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atomheartbevo

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by atomheartbevo

  1. Worst part of that was the fucking portrait mode and the text covering up some of the action.
  2. I've listened to some of his stuff (not much), and he can be like Zeihan and a little long-winded, but he seems good for those not following things too closely and who aren't aware of a lot of the day-to-day stuff (and can be listened to in the background).
  3. Still weird seeing Western aircraft in Ukrainian livery.
  4. Russia has made it clear they won't accept any deal unless they get everything they want, so this maybe setting the Trump administration up to have another chance at peace fail completely.
  5. Nuclear news from @hntrbrkmedia: hundreds of tons of yellowcake uranium are on the move in Niger. In order to reach an export terminal in nearby Togo, Russia and Niger appear poised to move the uranium over hundreds of miles of territory occupied by jihadist groups.
  6. So I was given a weapon of mass destruction when I had surgery last year?
  7. Holy shit @butthurt that is wild Russian commentators:
  8. You know, we can look back at various empires, and pinpoint moments big and small that led to the downfall of those empires, whether they be Romans, Persians, Ottomans, British, Spanish, etc., etc. It's just so obvious in hindsight, some real "damn, they really fucked up at this particular moment in time" kinds of moments. Most of the time, the people who were living at that time within those empires would not have realized the seriousness of those moments, because they would have grown up in a situation where the empire is all they had ever known. They couldn't conceive of something wrecking their world and they would have seen the occasional speed bump but assumed that things would course-correct and everything would work out fine, because that's how it had always been in their lives. And in those cases where we can assign an exact date to the end of an empire, even then for the majority of people who were living at that time, it might have been just another day. One day a farmer and his family go to sleep under one ruler or one country, and they wake up the next day under another ruler or country. He still has chickens to tend to, fields to plow, etc. He's going to hear about it after the fact. He may not even be able to see the big picture, because he lives in a tiny village in the boonies. Maybe whoever comes by to collect taxes has a different accent in the future. But here in America in 2025, we all have access to information (even if we don't partake of it) where we are aware of these things, and we can in fact see, in real-time where we are pissing away our influence on the world scene. We will feel the effects over time on our economy (it will be measured in years, so we will see and feel it). Killing USAID and Voice of America and various other things we use to project soft power, we are literally giving the Chinese a power vacuum to fill, and when they fill it, we can't just put a different party in power in 2026 and 2028 and bring back everything and tell the Chinese "yeah, you guys need to leave, we got this, we'll send them some food and medicine and they'll let our oil or mining companies back in, no harm, no foul!" When countries pivot away from one empire to another, well, lest we forget we have a very relevant example from earlier in the year: when we got in the tariff fight with Canada, they literally said they need to pivot to Europe and replace us with Europe. When that happens, we won't be able to claw our way back into those markets easily, because that's a helluva lot of supply chains/infrastructure that does not pivot all that quickly. When conference realignment happens globally, just like with college sports, there's usually no going back to the old conference. And this isn't the Cold War where we just keep a steady bearing and stick to our values and we can beat the Russian bear and eventually get all of those Eastern European countries on our side. China is playing a much longer game than we and the Soviets were.
  9. And lest we forget a little show in the 80s called.....Dallas....about a beautiful, loving, Christian family, you know, the Ewings. Every week, we were regaled with tales of the Ewings and their friends and competitors (not enemies mind you) going out and doing good things in the world.
  10. Be rich and retired, and surrounded by servants who signed NDAs.
  11. Almost makes you wonder if her MAGA stuff was all an act.
  12. Bingo, we were right, after he took the father down, the son shot him. https://au.news.yahoo.com/fruit-shop-speaks-bondi-hero-233639859.html
  13. 2025 decided it wasn’t a shitty enough year and had to up the ante.
  14. I still have no idea why we are trying to negotiate with Russia - they are just fucking playing us.
  15. This is why I think Russia can't attack NATO. And keep in mind that where Ukraine is at in 2025 is far different than 2022/2023 when Russia made a lot of gains. Another plant hit in the Belgorod area last night
  16. The interesting thing is how little Trump and Musk know about what "soft power" is (well Musk just wanted to gut the agencies investigating his companies). I would like to think that we provided this aid because it's the right thing to do (and Christians can say it's because we are somehow a Christian nation). But the reality is that we did it because we wanted influence in that part of the world. We wanted American companies to be able to go in there and conduct business and bargain for resources. We wanted to keep the Soviets and then Russians, and now the Chinese out. China is absolutely going to fill the void that we are leaving all around the world. Deliberately destroying the means to influence other countries is huge part of how we will decline on the world stage.
  17. DFW was once a beautiful Christian community? I'm sure that's what Jackie thought of it.
  18. Did Garth Brooks hold any of them upside down by their feet while banging them?
  19. If he had not changed the ending of When Harry Met Sally to be happy, it would not be nearly as popular as it still is.
  20. Michael Koffman said 403k was their quota, and the growing pool of reservists include service members who probably thought they had served their time and were done. These maybe the guys who get tapped for those internal forces/national guard to keep the peace in Russia, and you can bet they would be bitter at any men protesting/trying to dodge any drafts. “Russia signed up 403,000 recruits this year, surpassing its initial plan for 2025, Budanov said. It is also tapping a growing pool of reservists to replenish its ranks and doling out financial incentives that lure men from its hardscrabble provinces.” Zelensky’s Front-Line Visit Highlights Ukrainian Resilience - WSJ
  21. Good long-form read: Disrupting Russian Air Defence Production: Reclaiming the Sky | Royal United Services Institute Disrupting Russian Air Defence Production: Reclaiming the Sky (PDF - full paper) And I mean it's really long, very dry, probably best to ask your favorite AI to summarize it for you. Meanwhile, speaking of What Air Defence Doing?
  22. The EU as a whole has over 1.5 million active-duty military personnel, and much more modern and effective air forces. Not to summon Peter Zeihan's spirit, but Russia is on a downward slope in terms of eligible men. And that's ignoring that they can't even defeat Ukraine. And more importantly, Putin doesn't have the balls to truly go after NATO, even with American sitting on the sideline, since England and France have serious nuclear capabilities that he would not risk. But here's my thing, putting aside the nuclear issue - if Putin had manpower to spare, we would see it. He literally emptied the prisons, brought in Russian PMCs, brought in a shitload of North Koreans, brought in Africans and Indians that were tricked, and here we are in 2025, the Ukrainians are hitting factories and refineries a thousand kilometers deep into Russia, Muscovites have heard air raid sirens and seen explosions in the distance, the Russians are moving at a snail's pace in Ukraine and taking losses over small amounts of land that they can't afford in the long run, and some of those "gains" they claim, are then reversed by the Ukrainians, and/or are faked. He's got 700,000 men committed to Ukraine. He would need several times that to try and invade NATO proper when you take into account that his logistics chain would stretch out very rapidly through enemy territory. Right now, his local logistics chain is only under serious threat for the last few dozen miles (from the Russian border to wherever in Ukraine). Stretch that out from the Russian border through Ukraine or Belarus (forces in Belarus would quickly find themselves under NATO attack) and it gets into hundreds of miles, and with rails being hit almost immediately by NATO air/missiles, he'd have to try it by trucks, which he doesn't have a lot of these days. I firmly believe that if he had even 100,000 or even just 50,000 troops to spare, we would see them being thrown into Donbas or another area to gain control and make his case for claiming that area through "negotiations". I think that's why we are seeing those mobilization orders and building of internal security facilities/groups - he's gotta tap into Moscow and St. Petersburg, and that's going to tie up troops within Russia keeping those cities under control.
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