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BamaATL

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Posts posted by BamaATL

  1. 4 minutes ago, Chopper said:

    That process takes minimum 5 years. And (to get citizenship) you'd have to pass an A level exam in the Portuguese language (at the end of the 5 or 6 years). (also fwiw it's 280k euros and you are basically giving a developer an interest free loan for 5 to 6 years)

    (edited) to be more specific

    Yes, this was dated to a couple of years ago, and I did know of the language requirement, I figured 5 years of submersion I would pick up the language pretty well.  That having been said, you are missing my point, when ever the oligarch did this, money couldn't have possibly been the issue.  Timely pickings if you ask me, but screw that guy anyway.

  2. 7 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

    I feel like Poland is about to step up to the plate and hit a home run. It’s not that they haven’t already given pretty much everything. 

     

    I have no doubt that Zalensky has great speech writers for him that help him cite good quotes to each parliament or congress he speaks to, but I also think the guy has a very sharp mind.  

    • Hook 'Em 2
    • Like 1
  3. 4 minutes ago, Chopper said:

    Among the controversies made public these last several days regarding Abramovich was how he was able to obtain Portuguese, and thus, EU citizenship. He did so under a Portuguese law that I've looked into myself that grants citizenship rights to people of a certain descent. But it's almost impossible to obtain due to the significant ancestry record requirements and the supposed requirement of a strong tie to continued jewish religious practices.

     

    Pretty interesting, I actually looked into buying property in the Azores about two years ago for reasons we won't get into, but my understanding was that in order to gain Portuguese citizenship I would need only pay 250k (for my wife and myself).  This is surprising to me based on that.  

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  4. 5 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

    I honestly don’t know why we are fighting each other at this point. Solidarity should be with Ukraine and the people who support Ukraine on this thread. It really does bother me that past posts or whatever cloud up a badass thread @Eastwood started almost 4 years ago. I wish there was a happy medium between the CR and the DT. I am guilty of starting shit down there myself. They didn’t deserve that. This thread doesn’t need our petty shit. 
     
    figure it out…also stop attacking posters in this thread a lot of people read it and it makes us look like dipshits. There are a lot of people that are going to fall short of victory in this whole deal. Mainly political people. It’s what happens and it should be expected. 
     

    I’ve mentioned my part Jewish heritage before and I am emotional invested in all of this having said that…this is pretty fucking cool:

     

     

     

    I hear the guy from Costa Concordia is looking for a gig.  

  5. 17 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

    I think it's more about that convoy was not acting like they were driving through hostile territory, and they did not respond in a coordinated manner to the ambush.  Caught off guard and acted like it.

    Granted, the Russians appear to be operating in a lot of areas that provide cover/concealment to Ukrainian ant-tank crews, and so they can't keep dismounting infantry to clear areas of possible ambushes.

    But that particularl engagement, the tank should not have used their main gun - they should have had their co-axial going (assuming they have one) and somebody should have been on the machine gun on top laying down suppressing fire.  There were multiple infantry that climbed out of one or more of the APCs, and instead of getting into cover nearest the Ukrainians, they fucking ran across a lot of open ground/roadway.  If the Ukrainians had a larger element there, they would have mowed those guys down, and gotten off more missiles into the vehicles.

    I am not a military strategist, nor do I have any experience of this sort of stuff.  I've been wondering if the Ukrainians have been using small teams for ambushes.  It makes sense to me that you would, small force, can move quickly, and is well armed given the weaponry.  Plus wouldn't that make them hard as hell to spot?

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  6. 1 minute ago, gsoda3 said:

    Is anyone following what's going on in Azerbaijan? They're under a ceasefire agreement with Armenia, brokered by Putin, but lately the Azeris have been lobbing missiles into Armenia. Russia has peacekeeping forces inside the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Does Russia have the weight to tell them to stop? If not, does Turkey throw caution and politics to the wind and aid Azerbaijan in taking the region?

    I haven't been, but I did read today where India accidentally shot a missile at Pakistan.  How the fuck does that happen?

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  7. 19 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

    Still a long process but hopefully Ukraine will be voted in…

    Slava Ukraini! Keep fighting smart and hard! We see you!

     

    This is a total pipe dream, don't get your hopes up.  

    1.  Being a part of the EU involves economic stability and ties bonds together.  There is no way on earth a collective group of bankers is going to allow membership to a country in the middle of an invasion.  At best they are playing lip service because everyone feels for these people.  However, it is in no way pragmatic for a financial group to throw in to a very uncertain situation.

    2.  We all want Ukraine to wind up victorious in this.  However, we have to accept the possibility that they can lose.  Imagine if the EU accepts Ukraine only for it to be shortly thereafter overrun and a puppet government installed.  What then, rescind?  If that were to happen, lots of credibility would be lost.  Once again, the real principle backbone of the EU is bonds and a downgrade in their collective bonds would be disaster for the EU.  

    3.  Proven lack of corruption thru transparency requires a significant track record (yet again tied to bonds and their rating).  Fundamentally, Ukraine has never come close to meeting this.  I like the courage and determination of the current leadership of Ukraine, but they haven't come close to demonstrating this.  

    At the end of the day, would you risk western Europe's financial stability in favor of something as risky as adding Ukraine?  The answer is no, and it should be.  That having been said, when this is all said and done, we (the collective west) owes these people a tremendous amount, and should do everything possible to help building them to level of being a legitimate EU and NATO member.  

    Now's not the time.

    • Hook 'Em 3
  8. Question to those that know the Russian playbook better than myself:

    Mariupol seems to be at least at current hopelessly surrounded.  Is it better in the short term from a humanitarian stand point for them to capitulate, or is the reality of reciprocity so real that they are better off to fight despite the humanitarian cost?

    I.E. would the Russians actually allow aid should that population surrender?  

     

    In Khariv and Sumy it appears that the Russians can attack, maybe even get a slight foothold, and then they seem to get overrun again in short order.  Their response has been to turn around and just turn those cities into rubble.  Rinse and repeat.  I suspect it comes back to the fact that they really don't have the manpower to actually hold either of these.  The situation in Mariupol seems to not be the same thing.  They are actually conducting a successful siege there.  

  9. 5 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

    Screen-Shot-2019-03-05-at-5.46.44-PM.png

     

    They keep you far away. When shit hits the fan they will have an airborne early warning plane up at all time.... they see everything within 100s of miles and they have layered defenses.

     

    I know we have amazing capabilities with these battle groups, my question is if the cost is necessary any more?  Also, I have to figure it gets a lot easier to build stealth into drones vs actual planes.

  10. 11 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

    You’re being an idiot. It’s not gong to happen. You don’t have any idea what you’re saying. At most we’d see token sanctions easily circumvented. Or strengthen/deepen/widen current sanctions on technology deemed necessary for national security.

    The economies of the West and China are tied together in a mutually assured destruction symbiotic relationship. And I can easily make the argument that while they need one another, currently the West actually needs China more. I honestly do not feel like you have any comprehension of any of that. 

    The GDP of the US was 22 trillion last year, China's was 16 trillion.  Russia's was 1.6 trillion, and they are decimated economically for the foreseeable future (think .8 trillion).  Basically, the world could afford to see Russia go down and cut ties with them.  Like it or not, the economies of China and the USA are tied together, we both depend on each other, even though we have extreme differences.   It's not a matter of the world choosing sides between us or them, in essence, no one really has a choice.  If something along the lines were to occur that saw either a split or shut off of one or the other, the global economic melt down would make the Great Depression look it dot com boom.  The level of starvation alone would be staggering.  

    • Like 1
  11. 1 minute ago, Not a cat said:

    I know nothing about military strategy, but I have to wonder if aircraft carriers are now basically floating tanks.  Between drones and javelin like missiles seems they would be sitting ducks.  It would definitely be the first thing I'd take out if my enemy had one.

    I know the US used those since ww2 to project power to far away places, but what is the backup plan for that now?

    This is a great question and I have no idea as to the answer.  But given the cost of carriers, is it remotely worth while when I am sure we could launch drones from much smaller and faster ships, as well as subs for that matter?

    I liked your analogy about the ships.  I've been thinking about armor (i.e. tanks) is there ever a reason to produce these anymore?  It was great when a tank's armor could withstand existing firepower, but it sure seems like they can't anymore, so what's the point?  Would our armor fair any better than theirs against this type of weaponry?

    The analogy I've been pondering is this like the period where all armies relied on Napoleonic tactics?  Basically, once the advent of accurate artillery came into play, those tactics were dead, only no one figured that out for 60 or so years (Civil War to WWI ish)?  

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  12. 1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

    I don't think conscripting more people right now will help them in Ukraine.

    This feels more like trying to backfill enormous losses in Ukraine going forward - there is a real possibility this is leaving them pretty vulnerable in other areas (Belarus, Georgia, etc.).

    It's pretty clear that they have taken shocking levels of casualties, so I wouldn't be surprised that they need more conscripts to fill as the pull infantry from other bases and what not.  I got a feeling that in the next few days, given the weather, they are going to take heavy losses to exposure, perhaps worse than what they have taken in combat, which is staggering.  

  13. 3 minutes ago, Doc Reeves said:

     

    Too many powerful people use it for their shit.

    Who they going to use instead? The Vatican? Malta? The Swiss? Those places are expensive as shit and make you pay a substantial rate for holding your illegal money. Deutsche Bank may be evil, but they are at least modern and act like a business instead of a Mafia boss.

    I still wonder how much will be seized from them regarding the oligarchs and if it will have any real effect on their liquidity.  Probably negligible, but one can dream.  

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