SL Xpress

The good news is we didn't get inside the 20, so it doesn't even really count.

Fuck Vanderbilt. Fuck Tim Beck. Fuck Vanderbilt's fucking kicker.

"This is the story of the 2023 Cornhuskers as they experience another shortcoming, this time at the hands of the Texas Longhorns, who dominated them in a fashion in the championship match hitherto unseen in the rally era." Fixed it for them. I also feel like Nebraska doesn't get enough credit as a farm program for Texas. I like to look over their current roster to speculate who we're going to swipe next.

They had a good defense industry prior to 2014 when all of this started. As part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was a key component in defense industry manufacturing. One of the issues for Putin when it became obvious he wasn't going to be able to get Ukraine completely under his thumb with Yanukovych as a president for life was the loss of Ukraine manufacturing. But a substantial amount of it was based in the Donbas, so it's complicated. In 2012 it was the 4th largest arms exporter in the world. Here's the Wikipedia article about it. I apologize for not providing a more robust source, but this does give a good overview. Defense industry of Ukraine - Wikipedia

The 4 coaches are trying to create big events that attract big crowds, are featured on some kind of linear TV network, and push the narrative of volleyball as a growing sport. My best guess is that this will be a floating invitational, with matches held in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area, the Dallas area and then the San Francisco area, not necessarily in that order. It's being done purposefully. I also feel like there's some shared reluctance between Texas and Nebraska to schedule one another in any kind of way, so it's important to include programs that can bring people to the event. Wisconsin is the second best at doing that after Nebraska, and Minnesota is in the top 5 as well. Stanford is terrible at it, but they're a big time name program. We beat Nebraska in the national championship when 70%+ of the crowd were Cornhusker fans. I appreciate where you're coming from but there are other factors involved than simply the neutral court designation.

Orange/White scrimmage going on right now. The starting lineup seems set, with Skinner/Wenaas, Ames/Singletary, Rutherford, Halter, and then Akana as the DS. My assumption is that Wenaas will go 6 rotations for the other spot, but I don't really know. Bunton is playing, which is amazing news. Rutherford is in sweats. Kahahawai is taking her place at opposite. Emerick is the Orange team's libero. I'm not there. Just reading the commentary on volleytalk from people who are. No stream.

We Are Texas feature talking about the national championship season last year. The first episode of 3. It's about 11 minutes long. We Are Texas | Episode 1 - Longhorn Network The next two episodes will be released on the 29th of August and then September 5. It's a little strange hearing the new assistant talk about the team when she's only been there a couple of months, but I get it.

The AVCA preseason poll always overvalues last season. Understandable. Not really critiquing that dynamic. But Georgia and Tennessee should be switched, and Arkansas has as much business being in the preseason poll as University of San Diego last year. By that I mean none. Arkansas lost pretty much everything. Maybe Tennessee surprises me. They do return their setter, Caroline Kerr, and she's extremely good. #15 is still too high, though, IMO.

I didn't notice until now how front loaded of a conference schedule this is. Tennessee was obviously good last year. We barely escaped in Palo Alto in the Sweet 16 before the team entered Super Saiyan mode. But they lost a LOT. They still have their great setter returning, and they have a decent transfer, but there's no way they'll be as good as they were last year. Auburn is always overrated. Oklahoma has a while before they're any good. Alabama is on ESPN for some reason. I guess people are going to be excited to see a 3 set sweep in Tuscaloosa. After Florida and Kentucky, I feel confident the next best team is going to be Georgia. Arkansas lost everyone. I like what Missouri is doing, so we'll see what kind of team they field. A&M is recruiting better with their Skyline connections, and Reed will be the madhouse it always is when Texas comes to town (then crickets chirping for most of their other matches). The good news is that there's only 16 conference matches, which will help for RPI purposes. There's always the chance of an Iowa State or Kansas State type loss the team had in conference the last two years, but honestly the last month of the season there's not much in the way of high level competition. I can't say I'm concerned. I think it's more for an entertainment factor. Also, I just didn't notice it before.

One Buc-ees would double the amount of working toilets in whatever area they built.

I want to thank you for adding your expertise. I find all of this fascinating in a way I didn't necessarily think I would. Part of it is because I feel like it's being explained by someone who knows what they're talking about rather than someone by me who read up about it on a Wikipedia entry. I really appreciate it.

Just to play Devil's Advocate here, first of all, the way the operation is laid out in the Wall Street Journal it was not an incredibly sophisticated operation run by intelligence operators. It was very much an off the books operation financed by a private businessman, and not the government. That's according to the article. Second, why would they communicate with the German side if they really wanted to carry out the operation? It would seem to me the best way to cripple the operation would be to tell the German side you were planning it. Never mind that the German intelligence service allegedly has people sympathetic to the Russian cause, although that would be enough. Finding a German organization that would be supportive of blowing up the Nord Stream 2 would and should be scarce indeed. I will say it seems awfully dumb for a covert mission of any kind to be flying the Ukraine flag on their boat the way the article claims. I don't care how professional or unprofessional the operatives were. I would like to see more from the people who went on the excursion how they decided it would be "a blast" to go diving in the Baltic in and around the area the Nord Stream 2 pipeline crosses around the time it was blown up. Until then I feel inclined to believe the WSJ version of events until something more credible comes out. I have always leaned towards this being a Russian false flag operation, but I no longer lean that way.

I found the story pretty believable. But I read the WSJ version of the story, and not the Business Insider version. I don't know yet what the differences are.

I don't understand the comment about the relevancy of paratroopers in modern combat. It feels to me similarly to when people are saying tanks are obsolete. You can't just send paratroopers into a position without the proper kind of support and follow up, just like you can't send a large group of tanks into an area by themselves and think it's going to go well. But the comment has no context, so I don't know exactly what he means by it.

The prisoner swap I really want to see in the near future is the Kursk Nuclear power plant for Zaporizhzhia.

I think there's a lot of incompetence involved as well. The Russians consistently demonstrate ossified organizational thinking, which is systemic given the priority of the ruling class to make sure the military can't usurp their power. When you're in an organization that prioritizes following the rules and protocol above all else, shifting priorities due to changing circumstances is a terrible weakness. I'm sure most if not all of us have experienced that within our lifetimes. We don't have to move to Russia. But this is organizational handicaps writ in full. BTW, being in an organization that doesn't do a good job of following rules and protocol has its own problems. If the Russian military is tasked with taking a specific objective, then the organization bends its organizational structure towards that objective. Supply lines shift resources there without thought about the needs of other areas or how they should be prioritized within the context of the objective. The objective becomes all. The future of the organization is not considered. So trainers are sent to the front lines. All available material is sent, regardless of the ability to replace or repair it. No one is making healthy organizational decisions, because the only good organizational decision is to make sure you're not blamed when things go awry. Which also means leadership is promoted and incentivized on the basis of a) not being a threat to superiors, b) the ability to follow orders and parrot the party line, and c) the ability to find scapegoats when things go wrong. Russia is not alone in featuring these dynamics. It's a very human quality. But their whole culture is built around it. I have not understood the military experts who have been perplexed about this operation, nor all the people writing articles featuring this perspective. To me it's seemed brilliant. To quote brilliant military strategist Willie Keeler, "hit the ball where they ain't." Make them shift priorities, resources, and objectives, because for them it's like turning around an aircraft carrier. Not to mention the insane political wins this is creating. Where else in this conflict could this many men and material have had this kind of impact on the conflict? It has seemed like a well run and well thought out operation. This has been much better than what transpired on the left bank of Dnipro trying to create a bridgehead there. Probably in part because Russia completely deprioritized the area thinking their nuclear arsenal would ensure the US and other allies would prevent the Ukrainians from running such an operation. The whole thing has been wonderful from my perspective. I hope the Ukranians continue to enjoy success with this.

It's a dumb thing to say. Encirclements and the propensity to overreach with encirclements are legitimate dangers, but the ability to completely annihilate the enemy force from all directions at once has proven over and over again to be a devastating strategy. But quote Sun Tzu and suddenly it's incontrovertible ancient wisdom. Like so many things, there's wisdom in both stances. Criticizing any and all pincer/encirclement maneuvers seems like a bold move, Cotton.

By the way, they had a media event today with the team. Apparently it's burnt orange carpet premiere as the theme, with the players posing as Hollywood type stars walking the burnt orange carpet in glamorous outfits. Instagram has a reel featuring both Skinner and Swindle.

I'd also say doing sideline reporting for the NFL is a career step up. She called volleyball a bunch for teams other than Texas. I wouldn't say she was universally liked on volleytalk, but it's a tough crowd. The key to her career path isn't necessarily insightful commentary anyway. It's being a hot chick who is passionate about sports and can be minimally articulate about them. I would be a little surprised if she didn't do any volleyball this fall. But if she has a choice between a volleyball match and being a sideline reporter for an NFL game, she'd be dumb not to choose the NFL game.

That was my feeling when she made the national team. "Where is Yossiana Pressley? How is Avery Skinner the star professional from that Baylor team?" But this isn't something new. She's provided a spark numerous times, even while the US team as a whole has been disappointing in international competition. For one thing, it shows the extreme importance of being able to defend in 6 rotations when substitutions are so limited. Pressley couldn't do that. It's also Eggleston's current limitation. But yeah. I'm with you. I didn't see this coming at all.

There's another factor, too. The more effort and resources invested in a course of action, the more invested the individual and organization are in that course of action. Even if a leader is adept at changing their mind and switching course - even reversing it - they now have to convince the people around them this is the right call to make. If they're really good at their jobs, they've done a great job of encouraging people to put in their all towards a direction that turns out to be a horrible mistake, and now need to get the same type of buy in or more in a completely different direction. The qualities it takes to do all of that effectively are exceedingly rare. In any case, it's why I'm all for a regime change, even if I'm convinced because of Russia's toxic culture that goes back centuries we're still going to end up with some asshole in charge of the country.

It feels like a major mistake at this point for any country to agree to disarmament. If there's any lesson to be learned from the war for Ukraine, it's that one.

I have no idea about the reality of any of this. But I do know that one of the biggest difficulties for any human apparatus is to admit when it's made a decision to go in the wrong direction. Oftentimes that simply requires a change in leadership, however it occurs. It's one of the real strengths of democracies, that regular changes in leadership allows the admission of a mistake in policy, resulting in a change in direction. It's also a big weakness, but that's how it goes. The strength of autocratic rule is a diminished reliance on popular support. While still necessary, it's not inherently necessary the way it is in a democracy, so it's possible to move decision making upstream against opposition, and to keep it going that way long past when a democracy would have to change directions. With the death of Putin and the rise of someone else, I can guarantee you Putin will be blamed for every ill that has befallen Russians. His most loyal people will be thrown out of windows, or otherwise imprisoned or killed. Anyone seen as a potential threat to the new leader will be disposed of. He can still be lifted up as a great leader, but his mistakes will be emphasized. Because this is what happens with the transfer of autocratic power unless the transfer is only legitimized by the previous ruler, like say in North Korea. Ukraine will always be in more danger than Georgia, the Baltic states, Finland, and others that Russia feels an entitlement to have firmly in its political sphere. It's the traditional source of the Russian people. Putin shares a general sentiment when he doesn't feel like Ukraine should exist as a separate entity. But this is Russia's best chance to keep Ukraine from the western fold. If they give up their efforts now, that's completely lost. At the very least they need to make sure Ukraine pays such a heavy price in terms of population, economic, resource, and territory losses that it reduces its effectiveness at being a successful nation state. I question whether the next leader is going to be so balls to the wall in their efforts. Speculatively it seems to me more likely they will concentrate their efforts in securing their power base. The likeliest scenario in some ways is a succession of leaders as each one tries to solidify control around their persona. In other words, I am firmly and wholeheartedly rooting for Putin's imminent death, regardless of means. Maybe not the best idea to send a missile to kill him, but I will not be saddened when hearing about his death regardless of means, and regardless of who ends up succeeding him. That they'll end up being another cocksucker seems de rigeur to me.

Why in the world would anyone think that? Russia is a toxic culture, full stop. Even if someone more liberal takes power, they're not going to keep power. Nothing less than a full invasion and conquering, followed by a lengthy occupation is going to change anything all that much about Russia or its rulers. And with nuclear weapons, that option is off the table. The best case scenario is that they become less relevant. It would be helpful for their reduced relevancy for Ukraine to keep their identity and be aligned with the west. It would be even better if they had more of their territorial integrity returned, but I've started losing hope on that front. I'm unconvinced the West has the political will to see that through. Especially with Ukraine running out of manpower to some degree. I know things aren't going well in many ways for the Russians, but with Putin in charge the political will remains steadfast.

*raises hand* Guilty as charged.