ABSR

My immediate thought when reading the thread title was "Didn't Texas already play Tech?"

We'll have to let the Surly Gay Mafia weigh in, but I am pretty sure he would not make the cut for the Gay team either.

The apparent attack had no immediate effect on European energy supplies; Nord Stream 2 has never gone into service, and Nord Stream 1 has been shut down since August. So the impact of this to actual supply is zero. The only thing this affects is if Putin is ever deposed/killed, Russia pulled out of Pre-2014 Ukraine, Russia returned all of the kidnapped Ukrainians, and Russia started paying reparations.....THEN we could open up the supply again. So yeah, big immediate impact. AND we all know it was Russia/Putin who did it because no one else benefits and no one else is this stupid and obvious. So Putin remains a master strategist!

Deep diving is any dive past 60 feet/18 meters, with a limit for recreational scuba divers of 130 feet/40 meters. So 70 meters is around 210 feet and would require either specially trained and equipped people or special submersibles. This is not some simple feat.

Bishop to Queens....well, you get the idea.

FEMA. They will be the only ones working in your territory.

Heck, Winter is Coming and that is all they, and most of their other mobilization compatriots, will have. Bastards will be freezing to death before the other stuff can kill them.

Have you not seen this chart? WWII absolutely crushed them demographically as they lost a huge chunk of the breeding age population. You can see the sine wave that has created for them over time. That same dip/age group is now the 18-30 year olds where they need high birth rates (sustainability is 2.1 per couple). I believe their last/recent rate was 1.6 and that was before having people bail on the country when the war started, when they are killed in the war and when they flee the country due to mobilization and soon to be martial law. There is a reason Russia kidnapped close to 2 million Ukrainians including a massive number of kids (who likely still have parents or grandparents out there). They could use immigration to help but no one wants to go there, and those that would want to emigrate are likely minorities and Russia does not want those...except to send to the Ukraine war.

There is likely US assets in the area all the time, so your statement is like saying the sun came up today, so that means Russia is a peace loving country. And of course it ignores the fact that the ONLy entity that gains from this is Russia. No reason at all for anyone to do this except for Russian false flag.

So someone thinks Ukraine traveled across much of Europe and then did a deep sea exercise with no equipment or expertise thousands of miles away? To damage something that is of no strategic value to them, but is of value to their Allies. And with this Russia, who controls the flow of gas into the pipe, will create an environmental disaster/distraction. Yep, has to be the completely improbable Ukraine option.

And isn't always better to have them be on the other side/team when the wars start so that when they switch they end up on our side?

Charge of the Not Bright Brigade!

If he uses nukes he becomes a complete pariah government. The sanctions that China and India are working around for cheap gas and goods gets shut down. The US says to anyone who violates the sanctions that we will apply the same sanctions to them or anyone violating them. Pick a side. Be part of the world economy or shrivel economically and die with Putin. We would also triple down on arms and support to Ukraine and open the flood gates to all the top end stuff. I am not sure if we get actively engaged with people or air power, but when someone uses Nukes we might. CIA works actively on regime change. Putin’s not crazy, but he is from the Russian school of threatening and bullying. His inability to accept any reality and reassess the situation means many more will die for his hubris than is needed, and will have to result in regime change at some point. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Those darn sensors! We keep replacing them and they keep saying there is a problem!? Well, let’s keep working to fix the symptom!

But those American crack heads have grown up hunting and shooting. I don’t think Russia encourages gun ownership and use by the masses. Advantage aggy!

He can then claim that they are fighting a war to defend Russian territory. It means conscripts who in theory can not be sent to foreign lands to fight can be used to fight to defend the "New" Russian territory. He also wants to make it a political statement/reason at home for people to fight and support the war as they are fighting to defend Russian territory. "Just like defending Leningrad in the Great Patriotic War!" Lastly is his saber rattling about nuclear weapons will now saying that they will use nukes to defend what is now Russian territory. Of course to use battlefield nukes on front line forces in your own territory doesn't make sense, so really this is about threatening to Nuke Kijev or Berlin or London. But in reality it is more of the standard Russian negotiating tactics of demand everything, threaten everything and offering nothing. We have to be clear that the territory is still Ukraine, elections are a sham and we will never see any of the Pre-2014 territory as Russian...and that we will continue to help Ukraine fight. Any type of "negotiation" or "concession" is what he wants. He will take what he can and then in 3-5 years they will do it all over again in some fashion with the same threats and MO.

Bacon in the morning, Cinnabon in the afternoon. Wars over friends!

To be fair, the Comanches (and all Indians who took slaves/prisoners) treated them fairly horribly. Infants were almost always killed and adult women raped and usually ended up killed. Men were tortured in horrible ways and killed. It is only young kids who could do some work, but that were not adults yet, that usually ever survived or were possibly integrated into Indian society. Or maybe ransomed back later. We currently like to say the Indians were all good and peaceful people who were one with nature and it was the horrible White/Europeans doing all evil. Before that it was our American story of manifest destiny and defeating the savages. In reality both sides had good and bad, and both sides had a lot of reprehensible activities.

Then you are failing at adulthood. Be better.

I think they need grunts as badly as anything. If I was a betting man I would place a large wager than very little of the 300K troops will be pulled from Moscow or St. Petersburg reserves.

Is that so Comrade Mitten?

She did. She did not want to go back, did not speak English, was married (to the chief) with children in the Comanche tribe. One son was Quanah Parker who was the last great Comanche warrior and became famous even when on the reservation. Theodore Roosevelt met with Quanah on the reservation and had dinner at his home and went on hunting trips with him. When Cynthia was captured Quanah and his brother who were around 10-13 age and ran away and later joined up with other then free roaming Comanches. Cynthia was taken along with her young daughter, and having her daughter with her probably was what kept her from really running back to the Indians. She wasn't mistreated by her family when she came back, but she never assimilated and she was always an oddity and side-show. I'd recommend "Empire of the Summer Moon" for a history of Comanche's and Cynthia and Quanah Parker.

In Cults the leader almost always has sex with their followers....so yes the leader would definitely be Reveille.

I would agree until I read the "Sugar Daddy" thread. I think there is a reasonably sizable portion of people where any restaurant with a server is considered awe inspiring and "fancy".

I'd set the over/under at 1, and probably take the under.