Tuco

{Meant to quote thatguys “intensive purposes”, but fucked it up. } It’s “intents and purposes”, which is more than just grammar-smack. There is no way he will achieve his intent or purpose of this invasion. Putin will never fully control Ukraine and his paper tiger military has been exposed.

Saddle matches the cop’s. It was likely the equestrian version of a ride-along.

I’m more worried about DeSantis as a candidate than I am Trump.

Thankyou. Reading through the comments was like watching the disinformation machine play out in real time. Fucking idiotvibes posts about the dollar crashing and how it's tied to Ukraine sanctions. People react to the sanctions part, without challenging the basis, which, of course, is just utter fucking nonsense. It's how disinformation becomes commonly accepted.

Do you believe direct engagement with Russian forces would be "actual peace keeping."

I know it's off-topic from the SC, but I am going to follow it anyway. First of all, a recent Pew Study indicated that 56% of US Catholics believe there should be legal in all or most cases. (Pew, 2020). So, if you are defining a liberal Catholic as someone who believes abortion should be legal, then "liberal" Catholics are massively underrepresented on the SC. I know that's not the perception because pro-life Catholics use their religion to bolster their position, while pro-choice Catholic politicians do not, but the fact is most actual, real life Catholics support abortion rights. And there are plenty who vote Democrat, with Gallup estimating that 52% voted Dem in 2020. (Gallup). Secondly, regarding the purge, you're not entirely wrong (if you replace "Catholic" with "pro-lifer"), but it misses the main story. Local politics have become national. Because of that, it is harder for local candidates to follow regional preferences if they conflict with national party preferences. Case in point, I volunteered for a mayoral candidate (Mello) in Omaha who had some pretty moderate views on abortion. He got some press. National pro-choice organizations raised a stink and Tom Perez backed off him. Whether that cost him the election, I don't know. His campaign wasn't great and he was going against an incumbent. So, sure, there is that dynamic. But you could say the same about the influence Grover Norquist or the NRA has on local Republican candidates. And a thirdly, you shouldn't just attribute changes in the last 30 years to the Democrats. The Church changed. I graduated from a Benedictine high school in 1990. I certainly knew liberal priests. I remember activist nuns who visited to talk about protesting nukes. Certainly there were conservative priests, including ones that protested abortion clinics. I remember paging through a liberal Catholic trade magazine (for the lack of a better term) that a priest had left out. My impression was that it was a cross section of politics. I don't get the impression it's that way now. My impression is that Conference of Catholic Bishops has been effective in pushing their bullshit down to the high school level. Hopefully I am wrong.

Just as a reality check, in this kind of situation, the goal is probably more like only losing 5 defenders to kill one invader. What the Ukrainians are signing up for is a very likely possibility that they will be killed before they are ever in rifle range of a Russian soldier. It is breathtakingly selfless.

Ok. So what? Does that really change the point about the cremation trucks?

The Eastern Orthodox Church does not approve of cremation. So, either that is meant for Ukrainians (to avoid mass grave sites of civilians) or Putin is risking pissing off families who lost their loved ones in battle.

Unfortunately the main effect will be an uptick in Putin’s approval rating. Think I’m joking? Hell, Republicans became the pro-Covid party.

The one I was always come back to was the Sharpie on the hurricane map. It's just fucking obvious that he is a terrible liar. It's not some deep mystery. You don't need to understand math or history or even weather. It's simply a refusal to acknowledge reality, both from Trump (about the hurricane) and from his supporters (about Trump.)

It's a violation. The Ukrainians shouldn't be doing it. The Russian seems sincere, so it's an effective video. Undoubtedly it will result in motivation for the Ukrainians to get similar videos. It's a scenario that is ripe for fuckery, which is why it is a violation. And if I were in a similar situation as the Ukrainians, I would probably do the same.

Nope. Putin doesn't get rewarded for invasion. Foreign powers can't just divvy up the country into voting blocks they think are favorable to them and then call it democracy. In the end, it's Ukraine's decision, but that's a candy coated bullshit offer.

I think it is more likely we’d just tie an aid package to the donation of tanks. But my guess is there is all sorts of analysis of how much aid we could give without an escalation. Tanks may cross a line. No, Russia hasn’t been good about avoiding civilian casualties, but if he starts carpet bombing Kiev, it’s a different level of crisis.

My guess is that it would be unlikely to provide any meaningfully hints to the Russians. But, one, there may be some lucky hint, like they recognize the background and correlate it to some past video he made, and were able to get a good guess on his location. Who knows. But also, two, who gives a fuck. The guy who will most likely die, or be imprisoned, in the next six months just asked you not to. Because he is fighting a proxy war against your enemy without your support. So do what he fucking asks. It’s his life he’s risking, so respect the precautions he wants.

Seems random, until you look at FoxNews. It seems like part of the formula for delivering right wing bullshittery is to always have some showgirls in the camera shot.

Certainly. No disagreement there. But the oversimplification as the war drums beat concerns me. It’s the basic structure as other pro war propaganda: “our problems are because of them” and “they’ve already attacked us.” When you see that, it’s good to pause.

My cousin was a tank commander in the first gulf war. He said the two biggest surprises of the war was how well our stuff worked and how poorly the Russian stuff did. Granted, that was 30 years ago, and the Iraqis didn’t have the latest and greatest, but the Russian tanks were garbage.

I think the article is filtering for what supports its thesis. Two major issues I have with it: 1. If you’re counting propaganda/destabilization as WW3, then the Cold War should count. The tools are different in the 21st century, but efforts are not. 2. It is ridiculous to blame the rise of global right wing nationalism wholly on Putin. The article doesn’t mention 911. Consider what followed: the normalization of Islamophobia, the invasion of two countries with brown people, the (added) destabilization of the middle east leading to mass immigration (major effects in Europe), 20 years of war and its glorification of the military. I think people underestimate that last one.

That pussy couldn’t stand up to Trump. Not kill him, just get off his fucking knees.

Nope. Putin has no end game here. His country of 140M is going to try to control a country of 40M, with most of the first world feeding them weapons. Maybe he thought he would be greeted as a liberator or some shit, but obviously that's not the case. If Putin retreats, the illusion of Russian power is dispelled forever. If he stays, he gets to look at controlling a country roughly twice the size of Iraq when he doesn't have nearly the military might to do so, and no conceivable way to set up a puppet government that will follow Moscow long term. If this draws out, terrorism in Russia is inevitable. His best hope right now is the try to use the fear of mass destruction and casualties to win the "separatist" regions at the negotiating table. But the price he will pay for those regions is massive. We aren't going to risk WW3 to shuffle the deck. Putin has a losing hand.

Cumming on the tonsils while being "deep" throated? Hey Van, be careful where you point that 2 1/2 inches.

Yeah, I remember a few years ago someone was making the case of how bad the US educational system, and had included some chart that showed us behind Portugal. At the time Portugal had something like a 90% literacy rate. If you have 1 out of 10 people who can't read, your education system is shit. But a relatively high percentage drops out of school along the way, so the comparing graduating student standardize tests, it seems like their education system is pretty good. (They've made a huge effort on literacy, and it is more in-line with the industrial world now.)

In Rudy's case, he believes "evidence" includes paper copies of Epoch Times articles. The dude is nuts.

That's the way I've always heard it.