Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

Yeah. Really is.

[CGVT]

CGVTDS

Really is.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Trump will destroy our democracy. He is the biggest threat to our country in our lifetimes.

Well, I can't entirely disagree with your assessment. His potential to subvert/destabilize the world order that has prevailed since 1945 is real. The question for me is will he or can he actually act on the campaign rhetoric he's putting out there. Pundits that I read say it's 50/50 Trump can EO his bombastic policies into practice. The US constitution, through Congress, fortunately limits the powers of the executive. If the legislative and judicial arms of our government were operating soundly, Trump wouldn't be able to EO some of the policies he's saying he'll implement. But neither are working soundly right now so, that's an issue that is hard to predict what impact the current governmental dysfunction might have.

Either way, if DJT is elected President, it's going to be a bumpy road with a political battle involving far right conservatism and nationalism versus a leftist version of social liberalism. At present, there seems to be little willingness to find political common ground between these two opposing pollical views and this problem isn't just America's. In the US, that problem prevents bipartisan resolution of, for example, unrestrained and poorly controlled immigration in the US, or moving legislative policy that supports economic growth through both houses of Congress.

On the global scene, Trump's FP is likely to favor a change in the world order advocated by other autocrats. The reality facing all of us is that, IMO, rational political thought that previously underpinned the current world order has been subverted by socialist thinking and implementation of policies that are far more left leaning socially liberal than my tastes for that. For example, I wouldn't mind seeing agents of change like the UN that has been taken over by leftists put on a short leash. Trump as president slashed US funding for the UN that if those cuts had actually been implemented would have done just that. He told Iran to forget about any nuclear deals because folks in charge there can't be trusted. He removed the US from participation in agreements reducing green house gasses telling China and India to get on board first, then, and only then, he told them, we'll think about participating. But the US isn't going to handcuff itself by promoting green policies while the world's two biggest air polluters continue to rock their economies with low production costs.

Given US Constitutional restraints on executive powers, I wouldn't have problems with a second Trump presidency considering the options. Biden is not mentally fit for a 2nd presidential term. His handlers, all left leaning politically, will put their puppet behind the podium and continue to implement a long list of leftist policies like defund the police, open boarders, stop fracking, dump vehicles that burn carbon based fuels and replace them all with electric motors, shut down the use of coal to power segments of the US economy and helicopter money (e.g., paying off student loans). None of that shit is on my list of things I want to happen.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Who in the campaign thought Trump speaking to the Libertarians would be a good idea?? They boo their OWN candidates, what the hell did they think they’d do to Trump??

[Dr. Strangelove]

I give Lindsey Graham grief but he does break with Trump on occasion. Whereas Mike Lee must change his knee pads three times a day. The Mike Lee who once loudly protested Trump at the Republican Convention is long dead.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Graph demonstrating something I’ve long said around here. No matter what your age is, everyone tends to cite the era of their childhood and especially their teens as pretty much the best time for everything: sports, music, all pop culture, family harmony, everything.

And so many deny that nostalgia clouds their beliefs.

[AlabamAlum]

Bill Walton dead at 71.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Bill Walton dead at 71.

I heard he wasn’t well but still shocking. Very sad. I knew him more as an announcer than a player but very memorable as both.

[Mike]

He seemed way older to me.

[AlabamAlum]

He seemed younger to me. Huge Grateful Dead fan. Tie-died shirts, eclectic, irreverent color commentary. I liked him. RIP.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Some developments in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict worth mentioning: Western powers that are providing weapons and weapon systems to Ukraine have heretofore not allowed the use of them to strike targets within Russian territory. Since May 10th, Russia has leveraged this policy to assemble ground forces and attack targets inside Ukraine from the Belgorod Oblast. This Oblast boarders Ukraine in it's NE segment and north of Kharkiv, an area of Ukraine that Russian forces had invaded, could not hold and the area that the UA had driven them back into Russia many months ago.

The main threat to Ukraine are air delivered glide bombs launched from the airspace above this so-called sanctuary region that is inside Russian territory. The Russian Air Force can attack Kharkiv and hundreds of villages inside Ukraine and near Kharkiv with impunity. They've done so to enhance RA ground force operations and support their significant advance into Ukraine. Ukraine does not possess air defenses capable of engaging the glide bombs once they are launched and cannot engage the fighter aircraft that launch these weapons from Russian airspace because the MIG 29 is ancient and vulnerable to loss at the hands of advanced Russian fighters. It is this kind of weaponry that Zelenski has recently been calling for along with the removal of the restrictions imposed by the west on using long range ATACAMs to strike the Russian rear and assembly areas in the Belgorod Oblast. The UK has already lifted those kinds of restrictions for the longer range weapons they have given to Ukraine but it's not nearly enough to deliver anything other than pin pricks on engaged Russian forces.

It's going to be interesting over the next month to see whether or not Biden will green light ATACAMs for use in this so-called sanctuary region of Russia and how Putin will react if he does. Expect more nuclear threats from Medvedev - his National Security Advisor. These threats have become a pattern and other nuclear capable countries like China and probably Iran are watching the reactions of the west to such threats. Also of interest: The question of how the soon to be delivered F16s will be deployed. The F16 (Block 90s) are formidable ground attack and air superiority fighters. I'm not entirely certain Ukraine is getting those and would be another demonstrated dilly-dallying of western governments which for all intent and purpose are letting Ukraine hang out to dry. Things would be a lot different in this conflict today if western powers had come to the aid of the Ukrainian military without the political pussy-footing that has done nothing but unnecessarily delay weapons and weapons systems delivery, tied the hands of Ukrainian commanders behind their backs and allowed Putin's forces to seize the initiative.

[crashcourse]

The 1973 NCAA championship title game witnessed arguably the greatest individual performance in college basketball history, courtesy of Hall of Famer Bill Walton. Back then, Walton's UCLA team competed against the Memphis Tigers, and he delivered an exceptional performance, scoring 44 points with an extraordinary 95.4% shooting accuracy from the field.
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Even though he narrowly missed achieving a perfect scoring game, the former center didn't seem faced, casually commenting on the single missed shot in hindsight, "I got the rebound and put it back in."

21/22 shooting in a championship game

[CGVT]

The 1973 NCAA championship title game witnessed arguably the greatest individual performance in college basketball history, courtesy of Hall of Famer Bill Walton. Back then, Walton's UCLA team competed against the Memphis Tigers, and he delivered an exceptional performance, scoring 44 points with an extraordinary 95.4% shooting accuracy from the field.
Ad
Even though he narrowly missed achieving a perfect scoring game, the former center didn't seem faced, casually commenting on the single missed shot in hindsight, "I got the rebound and put it back in."

21/22 shooting in a championship game

I remember watching that game. Walton was unstoppable. The dunk was still illegal. The only "miss" was when he put a rebound back in and was called for offensive goaltending.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Things would be a lot different in this conflict today if western powers had come to the aid of the Ukrainian military without the political pussy-footing that has done nothing but unnecessarily delay weapons and weapons systems delivery, tied the hands of Ukrainian commanders behind their backs and allowed Putin's forces to seize the initiative.

Quoting my own post up thread, just read a NYT opinion piece by Bret Stevens titled Do We Understand How to Win Wars. Stevens identified existential wars the US was involved in and won: The Civil War and WWII. 10s of thousands of civilian lives were lost in these wars but there were never serious questions of immorality associated with those losses. In WWII the stated goal of the Allied forces in Europe was to weaken the will of German and Japanese citizens to fight. Allied troops leveled cities in Germany and in Japan Truman green-lighted dropping an atomic bomb on two cities in Japan on their way to unconditional victories. Were those actions morally incompatible with victory? We know how America fought wars where they were victorious. During the siege of Vicksburg in 1863, hunger “yielded to starvation as dogs, cats, and even rats vanished from the city,” Ron Chernow noted in his biography of Ulysses Grant. The Union did not send food convoys to relieve the suffering of innocent Southerners, nor did Lincoln dictate restraints on Grant .

Ukraine and Israel face similar existential threats. Putin sees the country of Ukraine as fantasy, claims it is part of Russia and, as he has done elsewhere, has pursued victory in Ukraine with a policy of destroying Ukrainian cities to inflict mass casualties on civilians with the intent of weakening their will to continue fighting. Iran has a publicly announced strategy of destroying Israel. US policy involving military support in these two wars has been bounded by, in the case of Israel, fear of escalation and loss of civilian life, in the case of Ukraine, fear of escalation to nuclear conflict in Europe. These fears, unwarranted as they might be, make the possibility of defeat of both Ukraine and Israel at the hands of tyrants entirely possible. Both wars, existential in nature for both Israel and Ukraine, are also important to the continued great power status of the US as that is threatened by China, Iran and Russia. This follows a pattern of humiliating US defeats in Vietnam in 1975, Beirut in 1984, Mogadishu in 1993 and Kabul in 2021. We're heading for two more humiliating defeats of the two countries the US is deeply involved with and for good reason.

Bret Stevens concludes with this sobering thought:

Wars are not porridge; there’s almost never a Goldilocks approach to getting it just right. Either you’re on the way to victory or on the way to defeat.

[Mike]

Our $320,000,000 Gaza pier that Biden had constructed so we could feed Hamas has broken apart and beached itself. Probably for the best.