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Everything posted by Ghost of LL
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The very best thing that can be said about Russia's current status is that it is not losing strategically significant territory and it may make marginal gains from time to time. But overall the front could properly be characterized as "static." And from an American standpoint, that's fine. I know a lot of people are emotionally invested in Ukraine and fervently hope that the Ukrainians will be able to expel the invaders from the whole of its territory. But speaking purely of America's interests here and being completely dispassionate, the current status quo benefits us more than an unequivocal Ukrainian victory would. Right now, while Russia is bogged down in Ukraine, it is unable to threaten any of our Nato allies. Even the Baltic countries, which the Pentagon has always worried could not be readily defended in the event of an invasion, now face no realistic threat from Russia. An end to the war would mean that Russia would have a chance to rebuild and replenish its military. But for now, it has to increase its budget just to keep up with the stocks it is losing on a daily basis to the Ukrainians. Russia is militarily weaker than it was in January 2022, and that decline is continuing. And the decline isn't just military. It's economic and diplomatic. The sanctions haven't had the crushing effect for which one might have hoped. But they've had an effect all the same. The Russian economy is stagnant; inflation is high. That's right, friends--it's the Fed's great fear: stagflation. And there's not a damned thing the central bank can do about it. Russia certainly can't sell weapons on the international market; nobody wants their garbage. At the same time, Russia's military ineffectiveness means its diplomatic stature is decreasing. Everywhere from Kazakhstan to Armenia, its former satellites are exerting their independence. And maybe once upon a time, someone might have given a fuck about Russia's position on Gaza or Venezuela; now, nobody does. All of Russia's losses have worked to the benefit of the United States. Russia's losses in the international arms market are being picked up by American manufacturers. Russia's diminishing diplomatic stature has been filled by an increased American role in the Caucasus and Central Asia. American O&G producers are making up for the loss of Russian hydrocarbons on the international market. America's allies are finally realizing that they need to contribute to allied defense. And all this is being accomplished at virtually no cost. The United States spends money that . . . goes to American defense contractors. We get a jobs program; Russia gets dead people. Why would we want this to stop? And I think the answer from the position of the United States Government is, "we don't." So, yeah, @Ken Griffey Jr--Russia is doing just great. As an American, I kind of hope Russia keeps doing this great indefinitely.
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I don't love that, because then the Venezuelans will frame their aggression as being a reaction to Anglo-American imperialism in the form of a base being built on Venezuela's borders. And while that may be bullshit, it'd gain a lot of traction around Latin America and undermine our ability to build a broader CONMEBOL coalition to counter the Venezuelan aggression. It'd be far better to let the Brazilians take the lead. And to the extent Brazil needs support, we can provide that covertly.
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Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
Ghost of LL replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Only aggy would describe us as being "the Cal-Berkeley/Stanford of the east" and consider it to be a pejorative. -
The UK does have the ability to project power . . . or at least enough power as would be necessary to fight off Venezuela. The Royal Navy has two active carriers, each of which has more than enough combat capability to destroy the Venezuelan Air Force is pretty short order. The challenge, then, is ground support in a jungle environment against a non-mechanized adversary. And as the USAF demonstrated in Vietnam, that presents some challenges. That's where the Brazilian ground forces come in. And yeah--they do have an interest there. As the Fish points out above, Brazil has a strong interest in keeping their road through Guyana to the Caribbean ports open. And yeah--it is their road. It was built with Brazilian money and serves primarily Brazilian interests. It's the same way it's "our Canal," irrespective of Panamanian sovereignty. But beyond that, there's some regional dick swinging that comes into play here. Brazil sees itself as the regional hegemon. And if you're the regional hegemon, you don't take too kindly to one of the subordinate powers trying to upset the regional status quo without your pre-approval. That's just not how this works. So Brazil has an interest in putting Venezuela back in its place and demonstrating to the rest of CONMEBOL that shit can't go down in South America without Brasilia's say-so.
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Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
Ghost of LL replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I haven’t thought about aggy all weekend. But then I see this thread and, oh it’s so good when it touches your lips. -
THE College Football Playoff Rankings Thread [MICH,WASH,TEX,ALA]
Ghost of LL replied to texifornia's topic in Football
With all the talk of not just Texas, but also SMU (which is in the discussion for a January 1 bowl) having OU as a very good loss, I’m starting to wonder whether OU is going to get into the playoffs. -
There’s no choosing. The 2 and 3 seeds play in the Rose. I’m counting on Georgia and FSU losing.
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That’s it—I’m pulling the trigger on Rose Bowl tickets.
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This post aged poorly.
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So Many Commercials.
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I have absolutely no clue who this rando is.
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Pac 12 Championship - Oregon v Washington 7pm ABC
Ghost of LL replied to Sbbruin's topic in Football
This college football season has been incredibly fun, and PAC 12 After Dark has been a big part of that. I’m really going to miss this conference. -
Pac 12 Championship - Oregon v Washington 7pm ABC
Ghost of LL replied to Sbbruin's topic in Football
Have we reached a consensus on whom we’re cheering for here? -
Yeah, and I think this is worth remembering as we continue to hear whining and complaining about Texas from the Irate8. It was Nebraska that destroyed the Big 12 when they decided they were sick of losing to Texas. It was a petulent little baby temper tantrum that sowed the seeds of the conference's destruction and ultimately cratered their own program.
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But to that point, the Big12 CG is an ESPN property. It could easily simulcast the game on LHN if it so chose.
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I hadn't seen that, but that looks good.
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I kind of weirdly like trains, as some of you have noticed from my occasional spats with @Spankytoes on various European travel treads in which he advocates for flying between European cities and I favor taking the train (including overnight trains, which are seeing a major resurgence across Europe). And one train-centric trip I have toyed with taking from time to time is the Trans-Siberian. Tangentially, there is a very peculiar subset of train nerds out there who have taken the BAM. There are a number of videos on YouTube. And on that line, the primary tourist attractions are the stops at largely deserted Soviet-era towns that were originally built and settled for the workers that built the BAM. The Soviet expectation was that those towns would be further populated by people coming to work in nearby coal mines and other industries that would pop up along the BAM. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, those enterprises never materialized. And the workers who were there to build the railway left. So you have these deserted Soviet towns that are kind of similar to what you will see in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. So you can go and see that without getting all radioactive. By the way--one of those videos is from that delightful Englishman whose videos about Donbas were posted on this thread about a thousand pages ago. It's really an interesting watch.
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The BAM is a real interesting piece of late-Soviet era planning. The purpose was to create a line parallel to the Trans-Siberian further away from the border with China for obvious strategic reasons. For much of its length, the Trans-Siberian runs just a few miles from the Chinese border, which is a real problem given the tension of Sino-Soviet relations. The entire thing was a shitshow from the beginning. The Soviets sent a bunch of workers out to new towns that didn't have electricity or running water (many of which are now abandoned). And the permafrost on which the line is built is now thawing, which is going to destroy the entire line in the next decade. The tunnel that was attacked took nearly 30 years to complete. So if it was structurally compromised, that's not going to be an easy fix. It runs a mile underground and is 10 miles long. But here's the thing--there is an old bypass line that they used on the BAM during construction of that tunnel. I don't know what kind of shape it's in, but it'd obviously be a lot quicker to bring that into operation. And, of course, there's always the Trans-Siberian. So on balance, I don't think it's that big of a catastrophe.
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And what I'm saying is that that's still better than it was five years ago. Or ten years ago. Or certainly 20 years ago. The economy is performing well for everyone.
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The statistics don't bear that out. Wages are increasing at a >5% clip this year; inflation is at 3.2%. Wage growth has exceeded inflation throughout 2023. I'm sorry, man, but this is entirely a case of "feels" and misinformation. The truth is that the economy is great. For everyone. And particularly for those at the bottom of the wage scale. Arguing otherwise is to ignore every measure of objective reality.
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Well, I don’t think it is very funny.
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I would use a different “G” word when speaking of Pluckers’ food in any quantity: gross.
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With the common people? Is this some sort of joke?
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You need to explain this to me, because I don't understand it. For the average-earning bloke, this isn't just a good economy; it's a great economy. The average-earning bloke has no worries about unemployment. Even if he lost his job, he'd be able to find a new one in very short order. The average-earning bloke's purchasing power has never been higher. And as a result of that, the average-earning bloke's debt has increased consistent with the pattern seen during economic expansions (consumer debt only decreases during recessions). People are taking on more debt because they can afford it and are secure in their income streams. Consequently, the number of houses in active foreclosure is at its lowest point in years, and the number of mortgages that are delinquent is running well below pre-pandemic levels. So the average-earning bloke has a job, is secure in that job, has plenty of money to spend, and is paying his mortgage and credit cards. So yeah--it's pretty fucking hard for me to understand why it doesn't feel like a good economy to said bloke. Pluckers has that effect on people.
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And you know--Biden could adopt that commercial damned near word-for-word next year, and it'd be accurate the way things are trending.
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