Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

If his name was Franz Ferdinand then we are all well and truly fucked.

[Dr. Strangelove]

DSL.. where did you get that stat of 400 people bought 9M pain pills?

Ent-

The trail of painkillers leads to West Virginia's southern coalfields, to places like Kermit, population 392. There, out-of-state drug companies shipped nearly 9 million highly addictive ? and potentially lethal ? hydrocodone pills over two years to a single pharmacy in the Mingo County town.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Both Russia and Turkey confirming the Ambassador's assassination. It all happened on camera and the video is floating around everywhere on Twitter.

Really bad thing is that apparently the Ambassador's Turkish guard is the one who killed him. Yelled stuff about Aleppo and Syria

[hack]

Just a guess, but nothing happens. Turkey is the biggest customer of Russian gas. The two need each other, have plenty of common cause, and this gives both an opportunity to continue blaming terrorism whilst doing what it is they want to do. Interesting if possible to trace this back to whomever, and see the motivations though.

[entropy]

thanks DSL... read right over it. (sigh)

[Wild Hoss]

How pissed can Putin- er, Russia- really be? I mean...he- er, they- are pretty much responsible for what the dude was pissed about. Own it.

[hack]

For all we know he engineered the whole thing himself.

[Dr. Strangelove]

$10 says Erdogan will blame the Gulenists. Putin will be fine with that because it'll put the US in a tight spot again. And Trump will hand him over once in office.

[Wild Hoss]

Consider the crowd. Makes all the sense in the world.

My wife made the point yesterday that it seems many Trumpites prefer Putin and the Russians over "liberal" Americans.

I believe its true. Shared values trump shared history.

[Jeff Buchanan]

How pissed can Putin- er, Russia- really be? I mean...he- er, they- are pretty much responsible for what the dude was pissed about. Own it.

EFZ ......

Going back aways, BO and the feckless continental EU leadership had a chance to flex some military muscle in Ukrain 2012/13 time frame. Yeah, that suck hole was a mess but intelligent people knew then that not good things would happen if there wasn't some level of "assistance" provided to elements within Ukrain who supported EU membership.

You may remember the uniformless folks armed with modern Russian weaponry and unmarked clearly Russian armor and artillery coming to the "aid" of elements in Ukrain who wanted a closer relationship with Russia. You may remember every top level Russian source saying Russia was not involved with these local resistance groups. Heh. Then, when it was clear they were, they said, "Oh, these are police" protecting Russian civil interests in Eastern Ukrain. From there. Putin grabbed Crimea.

By the time all this was going down, it was wayyyy too late. But, anyway, that the West did NOTHING was a clear precursor to what the West, in particularly the US and UK, would do when Putin wanted to align himself with Iran and Hezbollah in supporting Assad in Syria. So, Russia lent a hand. The rest is history or will be soon. Meanwhile, probably the worst human tragedy as a result of war in history is unfolding in Alleppo.

If there is one thing BO F'ed up as the leader of the Western World, it is letting Putin run free with his expansionist aims in The Crimea and now in the ME, namely Syria. That Trump seems to be sympathetic to Israeli West Bank settlements could signal a pretty smart US move or it could illustrate he has no F'ing idea what he is doing. Kinda like his China "missteps." Whatever.

But, yeah, it would be interesting to find out what's really up here with the killing of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey. Is it another inside job engineered by Ergodan to enlist Russian military "assistance" against Turkish Kurds who are active right down there on the southern Turkish boarder with Syria. Sure, if Erdogan blames the Kurds, well, he wouldn't mind another successful air campaign mounted by the Russian Air Force following a successful air operation in Syria that pretty much neutralized Syrian rebel opposition.

There may be a nexus here between Turkey, Iran and Russia and possibly Syria if Assad survives, aimed at stamping out Kurdish Separatism in the entire ME, or at least dealing it a severe blow while at the same time making the US appear to be weak (which they have clearly demonstrated they are - or disinterested and that is mistake). There were renewed clashes between KDPI and Iranian military forces in 2015. So the Kurds in Iran are no friends of the Ayatollah nor are they the friends of Erdogan in Turkey and Putin would simply love to employ his military wherever he can when US forces, particularly Carrier based USN air - a couple of carriers in the Med would work - in this case, have in the past and are now doing nothing to meet Putin head on.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The photos (and video) of the assassination are surreal. Like something out of a movie.

[Ghengis Jon]

The ONLY reason Russia is in Syria is because of their naval base there. Russia could care less about anything else due to its strategic value. I think this opportunity to blame terrorism will not be missed as the act 'justifies' further action. BO has been utterly ineffective/impotent in the middle east and Putin counts on this. Just as critically, Putin values that base over ALOT of things. Its the whole reason he supports Bashar Assad/Urban Meyer.

I would send members of the Navy UDT, SEALS, whatever into that cove and sink Russian ships to block that base and let them look at a billion dollars they don't have just to make the base operational again. Or use airpower to do the same thing.

Thanks for hacking Vlad, here's your prize. Try something again and then we'll really get mad.

Of course, with Putin's Pussy about to become POTUS, nothing, even harsh words, will be forthcoming. We're surrender monkeys that make the French jealous.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Would like to see a more credible news organization take a look at this and not Think Progress, but this is likely just the beginning of the corruption of the Trump Presidency

Trump Org pressured Kuwait Embassy into holding its events at Trump DC Hotel

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/311118-kuwait-embassy-cancels-major-event-at-four-seasons-to-switch-to-trumps-dc-hotel

[hack]

The ONLY reason Russia is in Syria is because of their naval base there. Russia could care less about anything else due to its strategic value. I think this opportunity to blame terrorism will not be missed as the act 'justifies' further action. BO has been utterly ineffective/impotent in the middle east and Putin counts on this. Just as critically, Putin values that base over ALOT of things. Its the whole reason he supports Bashar Assad/Urban Meyer.

I would send members of the Navy UDT, SEALS, whatever into that cove and sink Russian ships to block that base and let them look at a billion dollars they don't have just to make the base operational again. Or use airpower to do the same thing.

Thanks for hacking Vlad, here's your prize. Try something again and then we'll really get mad.

Of course, with Putin's Pussy about to become POTUS, nothing, even harsh words, will be forthcoming. We're surrender monkeys that make the French jealous.

Honestly, you know, I don't know. The US clearly needs to hit back, and there's no doubt at all it has the capacity to do so quietly and electronically. But, in the end, this is America and Americans do like to bomb people. There aren't much in the way of civilian targets to accidentally hit anymore, so the risk of collateral damage could be low. Could the US level that base? Or, more generally, could it inflict a severe financial punishment? Harder now if the price of oil is going to go up. But, at some point, maybe you really do have to get over the gentlemantly instincts of Obama in this case and must flex some muscle already. If you can do it without killing any Muslims, that much more power to you for it. And maybe it's worth hitting them in public, and behaving like a poked bear. Of course it has to be done before January 20, presumably.

Dunno. The solution to violence is never ``more violence'', but what Russia has just don't wasn't quite violent in a conventional way. Interesting times/interesting measures?

[entropy]

Would like to see a more credible news organization take a look at this and not Think Progress, but this is likely just the beginning of the corruption of the Trump Presidency

Trump Org pressured Kuwait Embassy into holding its events at Trump DC Hotel

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/311...rumps-dc-hotel

I'd also like to see Republicans care as much as they did about the Clinton foundation doing these things.. And I'd like to see the dem's not act like this is a moral outrage when their candidate did similar things...

I'd also like a pony.