 300 million of us in this country and most of them have no trouble with breeding. There's enough WTF flags in this article to show that this wasn't a "mistake"- and that, unfortunately, tragedies like this will happen.

There's also a lot of profit to be made from exploiting these tragedies. What is the reason behind this article? Are they looking to advance the call for heat-sensitive safety devices in cars? call for more gun control or just saying that, maybe certain people really shouldn't be allowed to have kids?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Boris Johnson in trouble again. They technically can’t hold another vote of no confidence until next year unless they change parliamentary rules.

[Jeff Buchanan]

What is the reason behind this article? Are they looking to advance the call for heat-sensitive safety devices in cars? call for more gun control or just saying that, maybe certain people really shouldn't be allowed to have kids?

It's prurient interests. Something news sources thrive on. Those prurient interests aren't new. They've been part of the news since written language was put to paper. It's also part of the more common enjoyment by American journalists in casting shade on the US. Many of them coming from schools where professors on the left imbue them with hatred for America. They leave the classroom, join news rooms where their reporting highlights American crime, mass shootings, murders, racial discord and the like . Nothing is good here in America. Believe it.

In the meantime, there's plenty of good things going on in America but these don't get reported very often if at all. No wonder everyone is depressed while Prozac and counseling is in high demand.

But to your last point, yes, there are a lot of those people.