Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

Is today the day you STFU? Feels like that day will never come.

Correct.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Charlie Sheen with an assault rifle? Yeah, I'd believe that.

Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey with assault rifles? Nah ...

Well Patrick is dead so probably true. Jennifer Grey can hold my rifle whenever she wants...if Mrs. Liney would ever let go...

[Tom W]

1984 Fantasy: America lives in fear that Soviet paratroopers could suddenly drop out of the Rocky Mountain skies and take over Colorado

2022 Reality: Russia can't even successfully perform a paratrooper operation 50 miles from their border.

TBF, they had help from the Cubans and Nicaraguans in 1984.

[Hannibal]

1984 Fantasy: America lives in fear that Soviet paratroopers could suddenly drop out of the Rocky Mountain skies and take over Colorado

2022 Reality: Russia can't even successfully perform a paratrooper operation 50 miles from their border.

The part where a bunch of untrained high school kids take out legions of foreign troops does make more sense now though.

[lineygoblue]

Yeah, but the movie was inaccurate. Charlie Sheen would have been one of the first to make a stupid mistake and get wasted. Lea Thompson would have killed the bad guy Cuban commander.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Stop ruining a classic 80's movie ya turdburglar...

[Jeff Buchanan]

Here's a summary of the Friedman and Douthat articles I mentioned above.

Douthat makes a good observation to start his piece: Ukraine was “almost an ally” that we’d protect from Russian aggressions but not quite. So, Putin, seeing the weakness, goes for it. By doing so he has now activated a united NATO focused squarely against Putin’s Russia for the long term with its most important member, Germany, rearming and taking it’s rightful place as NATO’s principal leader. The US can now shift it’s focus to Asia and the mounting challenge China presents. He concludes this observation with this: Unfortunately, all these gains in realpolitik terms have come at an immense and increasing price: the suffering and brutalization of Ukrainians (and unwilling Russian conscripts), the economic suffering of ordinary Russians and the small but clearly increased risk of a more existential kind of conflict — the return of the nuclear shadow that lifted with the Cold War’s end.

Douthat's three outcomes are:

• Regime change in Moscow. Not likely but can’t be ruled out. Wishfully thinking that oligarchs who will lose their homes on the French Riviera, have their yachts seized and their kids kicked out private schools will talk Putin down. They’ll point out the proletariat is not happy with him and having hundreds of thousands Russian citizens really pissed off that their previous high standard of living just dropped off a cliff is something the local police and GRU won’t be able to deal with.
• A brutal Russian victory and grinding occupation. The most plausible. It also is consistent with how Russian forces forced Grozny in Chechnya and Aleppo in Syria to heel. The problem with this scenario is that it’s going to be ugly and brutal for a long time because it is likely that Putin believing he has military superiority and Zelenski believing he has the support of the west will both go maximal making it hard to move from conflict to stability.
• A swift cease-fire followed by peace on not-entirely-ideal terms Plausible, pragmatic and humanitarian, this is the preferable endgame. The details of the terms would include having Zelenski cede control of the Donbas and Luhansk regions to Putin and recognize Crimea as part of Russia. The Russians would withdraw.

Friedmans’ three outcomes:

• Erase Ukraine as a free independent state and culture and wipe out its leadership. This appears to be Putin’s primary objective. The task is underway. It’s the way Putin conquered Aleppo and Grozny. It would create a European Afghanistan, spilling out refugees and chaos. He can’t install a puppet government and expect it will stand with Ukrainians working to destabilize it in every way possible and are likely to be successful at that.
• (1a) Putin’s goals go way beyond bringing Ukraine back into Russia. He sees a “Russian World”; that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people”; and that it is his mission to engineer “regathering all the Russian-speakers in different places that belonged at some point to the Russian tsardom.” To realize that vision, Putin believes that it is his right and duty to challenge “a rules-based system in which the things that countries want are not taken by force.” And if the U.S. and its allies attempt to get in Putin’s way — or try to humiliate him the way they did Russia at the end of the Cold War — he is signaling that he is ready to out-crazy us. The world returns to post 1950s Cold war era under the threat of a nuclear exchange between nuclear powers – and there are more than two this time around.
• The Ukrainian military and people are able to hold out long enough against the Russian blitzkrieg, and that the economic sanctions start deeply wounding Putin’s economy, so that both sides feel compelled to accept a dirty compromise. Its rough contours would be that in return for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of Russian troops, Ukraine’s eastern enclaves now under de facto Russian control would be formally ceded to Russia, while Ukraine would explicitly vow never to join NATO. At the same time, the U.S. and its allies would agree to lift all recently imposed economic sanctions on Russia.
• The Russian people demonstrate as much bravery and commitment to their own freedom as the Ukrainian people have shown to theirs and deliver salvation by ousting Putin from office.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Can you come fetch this grown-up, Talent, I believe he is in need of a harsh reality lesson that no one is yearning to die so that Donetsk might be free**

(** Free being defined by "ruled by an oligarchic mafia type state")

You're missing what's at stake, DSL. I get it. I just disagree with the approach to talk about how awful the Russian Invasion of Ukraine is and do nothing about it. I'm listening right now to the Ukrainian Ambassador address the UN during that body's consideration of a UN resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He gets it.

I'll acknowledge that the sanctions aren't nothing and they'll take a toll. But, Putin is dangerous. He's the leader of a rogue nuclear power unbound, it appears, by the rational restraints imposed by existing arms accords or the Geneva conventions. He doesn't care about the loss of life and the humanitarian crisis he's responsible for in Ukraine. He doesn't care about the economic crisis he is imposing on the country he leads. He won't be moved by sanctions in a way that leads to a cease-fire and pulling back of Russian forces.

However, it's too late to intervene militarily. The window to do that was short. Accordingly, I'm resigned to an outcome unaffected by NATO military engagement. Pick what ever outcome you like from the post above.

[Mike]

Cliff notes version of Biden's SOTU speech.

[Da Geezer]

Ya know, did I imagine it or did Geezer post a horrifically anti-Catholic screed the other day and not one of the so called good Christians here pushed back on him? It was left to a rabid commie atheists like Jon and cgvt to stand up to hatred.

Your ignorance of both history and of Christianity is laughable. I said that Catholics are in the "Christian fleet" and so am I. That is not anti-catholic.

At all points, I've tried to start a discussion about the nature of man and how that is reflected in politics and religion. I view Jon as fertile ground for "conversion" because Jon believes in dissipating power whenever possible. Yet he votes for the party of big government. No one here is willing to discuss the nature of man. Protestant Christianity and capitalism are the two pillars that have created the most just and most prosperous society in the history of mankind. Both posit that man is depraved and that power should be atomized.

My discussion of the Roman Catholic church is simply historical truth. RCs believe the Pope talks to God and that he is God's representative on Earth. RC doctrine is that God speaks to the Pope who tells the Cardinals who tell the Bishops who tell the local priests who tell the parishioners. What could possibly go wrong? ALL socialist thought results in finding the "good man" (or group) to rule and that such rule brings prosperity and happiness to all. It didn't work for Plato on Syracuse, and it has never worked in the history of the planet. That is because it is based on the incorrect view of man's nature. Putin is just today's example.

Does anyone here care to debate Lord Acton's dictum, "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely."? If you believe Action, then why vote for a political party that seeks to centralize power in Washington DC and in the President?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Evil men always believe everyone else is as awful as they are. It's how they self-justify their evil acts. "I'm only doing what he wanted to do to me"

Psychologically speaking it's called projection and oh lordy are you ever full of it.

[Dr. Strangelove]

It's totally just a symbolic gesture, but the UN general Assembly just passed a resolution denouncing Russia's invasion and demanding they withdraw.

141 countries voted for

35 abstained

Russia had the direct support of just 4 countries and oh boy, what a colorful group: Syria, North Korea, Eritrea, and Belarus

[Da Geezer]

Jeff: Be a little careful with T. Friedman. He is the guy who predicted the Dow would go down by 30% and stay there after Trump's election in 2016. He is wrong more than he is right.

But I totally agree with your basic belief that NATO should help Ukraine now rather than having to help Estonia later.

There is reporting today that the Poles had some (I don't know how many) MIG-29s ready to send to Ukraine but the Secretary-General of NATO flew to Poland to stop that transfer. Since the Ukrainians fly the M-29, they would have pilots to use the planes. I wonder how transferring a jet to Ukraine is different than sending javelins or AK-47s.

I have no way of knowing whether the reporting is true.

Also, why are not sanctions being applied to Belarus?

[Hannibal]

Not even China, eh?

Tough crowd.

[Obi-Jon]

Russian Defense Ministry has just released casualty numbers, to be taken with a grain of salt. 500 dead and 1500 wounded on the Russian side. 4000 Ukrainians killed.

Figure a 4x propaganda factor. Actual numbers are closer to 2000 Russians and 1000 Ukrainians dead.

Can't imagine Russia releasing any numbers unless a lot of body bags are coming home and people are talking about it despite what State TV is saying.