Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

This week in "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia"

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[iam416]

DSL,

See, you missed a golden opportunity to say something along the lines of, “I fear no war with a man whose home country was conquered by the English, so his ancestors moved to the southern US and immediately surrendered to a drunken general in some Virginia backwater.”

Talent would not have let a beachball like that pass him at the plate.

I don’t hate you, I pity you. ”Dr.” StrangleLove. You’re a faux Talent in the same vein that Kornelle is a faux Ivy, you Landgrant galoot.

Young "Dr." Strangelove still has much to learn in the Ancient Art of Sass.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I didn't want to go on and on delivering the same sort of insults interminably.

But it's safe to say that AA's forebears lacked the dignity to surrender to a giant like Grant. No, after being driven from Georgia by the Great Liberator, they stripped off their uniforms, raided a farmhouse for dresses, and made haste back to the relative safety of their Tupelo potato farm. It was there, in order to evade justice, that the family name was changed from Bumpo to Bumpeaux and they put on airs of being a long forgotten (yet distinguished) Creole family from New Orleans.

[froot loops]

Bumpeaux, I laughed audibly at that.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Last second Christmas gift for the loved one who has everything. May be able to expedite shipping

Make Honey Great Again

[iam416]

Every now and again Strangelove punches above rather low educational ceiling.

[AlabamAlum]

I didn't want to go on and on delivering the same sort of insults interminably.

But it's safe to say that AA's forebears lacked the dignity to surrender to a giant like Grant. No, after being driven from Georgia by the Great Liberator, they stripped off their uniforms, raided a farmhouse for dresses, and made haste back to the relative safety of their Tupelo potato farm. It was there, in order to evade justice, that the family name was changed from Bumpo to Bumpeaux and they put on airs of being a long forgotten (yet distinguished) Creole family from New Orleans.

It’s too late now. You’re taking a shot after the clock expired. The teams are in their locker rooms and the Cornell “engineers” are sweeping up.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I think there are a whole lot of people who want to see the cost/benefit analysis of sending money to Ukraine.

Perhaps. Did Roosevelt consider that when he declared war on Japan and simultaneously joined Britain fighting the Nazis in Europe? In 1942-3 when things looked like they weren't going welll in Europe or the Pacific, should governments have done a cost/benefit analysis of continuing to fight? Obviously they didn't think about that as the costs both human and economic were astronomical. When your talking about reigning in evil that kind of analysis has little to do with achieving an end to said evil.

On the reverse side of that ask yourself if the Japanese or the Nazis considered the cost of the wars they waged in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific Islands would be worth the cost in lives and sovereign treasure lost if they continued to fight the allies and didn't both decide to negotiate a peace deal? This is especially true of Japan after Truman unleashed an A-Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagaskai This is the same circumstance and the same questions we want Putin to face. The way to do that is as I specified above: keep sufficient economic and military pressure on the Russians to force Putin to the bargaining table with Ukraine having the upper hand to force Russian concessions. Failing that, through continued military and economic support to insure that the Ukrainians defeat Russian forces in detail on the Ukrainian battlefield, to force a Russian withdrawal or outright surrender.

I support killing Russians with weapons that have been built for that purpose.

This is a rather curious position to stake out given that the Ukrainians are the ones doing the killing of Russians. We have rather conveniently found a way to confront Putin's expansionist war aims in eastern Europe arming the Ukrainians to do just that. I find it hard to justify a position being for killing Russians and not be for arming Ukraine to do that at whatever the cost is.

But the rationale that we are "fighting for democracy..." is pure BS.

We might agree to disagree here.

......we are fighting to change the regime in Russia, just like Reagan did.

I support that.

It seems to me to be hair splitting debating definitions. You want to rid Russia of Putin through regime change knowing full well he has become a dangerous autocratic, dictator....... the antithesis of freedom and democracy. I see this battle in Ukraine being waged against Putin as a battle between good and evil, democracy and autocracy, freedom and enslavement that follows installation of an autocrat who controls all the levers of power.

Ukraine is a profoundly corrupt country that has outlawed political opposition and shut down media critical of the regime.

Before the Maiden Revolution in 2014 that ousted Russian puppet president Victor Yanukovych, that was correct. After it, not so much. You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

It is noteworthy that shortly after the sacking Yanukovych, Russian soldiers not wearing uniforms appeared in the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and forced the administrations there to accept Russian officials to administer these oblasts ..... in the end, this became the birth of the DNR and LNR subsequently and just recently illegally identified as Russian territory. Then came the unopposed takeover of Crimea by Russian forces in 2017, another Ukrainian territory claimed to be Russian by Putin just this year. A vast expansion of military and naval bases has appeared there over the last 5 years - a huge threat to shipping via the Dardanelles.

Look, Ukraine is not completely free of bad actors who siphon money off the top or profit from corrupt officials who award contracts to cronies. Neither is any NATO government. I'm aware of action in the US congress that demands audits of funds provided directly to Ukraine. The intent is to weed out corruption. The Zelenski government embraced those efforts. Since the Zelenski government has applied for membership in the EU, there has been a large scale effort to root out corruption and that effort is being monitored by EU and Ukrainian observers who ultimately decide if Ukraine has cleaned up its act to the extent required by the EU for entry.

One has to be blitheringly unaware or uninformed for lack of interest in this part of the world to not know what Putin has been up to over the last decade of his rule in Russia. In the same manner, to not see the threat to freedom and democracy, that Putin's imperial designs represent to eastern European nations that border Russia or are otherwise threatened by Putin's Russia, calling such characterization "BS" is itself unqualified dumbfuckery. Putin needs to be stopped and the Ukrainians can do it with appropriate support from the west.

[THE_WIZARD_]

This, of course, means war.

...

[lineygoblue]

Yes, Flint could have cleaned up their water mess (even if it was the local Ds fault) and infrastructure - like roads, bridges and the electric grid could have been brought up to modern standards. We might even have found a way to end racism..

But it's just as well that we aren't going to use it to pay off those spoiled twits' student loans.

Do you really expect the Flint City Council to actually do good stuff for the people of Flint?

Have you ever seen videos of their council meetings?

[Hannibal]

I see this battle in Ukraine being waged against Putin as a battle between good and evil, democracy and autocracy, freedom and enslavement that follows installation of an autocrat who controls all the levers of power.

This is pure propaganda. Zelensky is a professional actor and he is not a good guy. At all. The guy is playing our DC politicians like a bunch of suckers. If the Ukraine was wiped off of the map it would be a tragedy but not one that we should spend $100 billion to prevent. It is not something that threatens our way of life. Nor our economic interests, which are being completely ignored by our ruling class. I don't know about you, but I'm getting really sick of our government printing money that it does not have. That is how you get 9% inflation. They are already talking about spending hundreds of billions to rebuild the Ukraine when the war is done.

[THE_WIZARD_]

EFZ

[AlabamAlum]

It is currently 8 degrees at AAlum’s stately manor. Windchill is -2.

And I don’t care who you are, it’s cold.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Pffffft. We had -60 wind chill and air temps in the minus 20's ya twatwaffle...

[AlabamAlum]

I don’t care. 8/-2 is cold.