Bevo

A copy of the probable cause affidavit states that Heyman approached state troopers and yelled in their faces, "F**k you, you don't belong here!" as police began making their way toward the protesters in the encampment on the lawn of the university's South Mall. Police backed by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers arrest protesters at the University of Texas campus April 29. The charging document states that the officers used their bikes to create a barrier while troopers approached the encampment. That document says that Heyman attempted to "breach (the) line" and maintained his "verbally aggressive demeanor." DPS trooper Thomas Goodson states in the charging document that he pushed Heyman back, and the professor responded by yelling. At some point, Heyman put his finger in Goodson's face and grabbed his bike by the handle and "physically started to pull my bike away from me, interfering with my assigned duties," the affidavit says. The charging document notes that Heyman broke the trooper's "state-issued bike bell," which costs $62. UT police then pulled Heyman away, and he yelled, "F**k you, I am a f**king professor here!"

I have my doubts about the details: Michael Minasi / KUT News Rich Heyman talks to police at the April 29 protest at UT Austin.

I don't think that Poland, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and most importantly, Ukraine... think like that. Russia seems like it is on the brink of collapse. Bulgaria and Georgia are a mess. And all Russia has is a bunch of dumbasses who are forced to fight. But, I don't think we were ever that comfortable with a Ukraine victory or at least our weapons deployment seemed to indicate a more measured approach than what was necessary for victory. My question is whether the more vested Eastern European countries can provide enough to Ukraine to allow it to outlast Putin. I don't get the feeling that Eastern Europe is comfortable with Ukraine going quietly into the night. And from the US perspective, it actually puts us closer to a direct conflict with Russia the more Eastern Europe gets involved. So, give Ukraine what it needs to win and quit pussyfooting around. We love to play politics and implement policies that affect other people's lives and create more restraints than we would ever place on ourselves. We did it here. We did it with Israel. And we have done it with a whole host of countries. And in the process we've help destroy countries and provided opportunities for our enemies. So, yeah, we are concerned about escalation. We are concerned about securing Russian nuclear weapons if it collapses. We are concerned about oil and gas prices. We are concerned about Russia and a bunch of Russian affiliated countries devolving into civil war. We are concerned about China playing a role in securing Russian assets following a collapse. And all of these concerns lead to indecision and inaction. And a lack of a will to win.

What Does America Want in Ukraine? Washington’s current approach is a strategic cop-out—and risks making another forever war. By Emma Ashford, Joshua Shifrinson, and Stephen Wertheim Joe Biden stands at a lectern and behind it is an American flag and a Ukrainian flag. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 12, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images My FP: Follow topics and authors to get straight to what you like. Exclusively for FP subscribers. Subscribe Now May 9, 2024, 2:42 PM Congress has finally approved around $61 billion in new aid to Ukraine, and something strange has happened: Talk of Ukrainian victory has returned to Washington. It’s a jarring turnabout. For the last few months, the White House and others issued dire warnings that if left unaided, Ukrainian lines might collapse and Russian troops might again roll on Kyiv. But with the worst averted, sights are setting higher. The Biden administration is now working to build up the Ukrainian Armed Forces over a 10-year period, at a likely cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, while National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan suggested that Ukraine would mount another counteroffensive in 2025. Russia’s War in Ukraine Understanding the conflict two years on. More on this topic This optimism is misplaced. The new bill may well represent the last big package that the United States will send to Ukraine. As the geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer noted, “America continuing to send Ukraine [$]60 billion in support year after year [is] unrealistic no matter who wins the presidency.” Current aid will mostly help to put Ukraine in a better position for future negotiations. It will ameliorate shortfalls in ammunition and weaponry, making it less likely that Ukrainian forces will lose more ground in coming months. Yet Ukraine still faces other challenges: insufficient fortifications, a yawning manpower shortage, and a surprisingly resilient Russian army. On the whole, Ukraine remains the weaker party; Western assistance has not altered that reality. The White House presented the supplemental as an all-or-nothing choice: Approve billions in funding or watch Ukraine go under. Such rhetoric contains eerie echoes of wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan, where the United States kept pouring resources into lost causes at least in part because no U.S. leader wanted to be held responsible at the final moment of failure. Throughout the Ukraine aid debate, key questions were left entirely unanswered: What is the United States trying to achieve in Ukraine given that total victory is not feasible? What is it willing to risk and spend to get there? The supplemental punts these uncomfortable questions down the road. But if Washington doesn’t confront them, it may end up back in the same position next year—or worse. The matter of an endgame in Ukraine has always been fraught. Political scientists have frequently noted that any end to this war will include diplomatic negotiation. Some draw the conclusion that if negotiation is inevitable, talks should begin sooner rather than later. Others argue that Ukraine must improve its battlefield position before negotiating. The government in Kyiv maintains that Russia must be driven completely out of Ukraine, including Crimea, before talks can begin. Some even argue that regime change in Moscow is a precondition for peace. The squishy middle of the Washington debate, which seems to include senior members of the Biden administration, falls somewhere between these extremes: hoping for major Ukrainian advances, while avoiding escalation and acknowledging privately or anonymously that the math is not in Kyiv’s favor. The White House is correct that aid should be designed to put the Ukrainians in a strong negotiating position. But this raises further questions: How should one determine when the moment for negotiations has arrived? If Ukraine keeps fighting without talking, will its bargaining power improve or diminish? The calculation is also complicated by confusion about what the United States is trying to achieve in Ukraine. Some emphasize broad, universal principles such as defending democracy or protecting the international order. These are laudable goals, but they could plausibly produce opposite conclusions: either that universal principles have already been adequately defended—the steep price Russia has paid could dissuade future aggressors—or alternately that Ukraine must score a definitive victory. More hard-nosed analysts instead argue that America’s primary goal in arming Ukraine is to bleed Russia. Keeping up the flow of Western weapons, they argue, allows the West to diminish Russia’s military capabilities at a reasonable cost. As an objective, however, weakening Russia offers no endgame, and implies a long-term, semipermanent commitment to war. Given Russia’s ability to reconstitute its forces, it is not even clear the West is succeeding on this front. A final group offers more concrete goals: enabling Ukraine to retake specific chunks of territory so as to protect its economic viability as a sovereign state, or to prevent Russia from seizing Odesa and other valuable places. But although these are more specific objectives, there is no consensus on them in Western capitals and little willingness to push for peace negotiations once they are achieved. This is perhaps why White House officials return so often to the formulation that Western aid is simply intended to put Ukraine in the best possible position at the bargaining table. Saying this requires no difficult decisions about the territory Ukraine needs to retake and no consideration of how long Western aid should continue. It also evades the question of Ukraine’s future orientation—will it join the EU or NATO?—which may need to be resolved in order to end the war. In short, the current approach is a strategic cop-out. Its primary benefit is to paper over differences among Ukraine’s supporters. The risk is that the war will join the ranks of forever wars and end in one of three ways: in defeat, on worse terms than could have been obtained earlier, or on the same terms at a higher human and financial toll. “Forever war” became a slogan over the past decade-plus, used by activists to describe the seemingly endless American deployments overseas in complex wars from Afghanistan to Syria and Niger. Like all slogans, the term was imprecise, but it crisply conveyed the problem of waging open-ended conflicts aimed at absolute, unachievable victory.

Well, if bots take over the world, I think I would prefer if they were nude fembots. Maybe, I would need a ruling from Brisket, but right now my opinion is: Still counts as one.

I have a black friend who is not black, also.

We live up north and typically don't like driving into downtown - so we'll go to some place like the Clay Pit which is much easier to get to. Downtown our go to used to be Ranch 616, but we need to get a new one. Every once in awhile we will go to Perla's, but I really had no clue that it was a big deal.

Where was Ketch? Usually, he reports on such things.

As others have said, that is just from the Czech Republic which is a small country. If I remember correctly, the US is supplying about 4,500 rounds per day for a year. The article below from the US Army doesn't answer the question but it has some interesting info. https://www.army.mil/article/274905/munitions_for_ukraine_observations_and_recommendations The ongoing international conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, has brought about a new reality in warfare. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 put the conflict front and center in the minds of the general public. The news and social media have provided even more insight with details from the front lines. Updates from front-line leaders and official and unofficial sources on both sides offer insights not seen at this scale in previous conflicts. From the onset, social media has given the Russia-Ukraine war prominence never seen before. Case in point, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was offered a chance by the U.S. to evacuate from the capital city of Kyiv, an offer he turned down in a spectacular statement: “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.” Ammunition is a commodity that has continuously been at the forefront of Ukraine’s sustainment operations. Munitions Industrial Base As of December 2023, the Department of State said the U.S. Government has provided approximately $44.2 billion in military assistance since Russia launched its invasion against Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and has invested in air defense, fires, ground maneuvers, aircraft and unmanned aerial systems, maritime, and other capabilities equipment, all categories of support with heavy munitions assistance. Munitions support has strained the U.S. munitions industrial base and the European Union (EU). It takes time for the defense industry to ramp up, restart, expand, or a combination of all to produce critical items such as artillery shells or man-portable air-defense systems, both of which recently have been viewed as a priority for large-scale combat operations. One such DOD prime contractor to ramp up production was Raytheon. The company called upon retired engineers to teach current employees how to build Stinger missiles. The surface-to-air weapon system has not been purchased in decades but is now integral to Ukrainian military defense. The private company worked to increase production and fill the initial orders. According to the company’s president, it would take about 30 months for legacy munitions to come off the production line due to setting up the factory and training employees, functions the DOD has taken note of, as stocks have dwindled and munitions have been issued from a variety of sources. News reports indicate the Pentagon has sent an estimated 300,000 155mm howitzer shell rounds from War Reserve Stock Allies-Israel, maintained in Israel since the 1980s, to the Ukrainian military to counter Russia. The Israel-based stockpile, which Israel can access during emergencies, was sent out of the country to offset the reduced capability of domestic munitions production in the U.S. This is a short-term stopgap as the DOD plans to increase its monthly production rate for 155mm artillery shells to 100,000 by 2025. Another source of munitions for Ukraine has been ammunition seized by U.S. Central Command naval forces. The U.S. transferred approximately 1.1 million 7.62mm rounds of ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces. The legal transfer was part of a more extensive investigation of an Iranian weapon smuggling network that involved Iranian illicit trafficking of advanced conventional weapons systems and components to support terrorist activities throughout the Middle East, a creative solution for seized munitions that supports the war effort. However, a more strategic solution is required to offset domestic munitions production. Just as the commercial industry has made a strategic effort to modernize and increase the efficiency of systems, the Army’s organic industrial base (OIB) has developed a 15-year OIB modernization implementation plan to modernize facilities, processes, and the workforce. The plan creates a priority and synchronizes resources on critical facilities and capabilities to increase capacity to sustain the Army’s systems. The Army’s OIB includes 23 arsenals, depots, and ammunition plants that manufacture, reset, and maintain Army equipment; provide critical munitions that may not be cost-effective to commercial industry; and supply warfighters across the joint force. Multiyear contract authorities provided by Congress, which can go up to five years, have potential savings from 5% up to 15% and provide prime contractors a predictable funding source, a forecast for given outyears, and an incentive for internal investment to expand. Such munitions supply has been a challenge in the U.S. and Europe. This is why Europe has followed suit with munition reforms such as the Act in Support of Ammunition Production. The regulation facilitates the buildup of ammunition production capacity within the EU, allowing the European defense industry to increase support to member states’ armed forces and the war effort in Ukraine. The European Union Act provides a three-track approach: deliver ground-to-ground and artillery ammunition to Ukraine, jointly procure 155mm ammunition, and support the buildup of EU manufacturing capacities. Other initiatives include the NATO Multinational Ammunition Warehousing Initiative, which allows the management of ammunition stockpiles amongst allies to be effectively and collectively controlled. The first opened in March 2022 in Estonia, and another in Belgium opened in 2023. The project is pertinent to the eastern part of the alliance that supports eight multinational battlegroups stationed in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The collectively stored materiel allows for a flexible warehousing solution for ammunition stockpiling instead of having materiel being segregated by nations or dependent on supply from their own country, permitting munitions to be protected, accounted for, and used collectively in the face of multiple threats.

180,000 artillery shells is 500 per day for a year. Pretty good.

Are we getting that small school punter today?

Man, we so badly needed a cry to the public 2 years ago with those words. I wish we had someone who could articulate a vision for Ukraine.

Nah, he's just friendly.

Just wait until football season begins and SECers find this board...

ACC, Anderson High School, St. Edwards, and the Challenger School are not UT affiliated.

That looks good. I'll have to try it some time. I actually like Gloria's which is closer to me. I'm a big fan of fried plantains. I wonder if they have a brunch.

Yeah, I got it. I was thinking areas rather than streets. I still needed to say South Congress, though. I post between seeing patients so I'm often not very clear. I was about to say the lake, but I figured there were places in South Congress and Barton Springs that I would consider if not now, at a later time.

I've stayed in the Botika hotel and fished from there. What do y'all want to know?

Just don't say the quiet parts out loud.

It sounds like you are saying that you are glad he left. Maybe it was time to bring in some new blood.

There are protesters with all sorts of agendas. There is a very small group of orthodox Jews who don't believe Israel should be a state. There are communist and Marxist Jews who are leading rallies. There are non-Muslim blacks who believe that Jews control the economy. So, just like stereotypes, it is difficult to paint with a broad brush - there are a variety of personalities that compete to develop an overarching picture.

Blacken Blue?

If you are from Houston and own a truck, there are ways around that.

South Congress area. But, does Congress go past UT?