There are rumors that a military coup is taking place in China, with President Xi Jinping ousted and, in one account, under house arrest. At this point no one is sure what is going on, but this seems like a reasonable place to start:
Unsubstantiated speculation swirled Saturday morning that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been locked down in isolation amid a potential coup.
Far East expert Gordon Chang said the rumor is likely “untrue,” but he noted there is something unusual going on in China and “there is turbulence” among the Chinese Communist Party leadership.
“The lack of news from #China over the last few hours suggests coup rumors are untrue, but whatever happened inside the #Chinese military during the last three days — evidently something unusual occurred — tells us there is turbulence inside the senior #CCP leadership,” Chang tweeted Saturday morning.
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“This video of military vehicles moving to #Beijing comes immediately after the grounding of 59% of the flights in the country and the jailings of senior officials,” Chang tweeted. “There’s a lot of smoke, which means there is a fire somewhere inside the #CCP. #China is unstable.”
Things have not been going well for China lately. Stay tuned.
We live in interesting times.
mark bofill,
Seems unlikely, but there actually were a lot of canceled commercial flights without explanation. It is at least plausible, because Xi has been moving over the last two+ years to consolidate his power and it looks like he wants to rule “for life”. Some people in China may not like that.
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Were Xi deposed, there is no telling if his replacement would be better or worse in terms of taking over Taiwan.
mark,
The last post had “autoclosed”. I didn’t notice immediately. So conversation was shut down by the blog for a bit. The brevity of this post is due to the fact that I noticed the closure between tutoring sessions.
Thanks Lucia.
Steve, yeah. Seems unlikely to me as well, and I agree – no knowing what that might mean for Taiwan. I imagine and speculate without evidence that maybe they are as afraid of Biden as Putin was of Trump for sort of similar reasons. Who knows what the senile old guy in the White House is going to order if China invades, he makes noises sometimes that indicate he’d order us to fight. I don’t think China wants that – I think they view reunification of Taiwan as a safe bet over the long haul so long as they are patient.
I realize this isn’t consistent with my earlier views. I waffle regarding this. 🙂
My earlier opinions that China would act were based on the notion that Biden was less of a loose cannon. I think as he deteriorates there may be less confidence in the minds of military planners as to how the man will react. Shrug.
I think a coup in China would probably be big news. Also extremely unlikely because the conditions in China are favorable. Their standards of living have gained tremendously over the past 50 years, one of the world’s biggest economies, etc. They can be a bit oppressive of course but I just don’t see a coup without civil strife. To the extent you can believe popular opinion polls the rubes are pretty happy over there.
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China should be respected, and to an extent I haven’t quite figured out, feared. Historically they haven’t been expansionist and they definitely do not stick their noses into other people’s business like some countries I know (initials USA). Exception: Taiwan. They are also pretty smart in my view. They were the only country that I thought handled Trump correctly, completely ignore his clownish behavior and just deal with him on a transactional basis. They seem to be capable of long term planning better than most democracies. I think they learned from the US that economic power is a bigger factor than the military in the 21st century.
Their greatest strength is their manufacturing prowess, and it is a site to behold.
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The open question for me is how they will exert their power when they likely become the world’s greatest superpower in a decade or two. The history of humanity is such that the impulse to conquer others just seems to always happen when the opportunity presents itself. The US is a bit of an exception (using a measurement of maintaining our borders at the same size), although we push people around a lot. Perhaps we execute “colonialism lite”. I have never been convinced that colonialism was a net negative for almost every country.
Thanks Tom.
Respect isn’t exactly the word I’d choose. Merriam Webster defines respect as ‘: to consider worthy of high regard‘. I do not believe China is worthy of high regard.
‘Viewed realistically’ maybe is the term I’d use. ‘Not to be underestimated’. Something like that.
I think you are probably more into the fear category. China’s rise without plundering other nations probably fits the bill for respect, the political system comparison is going to be an ideological argument. I’m viewing it from “look where they were and look where they are now”. We used to talk about sending leftovers to the starving people in China.
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China telling the NBA and Hollywood how to run their business was laughable even 10 years ago. Now access to their markets is a huge deal.
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If China turns its manufacturing sector into a military machine then it can conquer anyone who doesn’t have nuclear weapons. They just don’t want to do that. China graduates 10X the number of engineers every year the US does. Some of this is just population numbers but that kind of long term effort will pay off. China is performing better than India, something is going right.
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China was also smart enough to embrace features of capitalism which has paid off. This might be the backdoor where their oppressive government gets overturned by this western culture characteristic. Can the genie remain in the bottle? I’m sure that’s what the Chinese government worries about, as does Putin obviously.
I saw the Powerline piece on China and did a search on “China coup”. Some sources claimed it is an outright hoax; none seemed to think a coup has actually happened. But it does seem like *something* happened.
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Respect has multiple meanings. Hold in high regard is one. But it can also mean to give consideration to, such as “please respect my privacy” or “we need to respect the fact that Russia has nuclear weapons”.
In the Ukraine war, the pressure to enter negotiations will depend in some measure on how many soldiers are actually being killed or disabled permanently. Naturally, these are closely guarded secrets on both sides, and that is very unlikely to change. Since Russia is ~4 times as populous, even comparable casualties put more pressure on the Ukraine.
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Biden had yet another “where am I?” moment on stage in New York when he was supposed to be making a (teleprompter) speech, and had to be called back to the podium. His repeated “We will defend Taiwan” public statements are causing real confusion… and have had to be walked back by his White House staffers (AKA his puppet-masters). He is getting gradually worse in mental capacity, seems almost fully innumerate (“assault rifles rounds have 5 times higher speed than other bullets”!) and often is just confused/detached…. and that is frightening. I expect he will announce no second term candidacy after the midterms. Being removed via the 25th amendment seems to me ever more likely.
As the official policy for Taiwan is “strategic ambiguity”, Biden is the perfect person to communicate that!
Tom Scharf,
China is performing better than India, something is going right.
China was also smart enough to embrace features of capitalism which has paid off.
Things had been going right in the past, maybe not so much now and in the future. Xi is a Stalinist and is doing his best to roll back a lot of those features of capitalism. Then there’s the possible collapse of the Chinese real estate industry. Real estate is where a whole lot of Chinese have put their excess cash and paid for housing that may never get finished.
The Bursting Chinese Housing Bubble Compounds Beijing’s Economic Woes
Home sales and prices are dropping in many cities across the country after rising for years, and the damage is spreading
I noticed a few videos on youtube proclaiming the imminent collapse of China based on the financial problems etc, and then a rebuttal by Serpentza, a former south african who spent 14 years living there.
. https://youtu.be/Caay18H9QvY
Things are pretty opaque with China, no doubt. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them go into some sort of financial crisis of some sort. It must be said that the US may be even be more prone to this problem given our Wall Street excesses. 2008 was not a shining moment for uber capitalism. At least the Chinese will give their guys the death penalty when it happens over there, ha.
I’m not saying China doesn’t have problems or isn’t authoritarian, I’m saying they have an apparently working system that must be “respected” as in they will likely be a very formidable adversary if they choose that route both economically and militarily. I worry about China 10X more than I worry about Russia.
I remember reading that China historically only was about 1/3 of its current area.
Fun facts on Russian armor and mud
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The T-72 tank is the workhouse for both Russia and Ukraine. As the rainy season is now a consideration, been seeing more chatter on armor mobility in mud.
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It seems the Russian track design for the T-72 is not well designed for mud. Which is surprising due to the famed ability of the Russian WWII T-34 to move through mud conditions. The T-64 looks to have a track better designed for mud, but fewer of these types are currently in service on either side.
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As Ukraine is now going into the mud season, tank movement for both sides will now be going to go into slow motion movement or confined to all weather roads.
What I find true of a number of nations’ views on their economies and the positive influence of their governments’ policies is crediting those policies for positive advances and in turn finding other entities to blame when those policies fail. In recent decades we have had both the Japanese and Chinese economies claiming to challenge for world leadership based on government policies and involvements in their economies.
What I see in these instances is that these economies do better in spite of government policies, gain to the extent that those policies free the economies from government influence, and begin to suffer when the governments misinterpret the gains as being the result government intervention with the economy and invoke more government interventions.
China is, as Japan has been, keeping failing enterprises in business (known as zombies) through government intervention. This eventually becomes an ever-increasing problem and drain on the economy. This is a tendency and problem of most governments, including the US. To the extent that nations are oblivious to the end result of their policies the less likely their economies are to gain world leadership.
It should be recalled that the US CIA and its most prominent economist of the time in Paul Samuelson had the USSR economy soon overtaking that of the US. There was and still is a lot of blind faith in the positive effects of command economies.
Ken,
What I see in these instances is that these economies do better in spite of government policies, gain to the extent that those policies free the economies from government influence, and begin to suffer when the governments misinterpret the gains as being the result government intervention with the economy and invoke more government interventions.
Exactly. Well said.
Ken,
Is there an example of an economy going from third world to first world within a generation or two without government intervention? Real question.
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There are certainly plenty of examples of government action making a mess of things. But as well as China and Japan, government action played a big role in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.
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The free market seeks local optima. Government action may be needed to move rapidly from a local optimum to the vicinity of a global optimum.
Date Line September 2022
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The American and Russian economic advance on the EU continues unabated on all fronts !
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The EU continues its full retreat in the face of overwhelming force as the EU faces devastating economic losses in its two front war against America and its Russian ally.
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Both American and Russian officials express extreme confidence that the continued relocation of EU industry, primarily German, will continue unabated to both America and Russia.
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Unconditional economic surrender of the EU to America and Russia is now in sight !
Mike M,
How about the United States? I don’t know about ‘a generation or two’.
I’m not an anarchist. Government is needed to resolve legal disputes, enforce contracts, and protect property rights, and I think those things are requisite for a first world economy. So – the government plays a role. I don’t think the government played a central planning role over the course of most of US history though.
Put the super geniuses in charge and give them authoritarian power and better outcomes will happen. That’s the model. This plan could work, but it just usually doesn’t for a variety of reasons. My biases tell me it’s because the super geniuses aren’t actually all that smart and they become corrupt and self serving.
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The government does usually need to do things like build roads and fund certain infrastructure projects to accelerate economic growth. This could all happen in theory without government largesse but it seems almost everyone runs some sort of hybrid model here at different levels. It’s a complex trade off.
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The US got an enormous boost coming out of WWII because their industrial base was left untouched. We have a good model but we have to be careful that we don’t get fat, dumb, and lazy. Building infrastructure in the US has gotten enormously expensive and slow. I’m betting the Chinese don’t have to do a decade of environmental review to build a road. I don’t think we have an optimal system, but it may still be the best.
Tom wrote: “My biases tell me it’s because the super geniuses aren’t actually all that smart and they become corrupt and self serving.”
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Maybe.I think geniuses are more likely to fall into the moral tyrant category (everyone else being too stupid to know what’s good for them) than the usual types of self serving corruption. The WEF are chock full of this type of thinking. Eyes on the bright golden future. Plans which are doomed to fail without judicious use of the authoritarian boot.
mark,
It took the USA or the UK a century and a half to get where South Korea got to in 30-50 years. Of course, South Korea already had a model to emulate. But industry in the USA was protected by tariffs and an ocean. Railroads were often built with government subsidies that indirectly subsidized any number of other industries.
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Tom,
There is a world of room between central planning and government encouraging the growth of industry.
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It would likely be informative to see how the role of government compares between developing economies. I suspect that there is a lot of daylight between the optimum and complete laissez faire. And a whole lot more space between the optimum and central planning.
Mike,
Yeah, it took time. The ocean of course has nothing to do with the government. And yes, there are many instances where the government had some involvement. If you’re looking for a pure specimen either way [pure laissez faire or pure central planning], I don’t think you’re going to find one.
When in time advances occur matters a lot. Having many examples of success or failure to follow is meaningful, as well as the gigantic information, travel, and commerce infrastructure that is already in place. Joining this economic compact is a lot easier than creating it from scratch. Local culture also has a lot to say about the outcome, hard working people do better.
Tom,
Joining this economic compact is a lot easier than creating it from scratch.
Absolutely.
As Mark suggested you do not see instances of pure laissez faire or central planning in any nation be it developed or not or even in historical times. Even in a regime like the USSR with a near command economy in theory there were black markets that some would contend kept the economy from collapsing. With developing nations, the improvement depends on what the governmental forces were prior to change and those after change.
In their early stages of economic development, South Korea had a lower GDP per capita than North Korea while both were operating under authoritarian governments. Of course, South Korea has become freer and while North Korea I am sure realizes, like China did, that in order to significantly grow the economy concessions to a freer market and recognizing at least some forms of private property, North Korea’s government feels it needs to control its people and activities.
While, by some accounts, North Korea had a higher per capita income than South Korea in the 1970s, by 2006 its per capita income was estimated to be only $1108, one seventeenth that of South Korea.
Comparing individual economies and over shorter time periods is a complex calculation with many factors involved with the usual caveat of ceteris paribus. It is much better to deductively determine which factors positively affect both economic output and freedom for the citizens given the human condition.
1. The recognition of private property is probably the most important positive factor since many rights are extended from it.
2. The recognition of natural rights of individuals that are protected from coercive infringements.
3. The recognition of a system of laws that are applied consistently and fairly.
Little attention is paid in practice to these factors in a number of developing African nations today and their people pay the price with little economic development or individual freedoms.
In the case of developed nations, those factors can be acknowledged as beneficial except when they get in the way of the government carrying out its proclaimed mission. Private property rights can be readily eroded with government regulations and coercive actions. Individual rights can first be eroded in government proclaimed emergencies and later tolerated without an emergency. Laws can be ignored as a matter of enforcement and others enforced selectively.
Indeed, Ken, which gets to the heart of the WEF advert slogan “You will own nothing and be happy” (seriously, what kind of idiot says the quiet bit out loud like that?). Take away property rights and you place your wellbeing in the hands of others. Add in a social credit score and digital currency and you better do as you’re told and be damn well happy about it or you’ll lose your property privileges… And of course, “they” will be exempt from adhering to their “socially responsible” proclamations, as we already see.
If there is ever any doubt about the complete uselessness of the UN, just consider this headline: “UN chief calls for global abolition of nuclear weapons after Putin threat”. UN chief Antonio Guterres seems to have gone about most of his 73 years with his head buried deeply in his a$$hole. Either that, or he is a hopeless fool; perhaps both. The “global abolition of nuclear weapons” is as much an absurd fantasy today as it was when Guterres was in first grade. It is like he learned nothing over the past 66 years.
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Strategic nuclear weapons provide a deterrent against exactly the international coercion that the UN itself represents and exists to enforce. My experience is that coercion is almost never a good thing. Nuclear weapons are much like the second amendment of international politics, and like guns in the USA, nuclear weapons provide protections against the absolute rule of the majority. Nuclear weapons ensure the ‘international community’ is never going to force its will on those countries holding nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are not going away any time soon….. if ever. Eliminating nuclear weapons goes hand in hand with uniform ‘world governance’; neither is likely, and neither is likely good for humanity.
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I rather doubt people in the USA (or most other countries!) want to be dictated to by China, India, and a few other of the most populous countries. And that is what ‘world governance’ actually means. Nuclear weapons will outlive Guterres….. and the UN, because nuclear weapons are what keeps the UN from doing the very bad things to humanity it would otherwise do.
Co hosted a discussion group on morals and ethics yesterday.
looked up the antonyms to good and honest and found 767 at one site!
The situation in Russia, like Iran and Hong Kong and Vietnam is a very strong leadership pushing policies that are out of date but sanctioned by their enormous power.
Someone in the group said morals had declined a lot everywhere in the last 50 years and most agreed.
I pointed out that his morals had not changed, just that younger people have newer morals.
The other issue was ranking priority of rules [ethics].
So the end can justify the means.
Putin can only be stopped collectively or individually by the Russian people.
One hopes this happens sooner rather than later.
His replacement or replacements would hopefully have newer morals.
Joshua
I found angech | July 27, 2020 at 7:02 pm I do not think I wrote on his first post though lots of people here did.
Why herd immunity to COVID-19 is reached much earlier than thought – update
Posted on July 27, 2020 by niclewis
“A key reason for variability in susceptibility to COVID-19 given exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing is that the immune systems of a substantial proportion (35% to 80%) of unexposed individuals have T-cells, circulating antibodies or other components that are cross-reactive to SARS-CoV-2
”
I said
Sorry, it is just not so.
-35-80% sounds like an estimate of ECS, so broad it is meaningless.
Multiple different unprovable contributing factors puts the fudge on top.
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HIT is not a fixed number, the threshold varies seasonally and with the specifics of the infecting agent. The troubling fact that young children find it hard to catch shows that for this virus the other factor is the presence of ACE 2 receptors ? meaning that the load of virus needed to infect could vary with how many receptors you have ( more as you get older).
This may be much more important than speculation about T cells which does not transfer from the Petrie Dish to real life.
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He was not happy with me.
Steve,
I agree. I actually think that in general nuclear proliferation is a positive thing. Excepting nations governed by religious fanatics and madmen I suppose.
I have always thought Iran and the Norks developing nuclear weapons was perfectly rational from their point of view.
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Nuclear weapon proliferation might work if we have rational actors, but do we?
Tom,
but do we?
Not in my view, no. In the end, it only takes one or two crazies with nukes to potentially kick off wholescale annihilation I think. But then again, I think that’s inevitable anyway sooner or later. Humanity won’t ‘forget’ how to make nukes. They aren’t going to go away. IMO, regardless of what scenario plays out regarding nuclear proliferation, it’s just a matter of time before nukes get used again, and also just a matter of time before nukes get used on a large scale, with numerous strikes from multiple actors.
It’d be great if Elon Musk advances interplanetary colonization enough that within a few hundred years we’ve got some eggs in another basket.
Tom Lehrer:
First we got the bomb, and that was good,
‘Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that’s okay,
‘Cause the balance of power’s maintained that way.
Who’s next?
France got the bomb, but don’t you grieve,
‘Cause they’re on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears,
They can’t wipe us out for at least five years.
Who’s next?
…
We’ll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb.
Mike M,
(applause!)
Us goobers down here in Alabama are definitely not rational actors!
[Edit: U.S. Missile Command *is* headquartered on Redstone Arsenal I believe though. Deep breaths.]
Sigh of relief. Looks like Tampa will dodge the bullet of Hurricane Ian. In 2004 a major hurricane (Charley) was heading right for Tampa according to the official track back then and diverted east in the last 48 hours. Hurricane Ian is almost replicating this playbook.
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As of about a day and a half ago they had it tracking right over my house and then stalling there for 8 hours. Aaaackkk!!!! We may still get 12 to 24 inches of rain but now only tropical force winds likely. Port Charlotte is having déjà vu all over again unfortunately.
I’m sure you’re an old hand at weathering tropical storms and hurricanes and such, and it sounds like the storm isn’t going to stomp right on you anyway, but still; stay safe Tom!
Thanks, Mark
Tom,
Hope you are safe!
Tom
Put the super geniuses in charge and give them authoritarian power and better outcomes will happen. That’s the model. This plan could work, but it just usually doesn’t for a variety of reasons. My biases tell me it’s because the super geniuses aren’t actually all that smart and they become corrupt and self serving.
I think there are multiple problems with the “super genius” idea:
1) The real “super geniuses” don’t end up in charge. The ones in charge are the “super-networkers” and “super credit-takers”.
2) Even “super geniuses” need information. Even with huge databases and large sifting programs, it’s not possible to deal with all relevant information.
3) The “circle” of “geniuses” at the top always end up socializing mostly with other “geniuses” at the top. That’s what happens in power structures. And those most skilled at navigating power structures know that you want to socialize with others at or near the top of the power structure. That almost automatically leads to a degree of tunnel vision at the top.
Sure, having “super geniuses” with a variety of skills, outlooks and points of view at the top might hypothetically work. But it’s likely never been tested and never will be tested.
lucia,
I’m not so sure about the dominance of super-networkers and super credit-takers. The evidence from the Soviet Union and China and maybe Spain and Chile is that the most ruthless, Stalin, Mao, Franco and Pinochet, end up in the top spots. Robespierre and his ilk on the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution may be another example and maybe even Cromwell in England.
The American revolution is a counter example, but I think we were just lucky.
DeWitt,
But I think no one ever thought those guys were “super-geniuses”. The are the “top dogs” to come out of the “revolutionary” group.
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The notion of the “super-genius” running governments is usually the top bureaucrats in already established governments. It’s true that sometimes those who moved up in the “revolutionary” camp and then establish something might later decide to claim to select super-geniuses as their advisors. And then they may put many government choices in the hands of these “super- geniuses”.
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But those “super-geniuses” aren’t actually selected for being all that smart. They may be clever like foxes, but they aren’t actually “geniuses” in the sense of having domain specific skills and knowledge in areas government claims to want to oversee and develop (e.g. agriculture, manufacturing, trade, treasury.)
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I do think we got lucky with our founders. Few wanted to take over the world.
Put the super geniuses in charge and give them authoritarian power and better outcomes will happen. That’s the model. This plan could work, but it just usually doesn’t for a variety of reasons. My biases tell me it’s because the super geniuses aren’t actually all that smart and they become corrupt and self serving.
I think this statement is a bit too vague to answer in any detail, but that has never stopped me from commenting.
Putting in charge, I assume means putting some entities in charge of making and coercively enforcing decisions that might otherwise be made voluntarily by individuals. That can only be accomplished in the modern political era by governments.
The question to me then becomes why would or should some or any specially attributed group be given this coercive power. From a practical matter the power and benefits of a free market and free exchange of ideas coming from the entire population would far outweigh that of some artificially imposed limitation to ideas from some small group of individuals. In a free exchange environment super geniuses would have their opportunity to contribute on a voluntary basis and through showing evidence of the good of their ideas and persuasion.
The problem with authoritarian power is not who is in power but rather authoritarian power itself – and here I do not relegate that problem to an absolute authoritarian power but to all amounts of authoritarianism at all levels in government.
All weapons of mass destruction are intended to kill and harm innocent people (and in very large numbers) and are very much unlike a gun used in self-defense against an offending person or even the soldier on the battlefield.
The UN’s history on issues of world import would speak against it being worthy of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, but that does not mean that such an effort should not be made.
Nuclear blackmail is a very real issue as can be seen from Russia’s currently not so veiled threats. Nuclear proliferation could make international negotiations a matter of blackmail versus any semblance of reasonableness. Nuclear war is on a world scale analogous to the suicide bomber or the mass murderer who ends up taking his own life. The threat of any of these actions does not appear to me to be even close to a rationale way of doing business.
Polling of US citizens does not make getting rid of nuclear weapons a minority issue.
Ken,
I hate to disagree with you. Still, I disagree with you.
1. I think war is often all about killing innocent people at the end of the day. War is not generally desirable or admirable or any sort of goal to be sought after, it’s more of an occasional inevitable necessity.
2. I don’t think weapons go away, except when replaced by a better weapons. I haven’t been able to find examples where humans have come up with a weapon and then just decided to quit using that weapon by agreement. I don’t think that happens. Weapons become obsolete, but. Instead of the crossbow, we have the rifle. If we didn’t have the rifle (or musket before the rifle) we’d still have the crossbow.
3. War and nuclear war isn’t a rational way of doing business, no. I might have misunderstood, but I though Tom was referring to Game Theory’s idea of ‘of strategic interactions among rational agents’ where rational agent means: ‘A rational agent or rational being is a person or entity that always aims to perform optimal actions based on given premises and information.’ Mutually assured destruction is predicated on the notion of rational agents; neither side wants to get nuked and both sides realize they will get nuked if they initiate a nuclear strike.
I don’t have a lot of interest in arguing this, so if you want to rebut this, I’ll let it go at that and we can agree to disagree.
Many social problems are not really solvable, they can only have more optimal and less optimal solutions. My comment is more towards the “dictatorship of experts” theory of government. The council of elders and so forth. I believe this can work in theory, but almost never does in practice. The ruling class generally believe they are the most qualified to rule, and they have walls full of credentials to prove it.
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Actual smart people, as in wise people, will know the best answer is many times to give people local autonomy even when they truly believe the locals aren’t as qualified to make those decisions as some others.
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There are way too many people whose lust for power is much greater than their wisdom. Democracies don’t vote in wisdom, I think we can conclude that, ha. Trump may have been wise in a contorted way, but perhaps he was wise in exploiting the weaknesses of the ruling class.
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In any event, I think the council of elders solution doesn’t scale.
mark bofill (Comment #215057): “I don’t think weapons go away, except when replaced by a better weapons. I haven’t been able to find examples where humans have come up with a weapon and then just decided to quit using that weapon by agreement.”
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Chemical and biological weapons have been banned by international agreement. I think they are a good model for banning nukes. If we all agree to ban nukes, nations will still covertly create small stockpiles either in the hope that a small number will be sufficient to win any war or in the belief that they will be needed to balance the small, secret stockpiles of enemies.
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In other words, it won’t work.
Mike,
I agree with you.
Chemical and biological weapons have been banned. They’re still used though, at least chemical weapons. It’s hard to say if bioweapons are really not secret weapons anywhere, and it’s also hard to say if it’s the agreements not to develop and use bioweapons that stop them, or it’s just the fact that bioweapons aren’t great weapons (I.E, hard to control, collateral damage, stuff like that).
But essentially I agree with you.
Does anyone here believe Russia would have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine still had nukes?
I am walking the line here on rhetorical questions, I realize that. I think the answer is ‘obviously no’ and that I just asked a rhetorical question. But I am asking it to be sure, so in that sense it is a real question — maybe I have this wrong and people will tell me that Russia would have attacked anyway.
Biden, just now.
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“You should obey all the warnings from the state officials … use their judgment, not yours”.
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Ummmmm … NO. I get triggered by “obey”. I could go on for 1000’s of words on this subject, very predictably. I will attempt to be succinct. Convince me of the reasoning for your judgment, and establish a pattern of credibility. You must establish trust first.
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Everyone who has lived in Florida for a while knows they hear the same tired warnings every single time a hurricane happens. “Get out now”. Emergency officials have no incentive to make a balanced trade off. Disasters do happen, but people ignore emergency officials for valid reasons.
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I use the National Hurricane Center / NOAA. They put out the tracking and strength information. They don’t weight it down with any form of lectures. The same tired 1990 vintage graphics have been going on since … well, 1990. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/220203.shtml?cone#contents
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The actual hurricane path was outside the track of the 3 day cone prediction this time, a rarity. The models were diverging on this one.
People don’t forget how to build nukes no matter what agreement is reached.
mark bofill,
“Does anyone here believe Russia would have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine still had nukes?”
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Of course not. But when the Ukraine agree to return all the nuclear weapons to the Russians, they were close allies… they could not have foreseen 2022.
Steve,
Yes. My point isn’t that they are dumbasses who should have foreseen this, not at all. My point is more that having nuclear weapons deters aggressors. That only madmen and fanatics will do large scale war upon the country in question. Nuclear proliferation tends to promote peace (mostly) in my view.
Eventually it won’t, I know that. Sooner or later some nut job or fanatic will use nukes and the situation may well escalate, and sooner or later after that some nut job or fanatic will use nukes and the situation will escalate. I hope that’s not until the very distant future, but sooner or later someone will make the mistake. I just argue that this is going to happen anyway, regardless of whether or not we strive for worldwide nuclear disarmament. I suspect that limited success in pursuing worldwide nuclear disarmament actually destabilizes the world and brings Armageddon closer.
Tom Scharf,
“You should obey all the warnings from the state officials … use their judgment, not yours”
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Or to paraphrase, “obey the experts”. Just like with covid and every other subject controversial subject. When the “experts” are politically aligned with the left, then shockingly enough, the left wants you to obey experts. Were the “experts” aligned with the right, I rather expect the left would not be so enamored of “experts”.
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As Feynman said: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”… but even more relevant, he also said:
I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television-words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.
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Too bad Feynman did not live to see the covid panic and the gestapo-like tactics of the “experts”, but I think he would not have been surprised.
SteveF (Comment #215064): “Of course not. But when the Ukraine agree to return all the nuclear weapons to the Russians, they were close allies”.
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I don’t think that is correct. At the time, Leonid Kravchuk was President of Ukraine. He had a pro-Europe stance and wanted to join NATO. Ukraine refused to join the CIS, formed its own military and established its own currency. There was an ongoing dispute over the Black Sea Fleet. Not enemies, but hardly allies.
Thanks Mike. I wasn’t sure about that either, but I didn’t bother to check.
mark boffill
Chemical and biological weapons have been banned. They’re still used though, at least chemical weapons.
And honestly, I don’t think anyone thinks they won’t be used at all. Sarin gas was used by terrorists in the Tokyo subway.
Chemical attacks were used in Syria in 2013.
Lucia,
And honestly, I don’t think anyone thinks they won’t be used at all.
Thanks. It’s possible I don’t understand the disarmament argument properly. I apologize if I’ve been knocking down straw men. In my copious spare time I’ll eventually go re-read the arguments people make in favor of disarmament and try to understand what the logic is.
It seems to me that if mostly everybody disarms, but a few actors use nukes, then those few actors have a helluvan advantage. I’d think countries would be highly motivated in that case to develop or acquire nukes, especially if they believed their neighbors to not have nukes. Destabilizing in my view. [Edit: it’s not exactly that it’s destabilizing. I mean it is that too. But I think it’s more likely for a country to use nukes if they believe they will face no nuclear retaliation for it than otherwise – than if they reasonably believe they will face nuclear retaliation. I don’t think this is actually controversial.]
But again, maybe I just don’t understand the argument. I’ll spend some time reviewing it, when I find some time.
Maybe I didn’t express that clearly.
If disarmament proponents realize that they will never be successful – that someone will always have nukes, then I honestly don’t understand why they believe those someones won’t use their nukes, or indulge in conventional warfare like Russia is doing under the protective umbrella of their nuclear threat. It all seems like dangerously naive wishful thinking to me.
If anybody knows the real counterargument disarmament people make to this, I’d be grateful if you could hook me up with a link.
“dangerously naïve wishful thinking”
Progressivism in a nutshell.
We are 24 miles North of the landfall of the eyewall of a category 4 hurricane…. Six hours in and the winds are still 78 miles per hour.
Mike M,
” At the time, Leonid Kravchuk was President of Ukraine. He had a pro-Europe stance and wanted to join NATO. Ukraine refused to join the CIS, formed its own military and established its own currency. There was an ongoing dispute over the Black Sea Fleet.”
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If that is accurate, then they really were pretty dumb to give all the nukes to Russia. I think they were more friendly with Russia than you suggest… and in fact a large fraction of the population was (and is) ethnic Russian who speak Russian both at home and in most daily public interactions.
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The USA and Europe were also pressing the Ukraine oto not keep any nuclear weapons. They might have been better off holding onto several.
“Dangerously naive wishful thinking”
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“Progressivism in a nutshell.”
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I dunno about that. Naivety suggests something that can be rectified with experience.
Russell,
Your pain is my gain, basically just an all day tropical storm in Pinellas. We still have power ay my house, but about 40% of Pinellas is out though. A huge amount of water was sucked out of Tampa Bay in kind of a reverse storm surge thing.
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I heard Sarasota county was going to get 100 mph wind for at least 3 hours straight. This thing has been a pretty slow mover. Looks like Fort Myers got pounded but we wont really know for a couple days who got it really bad. The hurricane angle and landfall location was very unfortunate for storm surge . The 3 day track prediction was pretty poor for this one, as it was in 2004.
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Hang in there. I know it’s stressful.
Tom Scharf,
The direction of the wind matters a lot. I dug clams this morning near shore (Cape Cod). The tide forecast (based on no wind) showed a low tide that should have been higher than an average low tide by 4″, but a 10 to 15 MPH offshore wind dropped the water to about 6″ below an average low. Not hard to imagine what 100 MPH off shore would do.
Nato have declared the start of WWIII?
I don’t get the gas line sabotage thing. Russia could have just stopped shipping gas. I suppose they might have done it to have plausible deniability for their other customers who probably aren’t exactly looking at Russia’s previous actions as those of a good faith business partner. I don’t know why anyone else would have done it either.
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The reality of high cost energy is starting to hit German business.
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WSJ: Germany to Cap Energy Prices as Industry Is Pushed to the Brink
Rising costs are bringing the country’s energy-hungry manufacturers and small businesses close to breaking point https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-crisis-pushes-german-industry-to-the-brink-11664443801?st=rc5ediz8icpt9f8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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Hindsight is 20/20 but shutting down nuclear power and banning fracking (while buying enormous amounts from Russia) was just insanity.
FYI: These “desktopwebshare_permalink” WSJ links are supposed to get you past the paywall.
The NATO statement blames Russia for attacking NATO infrastructure and vows to respond. That sounds like justification for NATO sabotage to me.
Why would Russia sabotage its own pipeline, other than to blame others for attacking them?
Russia financed the antifracking movements in America and Europe. The Obama Administration pointed this out.
From a “who benefits” standpoint, neither side really stand out. IMO, “NATO” have the most to gain if they want justification to openly enter the war. Russia would seem to benefit the least having effectively lost a bargaining piece while it seems just the day before a new Polish-Norweigian gas pipeline opened…
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Forbes states: “One may be tempted to ask why would the Russians bother with sabotage and denial? After all, hostility towards Ukraine and Europe is neither novel nor secret. The shutoff of gas from sabotage does not fundamentally change Russia’s stated aims or enacted strategy. The answer lies in the strength of Western financial institutions, Russia’s lack of leverage or soft power, and the devastating impacts sanctions are having against Russia. If Nord Stream is shut down suddenly through “force majeure”, a sudden uncontrollable stop that is the fault of neither party, then Russia can void its obligations towards European stakeholders without legally breaking contracts, thus dodging the many penalties in doing so.”
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So Russia sabotaged the pipeline to avoid possible penalties when they are already being faced with economically crippling penalties? Sounds like a pretty poor strategy.
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Maybe the true culprits are actually further abroad. Plenty of others stand to benefit from an expansion of hostilities into Europe and further draining of the US resources. It is merely a matter of means. Even if that doesn’t happen, Europe is already being impacted economically.
Please correct me if I am wrong: At this point it is clear that *somebody* sabotaged the pipelines. Even though is is not obviously in anyone’s interest.
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DaveJR (Comment #215085): “So Russia sabotaged the pipeline to avoid possible penalties when they are already being faced with economically crippling penalties? Sounds like a pretty poor strategy.”
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But it makes the most sense of anything I have heard so far. The “possible penalties” would probably come into effect when the sanctions are finally over and would be in addition to those.
I don’t think NATO wants to enter this war, they could have done so already at any time. They can do a false flag attack on NATO territory. Things are going pretty well as far as this proxy war goes for NATO in my view.
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I have no idea who sabotaged the pipeline. Some bizarre 4-D chess move by somebody I guess.
Like Tom, I also have no idea who sabotaged the pipeline! For all I know it was Greta Thunberg!
Good call Lucia.
The Sherlock Holmes solution.
But have we truly eliminated all the other options?
Not the Russians or the Russian underground, too much self damage and upsets their enemies.
Probably not the Ukrainians lack of resources, not lack of will.
Not the Americans*, currently mental strength of leadership at all levels too incompetent and woke.
Not the Germans or Italians.
Not the British (devious enough but no James Bond and see *)
If we go down the deep depths of speculation.
Follow the money.
It must be the French.
With their nuclear power resources they benefit from higher electricity prices.
Nearly as devious as the English.
Resources , training , and an efficient secret service.
Viola!
Maybe it was the Chinese. They hurt the West and get more Russian gas for themselves.
State Department:
“The idea that the United States was in any way involved in the apparent sabotage of these pipelines is preposterous,” State Department spokesperson Price said during a separate press briefing yesterday. “It is nothing more than a function of Russian disinformation and should be treated as such.”
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It was most likely the USA. Why? Three reasons: Capability, craziness, and Russia, Russia, Russia!. The nutty greens running the Biden administration seem to me quite capable of most any crazy act. Placing multiple (4?) timed explosive packages 200 feet down in icy cold water? That’s not like snorkeling for lobsters on coral heads in the Bahamas! Let’s just say it probably wasn’t the Colombians, Argentines, or the Mexicans.
Mike M,
The Chinese are at least more likely than the Russians.
US Hiring ‘Extraction’ Agents in Ukraine
. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfgvmTcwyQI
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$1k-2k per DAY. From the posting, looks like they are looking for x special forces.
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I wonder what the US thinks of Ukraines long term stability? 🙂
Looking at the general world economic trends on inflation with energy and food production, I have moved money from savings into non parsable foods and household consumable goods.
This is a 2 fer as far as I’m concerned: stockpiles for any local disaster ( very low odds in my area, but cheep insurance) and as a hedge for the absolute knowledge of continuing high inflation for these items.
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I have seen some of my standard purchases of consumables inflated 25% ( or more ) over the last year or so. Food prices are going to be affected worldwide next year by shortages of fertilizer. Mainly in Europe, but will affect the US also as Europe will have to import food.
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Interest rates on savings will be well below inflation on consumable goods that I KNOW I will be using in the future.
Looks like Ian will primarily be a Flood-i-cane. This one is going to be a major disaster in costs. Of all the hurricanes I have seen Ian’s storm surge lived up to the warnings. Some of the videos are indeed terrifying. You know when it takes days to reach some places in 2022 it is going to be bad.
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Almost all the deaths will have been avoidable, but the disaster costs … not so much. You can’t economically build a large scale defense against that type of storm surge and 150 mph winds, however most houses built to current building codes should have survived the storm. The vast number of structures flooded out will have been built before 1990.
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A silver lining here is that people who live in low lying areas will be more likely to evacuate for the next decade. They only need to evacuate locally to higher ground for the most part to survive.
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I very much doubt the Florida home insurance market is going to shrug this off. They have a history of an effective post-pay model by forcing large rate increases after a disaster.
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Large sections of the Sanibel Island causeway were wiped out. This was just south of the center of the storm. https://www.fox13news.com/weather/hurricane-ian-storm-surge-damage-fort-myers-naples-southwest-florida
Tom Scharf (Comment #215097): “Of all the hurricanes I have seen Ian’s storm surge lived up to the warnings.”
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It seems that it is always the worst case scenario that gets hyped. Of course, the worst case rarely happens. I wonder if some people did not evacuate because they thought “It is never as bad as they say it will be.”
Evacuation is a complicated thing. Fort Myers was actually at the very edge or out of the NHC prediction cone 3 days out and a series of unfortunate events then occurred. The storm “unexpectedly” diverted and then rapidly intensified right before landfall. I doubt I would have evacuated as the 3 day tracking for storms has been pretty good lately. https://www.wwno.org/news/2022-09-24/tropical-storm-ian-could-be-a-major-hurricane-by-monday-nhc-says-see-latest-forecast
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Once it is within 36 hours you can’t really leave. If you leave at 48 hours then you are likely to be stuck in horrendous traffic, gas will be unavailable, and there are never hotel rooms available. You can leave at 72 hours but you usually just aren’t confident enough in the outcome and wonder if you might be evacuating into the path. By the time there was high confidence in Ian’s track evacuation was not possible for almost everyone.
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Buried in the details of the tracking was significantly larger divergence in the models than usual (the spaghetti plots) and you could tell the models were struggling. Strength prediction has always been mediocre to poor, but slowly improving. They did successfully predict a strengthening after it turned north. What seems to happen is these things strengthen hard for about 24 hours sometimes and then get weaker. The timing here was not optimal for this. https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/220926111011-weather-forecast-plots-20220926.jpg
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I did evacuate for Irma and we got about 100 mph winds at my house.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215100): “Fort Myers was actually at the very edge or out of the NHC prediction cone 3 days out”.
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But given the size of the storm, the edge of the cone was still going to get hit hard.
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But I get that evacuating is hard in the best of cases and must be a nightmare in southern Florida.
I had a thought today about COVID infection acquired immunity vs. vaccination and why the US data was so bad. Of course there’s the effect on the ‘everybody needs to get vaccinated’ narrative and the pharmaceutical companies also have zero (or less) incentive to gather that kind of data, but I wonder how much effect HIPAA has on acquiring the data in the first place. Israel was able to collect data from their relatively few health insurance companies, or maybe it was the companies publishing the data. I’m not at all sure that something like that could be done legally in the US under HIPAA.
Wrt evacuation, nothing but crickets from the media on electric vehicles and the widespread power outage after the hurricane. It wouldn’t take a very big generator to power the pumps at a gas station.
The more I think about motivations, the more I think it is likely the Biden Administration sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines. The Biden administration wants to make sure those wobbly Germans, Dutch, Italians, etc won’t be tempted to press for a negotiated settlement in the Ukraine as their economies suffer astronomical price increases for gas and their industries are ruined. Damaging the pipelines takes the return of Russian gas deliveries off the table for the foreseeable future. I don’t see any other country with both the means and the motivation to damage the gas pipelines.
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This sort of thing can be kept secret for a while, but at some point someone will talk (off the record).
DeWitt,
The opposite can also be true, having a gigantic electric battery in your garage during a power outage could be pretty useful. I’m not sure how many vehicles have useful AC outputs though.
Another interesting theory on the pipeline sabotage: The Russians did it as an implied threat against the Norwegian pipelines that deliver gas to the rest of Europe. Makes as much sense as any other theory I’ve heard.
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Does the Nordstream sabotage really take Russian gas off the table? There are other pipelines. The ones through Ukraine probably are of no use unless the EU forces Ukraine to make peace.
Street view of Fort Myers Beach storm surge. Sure looks like 15 feet all right. Those palm trees are pretty tough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al8yTiCVfro
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20 minute aerial of Fort Myers Beach today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhxavD2hFq0
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Hundreds of structures are completely gone. You can see the stilts without anything on them. The entire beachfront used to be occupied, the gaps here are destroyed structures.
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Many of the buildings missing are older, but some of these structures were built up 10+ feet and were completely wiped out.
This is about as bad as it gets. There is no way they have any idea how many people are missing. No power, no cell network, roads blocked.
Tom Scharf,
Maybe re-building isn’t such a good idea.
A lot of the structures look to be pre-Andrew, so they could not stand up to the storm.
According to this report: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/watch-hurricane-ian-s-storm-surge-inundate-fort-myers/ar-AA12mX3A the actual storm surge (mean sea level above a normal tide level) at ft myers was 5.8 feet, breaking the previous record of 3.6 ft.
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Of course, the effect of that surge was worsened by giant wind driven waves, so that while the mean water level was under 6′ above normal, the wave peaks along the coast were much higher, no doubt causing the worst of the coastal damage to relatively light weight structures. Still, rebuilding looks unwise.
My MN family had planned an early December remote schooling and working vacation on North Captiva Island. I have not gotten any details of the damage there, but suspect their plans may have to change.
Those videos of Ian reminds me that Mother Nature can be a real bitch.
Excerpts from Putin’s speech. Well worth reading to get an incite to Russian view of the world.
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“And all we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.”
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“ Washington demands more and more sanctions against Russia and the majority of European politicians obediently go along with it. They clearly understand that by pressuring the EU to completely give up Russian energy and other resources, the United States is practically pushing Europe toward deindustrialisation in a bid to get its hands on the entire European market. These European elites understand everything – they do, but they prefer to serve the interests of others. This is no longer servility but direct betrayal of their own peoples. God bless, it is up to them.”
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“But the Anglo-Saxons believe sanctions are no longer enough and now they have turned to subversion. It seems incredible but it is a fact – by causing explosions on Nord Stream’s international gas pipelines passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they have actually embarked on the destruction of Europe’s entire energy infrastructure. It is clear to everyone who stands to gain. Those who benefit are responsible, of course.“
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“But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can’t feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can’t heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can’t feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can’t heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.“
SteveF
Still, rebuilding looks unwise.
Hurricanes are the reason Florida is not on the list of states Jim and I ever plan to move to. Obviously, warm weather is a great attraction. But we don’t have kids to lean on if our home is wiped out. We may currently have energy to deal with rebuilding, contacting insurers, shopping for all new stuff, yada, yada. But that wouldn’t be fun and we will have less and less energy to deal with disasters as time goes on. So no living in locations that have a reasonable probability of being hit by a hurricane in the next 10 years, inside the 200 year flood plain, blah… blah…. We can, of course, rent in such a place. But not own.
Ed,
Putin’s speech is, to my mind, the best evidence he blew up the pipelines.
Ken,
They probably need a new destination. It is a low-lying barrier island of sand, mangroves, and a hundred or so houses. No roads except for use by golf carts, and no access to the mainland except by boat. The mangroves will mostly still be there, but probably not much else.
. https://www.dreamstime.com/north-captiva-florida-usa-aerial-looking-south-to-image145876428
Lucia,
“Putin’s speech is, to my mind, the best evidence he blew up the pipelines.”
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Why do you think that?
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WRT to Florida and hurricanes: Statistically, you will be severely influenced (>100 MPH winds) about once in 20 or 25 years. I have lived in Florida for more than 25 years, and we have been a bit unlucky: two storms like that. However, a great deal depends on where you are, the kind house you own, and if you have a generator. My house is far enough from the sea (about 3 miles as the crow flies) that a storm surge is not an issue. It was built after hurricane Andrew, so the basic structure is resistant to >135 MPH. (The pool enclosure would fly, of course!) I have a generator to keep the house livable and enough fuel for 3 or 4 days without power. All windows are coated with anti-shatter Mylar films, so even flying debris breaking a window would not likely be catastrophic. For me hurricanes are mainly an inconvenience, not a menace. For those right next to the coast, in an insecure house (or mobile home), and with no generator, it is a different story, of course.
SteveF,
He’s is blaming specific people without proof. His rhetoric is very inflamed. He’s clearly wanting to escalate. He is wanting to stage things to make a speech to claim he is “forced” to escalate. That’s just what he did before invading Ukraine.
SteveF (Comment #215114)
Steve, the MN family was down to North Captiva in Dec of 2020 doing things remotely during the Covid-19 lockdown. They liked the isolation and were looking forward to doing it again.
The last I talked to my son, he felt there would be a direct hit on Captiva. He said the buildings were on 8 foot stilts, but I think that was no defense from Ian.
Ed Forbes (Comment #215111)
Putin, like most politicians, is a self serving prevaricating SOB. They may say things that are in agreement with our momentary views, but that can be coincidental. When a politician is cornered or seeing their policies go awry they tend to prevaricate at the highest levels – and that is where Putin currently is.
That the US is obnoxious in world affairs is a given that no reasonable person can refute.
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The main point for me in the speech is: ( edit, this point was made mainly for the EU, the US is in the catbird seat in regards to EU energy supplies)
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“But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can’t feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can’t heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can’t feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can’t heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.“
Ed Forbes (Comment #215111),
Putin says what he needs to say to try to achieve his objectives. That said, amid the ranting are some good points.
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“And all we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.”
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and
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“But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can’t feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can’t heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can’t feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can’t heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.“
lucia (Comment #215116): “His rhetoric is very inflamed. He’s clearly wanting to escalate.”
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Just what do you mean by “escalate”? What sort of “escalation” is Putin after? Real questions.
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He surely does not want more sanctions or more western support for Ukraine or direct military intervention by NATO. I think he wants to inflame divisions within Europe and between Europe and the US. But I would not call that “escalation”.
MikeM
Just what do you mean by “escalate”? What sort of “escalation” is Putin after? Real questions.
War with NATO.
He surely does not want more sanctions or more western support for Ukraine or direct military intervention by NATO.
Oh? He is advancing excuses to attack. This is just the same as before he attacked Ukraine. All sorts of people said surely he doesn’t want to attack Ukraine. He just wants…. And then he attacked.
He attacked because he wanted to attack.
Lucia,
I agree Putin’s rhetoric is inflamed…. but so is the rhetoric of the Ukrainians, the Brits, the USA, etc. This seems to me quite normal for war.
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As to escalation: Russia is obviously going to annex the occupied regions in the east of Ukraine and declare them Russian territory. If there is escalation, then I suspect it will happen after Russia declares those regions “part of the Russian motherland”. My great concern is that the Biden administration will adopt policies that may well kill a billion people (or more, including you, me, and most everyone we know) simply because they insist Russia must behave in the Ukraine the way they want Russia to behave. I don’t know about you, but there is nothing happening in the Ukraine I am willing to die over.
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What is more, I very seriously doubt the Russians are going to ever relent, because whether we agree or not, they see western domination of eastern Europe as an existential threat to Russia. I don’t doubt the Biden administration is incapable of understanding Russia’s position, nor do I doubt the Biden administration is capable of insanely bad and insanely dangerous policies that put all of western civilization at risk. They are simply not going to succeed in forcing Russia to do what they want. I find the fact they seem incapable of a reasoned evaluation of reality profoundly frightening…. far worse than any hurricane.
Luica,
“He just wants…. ”
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Putin was very clear in his public statements for years; he insisted the Ukraine not become part of NATO. That is what he wanted; he wasn’t hiding anything.
Lucia,
War with NATO.
Interesting idea!
The conflict in Ukraine has been a reminder of the fallibility of conventional wisdom (conventional wisdom said Ukraine would fall relatively quickly) so take this with a grain of salt. But NATO’s conventional forces are thought to be vastly superior to Russia’s. European NATO alone is roughly as much stronger than Russia as Russia was stronger than Ukraine.
Heh.
I have to think if Putin wants war with NATO he means to use nukes. He must know Russia wouldn’t have a realistic chance otherwise, even if the US stayed out of it.
Perhaps he gambles that NATO leaders don’t have the testicular fortitude to risk it. If so, he might be right.
[Edit: Unless he has a secret deal with Xi!]
The trouble is, I don’t see how he has a realistic chance even if he uses nukes. Unless he’s mad, M.A.D. undermines this idea. Maybe he believe he could use tactical nukes and the West would back down? I don’t know.
Or maybe he’s got a secret alliance with Xi and PRC would fight too. I think this is very dubious and there’s no particular evidence I’m aware of that would support this idea, but I’m not aware of any evidence that makes it unthinkable either.
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I think he’s just making noise. I don’t see how if he’s in possession of his faculties he could really want war with NATO. Not impossible, just I don’t see it.
But fun idea though!
mark bofill,
“Perhaps he gambles that NATO leaders don’t have the testicular fortitude to risk it. If so, he might be right.”
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I sure hope ALL NATO leaders are unwilling to engage in a nuclear exchange. I really doubt the Europeans are willing to risk it. Biden and company? IMHO, they are both completely woke and completely nuts (and those two are very closely related to being absolutely certain you are 100% right), so I am not at all sure they won’t risk nuclear war.
mark bofill,
“I don’t see how if he’s in possession of his faculties he could really want war with NATO.”
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I really don’t think Putin wants war. He wants the west to stay out of Eastern Europe; he has said it 100 times.
Steve,
Yeah. There are times when it’s really dangerous to have a guy like Biden in the WH, and the scenario we’re discussing is definitely one of those times.
[(RE next comment): I agree with you.]
Clearly Putin thinks he is losing now and/or the war is not going well. People who are winning don’t act like this. This looks like a speech directed at his domestic audience. He probably thinks he needs to escalate for his own survival and he is just setting up another “look what you made me do” moment. He painted himself into this corner and he increasingly looks like an idiot.
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The best thing for NATO and the west is to just keep handing him the rope to let him hang himself with.
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The west has energy and can afford to pay more for it if necessary. That Putin is leveraging his energy like he has a monopoly on it discredits him to the rest of the world. The EU will suffer for a while and there will be global repercussions but they will adapt and move forward.
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What is Russia’s future here? This war was very unwise.
Tom wrote: “That Putin is leveraging his energy like he has a monopoly on it discredits him to the rest of the world.”
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I don’t think it does. The beef between Russia and Europe is well known and there are plenty out in the rest of the world who welcome whatever Russia can dish out, most of the rest likely don’t give a damn. How many are made to care simply by being required to stay in “The West’s” favor? What if that could be significantly weakened and removed?
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“What is Russia’s future here?”
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“The future” is currently dictated by “Western Hegemony”. Maybe their future is one in which it isn’t. “The West” seem happy to do everything to make this happen.
Contrary to some opinions, Russia is winning. Russia has convinced its trading partners that they have been reasonable and it is the west that are pushing war and are being unreasonable. This has allowed Russia to annex portions of Ukraine without upsetting its allies. This is a VERY important political consideration.
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NATO and the EU have shot their bolt in supporting Ukraine. The west is running short of weapon and ammunition supplies. One just has to see current deliveries to Ukraine from the west to see this. Current supplies of tanks promised is about 20 T55’s, a early 1950’s tank design. Thats good for about 1 day loss on ONE of the 4 main fronts of a 1000km long line.
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Everything else promised by the west is “training”, support for salaries, replacement of already delivered equipment, and light equipment. Current promises for heavy equipment are contracts for items to be delivered sometime in the distant future after contracts are approved and the weapons are produced. No deliveries of heavy western tanks are contemplated as they are not considered to be effective for the terrain seen in Ukraine.
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In the fighting over the last month, Ukraine has fully committed its reserves and in the latest fighting been forced to move forces off the line in other critical locations to try and continue assaults in the west. This is not good for Ukrainian options.
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Ukraine counter attacks have been totally shut down on 3 of the 4 sections of the front and the Russians have stopped the 1 somewhat successful attack in the west from achieving any meaningful success. With an additional 300,000 reserves, plus regular Russian armed forces that can now be deployed, Russia will now outnumber Ukraine forces for the 1st time in the war. It is fast being a war of Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers vs Ukrainian pickups armed with machine guns.
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It is going to be a bleak winter for both Ukraine and the EU.
I think that lucia is flat wrong. Putin is NOT insane. And as mark points out, he’d have to be insane to want a war with NATO. And if he wants war with NATO, he does not need to be coy about it.
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Putin is definitely in a jam. I think he is trying to find a way out any way he can. I suspect that he still thinks that the West is weak and lacks resolve. And that Ukrainian resistance will collapse without massive aid from the West. I do not think those things are true. But as long as Putin thinks those things *might* be true, then it is worth it to him to try to back the West off.
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So he destroys Nord Stream so that there is no doubt that Europe’s energy woes will receive succor from that direction. That has the bonus of making the point that he could take out the pipelines from Norway. He annexes Ukrainian territory to show that *he* is not going to back down and to make the point that beating him will be a long, slow slog. He talks aggressively about nukes to sow fear; it seems to have worked with at least one denizen of this site. I don’t think he is going to split NATO, but I am not certain that he won’t.
Why does Eastern Europe not want to be part of Russia? Perhaps because they know what it is like through direct experience. Russia has an inferior political and economic system with more corruption. The west isn’t perfect by any stretch, it’s just better than what Russia has to offer. Rational people can choose what they want.
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Eastern Europe can continue to be Eastern Europe and still be part of the EU. What is Russia offering? Cheap gas? That’s worth something, but that’s not enough to be under the Putin regime’s thumb for almost everyone.
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I’m not sure what the end of the sentence is “We don’t want nuclear war so …”? Give Russia control of Eastern Europe even if they don’t want to be under Russia’s control? Negotiate a settlement on Ukraine that Russia doesn’t seem to be interested in? Stop enticing Russia’s neighbors with decadent western ideology? Make a formal agreement to not go further with NATO and the EU?
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It’s not the west’s fault that they have better marketing and business fundamentals. We have never been a direct threat to Russia, this is a fantasy. Russia does seem to be losing the ideology war because of the facts on the ground.
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I’m not at all convinced that Russia just wants its own security. Their established behavior contradicts that. Putin does need a face saving way out of this mess he has created, so I don’t object to that. Humiliating Russia is a bad plan.
Mike M,
“He talks aggressively about nukes to sow fear; it seems to have worked with at least one denizen of this site.”
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Well, the truth is, there is not much in the world I am afraid of, but the nutty Biden administration, combined with Russian resolve to not give in to the Biden administrations’s wishes, is indeed frightening. Biden has dementia. I can tell you from personal observation of dementia patients that dementia leads to lots of very bad decisions.
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BTW, I doubt Putin had the Nordstrem pipeline sabotaged, but I can’t exclude that possibility. The USA seems to me both a) more capable, and b) nutty enough to do it to ensure Europe “doesn’t slip” WRT to fighting Russia.
The US has way too much to lose getting caught sabotaging an EU – Russia pipeline. They also don’t need to do this because Russia has been turning it off all by themselves and would be expected to keep up their energy blackmail. EU resolve against Russia looks pretty strong at the moment so this also seems unnecessary.
I just don’t see strong reasons for anyone to do this, it’s a bit bizarre.
Here is my (best case scenario) prediction (that is, assuming nuclear war doesn’t break out): by the spring of 2023 Russia will have annexed the eastern regions of the Ukraine and done enough “ethnic cleansing” of the local population to ensure they will not face much terrorism. The West will continue to wring its hands and demand Russia return all Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea. The Russians will laugh. The rest of the world will shrug and continue to buy Russian gas and petroleum. China will snicker at the folly of the West’s position, and continue arming itself to take over Taiwan in the future.
Tom Scharf,
Look at the video tapes of Biden and Victoria Nuland promising to eliminate Nordstream 2, “guaranteed”, “one way or another” if Russia invaded the Ukraine. These were not veiled threats, they were direct threats.
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“Give Russia control of Eastern Europe even if they don’t want to be under Russia’s control?”
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Well, we did that from the end of WWII until the Soviet Union fell apart, right? No reason not to do it now. Better than everyone getting killed. Russia may (some day) become a more reasonable actor…. but nobody is going to force them into it. BTW, the Ukraine is not all of Eastern Europe… Poland, Romania, etc, are not going back to the Russian orbit.
Even with the major destruction of the recent two Cat4+ hurricanes if you look with a discerning eye you can determine things that just aren’t ever covered. Houses 2 to 3 rows back from shore mostly survived the worst spot of the hurricane, and recent buildings looked to have survived the worst spot of the worst hurricane.
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Houses miles inland all survived, but certainly many were damaged. As SteveF has said there is basically a threshold of around 130 mph where any house built in the last 30 years is unlikely to have a lot of damage.
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Trees falling? Local flooding? Power loss? Yes, yes, and yes. Buy a mobile home in Florida? No, no, no.
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Then there are aerodynamics. Most of the houses with lots of damage are also directly exposed to the wind or very close to shore. Houses in suburbs are generally protected by each other and local forests etc.
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It’s not as bad as it seems, but it sure would be nice to not have to worry about it.
The theory here (my words are not as good as those at the links) is that the pipelines were full of natural gas for months without any maintenance which leads to build up of hydrates which block the pipe and can be corrosive. If a depressurization event happens, then hydrates are pushed down the pipe due to pressure on the other side moving quite quickly until they hit a bend where they can burst the pipe. So Russia could have done this damage, by accident.
Still lots of room for idiots in the area (including our own) to have done this deliberately, but a stupid accident also has to be on the table.
Steve F
“The more I think about motivations, the more I think it is likely the Biden Administration sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines.”
Putin blames USA therefore logically USA did not do it.
White house blames Russia so Russia did not do it.
Only leaves interested third parties.
France.
Most likely of the unlikely remaining candidates.
History of doing this in the past.
Remember New Zealand/frogmen/explosives?
pauligon59 (Comment #215140): “but a stupid accident also has to be on the table.”
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But it would have to have been two nearly simultaneous stupid accidents.
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OK, I guess it could have been a series of four events caused by deliberate human action, producing either an intentional or unintentional result.
Cascading failure?
I am not any kind of expert on pipelines. The explanation is plausible but that doesn’t make it the truth. All we have to date are plausible explanations. At east two of the breaks occured at or near bends in the pipe if the maps shown are correct.
I doubt we will ever see a detailed report on what actually happened so all we will ever have is speculation.
On second thought, I am not buying the methane hydrate hypothesis. Where does the water come from? The pipeline is pressurized, so it must be from inside. Moisture in the gas could condense and build up. So that combined with poor maintenance could be the source for Nord Stream 1. But Nord Stream 2 never carried any gas; it was pressurized but no flow. So I don’t see how there could have been hydrates in it.
Mike M,
I agree, methane hydrates are a very unlikely cause… I mean, two separate pipelines, one never more than pressurized….. more than a bit too coincidental. Besides, the Swedes estimated the explosions at roughly 200 Kg TNT equivalent…. inside a pipeline, 200kg of TNT would tear the line apart, not just cause a leak.
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The most plausible explanation is sabotage. A photo of the pipeline damage would prove if the explosions were internal or external….. maybe some day we will see a photo, but then again, maybe not.
A quick internet search indicates that hydrates are a big problem in pipelines carrying gas from an offshore well. In other words, gas that has not yet been processed. Can’t find anything about hydrates in delivery pipelines. Of course, I only did a quick search, so not finding anything does really prove anything.
Russia has apparently withdrawn its troops from Lyman, you know, “Russian” territory. This is clearly part of Russia “winning” as per Ed. If they keep up all this winning they might be back at the actual Russian border soon.
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“In connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement, allied troops were withdrawn from the settlement of Krasny Liman to more advantageous lines,” the ministry said on Telegram, using the Russian name for the town of Lyman.”
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Really, this is getting a bit embarrassing for Russia. What is going on? No wonder Putin’s head is exploding.
Tom
Why does Eastern Europe not want to be part of Russia? Perhaps because they know what it is like through direct experience.
Well… geeh… Vlad says his grandmother subsisted on soup boiled from tree bark during the Ukrainian famine. So 30 year old Ukranians grew up on stories of Russian “generosity”. And I suspect some others from former SSR states have similar, though possibly not quite a horrible stories about their grandparents.
There is a reason Ukrainians don’t want to be part of Russia.
Putin being “very clear” he wants to f*** them up the ass when he wants doesn’t mean they want to allow themselves to be f***ed up the ass. And Putin being “very clear” he wants us to say “go ahead and let me treat them however I want to”, and then invadingis provocative.
You can say he’s not “insane” all you want. But he wants whatever he wants (which is, honestly, everything) or he wants war. He is provoking war.
Give him what he wants now and we’ll still get war.
And, of course, we already have war.
I don’t think it adds any understanding to say that Putin “wants war”. He wants Ukraine. He wants victory. He’d be a whole happier if he got those things with a lot less war. He definitely not want the war that he got.
MikeM
He definitely not want the war that he got.
When he rolled his tanks into Ukraine, he wanted war. He wasn’t forced into. He chose that–vs. alternatives. Right now, vs. alternatives, he wants war.
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Did he want victory? Of course. Did he hope the war he started would be easy? Of course. But he wanted to roll into Ukraine, and did so: He wanted war. Does he want Ukraine? Sure. He wanted Ukraine enough to want to go to war to get what he wanted. And he chose to go to war to get what he wanted.
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That’s “wanting war”.
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I don’t see how anyone can think he didn’t “want war” in February. He could have stopped his own hostilities at any time before sending troops in to start a hot war.
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The man is now openly warmongering further.
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It’s fine to say he is not insane. But he is almost certainly in a very politically precarious position back home. Dictators who lose wars don’t do well personally. I think at this point, he wants war more than facing his obvious to everyone (other than Ed Forbes) non-victory back home.
Lucia,
But he is almost certainly in a very politically precarious position back home. Dictators who lose wars don’t do well personally.
Back to the question of mutually assured destruction. Bearing in mind that Putin’s personal self interest and Russia’s interests may diverge, it could be that he perceives he has nothing to lose by playing nuclear chicken. If he believes a failed Ukrainian war will cost him his political power (and maybe his life and fortune, could very well be), he might be more willing to play nuclear chicken. It might be his view is that he has everything to gain and nothing to lose. *Russia* may have a lot to lose, but maybe not Putin personally.
The Soviet Union was occupying Eastern Europe (and part of Germany) at the end of WWII. It was a fait accompli. We didn’t have a choice about that unless we had taken Patton’s advice and started a new war. It wasn’t anything natural. The Soviets had no ‘right’ to rule those countries then and Russia has no right, other than force of arms, to rule them now. Any form of appeasement will only encourage Putin and others like him.
If we are so afraid of nuclear weapons that we fold because Putin threatens to use them then we might as well disarm and surrender now.
DeWitt,
If we are so afraid of nuclear weapons that we fold because Putin threatens to use them then we might as well disarm and surrender now.
Agreed.
mark
Point taken. Putin’s interests and the interests of Russia as a nation are different things.
Yep. Just as Mussolini’s interests and Italy’s were not the same thing. The Italians did not treat Musolini and his mistress well in the end. Many former dictators (or even just heads of state) who lost power run to other countries after having put their money in accounts out of reach from their original country.
I seriously doubt Putin has a safe-for-him fallback address. Where is he going to go? Belarus? Moldova? Turkey? The isle of Elba? If he doesn’t have power as the head of Russian, I doubt anyone wants his bellicose body.
I think he hopes rhetoric can turn Russians into supporters of the war. (Currently it doesn’t seem to be working.) He wants to make their reaction to the pipelines being bombed resemble American’s reaction to Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. Or even Napolean invading Russia way back when. Or…
He’d like them to “defend Russia” the way the Ukrainians are defending Ukraine.
But to do that he needs something like the pipelines getting bombed by “enemies”. Obviously, concrete evidence that the “Anglo-Saxons” bombed it would help. He doesn’t have any. But they’ve always limited real news in Russian. So he probably at least hopes he can convince Russians there has been a material violent attack on Russia by their “enemies”.
Also, maybe there’s shades of crazy, running from simply mistak….
I’m sure there are shades of crazy. But I think in this case, Putin is simply between a rock and a hard place. And I doubt he’s ever really given a c*ap about “Russians” relative to himself. He cares even less about “humanity”. So theories based either on (a) Putin not lying when he is “very clear” about something or (b) Putin actually caring about anyone other than Putin have some serious weaknesses.
mark
It might be his view is that he has everything to gain and nothing to lose. *Russia* may have a lot to lose, but maybe not Putin personally.
He’s still lose a lot. Honestly, right now, things look bleak for him. (Well, unless Ed Forbes is right and Russia is actually winning. Maybe those trading partners he’s “convinced” the west is pushing the war will send their own troops to come help him. Maybe he’s got a safe wad of cash and can retire to someplace in China. )
Lucia,
No I meant Putin doesn’t have a lot to lose by playing chicken, if it’s the case that his political and personal fortunes are tied to winning. I agree that he has a lot to lose [in general]. I didn’t express myself very clearly there, sorry.
lucia (Comment #215152): “I don’t see how anyone can think he didn’t “want war” in February. He could have stopped his own hostilities at any time before sending troops in to start a hot war.”
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And Ukraine could have prevented hostilities by giving in the whatever Putin wanted. So did Ukraine want war? Of course not.
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There is a difference between being willing to do a thing to get or keep what one wants and wanting to do that thing. To fail to make the distinction confuses means and ends. There are cases where the distinction is obvious that sloppy language does not matter. But this is not one of them.
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To say that Putin *wants* war is to imply that war is unavoidable and that negotiations are pointless. And to say that he wants war with NATO is to imply that escalation is unavoidable. Sloppy language gets in the way of understanding, especially when dealing with something that is difficult to understand.
I think it is clear that Putin cares very much about Russia. He does not care about individual Russians, other than maybe a few people close to him, because that is the nature of autocracy. But he cares about Russia as a whole. The invasion of Ukraine did not personally benefit Putin; he did it because he thought it would benefit Russia.
From what I have seen, Russia does not have the capability to use tactical nukes in an offensive capacity. Russian troops have neither the training or discipline to operate on a nuclear battlefield.
He does not care about individual Russians, other than maybe a few people close to him, because that is the nature of autocracy. But he cares about Russia as a whole.
I think that’s conveniently abstract. He doesn’t actually care about his people. He cares about ‘Russia’. Well, that could mean anything.
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I think he wants to build / rebuild an empire. But I agree that he isn’t concerned for the wellbeing of his people. I think ‘benefit Russia’ has essentially no meaning when divorced from concern for the Russian people. It’s a floating abstraction that probably instantiates in reality to gratifying Putin’s pride and personal self interest, him and his leadership clique. At least that’s my view.
Why does Putin remain popular in Russia? And, yes, he really does remain popular in Russia: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2022/0907/1321067-putin-popular-support-polls-russia-economic-sanctions-ukraine-war/
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It has a lot to do with the improvement in the Russian economy over the past 20 years. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/11/russias-economy-under-president-putin-in-charts.html
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Employment is high, inflation has been reduced from >20% per year to about 5% per year, and per-capita income has increased in real terms by a factor 3. But it also has to do with how Russians think about their near neighbors and how they perceive the West (arrogant, pushy, domineering).
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If Putin faces any real questions from the Russian public, it more about his restraint in not destroying Ukrainian infrastructure (power production and distribution, railways, dams, airports, etc.) and the targeting of political leadership. Putin is most certainly not conducting the war in a way that is designed to beat the Ukrainians into submission or to erode their will to fight. This is the thing that I have found most surprising over the past 8 months…. the effort is anything but all-out on the Russian side.
MikeM
To say that Putin *wants* war is to imply that war is unavoidable and that negotiations are pointless. And to say that he wants war with NATO is to imply that escalation is unavoidable. Sloppy language gets in the way of understanding, especially when dealing with something that is difficult to understand.
Yep. I absolutely am implying further war with Putin is likely unavoidable. Because he wants war.
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Refusing to see this makes this situation difficult to understand.
I would say Putin is quite willing to use war to reach his political objectives, and in that sense he is no different from many other political leaders. I suspect that if he could achieve those objectives without war, then he would prefer that. When you say he “wants war”, it suggests that the process of waging war is itself the objective… I just don’t believe that is true.
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Or as Clausewitz said, “war is politics by other means”.
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Which is not to say I think Putin’s political objectives with Russia’s near neighbors like the Ukraine are “good”, “reasonable”, or in some way justified. I think Putin’s policies are wrong and immoral. I think Putin is a murderous thug who is willing to have his political opponents killed. But I am not a Russian who supports both Putin and the war in the Ukraine; I am sure there are many Russians who see things very differently from me.
lucia (Comment #215165):
Yep. I absolutely am implying further war with Putin is likely unavoidable. Because he wants war.
Refusing to see this makes this situation difficult to understand.
Clarification noted. I think that you are wrong and I don’t see any evidence for your position. I do see evidence for what SteveF (Comment #215168) says: Putin is willing to use war to achieve his objectives, but war is not the objective. And I agree with the rest of what SteveF says in that comment.
Russia has a fully mechanized army and is currently fighting a Ukraine army that is only partially mechanized and that outnumbers the current Russian forces by better than 2:1. Russia is also not conducting an all out war against Ukraine by destroying its infrastructure that would bring resupply of the front from NATO to a stop. Any internal pressure on Putin is because he hasn’t destroyed Ukraine infrastructure. He has not been as hardline as wanted.
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Russia is using their mobility advantage to its favor. Russia defends hard in areas of importance and conducts a mobile defense that trades space for time in areas of little strategic importance and to enable its MUCH stronger air and artillery forces to inflict massive casualties on Ukraine forces that are then moving outside of entrenchments.
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The areas Russia is trading space for time and ability to fight Ukraine forces out of their entrenchments were also quickly vacated by Ukraine forces early in the war. The area in the northeast is very lightly populated, has little strategic value, and can quickly be outflanked by Russian forces coming from over the Russian border.
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Ukraine resupply of tanks and ammunition from the west is drying up. Almost all x Soviet equipment available on the world market for Ukraine has been expended. No western heavy tanks are being supplied to Ukraine as they are not considered suitable for Ukraine logistics and terrain. All major western contracts for Ukraine resupply is for long term contracts, not for immediate delivery.
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So yes, Russia is winning.
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This war with Ukraine will end with the destruction of the Ukraine army to the point it can no longer resist.
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I believe Russia is not destroying the Ukraine infrastructure because it wants it intact for its own use after the war is concluded. No point to destroy that what you will get in the peace terms anyway.
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Russia is conducting war more like the wars of the 1700’s than as seen in the last century. Positional battles defined by fortifications and maneuver, as opposed to total destruction of the civilian infrastructure and population to degrade enemy forces. This is considered by many to be a more “civilized “ way to conduct wars.
mark bofill (Comment #215163): “I think he wants to build / rebuild an empire.”
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I very much agree.
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mark bofill: “But I agree that he isn’t concerned for the wellbeing of his people.”
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I strongly disagree. He does not care about individual Russians. I think he does care about the Russian people as a whole. Those are two very different things.
Ed Forbes (Comment #215170): “I believe Russia is not destroying the Ukraine infrastructure because it wants it intact for its own use after the war is concluded. No point to destroy that what you will get in the peace terms anyway.”
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I don’t think much of most of what Ed has to say, but I think he got that bit right.
Mike,
Can you explain the difference to me? I’ve said I think the ‘good of Russia’ can mean essentially anything Putin wants it to mean. Do you disagree with this, and if so can you share the particulars?
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Take our country. I do believe that many and most on the left do not want to destroy our country. They want what they believe is good for the country. What they believe is good for the country stands in many ways in direct opposition to what conservatives believe is good for the country.
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What’s good for the country ‘as a whole’ appears to be up for grabs. It’s a free floating abstraction that can mean anything. So at the end of the day it means nothing in particular.
mark bofill (Comment #215173): “Can you explain the difference to me? I’ve said I think the ‘good of Russia’ can mean essentially anything Putin wants it to mean. Do you disagree with this, and if so can you share the particulars?”
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I don’t think I follow. Of course not every Russian will agree as to what is for the good of Russia. And Putin promotes what he thinks is for the good of Russia. And what Putin thinks is for the good of Russia is no doubt colored by his own desires, because it would be pretty amazing if that were not so.
I would abstract it out a couple more levels. Putin is a 13 year old bully. This works in his neighborhood and everyone in middle school acts out respecting him or pays the price. However this doesn’t work once he leaves his neighborhood, all the global cool kids make fun of him and openly disrespect him. This leaves him feeling humiliated and fulminating for revenge. There are some similarities to Trump here.
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He wants international respect for Russia, and this exercise was intended to be a showcase of his might army and to garner some respect globally. I’m not sure Ukraine was really the point. It seemed like an easy win at first, but it just didn’t work out that way. Now what? Putin is not sleeping well lately I suspect.
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OTOH giving Russia respect is effectively free and there is no reason to antagonize them.
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You can’t give in to nuclear blackmail. Further there isn’t a single politician that would survive their next election if they did. It’s not going to happen, nor should it. I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving Putin a fifth of vodka and the big red button and leaving him alone in a room for the night.
Mike,
I asked because you kept on insisting on this distinction, that Putin cares about ‘Russia as a whole’. I wanted to understand what you thought that meant, and why you seemed to insist on that distinction. I still don’t understand this.
[Edit: I mean obviously, right? Obama wants what’s best for the US. And Trump wants what’s best for the US. And Biden wants what’s best for the US. So — what was the point of the distinction? Obama and Trump and Biden also want / wanted what was best for Obama and Trump and Biden, just as Putin wants what’s best for Putin.]
MikeM
Putin is willing to use war to achieve his objectives, but war is not the objective.
If he gets his current objectives without war, he will develop new objects for which he will threaten war.
The only way to make him not go to war is to make him not want to go to war. That’s going to be very, very difficult. It is made more difficult by thinking he doesn’t want to go to war.
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Thinking he doesn’t want to go to war is what made people pretty much do nothing to support or defend Ukraine until he went into Ukraine.
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The article linked indicates that he gets more support from Russian people by going to war. In fact, he has a strong incentive to want to go to war.
If the west had lost the Cold War and endured a lot of hardship while Europe was being split up and subsequently aligned to the USSR then I’m sure we would have a galactic size inferiority complex as well.
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Putin’s desire to make Russia relevant globally will of course be popular with Russians. This doesn’t change the fact that the Russian government, its leader, its economy, and it’s policies aren’t winning hearts and minds. Putin knows this path isn’t going to work in his lifetime so he is choosing another path.
Tom
Putin is a 13 year old bully. This works in his neighborhood and everyone in middle school acts out respecting him or pays the price.
13 year old bullies want to knock kids around from time to time. They do pick smaller kids to smack around. But anyone who thinks they don’t want to smack kids around and would rather just have “respect” rather than sometimes smacking a kid around is mistaken.
Mike,
Let me back up. Maybe what I was asking is ambiguous. I can clarify:
I said:
I think that’s conveniently abstract. He doesn’t actually care about his people. He cares about ‘Russia’. Well, that could mean anything.
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I think he wants to build / rebuild an empire. But I agree that he isn’t concerned for the wellbeing of his people. I think ‘benefit Russia’ has essentially no meaning when divorced from concern for the Russian people.
[Edit: You replied:]
“He does not care about individual Russians.” I think he does care about the Russian people as a whole. Those are two very different things.
The distinction here is what I was asking about:
Can you explain the difference to me? I’ve said I think the ‘good of Russia’ can mean essentially anything Putin wants it to mean. Do you disagree with this, and if so can you share the particulars?
So – the difference between caring about individual Russians and caring about the Russian people as a whole. I propose that caring about a nation ‘as a whole’ is vague and meaningless flim flam that is used to justify whatever anyone wants to justify. If you think I’m wrong, or missing some important point, please clarify.
There.
Putin’s unnecessary assassinations of some of his adversaries is telling of the dark side of his personality. This entire mob side of Russia taints them. There is a difference between being feared and being respected.
mark bofill (Comment #215176): “Obama wants what’s best for the US. And Trump wants what’s best for the US. And Biden wants what’s best for the US. So — what was the point of the distinction? Obama and Trump and Biden also want / wanted what was best for Obama and Trump and Biden, just as Putin wants what’s best for Putin.”
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I agree. The important word is “also”. Somebody above said that in Putin’s case there is no also; he wants *only* what is best for him without regard for what is best for Russia or the Russian people.
mark bofill (Comment #215180): “So – the difference between caring about individual Russians and caring about the Russian people as a whole. I propose that caring about a nation ‘as a whole’ is vague and meaningless flim flam that is used to justify whatever anyone wants to justify.”
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I don’t understand how or why you would make that claim. If it is true, I don’t see how it would be different when it comes to caring about strangers as individuals.
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We may be at an impasse.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215181): “Putin’s unnecessary assassinations of some of his adversaries”.
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How do we know they are unnecessary?
A lot of politicians, like Putin, think what is good for them is good for the nation. They also are probably not at the intellectual level to think very deeply about any distinctions.
I think these discussions give politicians, like Putin, too much credit for having the ability to decompose complex issues into understandable parts. They spend more effort timing the use of their store of slogans. Many of them are driven by momentary considerations of what they feel pragmatically might work for them and not so much from any long held principles.
I don’t think these people who were killed represented a true threat to Putin. It was more vengeance for non-loyalty. Not sure we will ever know the real truth though. People who cross Putin have a habit of dying.
Mike,
I was trying to understand your position. If you don’t want to explain your position, then yes. We are indeed at an impasse, and I regret having wasted my time inquiring. I’ll try not to repeat that mistake.
mark bofill,
Let me try. Suppose you run country XYZ with absolute authority, and you believe an implacable adversary, who is already infringing on your territory, is going to try to take over the whole country. So you mobilize the country and go to war. War may not be good for the individuals who fight for your country (many will die after all) and may not even on balance be good for the population as a whole…. with much immediate suffering, physical destruction of property, and loss of life. But you believe that the future of the country is worth today’s sacrifices and losses. So I would say you care about the country, even if you are willing to sacrifice the immediate well being (and the lives!) of many citizens to confront your implacable adversary.
Tom Scharf,
“People who cross Putin have a habit of dying.”
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Yes, he is a murderous thug. I don’t think there is a lot of disagreement on that among those who live in the West. But I wonder how many Russians think he is a murderous thug.
That’s fine Steve, thanks.
Tom Scharf,
“You can’t give in to nuclear blackmail.”
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It is never stated so starkly, but in practice, it happens all the time. Lots of countries run by despots try to acquire nuclear weapons… So do countries who feel threatened by a neighbor (Israel, Pakistan, India). Nuclear weapons make the cost for imposing policies on countries with nuclear weapons far too high in practice. NATO is not in the Ukraine killing Russians or establishing “no-fly” zones for a reason…. actually, 4 or 5 thousand very good reasons. The Iranians are not planning to invade Israel. The crazy N Korean dictator is not worried about being invaded by the South, even though they are still ‘at war’ and the south is 10+ times more economically powerful. Should Taiwan say they are going to develop nuclear weapons, China would invade ASAP. International diplomacy pretty much always recognizes the sorry reality of nuclear deterrence. Call it blackmail if you want, but it is reality.
Thanks, SteveF (Comment #215188). I guess I was assuming that was obvious.
SteveF
But I wonder how many Russians think he is a murderous thug.
Of those, I wonder how many disapprove and how many are fine with that.
SteveF and Mike M.,
Deterrence and blackmail are not the same thing. If a country threatens to use nuclear weapons first to gain an advantage on another country, which also has nuclear weapons, causing the other country to fold up it’s tents and give up what is demanded, that’s blackmail or extortion, not deterrence.
Deterrence would be making it clear to Putin that using tactical nukes in Ukraine would result in the complete destruction of Russian troops in Ukraine . Ukraine is no more Russian territory than Kuwait belonged to Iraq. Putin can do whatever he likes inside the pre-Ukrainian war Russia. An expansionist Russian empire, which seems to be what Putin wants, should not be allowed.
Lucia,
I can’t venture a guess. But I am reminded of the Pew polls conducted in dominantly Muslim countries which consistently show large fractions of those countries support killing any Muslim who leaves Islam. People hold fundamentally opposing views on many subjects, views I absolutely can’t understand, so I would not be surprised if many Russians think the deaths of Putin’s enemies are sometimes (usually?) justified.
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If a nation tosses homosexuals from rooftops (and some do!) and beheads people for infidelity (and some do!), we in the west can either accept that reality and deal with those countries as they are (while encouraging change/moderation of course), or we can declare those countries to be barbaric and irredeemable, and try to force our values on them by any means available. I think history shows the latter approach doesn’t work.
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We are not going to succeed in forcibly imposing our values on the Russian people, but we can, and I fear we will, do great harm trying.
DeWitt,
Look at a map. The countries Putin is most worried about are those with long borders with Russia. It is perfectly OK to speculate Putin wants to take over Hungary and Poland, but I think a more realistic evaluation is that he doesn’t want more NATO countries on his border. Please point to a stated policy by Putin that he wants to establish a Russian ’empire’.
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With regard to what territory is ‘really’ Ukrainian, I think the history is a lot more complicated than you seem to suggest. The Crimea has been part of Russia for most of the past 300 years. Eastern portions of the Ukraine were for sure under Russian control in the past, and have overwhelmingly ethnic Russian populations.
SteveF,
I’m not suggesting imposing values on Russia. I do recognize they might differ from our own. We generally disapprove of murderous things. They may not.
Lucia,
But a big part of the problem in the Ukraine is that Russians (and even ethnic Russians in the Crimea and the Ukraine) do not agree with Western values and do agree with the Russian invasion. I think the West would be wise to recognize that Putin is not the only problem…. change Putin for another Russian politician and the war in the Ukraine would not likely suddenly end.
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We can disagree with the Russians about the Ukraine, but we need to be realistic about what can be accomplished with current policies…. and realistic about the potential harm those policies can do. The loudly proclaimed, absolutist position of US policy (100% of pre-2014 territories must be returned) makes ending the conflict essentially impossible for the foreseeable future, because that is simply not going to happen. Diplomacy is what is needed here, but we are not getting that from the Biden administration.
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I must admit one thing; international relations or domestic policy, the Biden administration is at least consistent: they are incapable of substantive compromise, because they are convinced they are always 100% right and all who oppose them 100% wrong. It is IMHO a destructive and foolish attitude, and not coincidentally, one shared by most ‘progressives’.
SteveF, the US needs to stop being the world’s policeman and allow the private world in the US to use those resources for investments in a freer economy that would greatly increase the standard of living of its citizens. The US is still admired abroad for its creativity and individual freedoms. That does not, however, mean we could not do a much better job in that area – we just happen to still be better than most nations in that area. When we engage directly or indirectly in military disputes in other parts of the world, we expend a lot of that goodwill. It might momentarily appear that we have become better liked or maybe respected by some nations of the world because of our stand on Ukraine, but those feelings can be fleeting.
Having said that I would never want to excuse a political leader of another nation for really bad behavior or give that person purer motivations than those that are more obviously not that pure and often are self-serving. Putin is an example of a corrupt self-serving political leader who with his cronies have made billions of dollars at the expense of Mother Russia’s people. He inherited nuclear weapons that make his nation exempt from attack from the outside and further there is no evidence that any nation is interested in invading Russia. I do not think NATO is a good concept, but I see no evidence that they want to go offensive on Russia. Before the Ukraine conflict, Russia was given opportunity to trade with most all nations of the world. All this evidence or lack thereof makes his inveighing about protecting the motherland seem something more of paranoia than anything close to reason.
Putin is an accidental leader of Russia who has done that nation great harm in that there were elements in Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union who were interested in a much freer and less corrupt nation than the one that evolved under Putin. Like you said Steve, he also is suspected of being a murderous thug and currently has an opposition leader locked in jail. I just do not see where with all this evidence of Putin’s dealings he would come across as anything close to patriotic, honest, or reasonable. He would not be the first politician to see war as a way of increasing the allegiance of nation’s people and even knowing those people would suffer greatly.
SteveF
But a big part of the problem in the Ukraine is that Russians (and even ethnic Russians in the Crimea and the Ukraine) do not agree with Western values and do agree with the Russian invasion
How is Russians in the west not agreeing with Western values a big part of the problem? If 100% of the French agreed with an invation of Germany, that wouldn’t mean Germany has to tolerate it. Nor would we need to tolerate it.
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The “problem” isn’t that we want to change the values of Russians. The problem is we don’t what Russia or Russians to launched unprovoked attacks on other countries just ‘cuz.
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I guess perhaps I don’t know what you think “the problem” is.
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change Putin for another Russian politician and the war in the Ukraine would not likely suddenly end.
Sure. Russia probably needs to lose and know they’ve sufferred a loss for it to end.
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The loudly proclaimed, absolutist position of US policy (100% of pre-2014 territories must be returned) makes ending the conflict essentially impossible for the foreseeable future, because that is simply not going to happen. Diplomacy is what is needed here, but we are not getting that from the Biden administration.
Saying they may be returned won’t end it either. Because the Ukrainians aren’t going to return them.
Lucia,
I should have been more clear: I see the problem is mainly that there is no plausible end to the war based on the positions of the two sides (and of course the USA/NATO) and the military realities. I just don’t believe the Russians are going to ‘lose’, if you mean by that they will be forced out of the Eastern regions and Crimea. The Russians have not been conducting anything like a conventional war, where the opponent’s infrastructure is destroyed to reduce their will and ability to continue fighting. I hope the Russians don’t change tactics and put the Ukraine in darkness this winter, with no rail transport operating, but it could happen. If it does, it will be a humanitarian disaster, with millions of Ukrainians fleeing to other countries.
SteveF,
Whether Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union or Russia in the past should be completely irrelevant. It does not justify Putin’s invasion. Nor does Ukraine wanting to join NATO. A NATO Ukraine would not have been an existential threat to Russia. What is relevant is that Ukraine became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union and much (most?) of Ukraine does not want to be part of a country whose leaders created a famine that resulted in the deaths of millions of Ukrainians. I’m not at all convinced that an honest referendum in the Russian held and Russian speaking regions of Ukraine would result in a request for annexation now.
Kharkiv, for example, was sympathetic to the Russians before the invasion. They aren’t now.
DeWitt,
The Donbas regions currently controlled by Russia had much anti-Ukraine civil unrest leading up to the post 2014 declared separation from the Ukraine. If there was a lot of opposition in that region to separation from the Ukraine, it didn’t show up in sectarian fighting. The people in those regions now hold Russian passports and can move freely within Russia. Yet there is not a lot of evidence of sabotage in Russia as you might expect if the populace was opposed to Russian annexation. The “left bank” of the Ukraine (most areas east of the Dnipro river) has been under Russian control (or actually part of Russia) most all of the time since the 1700’s, and has long had Russian majority population and dominant use of the Russian language in both private and public. The history of these regions is different from the Western Ukraine, were control by Poland (and others) dominates the past. The West will declare any plebiscite illegitimate, of course, but the political history of the region is extremely complicated, and I find it plausible (indeed likely) there really is popular sentiment in the currently occupied regions to become part of Russia.
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Seems to me that agreement to respect the results of a truly legitimate plebiscite might be part of a negotiated settlement, but the Ukrainian government (and the West) appear to reject ANY possibility of a plebiscite, no matter how conducted, to determine the future of the occupied regions. Do you think the people in the occupied regions should be able to determine their political future?
Kamil Galeev
@kamilkazani
My argument is based on three premises:
1. Foreign policy serves domestic policy goals
2. Keeping power is *the* top priority of domestic policy
3. Kremlin is looking for a way out of the conflict
Launching a nuclear strike and getting a retaliatory one may be seen as a way out
Galeev’s view is yes, Putin is looking to bring NATO into the conflict directly and will use nukes if that is what it takes. It’s the only way out at this point with maintaining his domestic power. He can get away with losing to NATO. He cannot get away with from being beaten by Ukraine. Putin needs himself and Russia to be seen as David, not Goliath.
DeWitt,
Please note that most of the deaths from famine in the Ukraine were in exactly the same regions that are now occupied by Russia, and were it appears popular support for annexation is greatest. In fact, a large fraction of deaths during the famine were in southern Russia, not just in the Ukraine.
Kamil Galeev is an independent researcher and a journalist residing in Moscow. His main focus of interest is the identity politics in post-Soviet Russia, the ethnification of Russian nationalism and the crackdown on the ethnic republics. Galeev completed a Master’s in Economics and Management at Peking University China and then an MLitt in History at St Andrews, the UK. He is an activist of political opposition, briefly incarcerated for participation in the 2020 protests.
Andrew P wrote: “It’s the only way out at this point with maintaining his domestic power. He can get away with losing to NATO. He cannot get away with from being beaten by Ukraine.”
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Of course, predictions like this are based on assumptions that what we are told and believe about the situation is true. We already know for a fact that we are not told “the truth” and our beliefs are biased by a lack of cultural understanding.
SteveF
Please note that most of the deaths from famine in the Ukraine were in exactly the same regions that are now occupied by Russia, and were it appears popular support for annexation is greatest.
Sure. The Ukrainians in those regions died during the Holodomor. Then the regions were resettled by Russians who moved in.
Areas depopulated by the famine were resettled by Russians in the Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, but not as much so in central Ukraine.[97] In some areas where depopulation was due to migration rather than mortality, Ukrainians returned to their places of residence to find their homes occupied by Russians, leading to widespread fights between Ukrainian farmers and Russian settlers.[97] Such clashes caused around one million Russian settlers to be returned home.[97]
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The people whose families died (Ukrainians) tend not to trust Russia, the country that brought on the famine. The replacements moving in are not the descendants of those who were starved out.
Galeev has been tweeting prolifically since the beginning of the special military operation. Many times dealing with western misperceptions of Russia. e.g. that the opposition would not be better, that Russians as a whole consider Ukrainians and other soviet ethnicities as inferior, calling early on that RAF was a paper tiger and would struggle logistically.(Feb 27th thread). His pinned tweets are a good read. He’s currently in D.C.
I think Putin went into this thinking it was 1968 revisited. He really thought of it as a simple police keeping expedition. Putin loses power, all his house of cards falls down and any spoils will be redistributed to the new leader and he and his will likely be dead or wish they were. He cannot be seen as weak domestically. This has been his way since the beginning. Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, all worked to bolster his domestic image by showing his prowess. The most dangerous part of this is Putin is of the school that you escalate until the other side backs down. The thug or bully mindset.
From what I can tell the Russians and their media openly talk about nuclear weapons all the time, it isn’t a taboo like it is over here. They sabre rattle with these all the time.
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They really aren’t mystical weapons, they are just big bombs that have some longer term effects. It is just another tool in the toolbox for the military. That being said the Russians would certainly know their use would provoke a response from the west.
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I have said several times that Russia losing here is much more dangerous than Russia winning. A wise NATO would calibrate their effort to bleed Russia slowly for a long time and allow them to “win” in the end, but convince them that a war against NATO would be hopeless. That is happening so far, but Ukraine may be screwing up the master plan by winning too much, ha.
I would like to point out that the group that is crossing borders with big armies is the one “forcibly imposing values”. This is not a battle of subtle semantics.
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We are to accept a referendum on eastern Ukraine to choose their path, but the argument appears to be that Russia is under no obligation to do so themselves for any part of Ukraine. One can just claim that the Canadians are historically ethnic Americans and thus should be forced to submit to a force military takeover. We all know Trudeau is really a Nazi, right?
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I’m not against referendums to choose a path. There are big problems here obviously with the timing and the vote being held by an oppressive military force with legitimate fear for those would vote against. One could also argue there has been an ongoing cleansing of the pro-Ukraine population since at least 2014. But I’m for people choosing their path in the abstract.
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One can imagine all the wealthy sections of cities or states seceding to keep all the good stuff, high tax base, and their valuable infrastructure paid for by all the taxpayers. You also want this to be a super-majority result to prevent flip-flopping. It’s more complicated than it seems at first.
Lucia,
As it seems with most of Ukrainian history, much about the famine is disputed:
The Holodomor genocide question remains a significant issue in modern politics and the debate as to whether or not Soviet policies would fall under the legal definition of genocide is disputed.[23][24] Several scholars have disputed the allegation that the famine was a genocidal campaign which was waged by the Soviet government, including J. Arch Getty,[25] Stephen G. Wheatcroft,[2] R. W. Davies,[26] and Mark Tauger.[27] Getty says that the “overwhelming weight of opinion among scholars working in the new archives … is that the terrible famine of the 1930s was the result of Stalinist bungling and rigidity rather than some genocidal plan.”[25] Wheatcroft says that the Soviet government’s policies during the famine were criminal acts of fraud and manslaughter, though not outright murder or genocide.[28][c] Joseph Stalin biographer Stephen Kotkin states that while “there is no question of Stalin’s responsibility for the famine” and many deaths could have been prevented if not for the counterproductive and insufficient Soviet measures, there is no evidence for Stalin’s intention to kill the Ukrainians deliberately.[29]
SteveF’s arguments on Ukraine seem oversimplified. Yes, there are differences in the histories of western, central, and eastern Ukraine. So what? Parts of the US have recently belonged to France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia.
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When the Ukrainian SSR was set up a century ago, the borders were determined by demographics. The eastern Donbas had many Ukrainians but was majority Russian and what made part of the Russian SSR. The western Donbas had many Russians but was majority Ukrainian and was made part of the Ukrainian SSR.
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As lucia points out, the Holodomor altered the demographics of Ukraine. In particular, migration to Ukrainian cities came largely from Russia rather than from the depopulated Ukrainian countryside.
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The history of Crimea is completely different from the rest of Ukraine.
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Note that even in Crimea a clear majority of voters voted in favor of independence in the 1991 referendum and about 85% voted “yes” in eastern Ukraine.
RE Stalin’s intent: I used to ponder endlessly about whether people were evil or just stupid when they brought about things like the Holodomor. I don’t anymore. I don’t think it much matters in the end.
Mike M,
If I have oversimplified, that was not my intent. The history of the region is enormously complicated, with control changing hands dozens of times. Yes, Texas and California were forcibly annexed from Mexico, and Alaska was acquired from Russia. But few in Alaska are politically aligned with the Russians; not so in eastern Ukraine.
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The point I am trying to make is that the Ukraine is complicated, and there are likely very strong differences of opinion within the Ukraine about what the future of the country should legitimately be. On the other hand, the USA and NATO insist that the situation is very simple: Russia has to return all of the eastern areas and the Crimea to the government in Kiev. IMHO, it is not so simple as that, and that there are in fact large differences in political alignment in different parts of the Ukraine. Refusing to acknowledge those differences makes ending the war difficult or impossible. Which may be the real goal of USA and NATO policy.
SteveF,
Sure. Whether it was a genocide is disputed. That falls under “define genocide”? Whether Stalin “intended” it? That falls under “Can we read Stalin’s mind?”
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Whether it happened isn’t. Whether lots of people died isn’t. And that area that were depopulated were repopulated isn’t.
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I merely brought up the re-population issue because you said the people in the Russian areas support Russia more despite that area having had lots of death and starvation during the Holdomor. But a fraction of those in that area are the people, children and grandchildren who moved in after the area was depopulated. They aren’t people who lived there during the Holdomor.
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That doesn’t touch on whether the event was a genocide. It just gives context for their views.
SteveF (Comment #215219): “there are likely very strong differences of opinion within the Ukraine about what the future of the country should legitimately be.”
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Far less than the case 10 years ago. Ukraine used to be divided between pro-Russia and pro-Europe. A year ago, those differences were dramatically reduced, largely as a result of Russia’s actions in 2014 and partly as a result of people who grew up in the USSR being replaced by people who grew up in an independent Ukraine. The places not under Ukraine’s control at the start of the war might be very different; there is no way to know.
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SteveF: “On the other hand, the USA and NATO insist that the situation is very simple: Russia has to return all of the eastern areas and the Crimea to the government in Kiev.”
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That is likely just posturing. Both Washington and Kiev surely realize that Crimea is not going to return to Ukraine and that at least some sort of accommodation will have to be made in the Donbas. But such concessions will be made at the bargaining table in return for concessions by Russia. They should not be made unilaterally.
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SteveF: “Refusing to acknowledge those differences makes ending the war difficult or impossible. Which may be the real goal of USA and NATO policy.”
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I fear that might be true. If so, then Biden and Putin deserve to be room mates in hell.
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Upthread I called attention to reports that a peace deal was reached in early April, then deep sixed by NATO. I don’t know if it is true or not.
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Addition re peace deal: That was Comment #214977 in the thread prior to this one.
Mike M,
“That is likely just posturing. Both Washington and Kiev surely realize that Crimea is not going to return to Ukraine and that at least some sort of accommodation will have to be made in the Donbas.”
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I hope you are right, but fear you may be mistaken. ‘Posturing’ suggests the USA and NATO actually want the conflict to end via negotiations. Everything that the USA and Western Europe have done so far suggests to me they are not at all interested in a negotiated settlement. Russia has been little better. The Germans and French make a few half-hearted phone calls to Putin, but I suspect they are under a lot of pressure from the USA to not offer real negotiation.
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Biden was always pretty dumb, but is now too demented to be held responsible for much of anything; his appointees, on the other hand, are aware enough to be responsible for keeping the war going. Perhaps they could share a room in Hell with Putin.
Tom Scharf,
“We all know Trudeau is really a Nazi, right?”
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Nah, just a very arrogant, self-righteous socialist, with strong authoritarian impulses. A bit like Fidel Castro (ha ha).
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WRT plebiscites: Of course, an independently (eg UN) supervised plebiscite would have to be part of a formally negotiated settlement. I don’t know if the Russians have said anything about that possibility.
SteveF (Comment #215222): “I hope you are right, but fear you may be mistaken. ‘Posturing’ suggests the USA and NATO actually want the conflict to end via negotiations.”
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Indeed. I should have said that I hope it is just posturing. I don’t know how to judge the prospects for negotiation based on public pronouncements. But I have seen enough of our foreign policy establishment to take seriously the claim that we nixed a peace deal back in April. And that they might want to see the conflict drag out to bleed Russia.
I don’t see negotiations possible after Russia claims to have annexed these areas to be part of Russia. Rather than negotiating positioning of troops, now Russia has to give up its own territory.
It makes no difference what it was called, Stalin’s policies/actions killed a lot of people. Those results are symptomatic of a Communist regime. There have been several Communist regimes were millions of people died as the result of the inherent philosophies involved. Some of historical memories of these deaths will be cast as horrors eminating from an evil person/regime for some and the result of an evil regime invoking the policies of an evil philosophy for others.
My solution for Ukraine would be seccesion for those regions that would not want to be part of Ukraine. The choices would be that of an independent nation or joining any other nation which would include Russia.
Kenneth,
It makes no difference what it was called, Stalin’s policies/actions killed a lot of people. Those results are symptomatic of a Communist regime. There have been several Communist regimes were millions of people died as the result of the inherent philosophies involved. Some of historical memories of these deaths will be cast as horrors eminating from an evil person/regime for some and the result of an evil regime invoking the policies of an evil philosophy for others.
agreed.
Ken Fritsch,
“Those results are symptomatic of a Communist regime. There have been several Communist regimes were millions of people died as the result of the inherent philosophies involved.”
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Of course. You are preaching to the choir Reverend. All regimes of the left discount the value of the individual (in property, in liberty, and even in life) to advance the immediate interests of the collective. That we humans are neither ants, termites, nor wasps is completely lost on the idiotic left. Humanity’s advances over millennia are in large measure based on the efforts of the individual… individuals who pursue their own interests, both intellectual and financial. The disconnect of the left, and especially the ‘intellectual left’ of the faculty lounge, from this clear, factual, observed reality is nothing short of frightening.
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Which is why great human suffering, and millions of innocent deaths, seem always to come after the left gains power. Stalin’s 1930’s famine and Pol Pot’s murders in Cambodia (the ‘killing fields’) are cut from the same cloth: the idea that the interests of the collective are far more important than the rights… and even the life…. of the individual. Once people holding those views gain power, there is no upper bound to the evil which can follow.
Mike N,
“I don’t see negotiations possible after Russia claims to have annexed these areas to be part of Russia. Rather than negotiating positioning of troops, now Russia has to give up its own territory.”
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Yes, the Russians have been almost as implacable as the west. Nobody is indicating a willingness to actually negotiate. All are demanding conditions which exclude to possibility of compromise during negotiations. I have been involved in many business negotiations…. the situation in the Ukraine is nothing like what leads to a final settlement. In business, this is a “smile and walk-away” situation. But a lot of people are getting killed. It deserves more than absolute demands and refusal to compromise.
He explains:
“If you guys have not noticed (sorry if I’m Cpt Obvious), this is what the AFU seems to be doing.
They envelop a town trying to force a retreat. Every time RU retreats they loose equipment and personnel.”
“By keeping the Russians moving, they keep having to take position at unprepared locations.”
He then make predictions as to the next towns to fall. He’s got a good track record.
If I were a Ukrainian soldier, this would be my position…. “Negotiate? Were winning. We don’t need no stinkin’ negotiations. Those Russian b*stards invaded our land, tortured our people, raped our women and stole our washing machines. I’ll negotiate after I’ve killed every last stinking’ Russian b*stard and my boots are standing on Russian soil.”
Russell,
I am glad that the Ukrainian military has battled so fiercely, not because I believe that the Ukrainian government is angelic, but that the Russian government is diabolic. However, vainglory (as you imagine in your comment) is an excellent reason to leave negotiation to civilians, who have a wider view of the costs of war.
MikeN (Comment #215226): “I don’t see negotiations possible after Russia claims to have annexed these areas to be part of Russia. Rather than negotiating positioning of troops, now Russia has to give up its own territory.”
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That may make negotiations harder, but not impossible. From what I have seen, the newly “annexed” territory has no specified boundaries. That allows Russia to retreat without giving up Russian territory. So I think the annexation is mostly for show. It allows Putin to claim progress domestically while sending a message to the West that we should not get our hopes up.
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So I don’t think things have really changed much. Russia will not simply cede the annexed territory; Ukraine will have to take it back. But I think that has been the case since the spring. Any peace that Ukraine will accept is going to cost Putin a lot of embarrassment. Again, not a big change from several months ago. The only thing that has really changed is that it looks like it might actually be possible for Ukraine to regain most or all of the territory lost last winter.
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I suspect that Putin will never make peace. Defeat will likely finish him. But after he is gone, the situation might be a lot different. Not because the new boss will be any nicer, but because the new boss will have someone to blame.
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Luckily, it seems that Putin may not be long for this world, even without getting helped along the way to the next.
HaroldW (Comment #215233)
You wrote “vainglory (as you imagine in your comment) is an excellent reason to leave negotiation to civilians, who have a wider view of the costs of war.”
I haven’t heard any Ukrainian civilians say they want to make nice with the russians. The russians have been brutalizing the Ukranian people for nearly a century. The hate gets passed down from generation to generation. I think, with Ukrainian civilians and soldiers alike, there is more basic multisyllabic word in play… vengeance.
I hear talk about any negotiations on the Ukraine war being solely between Russia and Ukraine, but without weapons support from the US, Ukraine’s negotiating position would be very different. The US could use its leverage if it wanted or needed to be part of the negotiation process. By the way, where is the UN involvement in any negotiations?
Democrats tend to worry about the tag on their being soft on military issues and this could explain the hesitancy of the Biden administration getting involved, given particularly the upcoming elections. Republicans have a similar problem on the mean tag on domestic issues. Unfortunately the reactions to both problems is more government and government spending.
We have much discussion here on what motivates Putin thinking and how that might predict his future actions, but I wonder how much effort our government expends on this exercise compared to attempting to determine what reactions to Putin have the most political impact.
The UN is useless. That became rather clear during the Gulf War.
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Unfortunately neither side is going to want to negotiate while they think they are making progress. Additionally it is human psychology to not give up after making large sacrifices. Did all my comrades die for nothing? This war is probably going to need to come to a stalemate and both sides will need to be exhausted. Signs are that … ummm … “winter is coming”. Supposedly this will slow down the war although I’m not exactly sure if that still holds in 2022, but many people think so. This will be an opportunity for a negotiated settlement.
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The Russians could also stop providing weapons to their troops and I’m sure that would speed along a negotiated settlement. The thinking that the only thing stopping an end to the war is US weapons supply is naval gazing, the Russians aren’t interested in negotiation, they aren’t even pretending to be interested which would cost them nothing. Ukraine appears to just want to kill the invaders until they don’t find any more.
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This has turned into some existential battle where both sides aren’t even sure what they really want as the soldiers just get ground up every day and the treasuries get emptied. SSDD in European history. Putin’s never going to be satisfied his paranoia about the west has been resolved. He has proven he is willing to fight for Russia against a threat that never really existed.
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As far as the US is concerned they may think that they will end up fighting a near crazy Putin one way or the other and it might as well be in Ukraine. It is interesting that there is almost zero insight to the strategy here, the media isn’t even curious about it. If the war had ended quickly I think Putin would just be lining up tanks on the next border. I have never understood why people assume he would have just stopped. The next country over is really Russia too, no doubt.
The thinking that the only thing stopping an end to the war is US weapons supply is naval gazing, the Russians aren’t interested in negotiation, they aren’t even pretending to be interested which would cost them nothing. Ukraine appears to just want to kill the invaders until they don’t find any more.
I have to ask the question: Where would this war be without US and NATO supplied weapons for Ukraine?
If Russian succeeds in Ukraine, you indicate that Putin will look for more conquests. If Russia does not succeed will that make Putin and his Russian comrades less likely to look for other nations to conquer. Or is there anything reasonable that will quell their thirst for more nations to attempt to conquer.
Tom, you also make it sound as if there are elements of human nature operating here that make the war like two boys or girls fighting it out with great injury to each other with the adults in the room telling each other to let them fight to a conclusion – as if that is what human nature demands.
Sounds like there needs to be an adult or two involved here who does not just stand around watching and waiting for a conclusion or worse supplying the combatants with brass knuckles to insure they really do damage to one another.
There would be as lot more dead Ukrainians without NATO help. They held up decently for at least a month without much help and they may very well have chosen a long term bloody insurgency if Russia successfully occupied Ukraine.
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There is an argument that forcing a quick loss early by withholding help might reduce total casualties. It’s not at all clear that is true in the near or the long term. The current path may be the optimal path, we will never know.
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I don’t think Putin will move past a hard fight in Ukraine because it will be a much harder fight the next time if he does.
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The reality is that all the parties are self interested and led by people who are primarily motivated in protecting their tribe’s interests. When those interests align in stopping this thing then it will stop.
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The US, NATO and the EU all have plenty of adults and they don’t seem very interested in forcing Ukraine to submit to Russia. Why? Because they view Russia as a threat and that backing down to an overt chosen war of conquest by Russia is a bad long term strategy.
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My guess is somebody is likely talking to Russia behind doors. It doesn’t seem to going anywhere though. Any agreement will likely be done in private first, until then it will just be a bunch of public chest thumping.
I think Tom Scharf (Comment #215239) makes good points. Without our weapons, Ukrainians would still have fought to the death but they’d have done a lot more dying.
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If Ukraine had fallen easily with NATO doing nothing, the Suwalki Gap would have been next. Hey, it is perfectly reasonable for Russia to want a land corridor to Kaliningrad. It is just a few hundred square miles and a few thousand people. Risk nuclear war over that? You must be kidding.
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Then Putin would have been in a great position to intimidate the Baltic states.
MikeM
Then Putin would have been in a great position to intimidate the Baltic states.
And I think that’s what he would have done.
Of course someone will say this is disinformation from Ukrainian friendly news media, but I don’t think so… the information source is the russian defense ministry:
“LONDON, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Russian defence ministry maps presented on Tuesday appeared to show rapid withdrawals of Russian invasion forces from areas in eastern and southern Ukraine where they have been under severe pressure from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.”
The russian maps show dramatic pullback of the lines in the East:
“retreated some 20 km to the east, as far as the border of Luhansk province.”
…and in the South:
“ Russia’s line of control on the right bank of the Dnipro river had shifted 25 km southward” https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-defence-ministry-maps-suggest-rapid-pullbacks-ukraine-2022-10-04/
Two oddities today: The underground mappers and OSINT Twitter feeds that I follow are no longer days ahead of the official Ukraine and russian government maps. And the russian ministry of defense is admitting rapid, unplanned retreats.
Russell
And the russian ministry of defense is admitting rapid, unplanned retreats.
Admitting them? Wow!
According to ISW, rifts are becoming apparent between the regular military and the irregulat forces and within the Putin regime:
Kadyrov and Prigozhin represent an emerging voice within the regime’s fighting forces that is attacking the more traditional and conventional approach to the war pursued by Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu and the uniformed military command.
The shocks of the Kharkiv and Lyman defeats, energized by the partial mobilization and its poor management, have exposed these deepening fissures within Putin’s core constituencies to the view of all Russians. They could even begin to seed the notion that Putin is not fully in control of his own base.
Lucia,
“Admitting them? Wow!”
Up till now the russian ministry of defense maps were often inaccurate and obscured Ukrainian advances; when they did, at last, show russian withdrawals they were accompanied with long, Ed Forbes-like fairy tales. I don’t know if the change signifies something or not.
Russia may be admitting some battlefield setbacks in order to garner public support for their mobilization. They certainly aren’t doing it to enlighten others. Not that both sides aren’t in 24/7 propaganda mode. They are doing it deliberately for a reason.
The fog of war is opaque, and what is officially stated is almost always intended to deceive, not inform. Try to find out how many Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have actually died or been wounded…… it is impossible to know; virtually everything stated on both human and material losses is pure propaganda.
Whaaaat? NOT trust the media and foreign governments to tell us the truth? Next you’ll be telling us we can’t trust our OWN government to tell us the truth.
😉
Interesting that the media I read and hear does not appear to make an effort to point to news about the Ukraine war that very well could be propaganda as propaganda. They also appear to hold to the same party line view of the war. Kind of like an Ed Forbes version from the Ukrainian prospective. Their united front reminds of the reporting on Covid-19. In both cases it is also aligned with the Biden administration.
The US media is definitely weighted heavily toward Ukraine propaganda and they speak with a unified voice. Very few of them have people on the ground over there, and only momentarily usually. I don’t think they have any special insight.
Tom Scharf,
“I don’t think they have any special insight.”
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Too kind. I don’t think they have any insight at all. Quite the opposite: listen and you come away less factually informed, not more.
mark bofill,
“Next you’ll be telling us we can’t trust our OWN government to tell us the truth.”
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Funny you should say that. When I was a kid, I had a paper route, and routinely had US$20 or $30 in sterling silver coins pass through my hands each week (my profit was only 5% to 10% of that). I heard the politicians say they would NEVER, EVER pull silver coins off the market, so I didn’t think to convert my small paper-money assets (at the time about US$250) into silver coins. Of course, they blatantly lied, and did so specifically to take advantage of the public. The announcement was made that silver coins would no longer be produced (I think on a Friday late afternoon); nearly all silver in circulation had been returned to the Treasury within a couple of days, and steel/copper plugs placed in circulation in their stead. Of course the rapid switch was carefully planned, and huge inventories of copper/steel plugs had been minted and distributed to banks in advance of the announcement. Several years later, inflation was raging… no surprise there.
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I haven’t trusted ANYTHING the Federal government has said since then. And I have been right not to trust them almost every time. 😉
Tom Scharf (Comment #215249)
“Russia may be admitting some battlefield setbacks in order to garner public support for their mobilization.”
If I were one of the tens of millions of the russian population without indoor plumbing [25%!] or paved roads [35%] I would not suddenly want to enlist in the army based on finding out our guys were in headlong retreat. I think something else may be the reason the ministry of defense has for the first time produced accurate battle maps:
1. They did it by mistake
2. The military is splitting from the Kremlin
3. [fill in the blank]
I vote for number 1.
So… OPEC cutting oil production… Those who don’t learn from history, or probably in this case, just live in cloud cuckoo land…
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Maybe it’s not just Ukraine fighting a proxy war.
DaveJR (Comment #215257): yeah no doubt OPEC are taking advantage of the situation, how can you blame them, people buy from them when the price is low without saying sorry.
The demand for petroleum is off from it’s peak, and spot prices have fallen to the $85 per barrel range. The inelasticity of the market means that 1% reduction in production will drive price up by several percent. OPEC and other major producers seem to want prices at or above US$100 per barrel; cutting total production by 2% will likely do that. Of course, US production could ramp up to compensate, but I rather suspect the Biden administration would try to keep that from happening.
The G7 thinks it can impose a price cap on Russian oil. It will probably be easy enough for buyers to make under the table payments to Russia while pretending to comply with the cap.
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But I don’t see why Russia would comply with the cap. They could just refuse to sell at that price. Then either the cap will be ignored or Russian oil will go off the market.
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If we are worried about the effect of a 2 million barrel/day cut from OPEC, what would result from a 10 million barrel/day cut in supply from Russia? This could blow up big time. But not until after the election.
US army recruitment faces worst year on record. Need to run more diversity ads ladettes! Clearly the message isn’t getting through!
Footnote to my Comment #215260. Price controls produce either a black market or shortages. Or both. I see no reason to expect that the G7 price cap on Russian oil will be different.
Yes, I think the attempts to control fossil fuel prices and eliminate Russia from the market are hopeless, basically performative politics. The EU on the other hand put itself into a situation where it could have its fossil fuels controlled primarily from a single source. They are now paying the price for that blunder.
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I wouldn’t go as far to say the Russians intended this all along, but it’s possible. The Russians are far from stupid, although they do make mistakes like everyone else.
I find the contrast of these two recent stories revealing.
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At N.Y.U., Students Were Failing Organic Chemistry. Who Was to Blame?
Maitland Jones Jr., a respected professor, defended his standards. But students started a petition, and the university dismissed him. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html
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Meanwhile …
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Illinois’s Shocking Report Card
The Land of Lincoln is failing its children and covering it up. https://www.wsj.com/articles/illinois-shocking-report-card-reading-math-grade-level-decatur-teachers-school-board-11664722519?st=m7kfx49kwzfpuru&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“Statewide, in 2019, 36% of all third grade students could read at grade level. That’s an F, and that’s the good news. That number drops to 27% for Hispanic students and 22% for black students statewide. In certain public school systems, the numbers plummet to single digits. In Decatur, 2% of black third-graders are reading at grade level and only 1% are doing math at grade level.”
“In Decatur, 97.3% of teachers were rated “excellent” or “proficient” in 2017, according to the Illinois State Board of Education. In 2018 that number was 99.7%. This year 100% of Chicago teachers were evaluated as excellent or proficient.”
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What a farce.
From the WSJ:
Ukraine’s New Offensive Is Fueled by Captured Russian Weapons
There are 421 captured tanks alone!
“Russia now exceeds the U.S. in supplying Ukraine army”
“Captured and abandoned Russian tanks, howitzers and fighting vehicles—quickly scrubbed of their Z tactical markers and repainted with Ukrainian crosses-now used on their enemy.”
Not all the gear is cutting edge. “What they are capturing is a mix of modern equipment that they can use quite effectively, and some that really belongs in museums,”
Free link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-new-offensive-is-fueled-by-captured-russian-weapons-11664965264?st=1bvgr4lfbqhdj3d&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Mike M.
“Footnote to my Comment #215260. Price controls produce either a black market or shortages. Or both. I see no reason to expect that the G7 price cap on Russian oil will be different.”
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Of course.
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This is just as stupid as most every other effort to punish Russia via refusal to buy their petroleum. Really, it’s just dumb. Someone should tell the geniuses in the Biden administration that Petroleum is fungible. China and India can by themselves purchase 100% of Russian exports. The effect of any imposed price cap will be zero… except for the economic damage it does to countries that are actually foolish enough to comply. Count on skyrocketing oil prices and added economic damage.
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I have a more sensible suggestion: Take advantage of the winter lull in fighting in the Ukraine to offer a cease-fire and start negotiations with the Russians.
Tom Scharf,
“What a farce.”
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Ya well…. wherever teacher’s unions control the quality of education, the only truly educated kids will be those who escape the public schools and are educated elsewhere. Even in very non-PC Florida, teachers’ unions exert tremendous influence, greatly diminishing the quality of education in most all Democrat controlled districts. In many places, it is essentially impossible to fire an incompetent teacher, or even for a teacher to demand students actually learn the subject matter to get a passing grade. Like turtles “all the way down”, it is grade inflation all the way back to kindergarten.
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The obvious solution (fund kids to attend non-public schools, and proportionally cut public school budgets) causes such a furor that even in Republican dominated states it is almost impossible to implement. I would like to think parents will at some point demand reform of public education, but it seems that almost never actually happens.
It’s worse than we thought.
Russia has lost over 1292 tanks in the war. This accounting comes from the website ORYX. ORYX is the gold standard among OSINT sites. Their methodology: “This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here”
Tank loss summary:
“Tanks 1292, of which destroyed: 739, damaged: 50, abandoned: 54, captured: 449 https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
And it gets worse. From Forbes: “You can find old Soviet T-62 tanks in museums all around the world, but the Ukrainians are increasingly capturing them on the battlefield. This is an indicator of just how deeply Russia is having to dig into reserves of old vehicles, and the situation is far worse than you might imagine.”
The much ballyhooed russian tank inventory may be fictitious:
“In theory Russia has thousands of tanks waiting in giant warehouses and vehicle parks which can be reactivated. According to the Military Balance 2021, Russia has over 10,000 battle tanks in storage, mainly T-72s and T-80s. However, years of neglect and poor storage conditions (not to mention corruption and theft) means that many of the vehicles have been cannibalized to keep the others running. Some have suggested that only 1 in 10 are still running, but it is hard to know how seriously to take this number: very likely nobody, including the Russians, really knows.”
And the have many variations in the field simultaneously:
“Many nations, like the United States and United Kingdom, only operate one tank variety, which greatly simplifies logistics, maintenance and training. Russia has a patchwork fleet of tanks, a living history of armor development, from the rare and precious T-90M which only started service in 2020, through the T-90A from the 1990s, the T-80 which was mainly built in the 80s, and several different versions of the T-72 – modernized and upgraded, but still based on the original from 1973. There are even a few of the even older T-64.”
While not suitable for use head to head vs modern main battle tanks, they perform very well in their current use by Russia as an assault gun.
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The T62 were given to the various allied militia to use for direct fire against the heavily fortified positions seen in the Donbas. They work very well for this use. The older T55 would also still be useable for this role.
A big gun with heavy armor that can suppress machine gun and infantry positions to support attacking infantry in densely built up areas. As support, they are held back from the very front and only move forward behind the infantry.
A side note on NATO vs Russian armor design philosophy and ability for Ukraine to replace and or repair losses.
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NATO tanks were designed as a defensive force to counter a possible Soviet attack on Germany. As such, NATO went for heavy armor to survive in a defensive position where they expected to be heavily outnumbered. Russia went for more of a medium weight armor as they expected to be moving over long distances where fuel consumption and weight limits of bridges were a major issue.
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As a somewhat rhetorical question, why is NATO not supplying its main battle tanks to Ukraine? Answer: they are not suitable for the local conditions. They are too heavy to cross many of the local bridges, fuel consumption sucks, and Ukraine is not in a position logistically to keep them running.
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Existing western stocks of Soviet tanks have all been transferred to Ukraine. The cupboard is empty.
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With the above considerations, Ukraine is not in any position to replace combat losses to its tank force, where Russia has no problems in either replacing or repairing tank losses.
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Ukraine is reaching deep into its strategic reserves of tanks in its current offensive and is expending irreplaceable numbers of tanks on a daily basis. This is not sustainable.
What they [Ukrainians] are capturing is a mix of modern equipment that they can use quite effectively, and some that really belongs in museums,” said Jakub Janovsky, who compiles the count of weapons losses at Oryx.
Sounds like Russia reaching deep into its strategic reserve (stored in museums.)
Russia has a lot of tanks. My most accurate number is one exact sh**load of tanks. A lot of these are from the Soviet era where they had one exact double crapload of tanks. A less accurate summary is they had 50,000 tanks in 1980.
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A lot of these are now sitting in fields rusting. Thousands and thousands of these in several different places in Russia. https://i.redd.it/cir7emcdwlr81.jpg
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It makes some sense to use as much of your old inventory as possible, Use’em or lose’em (from aging out). I wouldn’t read a lot into the Russians using old inventory. They will not run out of tanks anytime soon. If they truly believed a war with NATO was in the future they would hold back their new stuff.
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If you are a Russian tank crew you don’t want to be riding around in a stock T-72 or earlier against modern anti-tank weapons, but I don’t think the Russian command cares a lot about this. Russian doctrine has always placed less importance on crew survival. This isn’t a moral judgment, just a different way of thinking. Economics of warfare.
“Many nations, like the United States and United Kingdom, only operate one tank variety”
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This isn’t really true. We use the M1-Abrams (entered service in 1980) but there is a long series of upgrades over the decades and this tank is getting pretty long in the tooth. Just like aircraft these things are better thought of as weapons platforms that get continuous upgrades over their lifetimes. Just throwing away perfectly operating weapons of war because they aren’t state of the art isn’t wise. The romanticized A10 Warthog is an example. You go to war with what you got.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215275)
“If you are a Russian tank crew you don’t want to be riding around in a stock T-72 or earlier against modern anti-tank weapons.”
That may explain why the Ukranians are finding so many abandoned russian tanks… The russian tank crews are fleeing in terror.
This isn’t a moral judgment, just a different way of thinking.
Ah, yes, war is all about suspension of moral judgement. Suspension is a matter of degree and the circumstances that allow the political/military leaders to rationalize the suspension.
Militarily it appears to me that Russia would want a quick end to the war either by winning it or negotiating a favorable settlement. With a crapload of tanks not being used must mean that the Russian leadership does not see employing more of those tanks as an advantage (where and when would it be an advantage) or they prefer an extended war.
I am far from competent in rationalizing military decisions in wars, but it seems to me that their are those who can rationalize just about any decision as being reasonable.
Wars to me often seem to be more like a wrestling or boxing match where the fighter takes an overall strategy into the ring and then has to react to momentarily changing conditions of the fight that makes even a well thought out strategy appear to have never existed.
I think a lot of this equipment appears to be breaking down and just being abandoned. They may be running out of fuel as well, these things use an enormous amount of fuel. Also armored vehicles aren’t supposed to be running around solo, they are supposed to be in units for mutual support. If your vehicle is exposed to the enemy and solo then it might very well be a good idea to get out and walk instead. They are supposed to wreck the vehicle to not allow the enemy to use it.
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I think the Russians thought, and continue to think, they had adequate miltary might to win this fight. Exactly nobody was predicting the Ukraine advance to be so effective. ISIS rolled over half of Iraq in a couple months. it happens. The will to fight seems to be a major force multiplier and modern warfare hasn’t changed that. Russia clearly underestimated Ukraine, as did myself and much of the world.
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The fight is on. The Reddit war video channel has huge amounts of content over the past several days. Russia can recover, they still have advantages that they look to have poorly managed.
“How Many Tanks Does Russia Have Left Now? With Exclusive Satellite Imagery!”
Great pictures of Russian armor storage. A few unsupported comments, but overall a good job.
On Russian war fighting doctrine: General Zhukov supposedly said that Soviet armies cleared minefields by marching through them. That turns out to be not quite true. But a lot of people believed it.
This might be significant:
From: OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical, 30m ago,
“Images are emerging of a large fire on the Crimean bridge”
“Location 45.311763, 36.503714”
“Looks like something went boom”
This is russia’s only rail and vehicle link to Crimea.
Video and photo evidence looks catastrophic.
It has been a stated target of Ukraine, but they had no munitions capable of reaching it. Time will tell.
Wikipedia:“It has a length of 19 km (12 mi),[d] making it the longest bridge Russia has ever built,[13][e] and the longest bridge in Europe.”
It’s possible that it is just another russian screw up.
The exact cause of the blast at Europe’s longest bridge is yet to be confirmed. Russian officials said a truck exploded, causing sections of the road part of the bridge crossing in the direction of Crimea to collapse. A subsequent fire engulfed a train of fuel tanks on a separate, adjacent rail portion of the bridge.
MOSCOW, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Russia’s Transport Ministry said on Saturday that limited road traffic for cars and buses had resumed on intact lanes of the Crimean Bridge, which was hit by an explosion early in the morning.
It said traffic would for now be restricted to crossing between Crimea and the Russian Taman peninsula in alternating directions.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed governor of the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, said on social media that heavy goods vehicles would have to wait to cross by ferry. (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
This is why Russia wanted a land bridge.
Russell, just because the clip is censored does not mean it doesn’t exist.
Alleged experts say this was more likely a demolition from below the bridge. Russia has other routes, but they are within artillery range. There will no doubt be a price to pay for this one. I expect Russia to strike back with cruise missiles and so forth at Kyiv’s infrastructure. Yet another embarrassment for Moscow, similar to the sinking of their missile cruiser.
SteveF (Comment #215292): “This is why Russia wanted a land bridge.”
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That is circular reasoning. The 2014 war meant that they could not resupply Crimea through Ukraine. So they built the bridge. The bridge became vulnerable *because* of the current war. It is perverse to use that as a reason for the war.
How does an explosion from below that span leave the adjacent span undamaged and take out a train so far away? I think the answer is that it can’t. But an explosion from above the bridge could do that.
They said a truck bomb would just blow a hole in the bridge from the roadway and likely would not take down the span. This is consistent with some other bridge attacks by missiles, mostly holes in the bridge.
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I’m just reporting the info, I have no idea. I have read previously the best way to take out a bridge is to destroy the abutment which takes a long time to repair. Obviously taking down a span will take time to fix, but they only got one of the two although the other had significant damage. There was a truck on the bridge when it exploded.
. https://www.wsj.com/articles/major-explosion-hits-the-bridge-between-crimea-and-russia-halting-traffic-11665215052?st=lndzdcgrrlfgghr&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“Some demolition experts who analyzed footage of the blast questioned the Russian version and said that the explosion must have come from under the bridge, caused either by an explosives-laden boat, manned or unmanned, or by shaped charges placed by divers.
Tony Spamer, a former British Army expert on bridge demolitions, said that a truck bomb would have created a hole in the middle of bridge, but wouldn’t have been sufficient to cut the reinforcing bar and cause the structure to collapse. “You’ve got to attack the whole width of the bridge. Looking at it, it looks like it was attacked from underneath. It’s a monster job,” he said.”
If divers placed shaped charges, why only one span? And what took out the train? If an exploding boat, how did it damage just one span? And what took out the train?
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I see that it would take a much bigger bomb to take out the bridge from above. But the truck could have been carrying several tens of tons of explosives. That would do a whole lot of damage.
Mike M,
I am not suggesting a land bridge to Crimea was the motivation for invasion, but rather once there was invasion, the existing bridge was too vulnerable to be the only supply route to the Crimea. A land bridge then made sense. No circular reasoning involved. Securing the canal that supplies water to the Crimea (in southern Kherson) probably was a motivation for invasion, since there had been water shortages in the Crimea.
On the video it does look like the explosion was centered on the semi-truck on the right side of the bridge. But if it was the truck, then it was a suicide bomber. Of course, it could be just coincidence a truck was passing when the blast happened. The footage after the explosion seems to show white hot liquid metal falling on the roadway. Donno if that is consistent with a truck bomb, but a semi could be carrying a lot of explosives…. 20-30 tons.
“The first test train passed over the Crimean bridge — the Ministry of Transport”
Ed,
Could be any train, anywhere. The fog of war is opaque, and any information provided is likely designed to deceive, not inform.
Steve, true…but
I know reports were all saying damage to the rails were noted as minor and mostly cosmetic
I also know that Russia fields several regiments of specialist troops who are trained and regularly practice railroad repairs, bridge repair, and other such.
So I take this as very likely. May be wrong, but is likely true.
As cars were going over the bridge within very few hours after the attack, rail movement will be confirmed somewhere even as we speak.
The full extent of the damage was not immediately clear. The bridge has spans for train and automobile traffic.
By Saturday evening, the railroad section of the bridge had undergone repairs and a train with 15 cars had successfully crossed the span, according to a Russian state news agency, Tass. Car traffic had also resumed on the undamaged side of the bridge, the head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said in a post on Telegram.
A satellinte image at the NYT article shows that the fully collapsed part is on the car span– not the train span. There was a train on fire on the train span. Even on the car side, there are ordinarly two lanes in one direcction and two in the other. Two lanes in one of the directions has a portion collapsed and in the water.The two lanes in the other direction just look charred.
So with the train traffic, what we are seeing is the part that never collapsed still has not collapsed. And trains can currently go over it. Why the Russian information campaign did not pick a clearer more distinctive video is something of a mystery– as SteveF said, that video could be any train anywhere. But it does seem that trains can go across the train part (which never collapsed in the first place.) It may be all they had to do was clean up some debris and haul off the burning train. But that’s been done. Not too surprising they could get that done fairly quickly.
. Whether it’s actually safe we can’t be sure– but trains can make it over.
On the care side of the bridge, they are down to two lanes from 4. Whether it’s actually safe to drive on it, we don’t know. But cars are evidently driving across one way. (I guess they’ll stop then let traffic go in the other direction.)
The Russians might want to start inspecting trucks before they cross.
I will note the difference between Russia and the US on repair.
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The US would close the bridge for several days for law enforcement
Then.
The US will spend weeks studying the problem before putting out requests for proposals to start the process for design to start repair.
As a former Resident Engineer for county construction projects for both the state and the feds, I saw this as the standard mode of operation. It took years to get even minor projects from concept to construction.
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Russia cuts the damage away, gets traffic moving ASAP, and immediately starts repair under direction of engineers on the spot.
Tom Scharf,
News reports were that inspection of trucks was supposed to be routine. Probably not as careful as was needed; I am guessing they will be a lot more careful from now on.
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. Samuel Clemens
… The euphoria over the destruction of the bridge was premature. Russell Klier
I propose supplying Ukraine with just enough ATACMS units to make the bridge inoperable.
“In bid for new long-range rockets, Ukraine offers US targeting oversight” https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/03/politics/ukraine-weapons-us-atacms-targeting-veto
It’s probably not related but a few days ago I posted:
“October 5th, 2022 at 8:19 am
I don’t know if this means anything, but the US has one of our most sophisticated manned spy planes [Boeing RC135 Rivet Joint] monitoring the Black Sea and the russian navy base at Sevastopol. It may have been just coincidence but it seems in the past this activity preceded a Ukrainian attack.”
I have a screenshot of JAKE11 flight log here: https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1577663730866954243?s=20&t=HrH1E6x9nCCtjlYjgvtFxQ
Ed Forbes (Comment #215307)
“I will note the difference between Russia and the US on repair.”
The russians also have a novel way of clearing minefields:
“He [Russian Marshal Zhukov] certainly stunned Eisenhower by revealing that his way of clearing minefields was to let infantry run through them.”
From the Hoover Institution, https://www.hoover.org/research/zhukov-soviet-general
Russell, I remember a friend’s father talking about his experience as a junior officer in WWII. Winter with snow on the ground on the Rine River, Germany. He was ordered to check the river bank for mines. No engineers, no mine detection equipment.
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He said any Germans watching him from across the river, stomping through the snow at the river bank, must have thought he had lost it and gone crazy.
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Lots of “good stories “ come out of wars
I am surprised this story is not getting more traction than it is. If Russia has hacked Skylink, that is a problem for more than Ukraine.
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“..the Financial Times reported on Friday that a senior government official in Ukraine said Starlink outages have created a “catastrophic”
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“..loss of communication on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. One anonymous official told the newspaper that such outages occurred as forces were making advances into Russian-occupied areas. Soldiers also told the newspaper that the communications systems stopped working mid-battle, and that some Starlink technology hasn’t worked in areas recently taken back from the Russians…”
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Russia “basically took out all of Ukraine’s military communications” at the beginning of the war, and it’s only when Starlink technology was introduced that “those comms went back to fairly reliable form.”
Ed–
I’m not sure how much traction you think that story deserved. The story is definitely recovered. Obviously, it doesn’t make for nifty youtube videos in the same way a flaming bridge does.
Lots of OSINT sites quoting this… “Shoigu and Gerasimov were likely removed from their positions as the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Head of the General Staff”. I can’t verify it. I guess “being removed” is better than falling out a window. https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1579065505586958336?s=20&t=9b-HifJOHV-W7KX7x2oypQ
Commercial communications are designed to barely work with economics being the first priority. They aren’t designed to be super robust when somebody is intentionally trying to jam them. It’s entirely possible the Russians are jamming the signals, basically just supplying a more powerful local signal at the same frequencies the satellite use. It’s not particularly difficult for systems not protected. See electronic warfare, et. al.
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The military spends enormous amounts of money and time on communications. Artillery shells are one thing, but not knowing what’s going on around you is a serious detriment. The first Gulf War was a major leap in battlefield management. Knowing exactly where everyone is (including the enemy) is a rather large advantage. Russia should have a significant advantage over Ukraine here, but NATO supplied intel is evening out the odds here a bit.
Humorous.
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NYT: Feb 16, 2011
Florida’s Governor Rejects High-Speed Rail Line, Fearing Cost to Taxpayers https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/17rail.html
“Gov. Rick Scott of Florida on Wednesday rejected plans for a high-speed link between Tampa and Orlando, in the process turning down more than $2 billion in federal money.”
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NYT: Today
How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html
“America’s first experiment with high-speed rail has become a multibillion-dollar nightmare, so expensive that almost no one knows if it can ever be finished.”
“When the California High-Speed Rail Authority issued its new 2022 draft business plan in February, it estimated an ultimate cost as high as $105 billion. Less than three months later, the “final plan” raised the estimate to $113 billion.”
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The US does have a serious problem building things. It can be fixed but it is going to take a while, and almost certainly Republicans to do that job. Note that there is a clause in this funding that if the state fails to complete the rail line, it must pay back the federal investment.
Tom Scharf,
It is not too funny; it is a waste of many billions of dollars for no good reason. You are right that that only Republicans can change the construction conundrum we face, but I don’t see complete Federal control by Republicans as very likely. Could happen in 2025, but only if Trump does not run, and that seems to me very unlikely.
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Same with nuclear power, which is the obvious technical solution to reduce warming by CO2 (and even James Hansen agrees)…. but only complete control by Republicans can make it happen. So not likely.
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On the east coats of Florida we have a ‘mini-California’ rail issue. What were freight rails along the East Coast are being converted to “high speed rail” between Miami and Orlando. Issues: 1) these rail lines were set up for slow freight service through many small communities; 2) high speed passenger service will be loud, dangerous, and will force trains to run through at relatively slow rates (eg 60 mph). 3) The trains will not stop in the many communities they disrupt. 4) No person in their right mind would choose to arrive in the Orlando area with no car…. simpler and cheaper to rent a car in Miami.
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It is a boondoggle that will damage multiple communities and provide fast (3 hour) train service nobody wants. That last part is the most important: Does anyone arriving in Miami *really* want to wait for a train to Orlando that leaves every 2 hours for a three hour trip? No, they will just rent a car, get there an hour sooner and be able to go wherever they want with no hassles. The high speed train is so stupid that it boggles the mind. It is like some people imagine Florida is Germany….. it’s not.
Yes, just like Tampa, there is already a rail line to Orlando that absolutely nobody uses. I only found out that Tampa had one when they started talking about a bullet train. The standard BS is to way overestimate ridership to get funding. Then government subsidizing the rest of the way. It works better in Europe and Asia because they also have all the rest of public transportation sorted out. You take a train to Orlando, then what?
Whenever I see Gerasimov, I am reminded of ‘You’re a fool Gerasimov’ a senior Soviet official in a Tom Clancy book, who was persuaded to do something(possible releasing The Cardinal of the Kremlin) by letting him know the US stole the Red October.
Looks like Russia is responding to the Ukraine terror attack on the bridge. Admin buildings in Kiev are being hit today.
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Claims are being made that Russia has started targeting grid infrastructure…. but I have seen zero evidence of this. So far Russia’s retaliation for the bridge attack looks to be against government buildings in cities far from the front. Dedicated targeting of the grid would likely bring it down pretty quickly and put most of the Ukraine in darkness.
Ed,
Terror attack? It was an attack. I get that you favor the Russian side. But it’s a bit much to call an attack on an important asset used by the military to aid their side of the war a “terror” attack.
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Putin deeming it “terror” does not make it “terror”. Bridges come under attack during wars.
“terror attack”
That’s pretty funny Ed. At least make an attempt to not sound exactly like a Russian bot.
You have probably missed the news on the at least 100 residential buildings that have been hit by Russian missiles over the course of the war. If Ukraine wanted to do actual terror attacks inside of Russia it wouldn’t be very hard, and Russia has pretty much earned that response given the high casualties of Ukrainian civilians. I expect the tight leash connected to western weapons supply has something to do with that, as well as the expected response from Russia of actual terror attacks.
That kind of thing can certainly happen, but it hasn’t yet. This war will get really ugly (uglier) if it does. If the war turns into an insurgency and a Russian occupation of Ukraine then I expect it will cross the border as there is not much to lose at that point. A lot of moving parts to war strategy.
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Russia seems pretty peeved about this, indicating the symbolic nature has precedence over actual military significance. Putin’s vanity is ruling the decision making.
The proper US response to russia blowing up civilian targets is to supply Ukraine with enough ATACMS to completely disable the bridge.
Russell Klier
to supply Ukraine with enough ATACMS to completely disable the bridge.
Whose destruction remains a military objective as long as it can be used and is being used to transport military materials and personnel.
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Also: while some people were killed during the bombing of the bridge (I read 3), this was hardly a “terror” activity designed to strike fear into the general population going about their daily business.
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Whether you like Ukraine or Russia, this clearly does not fit the definition of “terror attack”! (Or if it does, then there is no distinction between “no adjective attack”, “military attack” and “terror attack”.
During the Gulf War Saddam started firing Scud missiles into Israel. During the Iran/Iraq war they were firing ballistic missiles into each other cities with regularity. There aren’t rules in war, just considerations of the response from the opposing side to escalations. So far the Ukraine war seems pretty well behaved all things considered in my view.
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Russia could be much more brutal, so why not? One is that they fear weapons supply escalations from the west, another is that they want to absorb Ukraine and they are damaging their own future goods, but the main one may be that an unjustified escalation (nukes) would likely sever their tenuous China / India relationships. If they lost those fossil fuel markets then they have very serious long term problems.
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Russia is not going to accept losing the war outright to Ukraine, so they will escalate to prevent that. Ironically this may be a worst case outcome for everyone.
Russell Klier (Comment #215326): “…to supply Ukraine with enough ATACMS to completely disable the bridge.”
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Can those missiles reach that far? I think the answer is “no”.
Range of ‘up to 190 miles’ so probably 150.
Yes , It is at the extreme limits of the published range of the ATACMS. I’m betting it’s within range. But, if not the bridge it would be valuable in other ways:
“ATACMS would give the Ukrainians the capability to make Crimea untenable for the Russian Black Sea Fleet and for the Russian Air Force and logistics in Crimea. That would be a significant step in the eventual liberation of Crimea,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who served as commander of U.S. Army Europe from 2014-2017. “ATACMS would accelerate the collapse of Russian forces.”
“Ukraine’s Appeal for Longer-Range Missiles Presents Fresh Test of Biden Administration Support
Kyiv is eyeing Russian military sites in Crimea, while Washington worries the American weaponry could risk escalation with Moscow” https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-appeal-for-longer-range-missiles-presents-fresh-test-of-biden-administration-support-11665083684
MikeN (Comment #215330): “Range of ‘up to 190 miles’ so probably 150.”
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I don’t think that could hit the bridge from securely controlled Ukrainian territory.
The nearest Ukrainian controlled land is just over 300 Km, 189 miles from the near side of the bridge. The ATACMS with GPS guidance may be able to reach the bridge, but it is a stretch. The missile carries a 500 lb warhead designed for “penetration” prior to explosion (it was originally used on anti-ship missiles). The ATACMS was phased out of production due to cost in 2013, but there is an ongoing program to upgrade the guidance and warhead on some older models. Donno if this is a suitable weapon to use against a bridge, but it is clearly at the limit of it’s range. Any ATACMS unit that close to the Dnipro would be in easy range of Russian artillery, so Mike M is probably right: ATACMS is not likely going to be used to attack the Russia-Crimea bridge.
I believe the logic for Putin to sabotage the Nordstream pipelines would be that it accomplishes his goal of hamstringing the EU while being able to proclaim his innocence.
Russian bot ? 🙂
RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA
Bridges are most definitely legal military targets, but the mode of attack matters.
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For example: the US was at war with Afghanistan and was occupying same. If a suicide truck bomb carried out by Afghans took out a major target on US soil it would most definitely be listed as a terror attack.
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So yes, the Russians list the bridge attack as an act of terror.
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Politically, this opens up Russian ability to massively upgrade their operations in Ukraine under an anti terror campaign instead of the current SMO which severely hinders their military options. It will be a much better sell both domestically and to Russian allies.
In lighter news, 38 year old professional golfer Dustin Johnson, who left the PGA tour to play on the Saudi-funded LIV Golf tour in June 2022, has pocketed ~$125 million for signing with LIV (3 year commitment, I think), another $30 million in prize money since June, and with more millions likely to be added in the last two events of 2022. $155 million, and counting, in 4+ months. In 15 years playing the PGA tour Johnson earned $75 million. Hard to say what will happen with LIV golf and the PGA Tour in their legal fights, but Johnson is set for life….. and then some.
DeWitt,
So maybe Putin had the bridge blown us as well? Nah. It was probably the Biden administration that had the pipelines sabotaged; both Biden and Victoria Nuland made very clear threats during news conferences to “end” the pipeline if Russia invaded the Ukraine. Means, motivation, and stupidity; that combination can lead to almost any crazy policy.
Ed
(1) There’s no evidence this was a suicide truck.
(2) Even if there was, mode of attack is not what makes something a “terror attack”.
What makes something a terror attack is motive— to advance ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.
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The Ukraine is involved in a military war of self defense which began because Russia attacked them. Their goal is to keep their country free of foreign domination. This is a military attack.
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So yes, the Russians list the bridge attack as an act of terror.
Russians making a claim does not make the claim correct.
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this opens up Russian ability to massively upgrade their operations in Ukraine under an anti terror campaign instead of the current SMO which severely hinders their military options.
Russia was always giving itself permission to do what they think they want to do. This doesn’t “open” anything.
It will be a much better sell both domestically and to Russian allies.
Maybe. Or not.
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What Russian can continue to sell domestically or to its allies will be seen as the future arrives. That Russia is willing to use lies to sell things is certainly the case. That they will try.
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That doesn’t mean anyone has to accept their lies. The bridge bombing was not a “terror” attack.
DeWitt
I believe the logic for Putin to sabotage the Nordstream pipelines would be that it accomplishes his goal of hamstringing the EU while being able to proclaim his innocence.
That’s a possible motive for Putin. Even if SteveF doesn’t buy it!
SteveF
So maybe Putin had the bridge blown us as well?
No. I don’t think Putin blew the bridge. The bridge being blown actually inconveniences him. The Nordstream pipeline being blow mostly inconveniences the EU.
Lucia,
“Even if SteveF doesn’t buy it!”
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I’m going with believing the clearly stated, public threats against the pipelines by Biden and Nuland “if Russia invades the Ukraine”. The sabotage could be the result of some bizarre, incomprehensible machinations by Putin, but I really doubt that. The Biden administration doesn’t want those wobbly Europeans ever depending on Russian gas in the future. Solar panels and energy poverty in Europe seem to be the goals. Which are actually the Biden administration’s goals in the USA as well. 😉
SteveF,
Any Biden opposition to Nordstream is recent. Biden reversed US (Trump’s) opposition to completing Nordstream II shortly after taking office.
Blowing up the bridge is not a terror attack. That is a crazy analysis. Ukrainian agents releasing nerve gas in the Moscow subway would be a terror attack. Nor is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a terror attack or a ‘genocide’. Nor will the likely escalations in the coming months be anything more than normal ‘war’.
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Exaggeration, deception, outright lies, and any other manner of discrediting the opponents are the NORMAL consequence of war. People would do well to ignore most of what is publicly stated.
Biden publicly stated on Feb 7, 2022 a clear threat to the Nordstream pipeline. Is that “recent”? Donno. I do know that Trump opposed the second pipeline because it would make Europe ever more dependent on Russia.
Terror vs uniformed combat and the “laws of war”
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The Laws of war” were written to support the highly technical and overwhelming military advantage of western powers vs weaker 3rd world states. The weaker 3rd world states have no ability to fight western states in a straight up military contest. Defining attacks by non uniformed agents as “terror “, degrades weaker states ability to resist the stronger states such as the US and NATO.
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The US and allies in WWII were more than willing to engage in attacks of mass destruction of civilian populations to hinder German war effort. So US commitment to the “laws of war” is situationally.
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As to Lucia’s question if there are differences in types of attacks during war….no, there are not. Burnt crisp and torn asunder is burnt crisp and torn asunder.
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For the survival of the state, ALL actions are on the table. Ukraine would have been remiss in the defense of their state to not use ANY means necessary.
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But….the bridge attack does give Russia a political tool to exploit in generating additional support for its war in Ukraine with its domestic population and foreign allies.
Paypal apparently considered plans to fine users for spreading “misinformation”. What’s with corporations these days who seem more interested in social engineering than selling a product? This is 80s dystopian scifi coming true!
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Edit: that’s not quite true. Corporations taking over the world was always in service to making profit. I can’t think of any that considered they’d use that wealth and leverage to enforce certain political doctrine.
DaveJR,
They walked it back pretty quickly once they saw the extent of the opposition. Yes dystopian, but really not at all inconsistent with all of PayPal’s (indeed all of tech’s) recent political pandering. I expect there will be some unpleasant days ahead for those so obviously abandoning the financial interests of their shareholders to demonstrate their woke bonafides. Shareholder lawsuits, Congressional hearings, etc. make flaunting one’s lefty-wokeness a bit less attractive.
once they saw the extent of the opposition.
I think you’re exactly right in what you say here Steve and it bothers me a lot. It wasn’t an accident (although I have read statements claiming that it was indeed accidental). I think it was that they saw they couldn’t get away with it. Five, ten years down the line, who knows? Maybe we will have degraded far enough as a society by that point that they would/will get away with it.
SteveF (Comment #215342) is 100% correct. Blowing up a strategic bridge is not terrorism. The invasion of Ukraine is not genocide. There is a lot of excessive language on both sides.
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Ed Forbes is wrong. A non-uniformed combatant is not per se a terrorist.
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It does seem that the truck driver must have been a suicide bomber. But that does not make him a terrorist; Japanese kamikaze pilots were not terrorists.
mark bofill,
It is troubling. It is even more troubling that large companies with multi-billion dollars in market cap end up being run by people so disconnected from (indeed, hostile to) the interests of the shareholders. How the hell were these people even hired in the first place, never mind promoted to were they can damage the business? I simply can’t understand it. The actions of managers at large corporations suggest a political/cultural rot which will not be simple to reverse. It is even stranger than just making business decisions that are contrary to shareholder’s interests: the things these corporations do are *opposed* by many of the people they claim to want to help. It seems to be the same ‘elitist’ mindset that is so evident in government bureaucracy and, and of course, in the faculty lounge. They don’t actually say the prols are a ‘basket of deplorables’ but that surely appears to be what they think.
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In 2006 it was estimated that there were over 109 different definitions of terrorism.[31] American political philosopher Michael Walzer in 2002 wrote: “Terrorism is the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders”.[4] Bruce Hoffman, an American scholar, has noted that it is not only individual agencies within the same governmental apparatus that cannot agree on a single definition of terrorism. Experts and other long-established scholars in the field are equally incapable of reaching a consensus.[32]
C. A. J. Coady has written that the question of how to define terrorism is “irresolvable” because “its natural home is in polemical, ideological and propagandist contexts”.[11]
Experts disagree about “whether terrorism is wrong by definition or just wrong as a matter of fact; they disagree about whether terrorism should be defined in terms of its aims, or its methods, or both, or neither; they disagree about whether states can perpetrate terrorism; they even disagree about the importance or otherwise of terror for a definition of terrorism.”[11]
PayPal can choose to be more transparent than simply say it was “in error”. I’d like to know more. This wasn’t some random typo.
How dare those terrorists attack a bridge during a war! A logistics bridge no less. Why, I never! There were tanker rail cars ON FIRE. I cannot possibly see how this can be justified. The UN needs to bring war crime charges immediately. I’m pretty sure bridge attacks are the very first thing mentioned in war crimes definitions. It does look look like it is terrorizing Putin’s vanity, I will concede that.
Tom Scharf,
Paypal’s behavior has been consistent. They try to put out of business anyone who uses their services (of any kind) and publicly states political views (or even views on factual reality) the managers disagree with. This has been going on for years. That they would try intimidation of all small business with the threat of an automatic $2,500 penalty for “wrongthink” is just the next logical step in a long revolting process. The solution is for a rival without their garbage politics to take their business…. but like much (most?) of tech, Paypal has purchased multiple potential competitors, and would likely do so again. Anti-trust actions against much of tech seems to me perfectly reasonable; good for shareholders and good for the country.
One has to wonder where the brass balls come from to try to implement polices that have eff all to do with their business, and, up to a few years ago, would be complete anathema to a US company. At least social media companies can pretend it’s to be “inclusive” and maintain “standards” etc. Do they attend WEF meetings? Spend all their time on Twitter? Get kickbacks from China? Political backhanders from democrats? Complete takeover by the ideological possessed? What is this new devilry?
Wars kill huge numbers of innocent people. Terrorist can and do kill large numbers of innocent people but not on the scale that wars do. The results are the same with wars being the larger killer.
If you go to motivation one might look first whether the killing was intentional or accidental. Terrorist killings are readily evidenced as intentional. Wars killing of innocent people can be either intentional or in some cases accidental. Collateral damage that is anticipated to occur has to be considered intentional even if not direct. Drafting individuals to coerce them to go to battle and for some portion of them to be injured or killed goes as much against the sender as the enemy being responsible.
War as a matter of self-defense may get some cover for motivation, but if one were to use as an analogy an individual case of self-defense where a potential victim knew that somewhere in a crowd of people there was an individual who was shooting at the potential victim and the potential victim’s response was to shoot many people in the crowd including the shooter to defend himself, the morality of a purported self defense gets very murky.
Lots of moral issues get suspended in wars not unlike what occurs with terrorism and that is why both are human tragedies.
I would think that PayPal would require some kind of contractual agreement with customers in order to penalize them for comments or even actions that do not involve the PayPal customer relationship. I would think that even such a contract would not hold up in a court of law. Why would anyone do business with such a company when there are any number of other ways of accomplishing what they do for customers.
Of course, if the government wanted to do something of this nature (emergencies, wars and other excuses) one would not have any other choices except leaving the country – if so allowed.
Ed Forbes (Comment #215350),
Let’s see this I’ve got this right. People use “terrorism” to mean whatever they want it to mean to serve their ends. Thus, whether the bridge attack was “terrorism” is just a matter of which side you are on.
GoFundMe tried to take money from Canadian trucker donations and redistribute it. People do stupid things. It does seem that a lot of these “mistakes” all point in one direction, namely against people who don’t support the politically correct narrative. https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/gofundme-backtracks-canadian-trucker-money-fraud-investigation-threat
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Silicon valley used to be highly libertarian in ethics, not any more.
SteveF
Biden publicly stated on Feb 7, 2022 a clear threat to the Nordstream pipeline. Is that “recent”? Donno. I do know that Trump opposed the second pipeline because it would make Europe ever more dependent on Russia
You mean this:
“If Russia invades… again, then there will be longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
Scholz suspended certification of Nord Stream 2 on 22 February 2022 in consequence of Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics and the deployment of troops in territory held by the DPR and LPR.[34]
. Nord Stream 2 AG filed for bankruptcy on 1 March 2022 and laid off all 106 employees from its headquarters in Zug, Switzerland.[35]
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So: after Biden’s Feb 7, 2022 threat to put an end to Norstream II, an “end” was put to Norstream II on Feb 22, 2022. It’s ended in the sense of not being certified. The company filed for bankruptcy in March 2022. T
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But even if somehow you don’t think that was the “end” Biden threatened to Nordstream 2, Biden’s “threat” to “end” Nordstream II was certainly not a threat to do anything to Nordstream 1!
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Also, if he planned to blow it up because of the invasion, it’s rather amazing he waited 10 months.
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Sorry, but claiming Biden threatened to blow up or damage any pipeline is a really amazing stretch. He didn’t threaten that. I don’t think we did it.
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Ed Forbes
As to Lucia’s question if there are differences in types of attacks during war….no, there are not. Burnt crisp and torn asunder is burnt crisp and torn asunder.
I didn’t ask a question. I told you you made several wrong claims. One of them is about what makes something a “terror” attack.
You seem to now be wanting to switch to some issue regarding the “law of war” and are waving vaguely at “laws of war”.
That’s changing the subject away from “terror”. So I assume you have conceded it’s not terror (if only by abandoning that and changing the subject.) I’m not going to counter argue any claim about the “laws of war” since you’ve made such a vague allusion that it’s impossible to know what you are actually claiming now.
Ed Forbes
In 2006 it was estimated that there were over 109 different definitions of terrorism.[31] American political philosopher Michael Walzer in 2002 wrote: “Terrorism is the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders”.[4]
And the only one you manage to quote would exclude blowing up this bridge from the list of “acts of terror”. It did not involve deliberate killing of innocent people. It was not at random. It was not done to spread fear through the population. It was not done to force the hand of some political leader.
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It was done to achieve a military objective with minimal civilian casualties.
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I’m guessing if you could find a definition of terror that could be made to fit the blowing up of a militarily important bridge with the minimum amount of casualties, you would quote it. You haven’t.
Holman Jenkins says it much better than I did:
Vladimir Putin has gotten himself into an increasingly ridiculous situation, holding a gun to his own head and saying, “Meet my demands or the idiot gets it.”
The mystery of the week is who blew up the undersea sections of the two Russia-controlled Nord Stream pipelines. Despite other theories you’re hearing, Russia is the probable culprit, not some Ukraine-friendly power seeking to forestall Germany rushing back to kiss and make up with Russian energy.
Remember 2014: Mr. Putin sacrificed a passing Malaysian airliner to influence the West when a Ukrainian offensive threatened his hold on occupied territory. The purpose would be the same today, to convince Ukraine’s allies (and perhaps Mr. Putin’s Gazprom cronies, who see their wealth dissolving) that no off-ramp is possible except by acceding to Mr. Putin’s demand for eastern Ukraine even as his troops prove inconveniently incapable of holding it.
I don’t have to defend the bridge attack as terror as Russia has defined the attack as terror. As long as the Russian population and allies accept the attack as terror, it is a terror attack. It is now a terror attack by definition.
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As this is a political issue, not a legal issue, the Russian position on this is the only one that matters. No one else gets a say on this. If Russia decides to upgrade the war to an anti terror operation, no one is in a position to force them not to.
Ed Forbes
I don’t have to defend the bridge attack as terror as Russia has defined the attack as terror.
You, yourself called it a “terror attack” in Ed Forbes (Comment #215321)
Looks like Russia is responding to the Ukraine terror attack on the bridge.
That was not Russia posting here in comments. Nor was it Russia “defining”. That was you choosing to call it that yourself when typing a comment here.
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If you want to back off from the characterization which you elected to make, I’m perfectly willing to let you back off from your characterization.
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But don’t try to know claim it was just “Russia” “defining” something. You weren’t just telling us Russia claimed or defined something. You yourself called it a “terror attack” here in comments.
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As this is a political issue, not a legal issue, the Russian position on this is the only one that matters. No one else gets a say on this.
That’s just nonsense. Even if it’s a political issue, Russia’s position is not the only one that matters. Russian doesn’t have a monopoly on being the only one whose political position matters! To claim so is just nutty.
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Other people get a “say” on whether it was or was not a “terror attack”.
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If Russia decides to upgrade the war to an anti terror operation, no one is in a position to force them not to.
That Russia will do what Russia wants to do when waging war is true.
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We’ve already seen that. They rolled into Ukraine and waged war because they felt like it. They are doing all sorts of things no one can seem to stop. Putin will continue to make all sorts of ridiculous claims that are not true. I certainly can’t stop him.
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That I can’t stop Russia from waging war or making false claims doesn’t make blowing up a militarily important bridge a “terror attack”. It doesn’t mean other people don’t have any “say” in observing the fact that blowing up a militarily important bridge with minimal casualties is not a terror attack. Nor does it mean no one else gets to point out that it was not a terror attack.
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And we can all certainly tell you that you are making a ridiculous and false claim when you call it a “terror attack here in comments.
Ummmm … OK. Nice explanation Ed. Also “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.” I assume you really meant upgrading the special military operation to an anti-terror operation although I don’t really know how that would change things.
Lucia,
Biden got a follow up question in the same news conference: And how will you do that? Biden did not answer directly but said “we have the means to do it”; sure doesn’t sound like he was talking about the Germans not giving final approval. Like I said, motivation, means, and stupidity can lead to almost any crazy policy.
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We will likely never know for sure, but if I had to bet my life, I would bet it was the Biden administration…. or a surrogate. We will have to agree to disagree.
There appears to have been some limited targeting of the power infrastructure in the Ukraine by the Russians…. but nothing like all-out. One Russian commentator said:
If the strikes on the critical infrastructure become regular, if the strikes on railways, bridges and power plants become part of our tactics, then yes, it does change [the situation]. But for now, according to [official] statements, a decision to plunge Ukraine into medieval times has not been made,” Medvedev wrote
SteveF,
I know he said that. I still think he meant having its operation turned off– which happened very quickly. He does say stupid things. I really don’t think we bombed it. I don’t interpret anything he said as a threat to bomb or damage it. I think his threat was fulfilled by the end of March when NordstromII went bankrupt because the Germans didn’t certify it in February.
That said: time will tell.
In my never-ending quest to inform about significant events, I pass on this report about the retirement of the 17-time toe wrestling champion Alan “Nasty” Nash. In his own words, “I’m not as strong now. I’m not as fit. You just can’t keep going forever can you?”
This morning’s satellite imagery from FIRMS [NASA | LANCE | Fire Information for Resource Management System] shows the widespread russian terrorism in targeting of civilian areas. Be sure the buttons are set to “Current” and “24 Hours” https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:2022-10-10..2022-10-11,2022-10-10;@33.4,50.6,5z
Russell,
When I click, I just get a map of the world. I suspect there is more detail in the full link but that perhaps it was stripped out at the ‘..’. Can you give us more specific instructions?
It says “fire”. There are lots of red dots in Ukraine, but Russia too. Can you explain more?
Ed Forbes (Comment #215363): “I don’t have to defend the bridge attack as terror as Russia has defined the attack as terror. As long as the Russian population and allies accept the attack as terror, it is a terror attack. It is now a terror attack by definition.”
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So Ed’s position is as I said earlier (Comment #215357): “whether the bridge attack was ‘terrorism’ is just a matter of which side you are on.”
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lucia (Comment #215364): “You, yourself called it a ‘terror attack’ in Ed Forbes (Comment #215321)”.
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Exactly. Ed Forbes has declared himself to be fully an ally of Putin. Albeit a rather insignificant ally.
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I hate it when somebody gets accused of being on Putin’s side because that somebody has expressed a contrary opinion on the war. But that is not the case here. Ed has claimed for himself the mantle of Putin ally.
lucia’s link (Comment #215373) works. I also do not see Russell’s point.
Lucia,
Those red dots in russia are in forested and tundra area [zoom in]. They are legitimate forest fires. Usually there are very few red dots in the West and Central areas of Ukraine, but many in the Eastern war zone.
MikeM,
I’m amused by the contrast between Ed Forbes (Comment #215350) and Ed Forbes (Comment #215363) . In the former, it could be a “terror attack” because there were so many definitions. (Since he points to no definition that actually would make the bridge bombing a “terror attack”, and simply justifies it is one because the definitions are numerous, that argument could be used to deem baking cup-cakes is a “terror attack”. I mean: so many definitions!)
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In the latter comment, Ed lets us know the “definition” of a “terror attack” is that Russia says it is. Once again, Russia could, hypothetically decree baking cup-cakes is a “terror attack”, if Russia says so. Then baking cup-cakes would be a terror attack and no one elses opinion matters!!!
Thanks Russel, I could see sort of dark blobs near light blobs by the Russian fires. But I didn’t know the significance.
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There definitely are a lot of fires in Ukraine.
Mike M,
Ed Forbes is right about a few things, but very wrong about many more. Attacking a strategic supply line during war is not a terrorist act by any rational definition. Maybe the name was recently changed to Forbes from Forbetov. 😉
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But seriously, exaggerated claims, distortions and the like are part and parcel of wars; when people are getting shot and blown to pieces by bombs and artillery shells, niceties like honestly and accuracy in public statements are ignored by all sides to the conflict. Come to think if it, the need for honesty and accuracy is pretty much ignored in *any* political conflict, as we can see plainly in most US elections. Do democrats really believe half the country is irredeemably racist Nazi? I believe most do not, but that is what they constantly say. War just takes common political dishonesty to another level. Politics is the ultimate zero-sum game, and most politicians care about holding power, and little else…. just ask the ghost of the execrable Harry Reid.
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Or as the old joke says: You know a politician is lying whenever his lips are moving.
lucia,
If I understand Ed’s position, then it is actually consistent. He is claiming that ‘terror attack’ is an epithet with no real meaning.
It is just run of the mill demonization of the enemy, just like calling them Nazis and so forth. It’s one thing to say “Russia is calling them terrorists” just like “Russia is calling them Nazis”, and it is another thing to repeat the assertion as fact. This requires one to defend the assertion and when you get the explanation “because Russia says so…” then one is just voluntarily part of an organ of state propaganda. One can be a propagandist 24/7 and still be right about a few things.
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When you have a country full or terrorists, Nazis, and fascists, you have no other option but to invade them. Obviously. How do we know this to be true? Because Russia says so. Once all the evil doers are removed then the benevolent Russians are sure to return Ukraine to the local citizens where they can live in peace free from the oppression of their own locals. Or not.
I have never seen this before….There were four US manned spy planes monitoring the Black sea and Southern Ukraine. Two were USAF and two were US Army. The army aircraft were smaller and have left the area, but the air force birds are still on station.
REDEYE6 Boeing E-8C https://www.flightradar24.com/REDEYE6/2dcc8f18
One of the US Army spy planes in the air this AM is the latest thing… ARTEMIS.
I have only seen them show up a couple of times. It landed on a small airstrip in Eastern Romania, at the town of Lasi. I have no clue as to what is going on.
“The U.S. Army has been flying a special-mission Bombardier Challenger 650 as part of the NATO surveillance effort monitoring the build-up and subsequent operations of Russian forces in and around Ukraine. Known as the Leidos Special Mission Aircraft (LSMA), the Challenger technology demonstrator is outfitted with the Aerial Reconnaissance and Targeting Exploitation Multi-Mission Intelligence System (ARTEMIS).” https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2022-02-24/artemis-challenger-joins-ukraine-surveillance-effort
I posted it’s landing here: https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1579868831220391936?s=20&t=wdg_7L3Ry40gmqSsaphD5w
“There are none so blind as those who will not see”
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My point is, again, that if Putin decides an act is terror, and the political groups that support and back Putin agree, then it is an act of terror.
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The use of the term “terror “ is a political statement, not a legal statement in itself. Because the term terror is so loaded a term, defining something as terror, and is accepted as such by the relevant parties, much stronger actions can be brought forth than might have been possible previously.
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Putin was originally elected by declaring an act of terror by Chechens in bombing some apartment buildings. People who said it was a false flag ended up dead.
SteveF
But seriously, exaggerated claims, distortions and the like are part and parcel of wars; when people are getting shot and blown to pieces by bombs and artillery shells, niceties like honestly and accuracy in public statements are ignored by all sides to the conflict.
No one has disagreed with him on that claim. Being right on that doesn’t redeem his other incorrect (and so incorrect as to be just silly) claims.
EdForbes
My point is, again, that if Putin decides an act is terror, and the political groups that support and back Putin agree, then it is an act of terror.
And my point is: Claims like this are incorrect. Putin deciding it is an act of terror and some people agreeing with him doesn’t make it an act of terror.
Your claim doesn’t pass the “cupcakes are terrorism” test.
Because the term terror is so loaded a term, defining something as terror, and is accepted as such by the relevant parties, much stronger actions can be brought forth than might have been possible previously.
And you keep missing this point: The fact that Russian can and does do something doesn’t magically make their claims true. Yes: Russia has been doing what it wants — certainly since February. That doesn’t make Russia’s claims true.
IMO, there’s more reason to call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a terrorist attack than anything the Ukrainians have done, most especially blowing up the bridge. Btw, Russian troops have looted Ukrainian museums in occupied territory. Those stolen artifacts are likely gone forever.
“Truth” is the first casualty in armed conflict. Waving the bloody shirt is effective for increasing political support and tamping down on dissent.
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And for something as vague and with as many definitions as in the term “terror “, arguing over which sides version of the “truth” is more correct is silly. What matters most is getting a better understanding of what dynamics are at play and how the situation will be impacted by the waving of the bloody shirt.
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The bloody shirt exists in the bridge attack. On this point there can no argument. People died.
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How the side waving this bloody shirt will react and what likely changes in policy will follow is important as the act of waving the bloody shirt WILL change policy.
Ed Forbes,
No, blowing up a key bridge that used for supplying your wartime opponent is obviously NOT a terrorist action. No rational person believes that.
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Flying planes into office buildings with no state of war in place is terror. Releasing nerve gas into a subway system is a terrorist action.
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Rule 1: When in a hole, stop digging.
Rule 2: If in doubt, refer to Rule 1.
Russian policy in Ukraine has changed since the bridge attack.
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I am not sure if the change in policy was pre planed or a reaction to the bridge attack. I lean towards it being a pre planed policy change and the bridge attack used to solidify political support as Putin is not known for spontaneous actions.
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The changes seen in policy are the heavy attacks on infrastructure, mainly electrical power distribution networks and the rail net. These attacks coincide with the arrival of the first groups of the 300k Russian troops called up as reinforcements for the Ukraine war. The attacks have all the earmarks of attacks on command and control centers and logistical supply lines in preparation of a major offensive.
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Ukraine in currently in the mud season. It looks as though first frost when the ground hardens will see a Russian offensive start that Ukraine will find hard to redeploy and counter due to the attacks on their rail net.
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Ed,
I don’t know what sort of solidification of support you think Russia has gotten lately. News reports are that China and India are expressing “concern” and asking Russia to not escalate since the bridge attack. As far as I can tell, no one outside Russia has suggested this gives an Russian an excuse to escalate. And those inside Russia who wanted to escallate did so before.
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Yes. Russia has ignored the concerns of those outside Russia. What we see here is Russia doing what they want.
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As for what happens: We’ll see. But the bridge attack does not appear to have gotten Russia even one iota of external support.
Steve, sorry ( well, not very ), but the use of the term “terror” is more a political statement than anything else and needs to be viewed in a political context to get any useful content from the usage. It is getting a better view of what a sides use of the term implies that is important.
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I think I see the problem with the current discussion. The only thing that interests me in this situation is the political dynamics.
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If Putin is calling the action at the bridge “terror”, and his supporters agree, then they will take actions consistent as if it were a “terror “ attack. This is the key point. Arguments that it’s not actual “terror “ is meaningless if the side using the term believes it is “terror”.
Lucia,
I think the only result of the bridge attack is a greater willingness for Russia to start attacking Ukrainian infrastructure (and government structure). My real concern is that this will lead to great suffering among the Ukrainians and wholesale fleeing of much of the populous toward Europe. Count on destruction of infrastructure to be targeted to avoid those regions Russia wants to control, while making life miserable (or nearly impossible) in the rest of the Ukraine.
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To the extent Russian attacks on infrastructure become the ‘norm’, the war will have entered a new, escalated stage. This is a real danger IMHO.
Lucia
Almost all vocal Russian critics of Putin in Russia were those who were furious over Putin’s “soft” approach to the war. They wanted more of a US “shock” campaign to destroy Ukraine and get the war over with a complete and total victory.
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By declaring the bridge attack “terror “ and would be responded to, it gave Putin the ability to bring these critics onboard as supporters. Criticism in Russia has gone WAY down since his response to the bridge attack.
Ed–
“In Russia”. Yes.
But you have been making claims about allies response. Allies are not in Russian.
Criticism in Russia has gone WAY down since his response to the bridge attack.
In Russia. That is: by people who are not allies.
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It’s fine to make claims. But be correct about your claims. What people in Russia might feel (even assuming it’s all of them) is not evidence for what people outside Russia do. So don’t go around making arguments about what “allies” are saying and then switch to explaining what Russian’s themselves might be saying. Russiand themselves are not “allies” of Russia.
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Ed Forbes,
Words have meanings, and usually the definitions of those words are broadly agreed on. If you reject that, and claim some words mean whatever the heck you (and Mr Putin) say they mean, then any conversation about those words (eg ‘terror’) becomes rather silly. Cio.
SteveF
If you reject that, and claim some words mean whatever the heck you (and Mr Putin) say they mean,….
And next week, Ed Forbes could be claiming baking cupcakes is a terrorist act. Because Putin said so. And only Russian’s opinion “matters”. Obviously, that’s not the way language works.
Ed Forbes (Comment #215392): “Russian policy in Ukraine has changed since the bridge attack.”
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We shall see. There are reports that the Russian missiles used for Putin’s tantrum are in short supply. So the “change in policy” might be very short lived.
Russia policy on the battlefield is changing because they are losing lately. They would be incompetent to not change things. Military leadership changes have occurred, a new draft was ordered, and they have started to hit infrastructure. The bridge has little to nothing to do with it tactically, although the humiliation factor apparently has affected some decision making and the partisans seem to be losing their minds.
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Russia needs to change things if they want different results.
Mike M,
Why do you use the word ‘tantrum’?
SteveF (Comment #215402): “Why do you use the word ‘tantrum’?”
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Using a limited resource against targets with little or no military significance.
Mike M,
I don’t think anyone really knows in detail what targets were selected, but to the extent those targets were government and its administration, electric power production and distribution, and transportation infrastructure, I would suggest they are just the *opposite* of ‘no military significance’. Disabling transportation, disrupting government administration, and plunging the country into darkness (in winter!) seem very good ways to reduce the Ukrainians’ ability (and will) to fight.
SteveF (Comment #215404): “to the extent those targets were government and its administration, electric power production and distribution, and transportation infrastructure … seem very good ways to reduce the Ukrainians’ ability (and will) to fight.”
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Not to mention apartment blocks.
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Even transportation and power are basically civilian targets, unless they are of particular strategic importance. Yes, there theoretically might be some strategic value to such targets. But they will not reduce Ukraine’s will to fight any more than the Blitz hurt Britain’s will to fight or bombing Hanoi hurt North Vietnam’s will to fight. Any effect will be just the opposite. Using a limited supply of high value weapons for that purpose is a tantrum.
Mike
On Russian ammunition shortages, a few prior statements. Plenty more prior articles if you take the time to go look. Russia running out of missiles and artillery ammunition has been a “thing” since the war started.
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Russia has consistently fired 20,000+ artillery rounds per day for months now and use missiles daily to attack rear area units. They have been said to be running short for months.
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March 18
The senior official with the U.S. Department of Defense said that Russia appears to now be relying more on so-called “dumb” bombs than on precision-guided munitions in its full-scale offensive against Ukraine—something that could indicate Russia could be suffering shortages and sustainment issues.
10/12/22
FEMA contractors are scheduled to start removing debris from our neighborhood this week, so I decided to memorialize our hurricane Ian experience.
Ian made landfall on September 28 at 3PM at Cayo Costa Florida. It was category 4 with 150 MPH sustained winds. The storm was huge, eye about 46 miles across and sustained hurricane force winds about 125 miles wide along the coast. It was moving very slowly and weakened only slightly as it moved NW. At 9PM it was still a category 2 over the center of the state.
Our house was about 28 miles North of where the eyewall crossed the coast. I estimate we had category one sustained winds of about 86 MPH and gusts of between 105 and 115 MPH. The hurricane force winds lasted a long time. I guess 4-6 hours.
We had 12.6 inches of rain in my backyard over about 16 hours. The street in front flooded to a depth of about 18 inches for about 8 hours.
We had a 8 in diameter oak limb come down on the roof. It caused only cosmetic damage. Several sections of wood fencing were blown down. We live in a forest and have spent $400 so far having debris moved to the street.
Mike M,
“But they will not reduce Ukraine’s will to fight any more than the Blitz hurt Britain’s will to fight or bombing Hanoi hurt North Vietnam’s will to fight.”
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I doubt the parallels are apt. The biggest difference being climate. Ukrainian winters are not like those of London (nor Hanoi), and at the time of the blitz, most of the UK did not depend on electricity in the way people do today. If many Ukrainians face freezing to death for lack of electricity, then their will to fight may be lessened. Many will flee to the west. The targeting of government infrastructure and political leaders will almost certainly focus political leader’s thinking about the cost of the war. I have said for a long time that Russia has not been attempting to win in any conventional sense, because they have not been targeting infrastructure or civilian government. That may be changing.
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Henry Kissinger has been excoriated for suggesting there should be a negotiated settlement of the war. His position is unpopular, but I suspect a lot more sensible (and less dangerous!) than current US policy.
SteveF,
If negotiations and diplomacy were as effective as you seem to think, then the UN would be a force for peace. They aren’t and it isn’t.
Lucia: “It’s fine to make claims. But be correct about your claims. What people in Russia might feel (even assuming it’s all of them) is not evidence for what people outside Russia do. So don’t go around making arguments about what “allies” are saying and then switch to explaining what Russian’s themselves might be saying. Russiand themselves are not “allies” of Russia.”
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One outside ally supporting Russia closer now is Belarus. They had been keeping directly out of the actual fighting, but are now foraging closer integration with the Russian army.
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Continuing on the subject of defining “terror”, I note that a number of Ukraine and other commenters are classifying Russian attacks on the Ukraine power grid as a “terror” attack. Seems to me a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here.
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Ukraine’s army is rollin’. Almost every day they are taking significant territory in the North and the South. Meanwhile, russia’s attacks in the Central region have been stalled for months.
The prospects for russia are bleak. They are needing to steal replacement armaments from Belarus, North Korea and Iran. Their top of the line battle troops have been all but wiped out and are being replaced with untrained stumblebums from the streets and prisons of russia.
Mother nature may have something to say about this war in the coming months, but for now Ukraine is not going to stop. Negotiate hell!
“Ukraine takes swaths of territory, despite Russia’s mobilisation” 5 Oct 2022 Al Jazeera
“Pressing on two fronts, Ukraine extends its gains in the east and makes a sudden advance in the south” Updated Oct. 9, 2022 NYT
DeWitt,
Sometimes negotiation is fruitful and sometimes it is not.
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Fruitful negotiation is only possible if both sides accept that while the other may hold very different views about their interests, both sides accept those differing views have enough legitimacy to the other side to require substantive compromise. What I think has so far prevented any negotiations (save for the negotiation of food exports from the Odessa region, which was actually between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN) is that the USA/NATO completely reject substantive compromise with Russia. The USA/NATO say very clearly that Russia has 1) no legitimate security concerns, 2) no legitimate claim to the Crimea or eastern territories, and 3) no legitimate interest in protecting the large ethnic Russian population in the Ukraine. So the USA/NATO reject any need for substantive compromise, and there are no negotiations.
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The USA/NATO position reminds me a bit of my first wife’s negotiating position when we divorced: ‘You are evil and wrong, so give me 100% of everything we own and 90% of your income until you reach age 67. You can live at the YMCA or on a park bench and ride a bicycle to work until then.’ She didn’t accept I had any legitimate interests, so didn’t really want negotiation. Neither does the USA/NATO.
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The war in the Ukraine will continue until that changes, which may take a very long time. Whether that is good or bad is not a matter of fact, but rather a matter of opinion.
SteveF,
You’ve completely ignored the Russian position which, IMO, would be equally unacceptable to Ukraine. Also it’s not very good negotiation tactics to publicly give up the farm before you even sit down. That’s called negotiating with yourself. Obama was really good at it. As I remember, Kissinger wasn’t much better.
You have to ask for more than you expect to get or you won’t even get what you need. I think your ex’s opening gambit was only a little over the top. If you didn’t start with a similarly over the top position, you probably got rolled.
Russia probably hasn’t been targeting infrastructure because they had hoped to occupy all of Ukraine and there will be global political blowback for intentionally making civilians suffer for no legitimate miltary reason.
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The hopes of occupying all of Ukraine is looking pretty dim at this point. My feeling is there is enough animosity toward Russia in Ukraine that this would be unwise militarily with NATO handing out insurgency weapons like they are candy.
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They do have to worry about losing support from China and India. We can define support as willingness to buy gas and oil. China and India can buy fossil fuels from elsewhere and lets just say they aren’t very likely to form a dependency on Russia.
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What’s next? They don’t really have enough of these cruise missiles to sustain a long term attack without seriously depleting their resources. A sustained attack also invites NATO to legitimately provide air defenses to protect civilians. Russia can likely destroy significant infrastructure for power and water, but it is a risky move. They can also “accidentally” target Zelensky. With the war going badly this move becomes more likely.
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Ultimately though they should just try to negotiate a settlement over the winter. Both sides can save some face. The Ukrainians performed well and beat back a Russian assault. The Russians end up with a lot of Eastern Ukraine. Otherwise it looks like at least another year of death and destruction with neither side looking likely to prevail.
Russell,
It took about 10 days for them to pick up yard debris after Irma here. They had a local field for storage that had ginormous piles of debris that took months to remove. Realistically Irma limited the amount of debris from Ian up here.
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My local neighborhood also has a significant forest on both sides of the street. I think that this will limit wind damage aerodynamically but I have never seen any science on this. The other side is that you may get a lot of flying debris which can start taking out shingles and windows. The wind speeds have to be pretty high for this to start happening.
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A huge problem is going to be that a lot of the damage from Ian was caused by flooding and (in theory) not wind damage. If one doesn’t have flood insurance then they may not be covered. If you are a lawyer, move to Florida now. The standard dispute is proving wind damage caused water to get into a house that caused the damage. It’s going to be a rough ride for Florida homeowner inusrance over the next couple years.
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From my review of YouTube videos houses that weren’t flooded by storm surge held up well unless directly exposed to the ocean near Fort Myers area. There weren’t really a lot of windows and garage doors taken out inland. Houses that had been built recently had minimal roof damage for the most part. The building codes seems to have done well, but the older houses, especially those under 10 feet above sea level realistically need to go. These might become uninsurable.
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Example, modern home in area of older homes. The entire neighborhood was flooded out and their home came within inches of flooding. Crazy to stay so close. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4eVVyCgAE8
DWitt,
I didn’t ever adopt an over-the-top negotiating position, with my ex or in dozens of other negotiations; it is too likely to completely inhibit negotiations. I didn’t get rolled, BTW, I ultimately issued a ‘nuclear option’ ultimatum: start negotiating in good faith immediately, or all the money you get now with no negotiated agreement stops. I think someone (Germans? French? Turks?) will have to get off-the record assurances of compromise from the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the USA, for negotiations to start. I am pretty sure the USA has zero interest in a settlement: “How about you and him fight while I watch” seems to sum it up.
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BTW, I completely disagree with your evaluation of Obama: he never made substantive compromises with Republicans…. ‘my way or the highway’ was pretty much it. He preferred to issue executive orders in violation of law rather than actually compromise on proposed laws.
SteveF (Comment #215414): “Fruitful negotiation is only possible if both sides accept that while the other may hold very different views about their interests, both sides accept those differing views have enough legitimacy to the other side to require substantive compromise.”
. Both sides need to see the other as legitimate and need to be willing to only insist on their legitimate goals.
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Yes, some of Russia’s issues are legitimate. And the US/NATO and/or Ukraine might be unreasonable; we don’t really know. As DeWitt says, they might just be refusing to negotiate with themselves. But Russia insisting on keeping territory gained by force is NOT a legitimate position. Until they are willing to give that territory back, there is no basis for a negotiated settlement of the sort that SteveF (and I) would like.
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There is another basis for a negotiated settlement: Conditions imposed by force. If Russia can prove that they can hold the seized territory, then a negotiation based on that might become necessary. But that is not the current situation and is not likely to be the situation in the foreseeable future.
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I don’t think that fruitful negotiations will be possible until one of two things happens. One is if Ukraine can take the occupied territories off the table by driving Russia out. The other is if Putin is replaced by someone who finds it expedient to end the war and blame Putin for the failure.
Tours of the neighborhood post storm tell you a lot about house integrity. Definitely some roof damage here. The interesting question is why some houses do better than others. Part of it is the building codes in place the last time your roof was redone, and the other is just luck. Flying debris taking out tiles and shingles which start a cascade effect. Realistically I saw almost no structural damage to houses built in the last 30 years except from storm surge (mobile homes are a different story). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1u8-i2pWg0
“How about you and him fight while I watch”
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This may in fact be the actual position, it’s hard to know. But it is also a good position for the Russians to think you have for a final negotiation.
Tom Scharf,
“They can also “accidentally” target Zelensky. With the war going badly this move becomes more likely.”
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Why would targeting Zelensky ever be accidental, or even claimed to be accidental? (Real question.) I am actually shocked that Zelensky is still around; I would have guessed he would have been targeted early and often, not later or never.
Mike M,
“Both sides need to see the other as legitimate and need to be willing to only insist on their legitimate goals.”
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Sure, but who is to say what are both sides ‘legitimate goals’? Those are defined by the parties, not the ‘God of Negotiations’. All successful negotiations on contentious issues involve acceptance of some of the other party’s goals, even when you don’t think they are legitimate! We have few compromise laws on abortion because those on the extremes will not compromise on what they see as the “illegitimate goals” of the other extreme.
Zelensky happened to be at a command and control center and Russia didn’t know it. Russia will target Zelensky and deny they targeted him specifically to placate their allies with some plausible deniability. I think that is how it will go down.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215420) “Part of it is the building codes in place the last time your roof was redone, and the other is just luck.”
Part of it also is the integrity and competence of the construction inspection process. I have first hand knowledge that before Hurricane Andrew the building inspection process in the Miami Dade Area was corrupt, incompetent and lazy.
Another tidbit… My engineering practice was in Englewood Florida during the time Hurricane Charley hit just South of there. The stuff built after Andrew under the new codes held up remarkably well. The 10-20 year old stuff, not so well. But, the old stuff [30+ years] did pretty well in comparison. They really did make stuff better in the old days.
Russia has added Facebook and Instagram to its list of terrorist and extremist organizations.
I guess it’s official then.
Tom Scharf “It took about 10 days for them to pick up yard debris after Irma here. They had a local field for storage that had ginormous piles of debris that took months to remove. Realistically Irma limited the amount of debris from Ian up here.”
Irma also blew through here before it got to you. We had sky-high piles of debris with that one too. But a lot of stuff that stood strong for Irma came down in Ian. We have even higher piles of debris from Ian than we did for Irma. Ian was heading Northeast so maybe you were spared by the track. At my place the sustained winds and gusts were much higher and lasted a longer time.
Things changed after Andrew which was a wind storm event. Our county inspects all roof updates. A lot of damage done in Andrew was buildings not built to code by poor contractors. I’ve posted this before, but this is the FEMA post mortem on Andrew from a building construction standpoint. They definitely note the inspection problem. It’s a fascinating read from an engineering standpoint. A lot of structural damage in Andrew which we see much less of now. https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08/fia22_complete.pdf
It was just an all day tropical storm up here. Maybe 50 mph winds and only 2 inches of rain. We never lost power. It was heading right at us 2 days out though.
Tom Scharf
“but the older houses, especially those under 10 feet above sea level realistically need to go. These might become uninsurable.” Both FEMA and the State of Florida have regulations about rebuilds. Basically, you have to build on pilings driven into the ground. The finished floor elevation has to be above the local 100 year storm surge [plus wave] height. Everything below that has to be break away construction so the water can flow under the structure. FEMA requires the same elevated construction… a house on stilts.
Ed
Continuing on the subject of defining “terror”, I note that a number of Ukraine and other commenters are classifying Russian attacks on the Ukraine power grid as a “terror” attack. Seems to me a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here.
Commenters where? You should quote whoever it is. Then we can see what you think they said. I did see “tantrum”. That’s not “terror”.
Lucia,
I didn’t see anyone on your blog call Russian attacks on infrastructure “terrorism”; I suspect Ed is talking about other places.
It’s all the houses that are grandfathered in that are a problem. People are working around rebuild limits with “multiple rebuilds” billed separately and other ingenious workarounds. I guess it varies by county. I think here if you expand square footage by more than 15% you have to bring the house up to code, which effectively means a bulldoze job for a lot of older houses. So they sit with old building code for very long time periods.
I hesitate to write this. I’m a long time lurker, having posted but once and then to help Lucia with a Mac computer problem. But . . .
I keep reading all the posts about the Ukraine war and Russia and want to add my personal experience.
When I was in the US Army, I was in the Air Defense Command. One of my duties was CBR (Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Warfare) NCO. In that position, I monitored tele-exes from NORAD headquarters in our war games. I remember vividly the first message I received: It began with notices of suspicious activities around the U.S. Then, suddenly, I got this: NUDET Edwards Air Force Base. NUDET = Nuclear detonation. Soon, it was NUDET after NUDET, all over the country. We were anticipating the end of the world.
Everyone seems to have forgotten the Cold War, but not me. I was trained in it day after day.
Current projections expect 90 million casualties worldwide in a nuclear war. That doesn’t include the millions that would day from starvation and thirst and radiation poisoning post-attack.
We must, absolutely must, find a negotiated settlement to the current situation. No one wins in a nuclear conflict. It doesn’t matter one iota who’s at fault. No one wins, everyone loses.
I never dreamed I would see what I’m seeing today. Every time I come to this website now, I worry. Whatever reasons we may come up with to label Russia as our enemy, they are not sufficient to justify the disaster that could ensue.
By the way, my last duty in case of attack was to go outside our heavily shielded headquarters and measure radiation levels. It would have been, quite literally, my last duty.
I greatly respect all the commenters here, but the potential horror is too great to allow ourselves to overlook the horrendous consequences that are staring us in the face. It doesn’t matter who’s right or who’s wrong.
FYI: AstraZeneca tested nasal covid vaccine. Failed phase 1 trial. Back to the drawing board.
“In the 42-person, phase I trial, nasal administration of the vaccine produced only modest mucosal antibody responses in just a few participants and also spurred weaker systemic responses than the intramuscular shots.”
SteveF,
I did a word search and didn’t see anyone here calling bombing Ukrainian infrastructure terror either. It may bother Ed that I’m not going out hunting for people all over the internet to tell them that’s not terror. But I’m not going to survey the whole internet.
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That said: bombing lots of civilians in what appear to be npt very well targeted attack knowing it’s likely to kill lots of people while not taking out very much of military use is closer to terrorism than bombing militarily important bridge. But it really don’t fit terrorism either.
As we thought: None of those comments are posted here. I’m pretty sure you don’t know what the “pot-kettle-black” means.
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If you want to volley out “pot-kettle-black”, you’ll have to go to the comments at that you tube video, on the washington post, business insider and newsweek, and if those authors tell you your use of “terror attack” is wrong, you may be justified in your “pot-kettle-black” volley. (It depends on precisely what they wrote or said, which I”m not going to spend time doing since it’s got no relevance to what anyone says here at this blog.)
Lucia, we were, I thought, in a general discussion of the term, not specific to this site.
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Maybe we can agree that the world at large uses “terror “ in a very imprecise way?
Ed Forbes,
not specific to this site.
You wrote this:
Seems to me a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here.
That statement, which you posted here, is constitutes an accusation that someone here is doing what you are accused of, which is using “terror attack” in the same way you are. No one here is doing that.
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Maybe you can stop volleying false accusations. Until you do, you stand in a position where people (including me) will criticize you for your false accusations.
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Maybe we can agree that the world at large uses “terror “ in a very imprecise way?
That’s you attempting to change the point of the criticism. The criticism of you specifically is that your use vis-a-vis the bridge attack is clearly wrong.
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Outside of terms-of-art in professions there is often no pin-point precise meanings for a word or phrase. Neverthless, some uses are clearly wrong: yours is. And some arguments for why a use might be correct are also clearly wrong– as yours have been.
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With respect to terror attack there are some features required in all definitions.
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One of these is the main goal is to create terror rather than achieve a military objective. Other aspects can be debated. But bombing a militarily important bridge in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and does not make people fear going about their day to day business is not a terror attack.
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Your arguments would permit someone to call “baking cupcakes” a “terror” activity. It’s not.
I found the culprit…
“This morning’s satellite imagery from FIRMS [NASA | LANCE | Fire Information for Resource Management System] shows the widespread russian terrorism in targeting of civilian areas.”
Russell Klier (Comment #215371)
I’m not exactly sure what Russia is firing, but a lot of older cruise missiles were intended to carry nuclear payloads first so accuracy within 100M or even 10M was perfectly OK. That accuracy isn’t so effective for conventional payloads. They will generally use up this older stuff first unless high accuracy is very important.
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Certainly when Russia is firing these things they aren’t aiming for the middle of a road in a city where only a few windows and cars are destroyed. I also highly doubt they are aiming for residential buildings unless there was convoys of military equipment sitting out front or they are holding military meetings there. It’s possible the not so smart cruise missile just ran into a building on the way to another target. If they want to kill a lot of civilians, they can. There is no reason for them to do that.
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They are hitting a lot of weird places though which is likely just unsuccessful targeting. Ukraine will only rarely invite the press to the successful targeting examples.
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I also don’t think Ukraine is a particularly target rich environment for Russia now, especially for stationary targets, unless they change tactics to infrastructure. Russia isn’t so great at hitting dynamic targets of opportunity to my knowledge.
The German V-1 flying bomb in WWII was a terror weapon in effect. There is a distinction here because there was no capability for precision bombing in those days. Nighttime bombing was very inaccurate, daytime bombing was very dangerous and still inaccurate.
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Would we fire bomb Japanese cities if we had precision weapons? Probably not, but I wouldn’t rule it out. The thinking was that we were going to have to invade Japan to end the war. If fire bombing cities (or using nuclear weapons) ended up saving a lot of solders in an invasion then it very well might have happened anyway. The estimates for casualties for an invasion of Japan were huge. Japan was mobilizing their entire population for defense. There is a strong argument using nuclear weapons here saved lives versus an invasion. It’s rather unclear whether an invasion could have been avoided. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Estimated_casualties
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You just don’t want to get to these type of decision making points.
Wars are bad. Avoid them.
Paul,
I completely understand your concern. There has never in my memory been a US administration willing to run a significant risk of nuclear war…. until the Biden administration. I think they are quite crazy, or if not actually crazy, act so convincingly crazy that I can’t distinguish their act from truly crazy. Maybe it is that they are so very arrogant and dismissive of anyone who disagrees with them…… on any issue, something I have observed crazy people tend to do.
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There is frankly nothing happening between Russian and the Ukraine (both corrupt formerly communist countries) that is worth destroying most of civilization over. Whether the long suffering people of the Ukraine suffer under Russian corruption, Ukrainian corruption, or some of each, it is simply is not important enough to me to risk the future of the USA and, indeed, all of Western civilization.
Tom Scharf,
Had the Japanese not surrendered, the USA was building nuclear bombs at a rate of ~10 per year, and I have no doubt every Japanese city would have been destroyed in short order. There was simply no stomach in the USA for a ground battle on the Japanese mainland when nuclear weapons were available as an alternative. Fortunately, the Japanese did surrender, bringing the nightmarish killing to an end.
Let there be no doubt about my position… Putin is a terrorist and Russia is a terrorist state. If indiscriminate bombing of civilians isn’t terrorism, nothing is.
By definition: “violence or the threat of violence used as a weapon of intimidation or coercion” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terror
By the Editorial Board of the Washington Post 10/10/22
“Russia’s terror bombing will fail if NATO helps Ukraine withstand it”
“Mr. Putin targets civilians at a time when his side is floundering and facing defeat in the actual contest of armies, so add desperation to the list of his motivations he shares with past terror-bombers.
His first objective was to instill fear in residents of population centers far from the front lines and cripple the electricity, water and other critical infrastructure on which they depend.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/10/russia-bombing-ukraine-nato-support/
Dan Rather, remember him…. @DanRather Oct 10
After the strikes today targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, where the only goal is human fear and suffering, it is time to call Putin what he is — a terrorist.
Garry Kasparov, remember him…. @Kasparov63 Oct 10
Russia is no longer a state sponsor of terror, but a fully terrorist state. The only way to end the terror is to give Ukraine everything they need to defend and win the war as quickly as possible. Any further delay means being Putin’s accomplice in murder.
Russell,
At least you can and did find an accepted definition by which that is terrorism. You didn’t say “If Zelensky says it’s terrorism, it’s terrorism! By definition!”
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In contrast, Ed Forbes arguments for the bridge bombing being terrorism are utterly lame.
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The problem with Ed’s proclamation is that bombing the bridge is not in the vicinity of terrorism.
The island nations of Australia and New Zealand, which managed to keep covid from spreading until nearly all over 65 were vaccinated, have both had their peaks in cases and deaths, with deaths now reduced to an extremely low rate. For both, the overall rate of death is nearly identical: near 600 deaths per million residents, only 15% to 25% of the States and most of Europe. Part of the reduction is probably due to omicron being less fatal than earlier strains, but mostly due to the protective effects of vaccinations against severe disease.
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Should another new viral disease arise (from a laboratory or otherwise), I hope the vaccine technologies for covid will be more rapidly applied to the new virus.
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Meanwhile, the number of covid deaths in the States has gradually fallen to about 380 per day, with the continuing decline in cases suggesting deaths will soon be under 100 per day, compared to about 7,800 per day from all causes. So far more people are dying from heart disease, cancer, stroke, etc than from covid. Which I guess is why covid no longer generates breathless headlines in the MSM. Instead we have breathless headlines about how horrible it will be if Republicans take control of Congress. But quite independent of factual reality, we remain in a permanent state of national covid emergency, which like most everything the Biden administration does, is a mix of stupidity, dishonesty, and political malfeasance.
It’s worse than we thought… D-1 howitzer M1943 is showing up on the russian battlefield. It went out of production in 1948. It is characterized by poor accuracy and short range [8 miles!]
From my favorite OSINT site:
“The D-1 howitzer M1943 is a Soviet WWII-era 152.4 mm howitzer. The gun was developed in 1942 and 1943, based on the carriage of the 122 mm howitzer M1938 (M-30) and using the barrel of the 152 mm howitzer M1938” (M-10).” https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1580235767145562113?s=20&t=Aw4-XdtYISSL3CWjuU5uyw
[read some of the comments on that post]
Lucia,
I think a definition of terrorism which leads to most any military action taken during war being declared “terrorism” is neither accurate nor useful. Better I think to define terrorism as politically motivated violence in the absence of war. Flying planes full of civilians into office buildings full of civilians in the absence of war is terrorism. Murdering the staff at Charlie Hebdo for publishing political cartoons is terrorism. Killing Van Gogh’s great grand nephew for producing a film critical of Islam is terrorism. Releasing Sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system is terrorism. Dropping a bomb on Hiroshima was not terrorism, nor was the bombing of London, Dresden, Berlin, Hanoi, Tokyo, and the bridge to Crimea, at least not according to any common understanding of the word. The Humpty Dumptys of the world don’t get to change the meanings of words whenever they find it politically convenient.
I don’t think Russia is indiscriminately bombing civilians. I do think their rules of engagement are a lot looser than the US, but a lot of that is because they lack some of the capabilities the US has. It is a … ummmm … privilege to have precision capability where you hit what you are aiming for most of the time.
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They have killed a lot of civilians. 1000’s probably. But they will bomb a rail station whenever they feel like it. What we don’t really know is how much military traffic is going through that station or was sitting there before or during the attack. Russia could further minimize civilian casualties with more careful targeting but they don’t. It’s a war. They have absolutely leveled towns and villages with artillery. The Ukrainians do the same thing to the extent they can. It’s a war.
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You have to think through the purpose of intentionally killing civilians, or at least completely disregarding their safety. Terrorizing the population has some minimal benefit but has even larger downsides as Ukraine uses it continuously for propaganda (rightfully) and the rest of the world judges Russia on their actions. Their own people wouldn’t support it. So far I am giving Russia a pass on this. They are more brutal, but still restrained in the big picture. They could launch 10,000 artillery shells a day into Kyiv if they wanted to.
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If you want to play the “I’m inventing a new definition of terrorism” to suit my side game, then you still have to apply the definition equally to both sides. What we have here is both sides or neither side being terrorists. Neither IMO.
I think ~300 deaths a day may be the floor for the US, the elderly dying with covid number. We are going to have people dying with covid forever just like the flu is my guess. The flu caused about 100 deaths / day. If you compare the existing all cause mortality rate against historical averages then you can find where the floor is.
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See graph “Weekly number of deaths (from all causes)” https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
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We are currently at approx. the annual average deaths now. It’s a bit complicated as a lot of people got killed by covid the past few years so in reality we should fall under the average for a few years to catch up. The floor might be 300 or 200, but it definitely is not zero.
To the russian apologists quibbling over my calling Putin and his goons “terrorists”…
How about if we just call them War Criminals. I am OK with that.
WARSAW, Oct 11 (Reuters) – “Mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities by Russia constitute war crimes under international law, the presidents of the Bucharest Nine group of countries, accompanied by the presidents of North Macedonia and Montenegro, said on Tuesday.
“We, the Presidents of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia condemn the mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities recently carried out by Russia, which constitute war crimes under international law,” they said in a statement.” https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bucharest-nine-presidents-say-russian-bombardments-ukraine-are-war-crimes-2022-10-11/
“Milley calls Russia’s attack on Ukrainian civilian sites a ‘war crime” https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3684937-milley-calls-russias-attack-on-ukrainian-civilian-sites-a-war-crime/
“The United Nations human rights office said that Russia may have committed a war crime by appearing to deliberately target civilians and critical infrastructure in cities across Ukraine.“
Video: https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000008576601/united-nations-russia-war-crime.html
Allegations from partisans are not convictions. It is a certainty individual “war crimes” have happened, whether they were sanctioned by leadership is another story and very difficult to prove. Wars are messy.
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Intentional on target bombing of civilian shelter in Iraq. 408 killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiriyah_shelter_bombing
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How you feel about this is almost entirely dependent on what you think the intentions were of the attackers. Had Russia done this I would suggest the feelings might be different. I think it was mistaken targeting, but was it? The same standard has to apply to everyone.
While nuclear war is a suicidal, difficult-to-comprehend and horrific proposition, the consequences of non-nuclear wars are as difficult to comprehend. It is difficult to make analogies in comparing war situations, but there are similarities in apparent attitudes of people directly involved in the Ukraine war and those involved in the US-Japan war towards the end of WWII. The US fire-bombing of Japanese cities (not including the two atomic bombings) killed and injured an estimated 300,000 and 400,000 Japanese people, respectively, while destroying 60% of over 60 cities. The deaths and injuries from the fire storms were at least as horrible as those from the atomic bombs. We can get into the rights and wrongs of these actions, but in the end, it affected many innocent people. Germany and Japan were bombing civilian populations before Great Britain and the United States did the same.
After the Japanese experienced the fire-bombing, their citizens remained in majorities in favor of continuing the war, which makes one think what would it take for the Ukrainians to give up the fight even in the face of Russia turning full force on the civilian populations in Ukraine. After the second atomic bombing most Japanese must have determined that the United States had the capability and will to wipe out cities one after the other until most of Japan was destroyed. That seems to be the limit for the Japanese at that time.
In the United States an estimated 85% of the population favored the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. The reasoning was that it saved soldiers lives that would have been required to invade Japan. The exact number has become more controversial with the time distance from the war. There remains a majority of the US population that favors the atomic bombing of Japan, although it keeps shrinking over time and particularly with the younger part of the population. The polling options during the war, as I recall, included the options of no bombing, bombing demonstrated in un-populated areas of Japan, bombing a single city and waiting a length of time for negotiation before continuing and bombing one city after the other until either Japan was destroyed or surrendered. The last option got as much support as the second one.
There is no doubt in my mind that wars change the attitudes of the people involved such that the killing of innocent people gets rationalized to the point of considering them as pawns in a chess game and wars’ strategies in these regards are talked about as moves in a chess game. The dehumanizing process is not easy to contemplate.
The woke train wreck continues apace. Incoming Minnesota medical students recite a new oath including :-
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“We commit to uprooting the legacy and perpetuation of structural violence deeply embedded within the health care system.
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‘We recognize inequities built by past and present traumas rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, the gender binary, ableism and all forms of oppression.
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‘As we enter this profession with opportunity for growth, we commit to promoting a culture of antiracism, listening and amplifying voices for positive change.
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‘We pledge to honor all indigenous ways of healing that have been historically marginalized by western medicine.
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‘Knowing that health is intimately connected with our environment, we commit to healing our planet and communities.
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‘We commit to collaborating with social, political and additional systems to advance health equity. We will learn from the scientific innovations made before us and pledge to advance and share this knowledge with peers and neighbors.
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‘We affirm that patients are the experts of their own bodies, and will partner with them to facilitate holistic wellbeing.”
As Tom Scharf says, war is not terrorism and civilian deaths in war are not terrorism. It is not a matter of one or the other being worse; it is just a matter of those things being different. It is not conducive to communication or understanding to insist on using the same word for things that are different.
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I see no reason to believe that we are significantly closer to nuclear war than we were a year ago. It makes no sense for Putin to use nukes to achieve any plausible objective in Ukraine since tactical nukes are extremely difficult to exploit on offense. That could change if Ukraine were to plausibly threaten to retake Crimea since that would threaten the Black Sea Fleet. I don’t think that is at all likely and expect that we would tell Ukraine that is off limits.
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I don’t know for sure that Putin is not so unbalanced as to use nukes out of shear petulance. But I doubt that is the case. I suspect that if he gave such an order, he would not live to see it disobeyed.
SteveF, I believe you let off too easily Biden and the Biden administration when referencing their positions on the Ukraine war as being the result of craziness. That would appear to give them in a non-responsible and non-blamable way out.
My take on this situation is that Biden and his administration is being lead by the voting public’s views and positions on the war which are probably more antithetical to your position than the Biden administration would ideologically want to be. The midterms, I judge, are having a major influence on their positioning. Presidents and their parties have historically used strong military positions where fighting is occurring and in the initial stages to bolster their voting support. Democrats might tend to overdo it because of their normally considered position on a strong military being less than that of the Republicans. (In actuality (over)spending on the military and domestic programs has been made both easier for Democrats and Republicans by way of their irresponsibly totally forgetting about fiscal integrity).
Being a cheerleader for an already pumped-up voting public on the war is not a politically bad position to be in.
DaveJR (Comment #215456)
Reading between the lines we have:
“As we enter this profession with opportunity to cure the ills of the world be those medical or social, we commit to promoting a progressive agenda and amplifying our voices in support of the left wing of the Democrat party.”
That would have summed it all up in a single paragraph and would have made it easier to remember when the oath was repeated 5 times a day.
Soldiers are pawns. Civilians are tools to be exploited. War is the ultimate game of survival. Nobody has to like this and its inhumane outcomes to recognize that is the reality we live in. Plants are literally at war with each other for survival, as are insects, viruses, bacteria. It’s turtles all the way down.
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Declaring it immoral is trivially true and amounts to an attempt to outlaw war because it is bad. I’d say this is closer to a religious viewpoint except religious groups are some of the worst offenders over history. The human species may be able to ultimately rise above this, but they haven’t so far. In absolute and relative numbers less people are dying from wars today than previously, so progress is being made.
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Groups that are at war are convinced they have something worth fighting for. Exactly who is to tell them they don’t? An oppressive overlord? Maybe, except it is usually the oppressive overlord they want to fight against. Calling off wars assumes there is some type of obvious universal justice that both sides can agree to, such as “Ukraine is really just part of Russia”.
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Dehumanization is constant. We don’t talk about how we defeated the “Germans”, we talk about how we defeated the Nazis. The Russians constantly talked about De-Nazify Ukraine at the start of the war. How subtle. Now it’s an existential battle against the west and NATO who want to destroy Russia.
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Why does this work? Because the human brain is wired to be tribalistic. Form groups for self defense. Fear of outside influences works for survival. Evolution has hard wired the entire planet like this. Ants and earthworms are just not wired for negotiated settlement. I’d rather live in a peaceful world, and we have for the most part since WWII. Deprogramming human tendencies is going to be hard though. It is mass insanity in a way.
The debate about whether any action, no matter how terrible or how clearly intended to terrorise, during war can be considered terrorism has been interesting. I would note that since Putin doesn’t considered the military action in Ukraine to be war then almost any Russian military action is not warfare and must, by Putin’s own identification of the action as not-war, be considered terrorism or criminal.
Andrew,
Well, by that standard, every military action (with no formal declaration of war) by the USA since at least the Korean war must be nothing but terrorism, right?
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Maybe there is a more practical definition: War involves uniformed military combatants. Terrorism doesn’t.
Ken Fritsch,
Maybe you are right, and Biden is trying to please the voters with his “never negotiate'” policies in the Russia-Ukraine war.
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If so, it is not going to work; Republicans will almost certainly take control of the House, and have a good chance of controlling the Senate. Biden is going to be investigated for personal corruption, if not impeached for refusal to enforce federal laws. I hope there is no effort to impeach, since he would never be convicted, but I also hope Biden’s apparent personal corruption is throughly investigated. In any case, there will be no more nutty laws passed via reconciliation in the Senate for at least a couple of years. And just maybe the execrable Chuck Schumer will decide retire along with the execrable Nancy Pelosi.
SteveF (Comment #215462):
“Andrew,
Well, by that standard, every military action (with no formal declaration of war) by the USA since at least the Korean war must be nothing but terrorism, right?” SteveF there are many around the world, if you read their media, that would agree that these actions by USA and its allies (including Australia) are by definition state sanctioned terrorism.
Andrew,
Yes, and there are lots of people around the world who believe throwing homosexuals from rooftops is perfectly appropriate. In fact, I’ll bet there is a lot of overlap of that group with the people who think the USA is a state sponsor of terrorism.
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I’ll stick with the obvious: wars involve uniformed military combatants.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215460)
Tom, you sound as though our natural tendency is to be at war, or at least warlike, and that repression of that tendency would be unnatural. As humans we have the ability to reason which makes us much different than even higher orders of other beings on earth. That ability is not something that is automatically on but it is there and its what gives hope for the future.
I view wars as unnatural for human beings given their abilities to reason and show compassion for a fellow human being. Wars are a manifestation of governments with great power over their constituents, or the capability to have that power given a real or imagined emergency. Wars are not the doing of the common man but rather that of politicians and military personnel in high places who do not participate in the battles but rather rally the people with propaganda, attempt to control the war as if it were a chess game and finance it with printed money and sacrifices of the common man.
It would be a more meaningful and fruitful analysis if we, instead of looking at some common human instinct for war, looked at those people in powerful places in powerful governments and their tendencies to commit to war.
Is Kherson at a risk of returning to Ukrainian control? Vladimir Saldo (Russian appointed mayor of Kherson) said overnight on Telegram “We suggested to all people of the Kherson region to, if they wish, leave to other regions to protect themselves” Ukraine retaking Kherson would be the biggest result of the counteroffensive so far.
SteveF (Comment #215465): “Yes, and there are lots of people around the world who believe throwing homosexuals from rooftops is perfectly appropriate. In fact, I’ll bet there is a lot of overlap of that group with the people who think the USA is a state sponsor of terrorism.” This seems a very strange suggestion, most of the people in Australia, UK and EU that callout USA for state sponsored terrorism are those most supportive of LGBQIT+ rights.
SteveF,
There has never in my memory been a US administration willing to run a significant risk of nuclear war
You must be younger than I thought. I remember the Cuban Missle Crisis quite well. If Castro had control of the launching, we would have had a nuclear war. Kruschev lost his job over it. Or are you saying that there was no risk of nuclear war in 1962?
SteveF,
The rate of bomb production in 1945 was going up exponentially as the bugs were worked out of the uranium enrichment and plutonium production processes. According to someone I knew who worked at Oak Ridge, there was material for thousands of bombs a very few years after 1945.
The thing that impressed the Japanese the most was that it was one plane and one bomb to destroy one city. Fire bombing used fleets of hundreds of bombers and a significant number were shot down.
And it wasn’t just American lives that were saved. It was estimated that in an invasion, there would be ten or twenty Japanese killed for every American. The Japanese considered that acceptable.
By the end of the war the Japanese air defenses were spent and the US was basically flying almost unopposed. The Kamikaze program was the last gasp. The Enola Gay mission actually flew just 3 planes. Japan was in pretty heavy distress industrially.
“you sound as though our natural tendency is to be at war”
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Only because that is what history tells me. Europe can’t seem to go 30 years without a war. The Middle East, ten seconds? When we aren’t at war we are spending 7% of our GDP preparing for war or selling lots of weapons to everyone else for their wars.
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It is my view that ever since cave men figured out how to use sticks and rocks that group conflict has been more or less a constant. Has there even been a generation without large scale conflict recently?
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Perhaps it is all the fault of the monolith. Our ability to reason also taught us that using rocks and sticks could get us to the top of the food chain and impose our will upon others, and it did. We didn’t get there by negotiating with lions or appealing to their better nature. Effective aggression is a major reason we got to the top and it is very hard to turn off. We aren’t that special, we just figured out this weapon’s thing before the apes did.
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The world would be a better place if everyone just stopped the conflict, but history says that groups are certain to continue to organize and try to impose their will upon others by force. The tyrannical a**hole ratio for humans is still too high.
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The John Lennon Imagine plan is fine if everyone buys into it, unfortunately they don’t. Ukraine gave up their nukes in return for a promise of sovereignty, now look where they are.
I’ve not read this guy before but he makes a lot of interesting points. Some samples:
“It’s hard to comprehend how stupid Russia’s ‘vengeance strikes’ for the Kerch Bridge attack truly were, and this is outside of the blatant targeting of civilians”
“They wasted what precious cruise missiles they have left against targets with no military value. Fighting a war they are losing, one in which they never achieved air superiority and cannot access the majority of the country with their manned air force, they use the only weapons that can reach these places against worthless targets”
“This idiotic decision just massively accelerated Ukraine’s acquiring a modern integrated air defense network made up of advanced western systems.
foundation is being laid to give Ukraine a top-rate IADS that will make operating any Russian aircraft over the country and even beyond its borders very risky to its enemies and the idea of ever achieving air superiority over the country…
which is a fleeting dream now will become all but impossible in the future.This means Russia’s fixed and rotary-wing capabilities, standoff weapons, and whatever it buys from Iran etc, will be less effective and will have less of an ROI as time goes on. “
“this attack just binds everyone closer together, including Kyiv and its many allies ready to pour even more advanced weaponry into the country and unites everyone further against a common foe. Allies working together is Russia’s biggest enemy and they have been incredible architects at seeing the very thing they despise comes to pass.”
Full post and references here: https://twitter.com/Aviation_Intel/status/1580698314949152769?s=20&t=YKWsxnv3azyPZhalgxryRw
This may signal a change. The last 24 hours of FIRMS fire reports only eight incidents in Ukraine outside of the combat zone (and some of these are probably wild fires or agricultural burning.) Previous 24 hour periods have shown many (like 100) fires in this area. I am hopeful that the OSINT writers saying russia is running low on mid and long range missiles are right. https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:24hrs;@31.2,47.6,6z
DeWitt,
I remember the Cuban crisis very well. The difference was that the Kennedy administration was responding to an existing threat of nuclear war, not generating one. Kennedy acted because every East coast city could have been wiped out in 15-20 minutes or less, and Castro could have gotten control.
DeWitt,
I don’t know how much plutonium and U-235 had been produced, but there was an inventory of under 10 complete bombs a year after Nagasaki. Maybe the rate of bomb production could have increased, but in any case, I agree every Japanese city would have been completely destroyed, before any contemplated invasion, had the Japanese not surrendered. I also suspect potential targeting of the Japanese Emperor entered into the calculation for surrender.
Andrew,
Yes, but most of the people in the Muslim world who think the USA is a state sponsor of terrorism do want to throw homosexuals from rooftops, and I suspect there are more of those folks than people in Europe or Australia who also think the USA sponsors terrorism.
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BTW, I completely agree that the USA needs to stop trying to institute democracy in places it is unwelcome, and adopt a foreign policy that recognizes important national interests really do vary enormously based on history and culture. My impression is that US foreign policy is based on almost a complete lack of respect for history and culture, including those of the USA itself.
FDR’s unconditional surrender terms in WWII had to be a factor in prolonging the war even if the many historical defenders of Roosevelt will rationalize it as a means of preventing future wars (how did that work out). With those terms for the Japanese the choice was further limited to an invasion or the submission of Japan through the killing and injuring of thousands of innocent Japanese citizens. The US Navy was pushing for a naval blockade instead of a land invasion. Truman’s political interests required getting the war over as fast as possible and keeping the unconditional surrender terms – which a large portion of the voting public favored. Dropping two atomic bombs met that requirement. I judge that governments can very readily rationalize for any military action the killing of innocent people to end wars and thus producing a predicted net saving of lives.
Wars are fought by national governments that have or are given the power to commit to and carry out the undertakings of war. Drafting personal for combat is giving the ruling politicians the power to enslave and with no impediments from constitutional considerations. It is that emergency thing. It also goes against a war requiring drafting as being a popular war. Further going against a popular war is that wars are primarily financed through borrowing (for future generations to repay or default) and printing money that eventually causes inflation. The immediate effect of raising taxes could well go against a popular war. It is the government that propagandizes the war effort and rationalizes that the lies justify the ends with the assumption that the public should not or need not have all the facts.
There is a connection between wars and the level of destruction of lives and property with the power of governments involved. My answer for diminishing the occurrence and level of destruction of wars would be much less government with more individual freedoms, free markets and trade and free exchange of ideas between the citizens of the various nations. On a practical level having smaller nations would be an impediment to war or at least large wars. That could occur through the process of secession.
Russell,
To some extent I think it depends on what you mean by ‘finished’.
Is Trump ‘finished’ with holding office as President? I think and hope so.
Is Trump ‘finished’ with influencing politics? I don’t think so. See also the Pennsylvania Senate seat contest between Dr. Oz and Fetterman.
In fact I speculate that Trump may derail DeSantis for 2024, and if so he will probably lose to whomever the Dems run. So sadly, nope. I wish the guy were finished, but like you I doubt it.
The cruise missile attacks appear to be mostly performative chest thumping to show Russia’s people that Putin is not weak. The bridge attack could not go unanswered for someone like Putin. The smoke screen of misinformation and propaganda still applies, we don’t know what the goal really was.
NYT today:
“A Monmouth University poll last month found that 29 percent of Americans believe Mr. Biden won because of voter fraud — exactly the same as in June when the hearings opened. (Sixty-one percent of Republicans thought so.) And 38 percent of respondents last month held Mr. Trump “directly responsible” for Jan. 6, compared with 42 percent in June.”
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The hearings were a partisan circus show. This result was entirely predictable as the messenger was never going to be trusted, as if nobody could figure that out. I hope Trump fails but I’d like to see a whole lot less of this type of behavior in DC all around.
Russell
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Let’s discuss the proposed integrated air defense proposed for Ukraine.
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Very little equipment is available for immediate shipment. Only a small number of close range systems are available immediately. Each of these provided systems can only cover one item of critical infrastructure. Almost all of the proposed equipment for an Ukrainian intergraded national air defense has to ordered and constructed prior to shipping to Ukraine. This will take years, not weeks or months.
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As the proposed integrated system will be delivered piecemeal, the individual components can easily be overloaded and destroyed piecemeal.
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NATO does not have any significant numbers of long range air defense systems in inventory. NATO wars are expected to have total air dominance, so have seen little need to produce these types of systems.
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With the destruction of the electrical grid, Russia has brought Ukraine ability to move forces and supply its forces to a critical reduction as a very large % of Ukraine rail is electric. Attacks on Ukraine rail marshaling yards and repair depots also degrade Ukraine ability to move by rail. Moving these systems to their required locations will be a major problem.
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Time is a major issue for Ukraine. The critical point to the war will be this winter, not a year from now. Time also is an issue for NATO. The EU will be well on its way to deindustrialization by this coming spring, so production of any goods, including military, will be problematical.
Global warmers are the winners of the Russia-Ukraine war.
MikeN,
How so?
Ed Forbes, remember this?
Ed Forbes (Comment #211388)
April 19th, 2022 at 6:30 pm
“Ukraine’s main issue with supply is a lack of trucks and fuel. They have 1 rail line going into the east that is not cut at Kharkiv in the north and Donetsk in the south. This line intersects the E40 at about Slovynsk, about 50km south from Lzyum (by scale if I have the locations correct). This line is in danger of being cut by the Russian advance down the E40..
lzyum is the base for the new Russian offensive in the north. Russia now has direct rail access from Russia to Lzyum. This reduces Russian supply issues significantly. Direct supply means sustained and heavy artillery fire, which Ukraine lacks. Ukraine forces that can be targeted by Russian artillery batteries will now come under intense bombardment in this new forward push and Ukraine is not able to respond. This will be decisive. The Russian dominance in heavy and sustained artillery fire will allow breakout through the Ukraine defense and the encirclement of major portions of the Ukraine army in the east.”
My response to your post today can be summed up in three words: HA HA!
Russell, so no defense of the misleading air defense articles you linked to.
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No surprise on my part as a defense would require you to actually know something about the issue instead of just mindlessly passing on propaganda.
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Or is “HA HA” the most intelligent response you are capable of?
Edit
“ My response to your post today can be summed up in three words: HA HA”
Having problems counting are we 🙂
Russell,
I assume that your reposting of my April post was made in some attempt to embarrass me. I must say that I have made a number of incorrect guesses on a number of posts over the years, but my April post would not have been one I would have highlighted to show error on my part. My April post has stood up remarkably well over time.
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So let’s address this April post shall we.
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Main points of the post
1.Ukraine’s main issue with supply is lack of heavy trucks and fuel. This was true then and is true now. Fuel has a 1000km supply run from Poland as Ukraine has to import almost all fuel from NATO.
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2. The rail line Ukraine depended on for much of the year that ran a distance south of Izyurn was in danger of being cut. It was in danger, but Russia redirected its main line of attack to the southeast, away from Izyum.
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3. The captured railway lines that ran directly from Russia to Lzyum and other locations in the east made Russian logistical supply MUCH easier and supply could now be run directly to the front. This was true then and the point remains true today. Railway that runs directly from Russian mainland directly to the front is a major advantage for Russia.
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4. Ukraine forces will come under heavy artillery bombardment that Ukraine will find difficult to respond to. This is being noted as true on a daily basis.
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So again, I think you will have drag something else out to save you from an intelligent discussion.
Ed Forbes, The conclusions you drew from your “facts” in Comment #211388,April 19th, 2022 were dead wrong, and I quote:
“lzyum is the base for the new Russian offensive in the north. Russia now has direct rail access from Russia to Lzyum. This reduces Russian supply issues significantly. Direct supply means sustained and heavy artillery fire, which Ukraine lacks. Ukraine forces that can be targeted by Russian artillery batteries will now come under intense bombardment in this new forward push and Ukraine is not able to respond. This will be decisive. The Russian dominance in heavy and sustained artillery fire will allow breakout through the Ukraine defense and the encirclement of major portions of the Ukraine army in the east.”
The exact opposite is what happened on the battlefield at Izyum. There was no russian breakout and encirclement of the Ukranians. It was a stalemate until September when the Ukrainians attacked and the russians got routed. The Ukrainian army encircled the russians, took a lot prisoners and captured a lot of war stuff, including tanks. You are now sprouting the same “facts” to draw the same conclusion that you were dead wrong about before. IZYUM is now a stronghold for the Ukrainians and evidence of russian war crimes against civilians has been found there.
Three words: HA,HA!
Idea for discussion: Ed Forbes is not who he says he is.
In the above posts he challenged me to engage. My response contained two traps. Ed Forbes fell for both of them. Any one familiar with US news events and anyone in the West who follows the war would have known better.
The Ed Forbes method of argument: Take some things that are true, exaggerate their importance, then make predictions. When the predictions prove wildly wrong, point to the grain a truth as evidence he was right.
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So yes, fuel is a challenge for Ukraine. But Ed claimed it was crippling and would contribute to the doom of Ukrainian troops in the east. Completely wrong, except for the obviously true bit.
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Yes, Russia has lots of artillery and will use it ruthlessly. But Ed claimed that would be decisive and result in the doom of Ukrainian troops in the east. Events turned out just the opposite.
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Similar comments apply to the railway lines.
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Ed claims he wants people to engage with him. Ed needs to engage with reality.
Ahhh….but none of you will directly address my points regarding air defense.
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As you seem to be unable to dispute the argument at hand, you then dispute the author. Is this the best you can do? You are taking the lazy man’s approach to argument.
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Ed Forbes
Ahhh….but none of you will directly address my points regarding air defense.
I don’t debate whose got more military strength because I know little about it. So my not debating that point means nothing.
That said: I would suggest you repeat the point you are referring too. It’s likely buried among a zillion other points that have been addressed. I have no idea what it was. If you think it was a devastating killer point, you ought to bring it back up directly rather than sending people to find a needle in a haystack.
Ed Forbes,
I don’t really recall what you said about Ukraine’s air defense. My impression is that they were a bunch of unsupported assertions containing a grain of truth. Not worth commenting on.
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Either restate them or give a comment #.
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Addition: Ukraine’s woefully inadequate air defenses have been able to deny Russia control of the air and shot down about half the Russian missiles in the last wave of attacks on civilian targets.
More COVID fear porn:
New Omicron Covid-19 Subvariants on the Rise in U.S., CDC Says
BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants together drove an estimated 11.4% of recent U.S. cases
You really have to dig through the article to find out that the number of cases are still declining in the US. They put in a lot of caveats about home testing leading to a probably much higher number of cases than oficially reported. But this has been true since day one even without at home testing.
They have to do something to justify Biden’s extension of the state of emergency. And, of course, no mention whether deaths attributed to COVID are patients who tested positive on admission for something else or that the primary cause of death was COVID.
Kenneth,
Military conscription is not slavery. It might be equivalent to indentured servitude, though. Conscripts, if we restored the draft, would have the same rights under the UCMJ as voluntary recruits.
DeWitt, a slave is owned by another person as property and in perpetuity. A conscript is owned by the state for as long as the state needs the conscript’s services. The state has to be a gentler and kinder owner than a slave holder might be required to be in order to keep the recruits from going permanently AWOL and to keep potential conscripts from leaving the country in great numbers.
In addition the state might have to present a better rationale for going to war with voluntary recruits or, alas, in might not be able to convince voluntary recruits (and their families) of the need to go to war. Drafting is giving the state great power and obviously at the expense of individual freedoms.
Ed is proclaiming Ukraine’s barely functioning air defense system which it has had since the beginning as a “victory” for Russia, or something. I assume these assets will be surrounded, destroyed in detail and the war will be over soon, real soon, very very soon. Right along with the EU economy being reduced to hunting and gathering. Soon. Please send bows and arrows to your friends and family in the EU.
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Russia’s air offense is basically non-existent. They don’t really fly very much, they have had a few planes shot down but really aren’t putting them in danger. They definitely don’t have air dominance and I’m not even sure they have air superiority. This against a country that has some S-300 and older systems and some really old jets. Why? Who knows.
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Russia had clear military superiority back at the start, 4 months ago, and now. They have badly mismanaged this advantage, even the Russia propagandists are admitting as much lately.
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It’s been a bit embarrassing, which no doubt was why the response to the bridge bombing was a bit of an overreaction.
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Cruise missiles are expensive. They have to be self guided and don’t come back and get reloaded. The subsonic ones are relatively easy to shoot down with a viable air defense system. Ukraine will continue to be vulnerable to these attacks. They really can’t be easily stopped in quantity. Russia submarine launched cruise missiles can hit DC in 6 minutes and are unlikely to be stopped if unexpected.
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There just isn’t a lot of value that can be gained using these in Ukraine at this point. Taking out $100K of infrastructure with a $1M missile is not a great gain. Russia still has superiority, we will see if they can get their sh** together.
Putin has to go, then the war will settle.
Hard to see him going voluntarily.
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On a brighter note , less than 4 weeks to a very exciting election.
Jan 6th hype
Abortion
Inflation
Hurricanes
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So, predictions
Putin gone by end of month
Republicans to control house by a huge margin
An October share market shock
A very large Iceland volcanic explosion
For DeWitt Arctic sea ice to increase from 8th to 15th lowest.
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angech
Putin gone by end of month
I hope so. But I think, like Trump, the horror is eternal.
Republicans to control house by a huge margin
I doubt the margin will be “huge”. How much of a majority do you consider huge?
angech,
Not much chance of Putin going anywhere for years.
There will be breathless Jan 6 committee hearings which very few will watch or pay any attention to.
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Republicans taking control of the House is virtually certain, so not much of a prediction. The more important question is if they also take control of the Senate; if so, then Biden’s parade of nutty-left Federal judges ends after two years.
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Almost certainly there will be Congressional investigations of the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce laws, the politicization of the ‘intelligence agencies’ to punish political opponents, and Biden’s personal corruption. House Republicans will be tempted to punish Democrats will political payback, like denying committee seats to the extreme left (10 or 20 Democrat representatives), a show trial/investigation of Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to accept added security January 4 to 6, 2021, and investigations into many 2020 election irregularities. I hope they resist those temptations, but it is not clear they can. Political over-reach is always foolish…. just like the Jan 6 committee is foolish.
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The 2024 election will be far more critical for the future of the USA. Republicans will almost certainly take control of the Senate in 2024 if not in 2022 (many unpopular Democrat Senators will be up for election in 2024). If Trump does not run, then President DeSantis and a Republican Congress will undo much of the damage done since Jan 2021. If Trump does run, then he will lose, and much of Biden’s damage will become more or less permanent, with another lawless Democrat President refusing to enforce laws, issuing unlawful directives to the bureaucracy, and vetoing every attempt by Congress to undo the lunacy of 2021 – 2022.
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Icelandic volcanoes? October stock prices? You must have a direct line to Nostradamus.
Appears russia has increased the number of missile attacks on civilians. The last two days have shown maybe 50 fire spots outside the combat zone. There had been a lull of two days of maybe 25 fires. It is still reduced from maybe 100 fires the first few days of the attacks. Ukraine claims to intercept 50% of the missiles, so some % of the fires may be misses.
Interesting video of a Ukrainian soldier using MANPADS to hit a missile [they claim]: https://twitter.com/TDF_UA/status/1579451018013999106?s=20&t=cL4afjCWMLRqaJbJGpsZ-A
I am starting to see more of the intercept videos [without verification].
The US has an unmanned spy plane fling reconnaissance at 52,000 feet in No-Mans-Land over the Black Sea near Sevastopol. https://www.flightradar24.com/FORTE12/2ddc353b
…as well as another [manned] spy plane in the air over Romania near the Black Sea. https://www.flightradar24.com/CL60/2ddc6dc6
The Senate is still uncertain. To flip control Republicans need a Walker win in GA, or a Dr. Oz win in Penn (Republicans need this among other things which are more likely – need no surprise upsets). [Edit: This is assuming Republicans win Nevada, which I see is pretty darn close too]
Maybe. Maybe not. Hershel Walker is said by even hostile media outlets to have done better than expected in the recent debate.
[Edit: I think it’s less likely than otherwise. I’d predict Republicans do not retake the Senate this go-round.]
The range of possible outcomes is the collapse of the putin government to intercontinental nuclear war and everything in between…. I said that early on in the conflict and still think it’s true.
Will the US Covid Emergency rules apply to the 2022 election as in 2020?
With regard to the election, I very much doubt that the polls are reliable. The last RCP average for the generic ballot includes results ranging from Democrats +4 to Republicans +7. That seems too large to be random error.
Politico consistently shows the Dems to be ahead, with margins of 2 to 5 points for 5 polls since the start of September (average D +4).
Rasmussan show Republicans leading by 1 to 7 points for 5 polls over the same time frame (average R +4).
There are clearly systematic errors. And we know the direction of the systematic errors in recent years.
Predicting the outcome of the mid-terms is a difficult task even with polling data. Polling data in the recent past elections have underestimated the Republican vote and most likely because the more right-wing Republicans have been less likely to respond to polling requests. On the other hand, polling probably does not reflect well in predicting voter turnout.
The Republicans have the economy and border control in their favor, while the Democrats have the Trump factor and abortion favoring their side. Democrats being the party of big government and elections being a big part of government, they are more motivated as a natural tendency than the Republican party to take a large interest in the voting process. The Republicans must get their motivation by way of major Democrat screw-ups. Motivations alone will not work unless the motivated party can explain the consequences of the screw-ups in terms the voting public understands. The intelligentsia and especially that part that is represented by the media have the forum to explain away any big government screw ups.
The Republicans for the most part have only been pointing to these screw-ups, but mostly in more emotional terms and not very well explaining in non-emotional and intellectual terms the problems of big government. The elections could well be decided by which party can make the most of the voting publics emotions. I see (too) many emotional pleas on both sides but see the Democrats as more emotional. Whether that can overcome the screw-ups of big government and the feeble attempts to explain it remains to be seen. It does give me some areas to look at as the elections approach and get a better picture of what might result.
I think Nevada made the 2020 election rules permanent.
PE Harvey,
Some states (for example Georgia) passed laws explicitly prohibiting the changes that took place in 2020. Others made some or all of the changes permanent. Ballot harvesting by political operatives was and is still illegal in almost all states, but it appears to have been widespread in 2020 and seldom pursued. Voting by Alzheimer’s patients, unconscious nursing home residents, and the dead definitely increased in 2020, at least in very competitive states, facilitated by mail-in voting, drop boxes, and ballot harvesters, of course.
Mike M,
The polls have not been reliable at all since 2016, and weren’t all that accurate for decades before then. I think the issues are two-fold:
1) Most pollsters either can’t or won’t account accurately for the ‘basket of deplorables’ voters who will not participate in a survey. I think it is mainly confirmation bias when they accept nonsensical polling data if it shows their preferred candidate is ahead. (More than a bit like climate science. 😉 )
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2) Sadly, many pollsters appear to aim not to inform, but rather to gas-light the public and suppress turnout for any candidates (almost 100% conservatives!) those pollsters don’t like. They announce preposterous leads for progressive democrats, then say “See, it is not even worth the effort to vote for xxxxx, because he will lose anyway.” Along with “How could anyone support such an unpopular candidate?” They are aided in the fas-lighting efforts by the MSM, of course.
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These are not random errors. The conservative, Republican, nationalist candidate is ALWAYS reported to have lower support than they have in fact. And not just in the states: polls for Brexit, elections in Italy, Sweden, etc ALWAYs have the progressive position far ahead of the actual votes. Too many pollsters have their thumbs on the scale; I think they should be mostly ignored.
They announce preposterous leads for progressive democrats, then say “See, it is not even worth the effort to vote for xxxxx, because he will lose anyway.” Along with “How could anyone support such an unpopular candidate?” They are aided in the fas-lighting efforts by the MSM, of course.
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I am not making a claim that organized cheating occurs here. I am merely making the observation that if one wanted to conduct and get away with large scale voter fraud, manufacturing polls to provide cover for the results would have to be a part of it. Otherwise people wouldn’t accept the results and would (correctly) insist that fraud had occurred.
Mike M. (Comment #215508)
“With regard to the election, I very much doubt that the polls are reliable. The last RCP average for the generic ballot includes results ranging from Democrats +4 to Republicans +7. That seems too large to be random error.”
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Interesting comments.
The polls seem to reflect the concerns of the particular voting samplers, ie bias rather than random error.
Having said that all is not equal in outcomes v average.
Republicans get more seats than average with a lower average outcome.
When the polls split 50/50 the Republicans tend to get say 15 seats up .
Huge majority?
Lucia. I would confidently predict at least a 40 seat majority in the House of Reps.
If not for the Supreme Court decision maybe up to 60.
A landslide.
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Senate, SteveF Republicans are struggling . A lot of cross currents.
McConnell supporting Murkowski and not helping out the other Trump backed radicals.
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America is changing, but what I see is the Americanisation of the Afro Americans and Hispanics. Large swathes are turning conservative at the same time as our naive 70’s dreamers, we all were once, face turning, 70.
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Nostradamus I am not, hopeful I am.
angech
Thanks for making your predictions quantitive. Now we’ll wait and see.
America is changing, but what I see is the Americanisation of the Afro Americans and Hispanics.
I’m pretty sure Afro-Americans have been “Americanized” a long, long time. Immigrants generally become Americanized. But I’m not sure I have the slightest notion what you consider “Americanized”.
Starting to see NATO air defense equipment on the Ukraine battlefield. Here is an interesting video of the German-donated Flakpanzer Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG): https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1581449748728360961?s=20&t=EHFWaws834vfItNt05DL2Q
Also on air defense from the WSJ, 10/16/22:
Failure to Control Ukraine’s Skies Betrays Key Flaw in Russia’s War Strategy
“… Ukraines air defense has relied largely on Soviet-era systems that Ukraine has maintained and improved over three decades. In many ways, Russia’s failure to disable the systems is more notable because Moscow uses the same equipment, including S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs, plus smaller and highly mobile Buk and Tor launchers, analysts say. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine had a particularly large number of the systems and still has a high ratio of systems to territory compared with standards of countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization”
“Without air supremacy, Moscow can’t stop Kyiv’s offensive or target precisely, relying on drones and missiles”
Free Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/failure-to-control-ukraines-skies-betrays-key-flaw-in-russias-war-strategy-11665915386?st=irgb4gmshk63tb0&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Americanized.
But I’m not sure what you consider “Americanized”..
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In Australia we had a lot of Italian and Greek migrants over the last 100 years.
Different with European values opposed to British “Australian” values.
Nowadays language and values have moved to correspond or correlate with the “Australian” views which also had the British identity mutate.
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Billy Bunter and Phantom comics changed to DC Superman and Marvel Spider-Man .
Davy Crockett and Bowie at school play epitomised my idealistic view of America.
Truth, justice and the American way.
Give me your huddled masses.
With great power comes great responsibility.
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Americanised to me means becoming conservative I guess.
Believing in an honest justice system, the right of law.
Helping others out first despite an emphasis on individual responsibility.
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This idealised view of America is what the groups I refer to now aspire to and some of us old fogeys remember.
Values.
Sorry to be maudlin.
angech,
I think the shift you see with blacks and Hispanics is real enough, but I suspect it is mostly driven by more people in those groups recognizing that what progressive Democrats want is not good for them and their families. Far too many Hispanics understand from personal experience the cost of living under a leftist regime, with lost of liberty… just talk to a Cuban, Nicaraguan, or Venezuelan who fled leftist regimes. For both Hispanics and blacks, there is an ever greater realization that progressive policies are making their lives worse (inflation, crime, etc(.).
angech,
But African American’s aren’t immigrants. They are Americans. By definition, their views contribute to the definition of American views. How would their views be “different” from Americans?
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I don’t see any trouble seeing a shift in what a group of Americans views. But I think it’s pretty odd to define them as “unAmerican” when, in fact, they are just contributing to what the “American” view is.
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Americanised to me means becoming conservative I guess.
Well… I guess that’s the Australian view. 🙂
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Believing in an honest justice system, the right of law.
Helping others out first despite an emphasis on individual responsibility.
The rest has been kinda-sort of the “Founding Father’s” view and has been pretty typical. But I suspect Hispanics and African American’s have been for those. Part of the Civil Rights movement was honest justice system and the right of (due process) under law. etc. Lots of that wasn’t really held up well in places with strong amounts of “Jim Crow”.
Russell,
I note that the radar dish is down and not activated. These things are easy targets for radar seeking missiles. That thing is pretty old, I wonder how effective it is. Should be good enough for drones and some cruise missiles.
Putin heavily targeting energy infrastructure still. It’s a bit weird he is using Iranian drones. It’s a war, but this is a clear change in the game to intentionally inflict suffering on the citizens. Russia’s true colors are shining through. As Biden would say, two words: Never trust Russia.
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Part of this may be related to the multiple attacks in Belgorod Russia, things keep spontaneously exploding there recently.
I think that when angech says “Americanized” he means “assimilated”. Many Blacks are not really assimilated. They have their own culture and give a hard time to other Blacks who “act white”. Many Latinos are not yet assimilated; I don’t know if they are taking longer than other groups.
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I grew up thinking of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as part of my heritage. I am pretty sure that my non-English-speaking grandmother did not share that view. I am assimilated, she was not.
My impression is a lot of immigrants come to the US for economic opportunity which is related to capitalism. There is likely a self selection process that allows us to get more strivers than typical which reinforces the success. American / Western culture is pervasive globally. I always find it strange that almost the entire world wears t-shirts with English even though many don’t speak the language.
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I’m not entirely convinced that they find what they were looking for when they get here, but that is hard to judge. Most of them stay if they are able to. I think the US tends to take for granted this appeal.
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What I do believe is that we have less corruption than most places and try harder to keep it out of government. There is a hard core streak of (l)ibertarianism in the US unlike any other place. Take this job and shove it, ha ha.
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As much as we like to paint ourselves as decrepit at multi-cultural assimilation, this fails to replicate when you visit the rest of the world and come back to the US. It is very hard and we are far from perfect, but who does it better? Nobody.
Blockbuster new documentary from Candace Owens, “THE GREATEST LIE EVER SOLD: GEORGE FLOYD AND THE RISE OF BLM”
They took in 90 million dollars and it disappeared.
Getting high ratings including at Rotten Tomatoes [94% with 250+ reviews]:
“In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, the media concocted a narrative that justified a summer of worldwide riots and helped contribute to the rise of Black Lives Matter, who used the chaos to raise 90 million dollars. In this new documentary, Candace Owens follows the money and discovers exactly how the money was spent and where it did–and didn’t–go.” https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_greatest_lie_ever_sold_george_floyd_and_the_rise_of_blm
Also good press reviews “Black Lives Matter, Owens charges, is “a fraudulent organization that … uses black emotion and black pain to extort dollars from white America.” https://nypost.com/2022/10/14/george-floyd-roommates-others-slam-black-lives-matter-in-film/
I do not judge people by how they vote, but rather by how they live their lives. I see no need or advantages for different groups of people to be assimilated into a national culture. What is important is that different cultures can reside side by side and respect others individual freedoms and private property and avoid any inclinations for having the government pick sides.
What gives me hope for our nation is the diversity of thought that one can see within the various cultural groups. It shows that individualism is still alive – and counter to such group thinking as wokeism.
People can appear to take partisan political positions counter to how they live their lives which I take as a matter of doing what many voters do and that is voting against a party and not for one. I think we are stuck with that tendency until we break with the 2 party system and get more philosophical discussions and fewer emotional ones.
Immigrants, we are a nation of immigrants. At the request of my daughter-in-law, I began a two year quest to identify our family immigrant story. It was difficult but very rewarding. I discovered the history of all our immigrant ancestors except for one, my mother’s grandfather. Some findings:
-My great-great grandparents that escaped the potato famine from a village in Ireland. They opened a saloon down the street from Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill in Pittsburgh.
-My great-great grandparents that were poor dirt farmers from a town in rural Bavaria. I know the ship and dates they came over [in steerage of course]. Johan Klier fought for the Union in the Civil War, Company K of “The Pennsylvania Volunteers”.
– My great grandfather from wine country in Germany was supposedly a “confectioner”. He died in a car crash running bootleg liquor to Atlantic City. [I’m not entirely positive of this one]
My great grandfather from Central Germany who worked as a laborer in a brewery.
…and more!
Tom Scharf,
The relatively recent multiculturalixm movement, which has not been good for the US, is strongly opposed to assimilation. According to them, no culture is better than any other culture. That’s obviously wrong, but they’re progressives. I suspect that most of the multiculturalists also think that children are just small adults and need to be treated like adults rather than barbarians who need to be civilized. That’s not been pretty either. Look up Gentle Parenting if you want to be depressed.
MikeM
I think that when angech says “Americanized” he means “assimilated”. Many Blacks are not really assimilated.
Sorry, but I think you need to finish that sentence. Assimilated into what? Obviously, they are “assimilated” into American culture. They are part of it and have been for a long time. You can’t just call the values of a subset who has been here for a since the founding of the country “not assimilated”. That’s just weird.
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Even if their position in the country made them as a group have a different view form another sub-population they are still just as “American” and just as “assimilated” as the “white” population!
Many Latinos are not yet assimilated; I don’t know if they are taking longer than other groups.
Yes. Newly arrived Latinos are not “assimilated”. Newly arrived Indian’s from India are also not “assimilated”. (That’s why they hire tutors for their kids.) I don’t think either group is taking “longer” to assimilate that Irish, Italians, Poles etc. Heck, the Ukrainians immigrants in Lake County got here several generations ago. They still have Ukrainian gatherings and many still learned Ukrainian from their grandparents. (Vlad says it’s funny speaking Ukrain with them because it’s all old fashioned. But that’s probably like French vs. Quebequois!)
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I grew up thinking of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as part of my heritage. I am pretty sure that my non-English-speaking grandmother did not share that view. I am assimilated, she was not.
yeah… well if black didn’t think of slave owners and slave owning as part of their heritage, I don’t think that means they aren’t “assimilated”. Nor do I think it means they are not “Americanized”. Part of being American is accepting that people do have different views, that they have every right to hold those views, and holding different views doesn’t make them “not American”.
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I think assimilation takes longer now. Previous generations of immigrants could gather exclusively amongst themselves if the numbers were high enough, but they could not be watching TV from their home country via satellite dish.
lucia (Comment #215529): “Even if their position in the country made them as a group have a different view form another sub-population they are still just as “American” and just as “assimilated” as the “white” population!”
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Not sure I understand. Are the Amish assimilated? I’d say no, even though they are definitely American.
Mike,
Amish as such a small group. I think you might be able to pick out some Jewish groups as different. And these groups say they intentionally stay separate.
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I think both factors make a difference. But African Americans are a huge group. I think African Americans are clearly assimilated even if, in the aggregate, some of their views differ from your. Assimilated doesn’t mean “shares MikeM’s views”.
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How one defines assimilation is all over the place. I see it as the ability to provide equal opportunity while retaining the ability to choose your own values and maintaining your freedom of association. There are very real limits though, we aren’t going to implement local shariah law, therein lies actual forced assimilation. Your expression of values is limited by state and federal laws.
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The left’s view is increasingly incoherent and I don’t know what the word for that is. The closest definition is “clear prejudice toward the correct groups”. As if believing your specific prejudice is justified (by social science!) is a special and morally correct way to view life. Not new or special.
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The view appears to be different cultures must be completely integrated to fine grained statistical outcomes, but groups must also retain their unique mono-culture and be judged by their identity as defined by an outside group of the cultural illuminati. LatinX! LGBT…? If you stroke them enough they may even put you in a protected class. As long as you vote for their people and limit your public facing prejudice to the correct groups. Freedom of association is not in play here.
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Basically what I am saying is there are endless examples of immigrants and individuals from different groups becoming very successful in the US and the chances of doing it here are better than almost anywhere.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215521)
“Radar: The Gepard has two radar dishes—a general search radar at the rear of the turret and a tracking radar at the front between the guns. Some are also equipped with a laser rangefinder on top of the tracking radar.”
In the comments someone says they use the front radar for close in targeting and the rear one for distant scanning.
I think this is just a guy showing off his new toy and didn’t bother to engage the radar.
This stuff is dated but it appears to be in good working order. I have no idea of the effectiveness. I saw a video of some cops in Kyiv shooting down an Iranian drone with automatic rifles.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215533): How one defines assimilation is all over the place. I see it as the ability to provide equal opportunity while retaining the ability to choose your own values and maintaining your freedom of association.”
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I don’t know about definitions being all over the place. I keep finding something along the lines of
the process of adopting the language and culture of a dominant social group or nation, or the state of being socially integrated into the culture of the dominant group in a society
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/assimilation
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It seems to me that “equal opportunity” is a pretty decent test. A group is assimilated if retained aspects of their culture don’t significantly hold them back. So to be assimilated they had better learn proper English, but no problem if they also retain another language. Religion per se would not be an issue, but dress might be. Food would not be a problem.
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So the Ukrainians lucia refers to are probably fully assimilated. The Amish are definitely not assimilated. Blacks who insist on speaking black English and make no effort in school because that would be acting white are not fully assimilated.
African Americans are obviously part of American culture. They have a different culture than European ancestors in general, different than Jewish, different than Asians, etc.
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If the goal is to become a homogenized melting pot than these different cultures will have to want and choose to assimilate, thus losing some of their cultural identity along the way.
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There seems to be a lot of mixed signals here. People pointing out that there isn’t a defacto melting pot in existence and blaming one or another culture for not “allowing” it to happen. Meanwhile there seems to be the exact opposite, people pointing out that asking for a melting pot is akin to being racist and different cultures should be allowed to retain their identities. All the while maintaining a bizarre gatekeeping function against cultural appropriation, thus redlining your allowed culture by your designated identity.
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Do people want a melting pot, or not? I don’t know. The messaging is incoherent. People want different things as individuals and should be able to choose those.
There is nothing wrong with different cultures as long as they don’t form a significant detriment to society as a whole. The Amish are certainly different but they do no harm to others and ask nothing from others. And they aren’t large enough to have a big impact.
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But the black subculture in America is extremely detrimental to society. It breeds dependence and crime at great cost to the country. That is not OK.
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That is not the result of slavery or discrimination. It seems to be mostly self imposed with misguided government policies as a force multiplier.
Tom Scharf,
My main issue is angech somehow seeming to think African Americans are just now “Americanizing”. That’s clearly bunk. They are obviously “Americanized”.
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Whether they are “assimilated” depends on what group you consider them “assimilated into“. They are obviously “assimilated” into “the american population”.
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Mike is trying to create some sort of economic test to decide if someone is “assimilated”. No one considered impoverished Okie migrant workers or West Virginian coal miners “not assimilated” into “American culture” because they didn’t make money. There’s been tons of white poverty and there still is– and among natural born americans whose grandparents and great grandparents were natural born Americans. Yet I don’t think anyone considers that group “not assimilated”. They are just poor.
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Blacks who insist on speaking black English and make no effort in school because that would be acting white are not fully assimilated.
I do agree English speaking matters. But I think the only requirement for assimilation is speaking English that is mutually understandable to most other American’s. Whether you like “Black” English or dislike it, it perfectly understandable to most Americans. (I understand it. Meanwhile I do have trouble with some UK accents or dialects. ) So I don’t think speaking black English a sign of being “not assimilated” into American culture.
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People who speak Black English may not be assimilated into something else, (e.g. academia?). But they are perfectly assimilated into American culture. So are people who speak “Trucker”. (Yeah…. I’ve known white people who insist on ain’ts and all sorts of non-standard stuff. They don’t fit into academia well. But the are perfectly assimilated into American culture.
I don’t know how real this is, but this is an absolute outrage if true.
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Boston University researchers claim to have developed new, more lethal COVID strain in lab https://www.foxnews.com/us/boston-university-lethal-covid-strain-lab
“Researchers at Boston University say they have developed a new COVID strain capable of that has an 80% kill rate following a series of experiments first thought to have started the global pandemic that began in China.
The variant, a combination of Omicron and the original virus in Wuhan, killed 80% of the mice infected with it, the university said. When mice were only exposed to Omicron, they experienced mild symptoms.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215539)
October 17th, 2022 at 2:52 pm
“I don’t know how real this is, but this is an absolute outrage if true“.
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Thanks Tom
Saw that in our news just now and was going to post it as well.
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Absolute outrage?
Equals Wuhan!
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That being said it shows they all have the technology to do it, and have had for some time.
No morality and no shame.
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At least we know it will never get out of that Lab.
“The research was conducted by a team of scientists from Florida and Boston at the school’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories.”
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I believe that lab is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Fauci strikes again.
lucia (Comment #215520)
angech,
“But African American’s aren’t immigrants. They are Americans.
By definition, their views contribute to the definition of American views. How would their views be “different” from Americans?”
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You are proposing a paradox or, horror, asking a rhetorical question.
Everyone is an immigrant.
Even the original inhabitants came from somewhere else.
Immigrants come in different groupings.
Legal or illegal.
Voluntary, forced or enslaved .
We put labels on the different groupings that make up the immigrants.
By dint of arrival time, appearance, ethnicity, religion and viewpoints.
There is a definition, in my view, of being American.
It is called the constitution.
Americans of all different views and origins got together and put forward a set of rules and principles to live by and did a darn good job, for their time.
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Certain groups were and are and perhaps always will be marginalised
In America.
This does not make them or their views any less American.
They are truly American.
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However different groups have different values and views and cultures.
Once people are labelled, and it happens all the time in America, those groups can be said to have a view that does not support living in harmony with the constitution ( my definition of becoming Americanised).
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Hence I can talk about Australians becoming Americanised even though they have never been born there or lived there.
There is a distinction between being American purely because your feet are on the soil, and being Americanised.
Natural / Vaccine immunity study from country of Qatar. July 2022 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01914-6
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Protection against reinfection wanes as reported previously, but key takeaway:
“All the same, infection with any SARS-CoV-2 variant is highly effective at combating severe, critical or fatal COVID-19 after reinfection: effectiveness was around 100% up to the 14th month after primary infection and showed no signs of declining.”
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Israeli Study, June 2022 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2118946
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See Table 1. Natural immunity in unvaccinated offers 7X better protection against severe covid than three doses of vaccine.
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Hybrid immunity is still the best, but once again natural immunity is carrying the bulk of the load with this combination.
angech,
You are proposing a paradox or, horror, asking a rhetorical question.
No. I’m asking you a real question. You claimed they were “Americanizing”. That suggests they were previously not “Americanized” and are now changing into “Americans”. I honestly want to know what you thinks is changing about them and also I want to know why you think what they were before the change is not “Americanized”. I need your definition, view etc because it’s your claim!
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Everyone is an immigrant.
No. Not by the normal definition of the word. Immigrants are individuals who moved here from another country. They aren’t people whose ancestors, whether recent or ancient, came here from somewhere else.
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Certain groups were and are and perhaps always will be marginalised
In America.
This does not make them or their views any less American.
They are truly American.
Which means, as far as I can tell, it’s ridiculous to say they are just now being “Americanized”. They already were Americans and Americanized.
those groups can be said to have a view that does not support living in harmony with the constitution ( my definition of becoming Americanised).
I assume you mean like Jim Crowe southerners (who were mostly white). As far as I can tell, African Americans live as much in harmony with the US constitution as white people.
angech
Hence I can talk about Australians becoming Americanised even though they have never been born there or lived there.
I don’t think you’ll find tons of Americans who think Australians in Australia are “Americanized”. I think of them as “Australians”.
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I also note that most Australians and those in the UK don’t really understand the US constitution, particularly not the 1st amendment.
lucia (Comment #215545): I think what angech refers to is the, often lamented by us baby boomers, tendency for the ‘youth’ to use more and more american slang, to refer to american tv and movies, to play american sport like basketball. We even see Australians trying to claim rights from the USA constitution or using 911 for emergency phone calls. In the food and agriculture industry we often see activists etc making claims about chemicals (eg corn syrup) that are commonly used in the USA but rare in Australia. All this gets grouped under ‘Americanization’ (yes even using ‘z’ not ‘s’ in words like this).
Andrew
lucia (Comment #215545): I think what angech refers to is the, often lamented by us baby boomers, tendency for the ‘youth’ to use more and more american slang, to refer to american tv and movies, to play american sport like basketball.
You mean Australians are lamenting this, Right?
We even see Australians trying to claim rights from the USA constitution or using 911 for emergency phone calls.
Funny. 911 isn’t an american “right”. It’s just the emergency phone number.
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Lots of American’s lament “high fructose corn syrup”. There is evidently other corn syrup too. But “high fructose” is used to sweeten a lot of commercial beverages. I’m not sure the type of sugar really matters. Drinking lots of flavored sugar-water is probably not a terrific diet plan.
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There are many innovations first introduced in the US that travel out. Some of them– like sweetened sodas– are probably just latching onto general human weakness to want to drink sugary stuff. It obviously has nothing to do with the US constitution and more to do with cheap addictive food stuff.
lucia (Comment #215547): Yes of course I mean Australians are lamenting this — I doubt anybody else cares (well maybe some Brits).
As to my 911 comment I should of put a comma before the or … We even see Australians trying to claim rights from the USA constitution, or using 911 for emergency phone calls .. so it was clear I didn’t mean 911 had anything to do with the constitution only that it was another example of americanization. And of course High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) was a further example, nothing to do with the constitution.
HFCS is very rarely used in Australia since we don’t grow much of the right type of maize and grow a lot of sugar but we still get activists claiming food manufacturers are poisoning us with HCFS and they then give a reference to USA websites or books. I’ve been called a liar when I try to point this out by showing the ingredient lists.
lucia,
The type of sugar matters. While the body and the liver are able to utilize small amounts of fructose, larger quantities are metabolized by the same pathway as ethanol and is stored as fat in the liver. Not good. The incidence of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in children is increasing. Most of the victims are obese, but not all.
Lots of other hits on the search ‘non alcoholic fatty liver disease fructose’. And it doesn’t have to be sweetened with HFCS. Apple juice is loaded with fructose. The ratio of fructose to glucose in apple juice is at least 2:1.
And if you want to see an example of denial, there’s this:
They actually think that the hydrogen economy will somehow save them. So much for German intelligence.
Then again, maybe it’s an example of the greater fool theory. They will get rich by selling hydrogen engineering to the rest of the world before anyone notices it’s not very efficient or economical.
DeWitt,
So does table sugar also cause liver disease? It has essentially the same ratio of fructose to glucose as high fructose corn syrup.
Mike M. (Comment #215551): Correct and the metabolic pathway is almost the same. Glucose goes to Glucose-6-phosphate and then to Fructose-6-phosphate, Fructose goes directly to Fructose-6-phosphate, and then it is off to the rest of glycolysis. The Fructose to glucose ratio in HFCS, sucrose (white table sugar), and honey, are all about 1:1. Fructose is sweeter at about 1.17 to 0.75 for glucose and 1.0 for sucrose.
Andrew/Mike M/Dewitt,
I think beverage makers used high fructose corn syrup instead of table sugar because both are equally sweet and the former is cheaper.
I had heard high fructose corn syrup was worse for you than not-high fructose (aka ‘regular’) corn syrup. But that was never the substitution. Since those two particular sugars seem to have the same % of fructose it seems it doesn’t matter which is used.
(I have no idea about how much fructose is in other possible alternatives– honey, maple syrup etc. But those are expensive. So they aren’t going to be used.)
lucia (Comment #215545)
October 17th, 2022 at 5:25 pm
angech Hence I can talk about Australians becoming Americanized even though they have never been born there or lived there.
I don’t think you’ll find tons of Americans who think Australians in Australia are “Americanized”. I think of them as “Australians”.
-That’s fine.
When other nations are described as becoming “westernized”
do you think of them as westernized, an attribute, or other nations and not give any value to the term?
Similarly though one can be an American, born or living in and therefore part of America they can still become Americanized in the same sense that one becomes “westernized”.
That is they develop the attributes and customs that define them as being typical of the country.
I also note that most Australians and those in the UK don’t really understand the US constitution, particularly not the 1st amendment.
I plead the 5th.
Also changed Americanised to Americanized to be well, more American here.
This thing has a long way to go:
NPR:In Ukraine, trend lines point to escalation, not an endgame
“Even if President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy reached some conclusion that maybe we should, to stop the punishment, we should negotiate. I don’t think he can do that anymore because of the conviction of the Ukrainian people.” retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus
“Putin’s muscle memory when he runs into an obstacle is to escalate,”
Yes I agree. Time to ramp up the range and lethality of the weapons we give Ukraine. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1129396409/in-ukraine-trend-lines-point-to-escalation-not-an-endgame
The NOAA always does a final hurricane report about 4 to 6 months later. Here is one for Irma: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL112017_Irma.pdf
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FEMA also does a report. It’s kind of like the reporting on airplane disasters. 185 mph winds in open ocean, no wonder I left the state. These are quite useful and one of the main reasons survivability has gotten better. Thank you America for subsidizing this! https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/mat-report_hurricane-irma_florida.pdf
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If you want to live in Florida, the “armpit” or the northeast definitely the safest. This has to do with the tendency of hurricanes to turn straight north. It’s almost like Florida’s coastline is indeed shaped by it. https://www.guycarp.com/content/dam/guycarp-rebrand/wp-blog/2019/08/FL-hurricane-landfalls.png
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Between Charley, Irma and Ian it sure seems the storms like to divert east as they approach the west coast of Florida. Ian was definitely a storm surge event. The worst I have seen.
lucia (Comment #215554): “I think beverage makers used high fructose corn syrup instead of table sugar because both are equally sweet and the former is cheaper.”
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Fructose is sweeter than other sugars. So if you split sucrose (table sugar) into fructose and glucose, it gets sweeter. In addition to lower cost, using high fructose corn syrup might mean that less sugar is needed.
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Any number of theories have come and gone as to why high fructose corn syrup is bad for you. It seems to me that people are trying to come up with a justification for their preconceived conclusion.
Loss of life- hurricane Ian.
This is the worst one in Florida in 100 years. I have some thoughts:
The National Hurricane Center storm surge communications are always way too conservative…. Except for hurricane Ian. NHC announcements caution that the model is ‘experimental’ but always hang a godawful number out there. My part of Florida has been hit with three major hurricanes in the past 20 years [after a 75 year quiet spell]. The previous two came with the same obligatory dire storm surge warnings that never materialized. Of course we got cocky!
The NHC does a good job of informing about the uncertainties and probabilities of wind danger prediction; I guess the storm surge model is just not very robust [is robust the right word?]. Maybe no storm surge number publication would be preferable to always being overly conservative.
Angech,
The reason I don’t consider Australians to be “Americanized” is that to be so, they need to have actually developed attributes and customs that are typically American while not also Australian.
And they need to be some sort of fundamental values. It can’t just be using jargon and it can’t be (stupidly) dialing 911 when in Australia.
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So saying you writing the following is not evidence of being “Americanized”
I plead the 5th.
I think it was Andrews example of dialing 911. But an actual fully Americanized American in Australia would learn the local emergency number and use that. There is nothing “Americanized” about using the wrong local value that makes you “American”.
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Based on your general posts here, I definitely don’t consider you to have “develop[ed] the attributes and customs that define them as being typical of the [US].” I’m constantly reading things you say and then saying, “Yeah. He’s not American. That’s must be what Australian’s think.” I like that people from other places visit and give other points of view. And you definitely have points of views that differ from Americans.
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Maybe some how there is some Australian somewhere who has truly come to adopt American views that differ from Australian ones without actually living here. But I doubt it’s very many.
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That some Australians might think the habit is “Americanized” I don’t doubt. That doesn’t make it recognizably American to Americans.
I think the discussions of assimilation and Americanization could use some definitions by all sides and avoid overgeneralizing what is American.
Australia will pay the costs of your funeral if you die from their mandatory vaccine.
If the RCP numbers are correct, the situation is not so good for the GOP. If they get narrow majorities in both chambers, then nothing will get done and the Republicans will look bad. The extreme right wing will block any non-extreme measures from passing the House, anything that does pass the House will die in the Senate, and the Dems and their media mouthpieces will blame the Republicans, not entirely without justification.
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The Republicans need a big enough majority in the House that they can send reasonable bills to the Senate. Then there is at least a chance of holding Dem feet to the fire when they try to block it.
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Fortunately, I think the RCP numbers understate the coming landslide. Unfortunately, McConnell is unlikely to put real pressure on the Dems.
Never underestimate a party’s capability for self sabotage. This would probably be an epic blowout if that abortion Monkeywrench hadn’t been thrown in. Inflation is hurting the Democrats and there isn’t going to be a recue from this. Incredibly the “Inflation Reduction Act” doesn’t seem to be working.
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As long as we get to a split government I am fine with it. The student loan give away will hopefully be reversed by the courts, but not clear. This is way too much money to be handed out without congressional approval.
Russel
The only way this can get screwed up now is if Trump gets involved.
You mean gets more involved. He already is involved– some of his hand picked Trump promoted candidates got nominations.
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This would probably be an epic blowout if that abortion Monkeywrench hadn’t been thrown in.
Yes. Mostly Republican anti-abortionist candidates need to not talk about abortion. The moderate on abortion candidates (which is numerous) can talk but mostly won’t so much.
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Democrats will work to make this a very visible issue and emphasize keeping it legal at all. Right now it motivates lots of Dem’s to the polls. That the bills Dems want to promote aren’t actually that popular will not be apparent until they write the bill. The won’t do that until after the election.
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So Dems want to run “keep it safe and legal (let’s not talk about us wanting it to be totally a choice up until delivery.)” vs. “keep it entirely illegal!!” And they’ll be able to do so if the fully anti-abortion crowd yaps a lot.
Mike M,
Hard to say how many seats the Republicans will hold, but a reasonable estimate is 230 to 240, vs 205 to 195 for Democrats. Why would that size majority not generate reasonable bills? If Democrats hold the Senate, then there will be deadlock…. and absolutely nothing of substance will get past both houses. But if Republicans control the Senate, then at least reconciliation bills will get past both houses. Biden’s staff and wife (assuming Biden is still in office) will veto them, of course. But if the bills are in fact reasonable, then those vetos will be costly to Democrats in 2024. Dems have done a lot of economic and social damage since January 2021; vetos to make sure that damage is preserved will not be popular.
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The danger for Republicans is trying to pass crazy legislation (eg attempting to prohibit abortion everywhere) which will backfire on them big-time. The SC (after 50 years!) finally stated the obvious clearly: abortion is state issue that the Federal government should not be involved in. Only an idiot would attempt to institute a national ban based on Federal law…. one which the SC would kill in a second.
Tom Scharf,
“The student loan give away will hopefully be reversed by the courts, but not clear.”
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Yes, not at all clear. It may get reversed, but if so, not for a long time. The fact that it is a moral outrage, and horrible fiscal policy to boot, will not enter into it. Lawless Democrats will always do lawless things; the illegal transfer of $500 billion debt from former students to all taxpayers is perfectly consistent with that lawlessness. Progressives care not a bit about the law nor about what the Constitution says, only the results of policies, illegal or legal, constitutional or not.
It is not at all clear that abortion is a problem for Republicans. Since early summer it has gone way down on the lists of what people are concerned about; perhaps as people realized that Dobbs does not override state laws. This conservative commentator claims that Republicans have been getting the upper hand on the issue:
But in the final months and weeks leading up to Election Day, Republicans have gone on the offensive by refusing to accept the label of extreme on the issue. They’ve been able to turn the argument around and expose that it isn’t Republicans who are extreme on abortion, but rather the Democrats.
SteveF (Comment #215568): “a reasonable estimate is 230 to 240, vs 205 to 195 for Democrats. Why would that size majority not generate reasonable bills? ”
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Such majorities mostly failed to produce reasonable bills from 2010-2016. The Dems vote as a block, forcing the Republicans to get majorities with only Republican votes. That means that leadership needs the votes of their more extreme members who use their power to block anything that might smack of compromise.
It’s been announced Biden will give a speech that if Democrats gain some Senate seats their top priority will be passing a law that codifies Roe v Wade nationwide.
Nancy Pelosi said she didn’t believe the poll that had inflation as a top concern.
Stacy Abrams summed it up with ‘Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas.’
Russia declares martial law in the occupied territories. People can be detained for 30 days for no reason, they probably won’t have a referendum on that point. I guess this is just more evidence of Russia “winning”. Perhaps they are having a hard time telling apart the good locals from the bad locals.
Roman Malyk, an enlistment officer in charge of mobilization in the Partisansky and Lazovsky districts of the Primorsky region in Russia’s far east, was found dead on the evening of October 14, local officials said.
Mike wrote: “Stacy Abrams summed it up with ‘Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas.’
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This was a good one. “Have abortions, peasants, then you’ll have more money!”. I expect post-term abortion to get rid of those parasites who made it out of the womb to be the next pressing issue to help people suffering from democrat imposed poverty.
MikeN,
“It’s been announced Biden will give a speech that if Democrats gain some Senate seats their top priority will be passing a law that codifies Roe v Wade nationwide.”
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He has dementia, and so can’t remember that both houses of Congress have to agree to a bill. He was pretty stupid and completely unprincipled before dementia set in; now he is just a sorry joke.
Russell Klier (Comment #215563)
October 19th, 2022 at 9:53 am
The only way this can get screwed up now is if Trump gets involved.
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Trump has been front and centre for nearly 10 years.
Where are you going to hide him?
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The right to have an abortion is a big ticket item for me ( not that I have a vote)
But sometimes other issues, crime, inflation, fuel etc are bigger ticket items and one has to compromise one to get the rest addressed
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Post the SC decision the Democrats made a big comeback on emotion but now reality bites.
Does anything a politician do to buy votes work?
Yes .
Can it change the mood of a whole nation?
Extremely doubtful.
Do not know about the Senate but the House is building to a flood.
Hopefully the Senate follows.
Jimmy Carter education for 2 years.
–
Here is a thought.
Replace Kamala with Newsome midterm.
Wait 3 months, Joe steps down pleading health issues.
Incumbent look good into the next election.
Here’s a comment right on up there with “let them eat brioche” : “Chicken is what poor people eat.” Too bad it was just a clueless person on the TV show Below Deck rather than a politician.
Note that it was never ‘let them eat cake.’ The French word used was ‘brioche’, which is baked from bread dough enriched to varying degrees with butter and eggs. About the only things that brioche and cake have in common are water and wheat flour. Perhaps those who first translated the French to English thought the rabble wouldn’t know what brioche was.
angech,
Harris isn’t going anywhere; she could be (and I think will be) challenged in the primaries for 2024 and will lose to multiple alternatives. She is just way too dumb to get the nomination, and a terrible retail politician as well. The fact she got her political start in the bed of a married, powerful California politician (Willy Brown) is baggage I think she will never shed.
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I believe Newsom is almost as unelectable as Trump, and for similar reasons: he is profoundly self-centered and arrogant, and promotes policies which offend a very sizable portion of the voters. He is also more than a little over-the top in his public comments…. giving even more offense to those who disagree with him on policies.
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WRT abortion: there is a fairly broad consensus (~60%) for moderate abortion policies, like free availability to ~15 weeks, but substantial restrictions after that, except in extreme cases (rape, incest, fetal deformity, risk of life to mother, etc). Unfortunately ~20% insist on no restrictions on abortion ever, and ~20% insist on no abortions ever. Those extremes tend to be the strongest ‘base’ voters, something which terrifies politicians…. they risk being ‘primaried’ out of office by someone who toes the line with the ‘base’, and many have in fact been driven from office when they deviate from the preferences of their party’s base. So the consensus position gets little support from politicians.
Historians think the “let them eat brioche” narrative was fake news, particularly as it was applied to other monarchies before applied to Antoinette. Fake but true, no doubt.
I am surprised by the brioche, as I had read that it had to do with a shortage, and cake was a reasonable substitution in response to high prices.
angech
Here is a thought.
Replace Kamala with Newsome midterm.
Wait 3 months, Joe steps down pleading health issues.
Incumbent look good into the next election.
Uhhmmm how? Oh. That’s right. Your Australian, not American. If you were “Americanized” you’d know the sitting VP can’t be replaced midterm. She’s the sitting VP until 2024 unless Biden exists the presidency of she dies or becomes incapacitated. She can’t be “replaced”.
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Now maybe you mean announce that Newsom would be the candidate for VP with Biden still presidential candidate. Hahahahaha.
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But even if you mean that, it’s not “replacing” Harris who remains VP until 2024.
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If Dems are going to replace anyone, they need to admit Biden cannot be viable as president from 2024-2028. They need a new presidential candidate. They can pick a different candidate for VP. But that’s not replacing Kamala. Because Kamala isn’t candidate. She is the actual sitting VP.
Oh.. ok. A new VP can be proposed. But they can’t replace the old VP. There has to be a vacancy. As in: she either has to leave the position voluntary or involuntarily. The former could happen if she become president. The latter…. pretty much if she dies. The Dems can’t just “replace” her the way they might in a Parliamentary system. (Is that what you have in Aus?)
DeWitt,
About the only things that brioche and cake have in common are water and wheat flour.
Cake usually also has egg and butter. But yes, they aren’t really similar. Though more similar than cake and bacon.
SteveF (Comment #215578): “WRT abortion: there is a fairly broad consensus (~60%) for moderate abortion policies, like free availability to ~15 weeks, but substantial restrictions after that, except in extreme cases (rape, incest, fetal deformity, risk of life to mother, etc). Unfortunately ~20% insist on no restrictions on abortion ever, and ~20% insist on no abortions ever.”
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I am wondering how you arrived at that conclusion. Other than exceptions for exceptional cases, I doubt there is a position with strong majority support, let alone consensus. Some want no on demand abortions, some would allow it up to around 15 weeks, some up to viability and some all the way to delivery. I’d guess that the extremes are each 25-30%, but I can’t back that up with a reference.
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It would seem that there is a basis for compromise, which is different from an existing consensus. But that is somewhat problematic since both extremes see the issue in terms of moral absolutes.
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That said, I think quite a few Republican candidates endorse a moderate position while stating a personal opposition to abortion. But it is hard to know without going campaign website by campaign website. The Dems and their media mouthpieces characterize all Republicans as total abolitionists.
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The Katie Pavlich article I cited above says:
When asked by reporters about the issue, Republicans have been able to provide specific details about abortion policy and limits on the procedure. After issuing a pro-life declaration, most arrive at the political consensus of a ban after 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest or health of the mother.
It seems to me that the translation “let them eat cake” is appropriate. The point is that if people don’t have bread it is because they don’t have grain, so it is silly to suggest as a substitute a more luxurious food that also requires grain.
MikeM
The Dems and their media mouthpieces characterize all Republicans as total abolitionists.
The Dems can get away with this so long as GOP candidates won’t state their position while only the “no abortion under any circumstances every” GOP candidates air their views.
When asked by reporters about the issue,
When pressed…. The GOP moderates with popular views on abortion need to volunteer these views. Not wait for someone to drag it out of them and then admit it only grudgingly. Otherwise no one feels they can really know that’s the candiates view.
lucia (Comment #215582)
” A new VP can be proposed.
But they can’t replace the old VP.
There has to be a vacancy.
As in: she either has to leave the position voluntary or involuntarily. The former could happen if she become president.
The latter…. pretty much if she dies.
The Dems can’t just “replace” her the way they might in a Parliamentary system.
(Is that what you have in Aus?).”
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Yes, the party in charge can vote them out through a challenge.
The leader as well.
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I get it now.
Thanks.
Explains the angst re Dan Quayle and Spiro Agnew in the past!
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Only other options would be a section 25? or impeachment which would be extreme.
She could quit and come to Australia as the American ambassador, I guess.
The VP used to go to the person who received the 2nd highest votes in presidential elections. Each elector cast two votes for president one of which had to go to a candidate from another state. After back to back president and VP being from separate parties, the 12th amendment changed the process to having the electors vote for president and VP in separate votes.
Regardless of that removing a black female VP would infuriate a large portion of the base of the democratic party so that wouldn’t happen even if it was allowed.
Mike M,
In California, the deepest of deep blue states, there is a 51% majority for limiting abortion to between 1 and 3 months. https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/most_california_voters_support_limits_on_abortion
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There are 14% of California voters who think abortion should be prohibited except in extreme cases. There are 14% who think abortion should be prohibited after 6 months, and 13% who say it should never be limited at any time.
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Seems to me you could find a broad consensus even in California for limitations after 12 to 15 weeks; but of course that is not going to happen, because politicians pass laws, not usually voters. Even when the voters do pass laws via plebiscite (as in California’s legal ban on racial preferences in college admissions) politicians often just ignore the law and work to reverse it. The extreme tails of the political distribution (sadly) do actually wag the dog.
angech,
“She could quit and come to Australia as the American ambassador, I guess.”
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Were that to happen, you ‘americanized’ Aussies would see her in action and understand how embarrassing to the USA Harris is. ‘Air head’ is too kind a description. She doesn’t know much of anything, and it shows.
The “Jim Crow” nonsense we keep hearing from the democrats and their media co-conspirators is crap …and has been crap for decades.
From Washington Examiner, October 19 “Democrats’ voter suppression myth exposed again as Georgians set a turnout record” “Democratic activists went to great lengths to plant stories in the media, which lazy journalists dutifully filed, claiming that Georgia’s new voting law was a new attempt to suppress the black vote.”
Fox News on the Georgia ‘Jim Crow’ law that wasn’t:
“Flashback: CNN, MSNBC ran with ‘Jim Crow’ voter suppression claims in Georgia before record turnout.” “Democrats and their allies in the media repeatedly argued that the law was a racist effort to deny people the right to vote, especially minority Americans, and could push U.S. democracy off a cliff. “President Biden even called the law “Jim Crow 2.0” and was supportive of Major League Baseball moving the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta as a response to left-wing pressure.”
And it’s not just conservative media saying it, Pew Research:
“Seven-in-ten Black people in the U.S. are eligible to vote, compared with 72% of all people living in the country.” “Regionally, more than half of Black eligible voters (57%) live in Southern states.”
Only other options would be a section 25? or impeachment which would be extreme.
Not only extreme, but you need grounds Being an idiot is not grounds for impeachments. Whatever faults Kamala has no one has accused her of anything that could be grounds for impeachment. She is also not incapacitated. Suspected incompetent isn’t incapacitated.
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lucia (Comment #215586): “The Dems can get away with this so long as GOP candidates won’t state their position while only the “no abortion under any circumstances every” GOP candidates air their views.”
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Not so easy. They have to overcome the massive Dem spending and the media megaphone. But then they risk drowning out their own message on the things voters care about.
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But if Pavlich is to be believed, Republicans are having some success at countering the Dem/media narrative. But at best such success seems to be local.
SteveF (Comment #215590): “In California, the deepest of deep blue states, there is a 51% majority for limiting abortion to between 1 and 3 months.”
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You are adding up support for differing positions. And the results from that poll are all over the map. It also says that 66% support Proposition 1, which effectively guarantees unlimited abortion. There is no consensus but there may be a chance to build a consensus around a compromise position.
Andrew P (Comment #215589): “Each elector cast two votes for president … After back to back president and VP being from separate parties”.
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Actually, that only happened once, in 1796. In 1800 the parties had organized enough to have President/VP tickets as we have today. But with the old system that produced a tie between the two candidates (Jefferson and Burr) on the winning ticket.
MikeN,
and cake was a reasonable substitution in response to high prices
I’ve also seen stuff like that. Another one was cake was supposedly a term for some sort of baking waste that could have been edible.
And that’s exactly why cake is a bad translation of brioche. It’s easier to misinterpret. Whoever said it, assuming it was actually said, knew exactly what he was saying. Oh, there’s no plain bread to be had? Then you peasants should eat fancy bread. Ha ha.
There doesn’t need to be a national consensus on abortion. I am fine with letting states figure it out. My opinion is it should be available in the approx. first trimester and when it threatens the life of the mother (etc.). That’s just my opinion and I respect other people who have strong feelings on the subject. It’s a bit ridiculous to have to travel to another state to get an abortion, but I don’t find this excessively burdensome in the grand scheme and am sure there will be support from NGO’s to make that available.
DeWitt,
“Oh, there’s no plain bread to be had? Then you peasants should eat fancy bread.”
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Hummmm… sounds a bit like “You peasants have no money for expensive gasoline? Then just buy a $60K electric car, and you won’t have to worry about the price of gasoline.”
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Arrogant and obnoxious never plays very well. Good thing for tone deaf politicians that the guillotine has gone out of style.
I’ve been waiting for this..A russian warplane shadowed and fired a missile ‘near’ that British spy plane that flies no-man’s-land over the Black Sea. [The US usually flies unmanned spy planes here]. The ruskies claim it was an equipment problem. And this may be related. The British suspended these flights and two days ago I saw a Turkish spy plane flying at this station. I had never seen that before. https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/russian-jet-fires-missile-near-british-aircraft/
FYI: Hubble vs Webb telescope in one of the Hubble’s iconic images – “The Pillars of Creation”. Webb on the right. The main difference is wavelength with Webb being deeper in the infrared, thus able to see through dust. https://cdn.esawebb.org/archives/images/large/weic2216d.jpg
Curious that the bright white/yellow stars in webb are absent from hubble, and the brightest stars in the hubble picture are much dimmer in the webb picture and colored blue.
DaveJR,
The Webb image is a false-color image, not the actual colors the telescope sensors see. Different infrared wavelengths are assigned corresponding visible wavelengths, and the image then re-processed to produce an image that can be seen by humans.
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Interesting factoid: even though Webb’s mirror is much larger than the Hubble mirror, the large difference in wavelength (Webb longer wavelengths) means that both telescopes have comparable angular resolution (sometimes called the ‘diffractive limit’ of the optics). The advantage Webb has (as Tom Scharf notes) is that much longer wavelength infrared is not scattered much by ‘dust’ (not really dust, actually mostly molecules), so Webb can see details that are clouded in many Hubble images.
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Webb’s long infrared wavelength also means the telescope can see very distant galaxies, with huge spectral red-shifts, which are pretty much invisible to Hubble in its shorter wavelength spectral range. That why the first Webb deep-field images were surprising; Webb shows many more very distant galaxies with far more spiral galaxies than expected based on Hubble data and current theories of how galaxies evolve over time.
It’s not like the Russians haven’t accidentally shot down planes before, they have a couple airliner kills to their credit. The US has one, and so does Iran. It’s definitely a dangerous situation that can get out of hand quickly. Usually the Russians and US keep each other notified more or less of their intentions to prevent unfortunate outcomes, they had to do that in Syria.
I just read this, I don’t know the source, but it makes sense:
“Americans think of everything as economics, including war.
Russians think of everything as war, including economics.”
How do you spell ‘Provocation’….. At 7:10 AM EST [2:10 PM in Kyiv] A RAF manned River Joint spybird, callsign RRR7271, accompanied by two RAF Typhoon Eurofighters, PSYCHO61 and PSYCHO62, entered No-Man’s-Land over the black sea. They all promptly went dark and I lost them. NATO, US Navy and RAF assets are flying onshore over Romania. Nearby, the Czech Air Force has two SAAB 39 Gripen fighters in the air. Elsewhere, an Italian Air Force spybird is menacing Kaliningrad.
Russell, how does a reconnaissance aircraft “menace” Kaliningrad?
Russell,
What is “No-Man’s-Land over the black sea”?
State Department is declaring Iran is engaged in war in Ukraine by supplying Russia with weapons and trainers.
They had a hot mic moment on Russian Media a day or so ago where when the network went to commercial a government spokesman(?) reminded the people running the show that they are not to bring up the Iranian drones because Moscow’s official position is that they aren’t from Iran. It’s a bit mysterious why something so obvious is being denied, I guess there are sanctions or something that will be triggered.
MikeN: “State Department is declaring Iran is engaged in war in Ukraine by supplying Russia with weapons and trainers.”
And is the State Department also saying that the US (& other countries) are engaged in war in Ukraine? If not, just typical gov’t doublespeak.
HaroldW,
“how does a reconnaissance aircraft “menace” Kaliningrad?” The Italian spy plane was their new, top of the line Gulfstream G550 CAEW. It flew a racetrack pattern, with one leg parallel to [and almost on top] of the border with Poland. It did this for many hours. I have only seen a spy plane in this area once, many months ago. Maybe ‘menacing’ isn’t the right word..how about ‘trying to piss them off’. https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/26734-italy-to-acquire-two-gulfstream-g550-caew-spy-planes
I withdraw my prediction regarding the Senate. I don’t have any idea how it’s going to turn out.
And now for something completely different.
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A long and hilarious interview with an anti-woke heretic in the literature world opining on the state of the “lit industry”. https://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/alex-perez-on-the-iowa-s-writers-workshop-baseball-and-growing-up-cuban-american-in-america
“These women, perhaps the least diverse collection of people on the planet, decide who is worthy or unworthy of literary representation. Their worldview trickles down to the small journals, too, which are mostly run by woke young women or bored middle-aged housewives. This explains why everything reads and sounds the same, from major publishing houses to vanity zines with a readership of fifteen. The progressive/woke orthodoxy is the ideology that controls the entire publishing apparatus.
You’ll never read a story about a pro-lifer or someone unvaccinated, as you said, because the woke commissars don’t consider them worthy of being humanized or represented in literature.”
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To make it even funnier, the self parody everyone expected:
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Most of lit journal Hobart’s editors resign over tedious, “anti-woke” interview. https://lithub.com/most-of-lit-journal-hobarts-editors-resign-over-tedious-anti-woke-interview/
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I’m not a lit guy, but I do read a lot of books. I can confirm the book review industry and editor’s recommendations have become tainted beyond belief over the past 5 to 10 years. Now almost worthless. Amazon / Audible reviews are faked many times, GoodReads seem to be OK. Glowing reviews from places like the Washington Post or NYT are almost exclusively reserved for politically angled material. Don’t get me started on recommended books at places like NPR, an Olympic virtue signaling event. I absolutely sympathize with this guy in the interview.
“A road map aims to improve the lives of junior scientists in Europe
University associations, legislators, students and other stakeholders release a declaration on ways to recruit and retain early-career researchers in academia.”-Nature
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The problem in research is simple. Too many hopefuls for too few positions. The people at the bottom constantly need to move up to make room for those entering. There is no room at the top. A car crash happens in the middle. After being enticed into the “profession” with starting grants and promises of help, it’s sink or swim time. You get lucky or you don’t. All the hand wringing isn’t going to solve this problem. Fierce competition for too few grants naturally means many people are going to get screwed.
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The knife in the back is the drive to recruit medical professionals into scientific positions. The revered “physician scientist”. Apparently, seeing disease in practice gives you some kind of unique insight that a bog standard scientist just cannot understand…
mark bofill (Comment #215615): “I withdraw my prediction regarding the Senate. I don’t have any idea how it’s going to turn out.”
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FWIW, RCP is now predicting 53 Senate seats for the GOP, with flips in GA, AZ, and NV. It seems they must be applying some sort of corrections since the Dems still lead in the averages for GA & AZ.
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Oops. Omitted the link: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/senate/elections-map-rcp-projection.html
HaroldW (Comment #215613): “And is the State Department also saying that the US (& other countries) are engaged in war in Ukraine? If not, just typical gov’t doublespeak.”
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I was thinking the same.
HaroldW (Comment #215613)
It depends on what engaged means. By my definition all of the above are engaged.
‘Amazon / Audible reviews are faked many times, ‘
I remember Michael Mann had a whole campaign to get the folks at Skeptical Science to put up reviews of his book upon release and vote up their reviews.
They even picked which would be the top 1 star and 2 star reviews.
something along the lines of ‘this book shows too much of Mann’s genius and not enough about the evil people opposing him’.
Crowd sourced reviews were a really good idea, but like anything once they started being seen as legitimate all the shysters started exploiting the system.
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Why does this weird cheap thing from China have 50,000 reviews?
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For example you give 1000 people $50 to buy and review your product, then they simply ship the product back to you for resale and give you back the money (well, maybe $45). Instant verified reviews that cost almost nothing. Amazon has to try to fix this problem at an enormous scale. Good luck with that.
Mike M,
Yes, they are applying a correction based on the differences between polls and actual votes in elections for those states. Donno if that is an accurate approach or not, but probably better than just taking the poll numbers as is: they have been consistently low in predicting Republican vote share in most states. One thing is for sure: there will be 4 or 5 very close senate races, the outcome of which will make a big difference between January 2023 and January 2025.
Perhaps the russians are talking to the world through Al Jazeera again… “Much softer: Is Russia eyeing a way out of the Ukraine war? The war’s unpredictability raises questions about whether Washington and Moscow should engage in negotiations to avoid an expansion of the conflict, including a nuclear confrontation.”
I don’t pretend to understand diplomacy and negotiations, but russia seems to want to freeze Ukraine out of the talks about the war in Ukraine:
“Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview that Russia was willing to engage with the United States or Turkey” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/21/much-softer-is-russia-eyeing-a-way-out-of-the-ukraine-war
Tom Scharf
Why does this weird cheap thing from China have 50,000 reviews?
You can’t ever the ***** rating on reviews for
(a) beauty products from unrecognizable brands.
(b) electronics from unrecognizable brands.
Amazon is starting to delete some. But those two things are infested with fake reviews.
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Beauty products have always had nearly impossible to believe claims. Sometimes some are kinda-sorta real. But still not.
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One BIG problem with the reviews is Amazon seems to allow the vendor to switch out products. I can often tell the review for a more “fashionable” woman’s clothing product was for something different from shown. (The reviewer loved her slacks. The item shown is a blouse. It’s not even close.)
SteveF,
Those Senate races *might* not end up being all that close. The latest RCP generic results give the GOP from 225-260 seats in the House. For reference, the last time the GOP won as many as 250 seats was 1928.
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It might be even better. The recent shift in the generic shows the GOP gaining mostly at the expense of undecideds. If that trend continues, it could put the GOP up by 8 or 9 points, and even that might be low.
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If that happens, it should also shift the Senate races a lot. Note that this is all speculation as to what *might* happen.
The shift in the generic ballot is probably the high prices are boosting their numbers in districts where Democrats win with over 70%.
Any country who wants to be ruled by Russia, raise your hand. What, nobody? The targeting of energy infrastructure is a “legitimate” war tactic, but it sure isn’t going to win hearts and minds. This is definitely intentional suffering of civilians, there is no plausible deniability here. Exactly nobody is surprised because this is what everyone expected out of Russia and why they have to clamp down so hard on internal dissent and media coverage.
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Apparently Blinken talked to Russia for the first time in months. Russia has no interest in negotiations. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-sees-no-evidence-russia-is-interested-ending-ukraine-aggression-blinken-2022-10-21/
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This may just be public facing bluster but you can’t end a war when both sides don’t want it.
NYT’s covers the recent covid genetic engineering:
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Lab Manipulations of Covid Virus Fall Under Murky Government Rules
Mouse experiments at Boston University have spotlighted an ambiguous U.S. policy for research on potentially dangerous pathogens. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/22/science/covid-virus-laboratory-experiments.html
“Scientists at Boston University came under fire this week for an experiment in which they tinkered with the Covid virus. Breathless headlines claimed they had created a deadly new strain, and the National Institutes of Health rebuked the university for not seeking the government’s permission.
As it turned out, the experiments, performed on mice, were not what the inflammatory media coverage suggested. The manipulated virus strain was actually less lethal than the original.”
. https://www.statnews.com/2022/10/17/boston-university-researchers-testing-of-lab-made-version-of-covid-virus-draws-government-scrutiny/
“There is no evidence the work, performed under biosecurity level 3 precautions in BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, was conducted improperly or unsafely. In fact, it was approved by an internal biosafety review committee and Boston’s Public Health Commission, the university said Monday night.
But it has become apparent that the research team did not clear the work with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was one of the funders of the project. The agency indicated it is going to be looking for some answers as to why it first learned of the work through media reports.
Emily Erbelding, director of NIAID’s division of microbiology and infectious diseases, said the BU team’s original grant applications did not specify that the scientists wanted to do this precise work. Nor did the group make clear that it was doing experiments that might involve enhancing a pathogen of pandemic potential in the progress reports it provided to NIAID.”
“The email, from Rachel Lapal Cavallario, associate vice president for public relations and social media, said that the work was not, as claimed, gain of function research”
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No evidence! That now triggers me when I read it in a “science” article, ha ha. That this wasn’t even cleared is beyond the pale. Highly irresponsible, even if it was cleared. This is GOF, I don’t care how they want to parse English. Their “less lethal” statement directly contradicts their own paper, and even if it is true for humans they have no way of knowing that was the case, their combination was one that can reasonably be assumed to be more lethal. This is dangerous stuff.
Further in the NYT article:
“Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, noted that the coronavirus is already rampant among humans and has evolved far beyond the variants used in the experiment. The hybrid lab virus would be unlikely to cause a serious threat if it escaped.
“I understand why it worries people because you are making a virus for which you can’t totally predict the properties,” Dr. Bloom said. “But this does not seem to me to be a particularly high risk.””
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This … from the very same people who supported locking down schools for years, supported vaccine mandates, and shamed anyone who didn’t toe the line of worst.virus.ever. Everyone needs to pledge fealty to dictates of experts, but the experts can’t be bothered to fill out paperwork when modifying a pandemic virus.
Tom Scharf,
Of course nobody wants to be ruled by Russia.
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“Every indication is that far from being willing to engage in meaningful diplomacy, President Putin continues to push in the opposite direction,” Blinken
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“Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview that Russia was willing to engage with the United States or with Turkey on ways to end the war, now in its eighth month, but had yet to receive any serious proposal to negotiate.”
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Maybe those apparently contradictory statements are related to the two sides very different definitions of “serious proposals” and “meaningful diplomacy”. If “meaningful diplomacy” starts with initial demands (and based on Blinken’s many public statements, almost certainly it does), then that might not be considered a “serious proposal” by the Russians. Perhaps it is more accurate to say neither side will accept the minimum starting conditions for negotiation the other side requires.
Tom Scharf,
From Wikipedia: Biosafety level 3 is appropriate for work involving microbes which can cause serious and potentially lethal disease via the inhalation route.
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OK, so if the modifications to the covid virus were so very safe, then why were they conducted in a level 3 laboratory? This is crazy, dangerous work, which should be prohibited by national laws and international agreements. The most likely source for covid was coronavirus research in Wuhan. Virologists have to be terminally stupid to think manipulating an existing covid virus to make it more deadly to mice is a good thing.
538 has a 12% Biden down, greater than RCP for the first time ever of ? 11.7.
Usually their algorithms demote Republican biased sites.
The world seems upside down in so many ways.
Less than 3 weeks to go.
I thought Trump would lose the last 2 elections big time as per the polls.
This time I feel a sense of hope rather than despair for my biases:
Good for one of my predictions at least.
But who knows?
Hubris generally gets flattened.
CDC has added COVID-19 vaccine to its vaccine schedule for kids.
This is automatically adopted by many states and school districts for their mandatory vaccination list.
WRT justifying virus modification research: Please give me examples of actual experiments actually helping with something practical. No handwaving and speculation allowed. Unless they can do that, then all future research should be banned. It should already be banned because it is, to all intents and purposes, biological warfare research.
MikeN,
Which states have mandated it for kids? I checked and Illinois hasn’t.
Lucia,
California and maybe a few others have added covid vaccination for kids to their required vaccination to attend school. 20 states have laws on the books prohibiting school districts from requiring covid vaccinations to attend school. IMO, it is a tempest in a teapot: the 99.9% of kids are never going to get very sick from covid unless they first contract it in their late teens or later. Assuming they have been infected before that age range, it is very unlikely they will ever get severe covid, even as adults. I find mandating a vaccination for people at essentially zero risk simply bizarre, and based on politics rather than logic.
California students will not be required to be vaccinated against Covid-19 until at least July 1, 2023, state public health officials announced Thursday.
Yeah… eventually they might. It sounds like the plan to. But right now… no.
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I’m not saying they didn’t come close– but in the end they didn’t mandate it.
New Mexico is considering mandating covid vaccines. Without the irresponsible CDC action, they would not likely be considering it.
MikeM
If by ” irresponsible CDC action” you mean “approval”. All the CDC did was approve it to be given to kids– as an option. It’s true that if the CDC did not approve it as an option no state would mandate it. But I think refusing to give an option would be the more “responsible” action. I know Tucker Carlson is upset (and evidently mischaracterized what they did. ) But upsetting Tucker Carlson doesn’t make something “irresponsible”.
Mike M,
I am not surprised that your home state would mandate kids receive the covid vaccination… NM is really much like Massachusetts, but with more empty space and lower humidity. 😉
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Still, I do wonder what benefit people who want those mandates see in them. They certainly are not going to benefit kids very much, and the vaccinations will cost quite a lot of money. So where is the justification? Do the local politicians have an answer beyond “the CDC recommends it”?
Lucia,
I have read multiple places that the CDC did recommend kids get covid shots before going to public schools.
lucia (Comment #215642): “If by ” irresponsible CDC action” you mean “approval”. All the CDC did was approve it to be given to kids– as an option.’
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No, that is not what I meant. I meant the thing that started this sub-thread. MikeN (Comment #215635: “CDC has added COVID-19 vaccine to its vaccine schedule for kids.”
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The CDC approved the vaccine for kids. That was questionable. Then they recommended it for kids. That was bad. Now they seem about to add it to the recommended schedule, which amounts to support for making it mandatory. That is irresponsible.
Florida “pre-announced” they wouldn’t be following the child’s vaccine mandate no matter what the CDC said. It’s all a bit weird, the media stressed it was a unanimous recommendation. This was no doubt a political statement by the committee, I find it very hard to believe that there isn’t dissent here. Apparently there isn’t even trial data released yet (although it is very likely to be found safe and effective). The reality is that for places where mandates were already in place that another new mandate will have no major impact either way.
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I’d say I would be for a mandate for an effective “vaccine”, but this is now closer to a temporary “shot” that is rather ineffective for its stated purpose. It has little impact on stopping the spread and kids just aren’t at much risk for severe disease. If this thing stopped the spread and gave lifelong protection then it would be a different story.
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As usual the “experts” are silent on whether previous infection should exempt one from a vaccine. I think we have about 70% or so already infected here? Given EVERY time I look natural immunity is shown to be superior in protection this is just inexplicable and the continuing media silence on it is disappointing.
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Are they requiring an additional shot or just any previous shot? A 2 year old shot at this point is completely worthless for stopping the spread. Like I said, this has become too politically tainted, and in theory that is when actual experts step in to fix the taint. What we have here is the experts being politically tainted as well. This drop confidence in the entire system.
Lucia,
Apparently California has mandated covid vaccinations to attend school, but that mandate will not take effect until the 2023 school year. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/20/health/child-vax-rates-school-mandates
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Of course, since it is a very political issue, it could change between now and fall 2023, especially if California politicians get much push-back from parents, as a suspect they may. I still have not seen any reasonable argument for requiring covid vaccinations for school attendance. Covid is a significant risk for those 45 and up….. but it is just weird to mandate vaccinations for kids at essentially zero risk. The only explanation that makes any sense to me is that it is just another of progressives’ brownshirt like demands: “You will do what we say, or else!”
Mike M.
I don’t think it’s “bad” to recommend it for kids. In any case, lots of people seem to be ignoring them.
People will continue to ignore this until Covid rates go back up. And many parents will continue to ignore it until there are stories of kids getting seriously ill. (There haven’t been many or we’d see that in papers.)
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I think the CDC is doing something that is cutting into its credibility. People are starting to not believe them. That’s really the main down side I see of what they are doing. But they’ve always advocated vaccines and been ignored by many. I mean: Flu shots? Lots of people don’t get them. (For the same reason lots of people aren’t getting Covid shots at this point.)
. No one seems to be making it mandatory for kids. Maybe your prediction will come true. But it hasn’t yet. It’s fine for you to worry about it. But as far as I can tell: The sky is not falling.
SteveF
Yes. I see a “mandate” far off into the future and “not a mandate”. There is plenty of time for that to change. I anticipate it will.
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I suspect right now they are throwing a bone to teachers unions. The bone will be pulled back as July 2023 approaches and parents who care more will complain. Unless we have a big surge that affects kids, the date will be perpetually rolled back.
States tend to follow the CDC list for mandates is my understanding, but I really don’t know.
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Seeing Democratic states waffle on this vaccine mandate is interesting, this probably means they don’t see this as a good move one month before an election cycle. They are all pretty much following the “Republican plan” now (no lockdowns, no mask or vaccine mandates, etc.). Although the shot is safe, it just isn’t that effective for kids. They would need to mandate shots at least twice a year to have a measurable impact on spread. Science has left the building in this discussion.
“Apparently California has mandated covid vaccinations to attend school, but that mandate will not take effect until the 2023 school year”
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Ha ha, that is plain silly. DC was going to require a mandate for high school last year until they found out that 50% of POC (Kids of color?) in local high schools were unvaccinated. Then their anti-racism took over and the mandate was cancelled, because this makes sense somehow. It’s all so nuts.
lucia (Comment #215648): “Mike M. … No one seems to be making it mandatory for kids. Maybe your prediction will come true. But it hasn’t yet.”
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I made no prediction. I only noted that the likely CDC action amounts to encouraging states to make the shot mandatory and called that irresponsible. The risks outweigh any benefits for young people.
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Of course adding the covid shot to the CDC schedule has not yet had any effect. It has not yet happened. It has just been made virtually inevitable by the “advisory” panel’s recommendation.
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It will interesting to see if states start making the shot mandatory. I note that CDC put the HPV vaccine on their schedule about 15 years ago, but only about 3 states require it.
Sorry,
I confused you with MikeN
CDC has added COVID-19 vaccine to its vaccine schedule for kids.
This is automatically adopted by many states and school districts for their mandatory vaccination list.
He said it “is automatically adopted”. It hasn’t been automatically adopted.
Valkyries with a blue and yellow flag and a catchy tune.… Ukranians have become masters of PSYOPs…. Also explains why there is no shortage of manpower in the Ukrainian army. https://youtu.be/hLrKArbIMgI
I watched the PSYOPS video again and was wondering who the intended target was. Perhaps a recruiting tool for the army, fear of goddess (valkyries) for russian soldiers, liberal democries, Western bloggers like me… all of the above? https://youtu.be/hLrKArbIMgI
test
Conversation seems to have stalled, so I’ll toss this out there:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/09/is-xi-out.php
We live in interesting times.
mark bofill,
Seems unlikely, but there actually were a lot of canceled commercial flights without explanation. It is at least plausible, because Xi has been moving over the last two+ years to consolidate his power and it looks like he wants to rule “for life”. Some people in China may not like that.
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Were Xi deposed, there is no telling if his replacement would be better or worse in terms of taking over Taiwan.
mark,
The last post had “autoclosed”. I didn’t notice immediately. So conversation was shut down by the blog for a bit. The brevity of this post is due to the fact that I noticed the closure between tutoring sessions.
Thanks Lucia.
Steve, yeah. Seems unlikely to me as well, and I agree – no knowing what that might mean for Taiwan. I imagine and speculate without evidence that maybe they are as afraid of Biden as Putin was of Trump for sort of similar reasons. Who knows what the senile old guy in the White House is going to order if China invades, he makes noises sometimes that indicate he’d order us to fight. I don’t think China wants that – I think they view reunification of Taiwan as a safe bet over the long haul so long as they are patient.
I realize this isn’t consistent with my earlier views. I waffle regarding this. 🙂
My earlier opinions that China would act were based on the notion that Biden was less of a loose cannon. I think as he deteriorates there may be less confidence in the minds of military planners as to how the man will react. Shrug.
I think a coup in China would probably be big news. Also extremely unlikely because the conditions in China are favorable. Their standards of living have gained tremendously over the past 50 years, one of the world’s biggest economies, etc. They can be a bit oppressive of course but I just don’t see a coup without civil strife. To the extent you can believe popular opinion polls the rubes are pretty happy over there.
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China should be respected, and to an extent I haven’t quite figured out, feared. Historically they haven’t been expansionist and they definitely do not stick their noses into other people’s business like some countries I know (initials USA). Exception: Taiwan. They are also pretty smart in my view. They were the only country that I thought handled Trump correctly, completely ignore his clownish behavior and just deal with him on a transactional basis. They seem to be capable of long term planning better than most democracies. I think they learned from the US that economic power is a bigger factor than the military in the 21st century.
Their greatest strength is their manufacturing prowess, and it is a site to behold.
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The open question for me is how they will exert their power when they likely become the world’s greatest superpower in a decade or two. The history of humanity is such that the impulse to conquer others just seems to always happen when the opportunity presents itself. The US is a bit of an exception (using a measurement of maintaining our borders at the same size), although we push people around a lot. Perhaps we execute “colonialism lite”. I have never been convinced that colonialism was a net negative for almost every country.
Thanks Tom.
Respect isn’t exactly the word I’d choose. Merriam Webster defines respect as ‘: to consider worthy of high regard‘. I do not believe China is worthy of high regard.
‘Viewed realistically’ maybe is the term I’d use. ‘Not to be underestimated’. Something like that.
I think you are probably more into the fear category. China’s rise without plundering other nations probably fits the bill for respect, the political system comparison is going to be an ideological argument. I’m viewing it from “look where they were and look where they are now”. We used to talk about sending leftovers to the starving people in China.
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China telling the NBA and Hollywood how to run their business was laughable even 10 years ago. Now access to their markets is a huge deal.
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If China turns its manufacturing sector into a military machine then it can conquer anyone who doesn’t have nuclear weapons. They just don’t want to do that. China graduates 10X the number of engineers every year the US does. Some of this is just population numbers but that kind of long term effort will pay off. China is performing better than India, something is going right.
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China was also smart enough to embrace features of capitalism which has paid off. This might be the backdoor where their oppressive government gets overturned by this western culture characteristic. Can the genie remain in the bottle? I’m sure that’s what the Chinese government worries about, as does Putin obviously.
I saw the Powerline piece on China and did a search on “China coup”. Some sources claimed it is an outright hoax; none seemed to think a coup has actually happened. But it does seem like *something* happened.
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Respect has multiple meanings. Hold in high regard is one. But it can also mean to give consideration to, such as “please respect my privacy” or “we need to respect the fact that Russia has nuclear weapons”.
In the Ukraine war, the pressure to enter negotiations will depend in some measure on how many soldiers are actually being killed or disabled permanently. Naturally, these are closely guarded secrets on both sides, and that is very unlikely to change. Since Russia is ~4 times as populous, even comparable casualties put more pressure on the Ukraine.
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Biden had yet another “where am I?” moment on stage in New York when he was supposed to be making a (teleprompter) speech, and had to be called back to the podium. His repeated “We will defend Taiwan” public statements are causing real confusion… and have had to be walked back by his White House staffers (AKA his puppet-masters). He is getting gradually worse in mental capacity, seems almost fully innumerate (“assault rifles rounds have 5 times higher speed than other bullets”!) and often is just confused/detached…. and that is frightening. I expect he will announce no second term candidacy after the midterms. Being removed via the 25th amendment seems to me ever more likely.
I don’t really grasp where this idyllic view of China comes from.
Annexation of Tibet, Five fingers of Tibet (Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh), and their Aggression in the South China Sea.
But, believe what pleases you I suppose.
As the official policy for Taiwan is “strategic ambiguity”, Biden is the perfect person to communicate that!
Tom Scharf,
Things had been going right in the past, maybe not so much now and in the future. Xi is a Stalinist and is doing his best to roll back a lot of those features of capitalism. Then there’s the possible collapse of the Chinese real estate industry. Real estate is where a whole lot of Chinese have put their excess cash and paid for housing that may never get finished.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bursting-chinese-housing-bubble-compounds-beijings-economic-woes-11660235003?st=8s70t15ph7piie7&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I noticed a few videos on youtube proclaiming the imminent collapse of China based on the financial problems etc, and then a rebuttal by Serpentza, a former south african who spent 14 years living there.
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https://youtu.be/Caay18H9QvY
Things are pretty opaque with China, no doubt. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them go into some sort of financial crisis of some sort. It must be said that the US may be even be more prone to this problem given our Wall Street excesses. 2008 was not a shining moment for uber capitalism. At least the Chinese will give their guys the death penalty when it happens over there, ha.
I’m not saying China doesn’t have problems or isn’t authoritarian, I’m saying they have an apparently working system that must be “respected” as in they will likely be a very formidable adversary if they choose that route both economically and militarily. I worry about China 10X more than I worry about Russia.
I remember reading that China historically only was about 1/3 of its current area.
Fun facts on Russian armor and mud
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The T-72 tank is the workhouse for both Russia and Ukraine. As the rainy season is now a consideration, been seeing more chatter on armor mobility in mud.
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It seems the Russian track design for the T-72 is not well designed for mud. Which is surprising due to the famed ability of the Russian WWII T-34 to move through mud conditions. The T-64 looks to have a track better designed for mud, but fewer of these types are currently in service on either side.
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As Ukraine is now going into the mud season, tank movement for both sides will now be going to go into slow motion movement or confined to all weather roads.
What I find true of a number of nations’ views on their economies and the positive influence of their governments’ policies is crediting those policies for positive advances and in turn finding other entities to blame when those policies fail. In recent decades we have had both the Japanese and Chinese economies claiming to challenge for world leadership based on government policies and involvements in their economies.
What I see in these instances is that these economies do better in spite of government policies, gain to the extent that those policies free the economies from government influence, and begin to suffer when the governments misinterpret the gains as being the result government intervention with the economy and invoke more government interventions.
China is, as Japan has been, keeping failing enterprises in business (known as zombies) through government intervention. This eventually becomes an ever-increasing problem and drain on the economy. This is a tendency and problem of most governments, including the US. To the extent that nations are oblivious to the end result of their policies the less likely their economies are to gain world leadership.
It should be recalled that the US CIA and its most prominent economist of the time in Paul Samuelson had the USSR economy soon overtaking that of the US. There was and still is a lot of blind faith in the positive effects of command economies.
Ken,
Exactly. Well said.
Ken,
Is there an example of an economy going from third world to first world within a generation or two without government intervention? Real question.
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There are certainly plenty of examples of government action making a mess of things. But as well as China and Japan, government action played a big role in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.
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The free market seeks local optima. Government action may be needed to move rapidly from a local optimum to the vicinity of a global optimum.
Date Line September 2022
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The American and Russian economic advance on the EU continues unabated on all fronts !
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The EU continues its full retreat in the face of overwhelming force as the EU faces devastating economic losses in its two front war against America and its Russian ally.
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Both American and Russian officials express extreme confidence that the continued relocation of EU industry, primarily German, will continue unabated to both America and Russia.
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Unconditional economic surrender of the EU to America and Russia is now in sight !
Mike M,
How about the United States? I don’t know about ‘a generation or two’.
I’m not an anarchist. Government is needed to resolve legal disputes, enforce contracts, and protect property rights, and I think those things are requisite for a first world economy. So – the government plays a role. I don’t think the government played a central planning role over the course of most of US history though.
Put the super geniuses in charge and give them authoritarian power and better outcomes will happen. That’s the model. This plan could work, but it just usually doesn’t for a variety of reasons. My biases tell me it’s because the super geniuses aren’t actually all that smart and they become corrupt and self serving.
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The government does usually need to do things like build roads and fund certain infrastructure projects to accelerate economic growth. This could all happen in theory without government largesse but it seems almost everyone runs some sort of hybrid model here at different levels. It’s a complex trade off.
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The US got an enormous boost coming out of WWII because their industrial base was left untouched. We have a good model but we have to be careful that we don’t get fat, dumb, and lazy. Building infrastructure in the US has gotten enormously expensive and slow. I’m betting the Chinese don’t have to do a decade of environmental review to build a road. I don’t think we have an optimal system, but it may still be the best.
I posted a somewhat tongue & cheek view on the EU economic situation and immediately after find this jewel of an article.
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https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/the-us-is-winning-its-war-on-europes-industries-and-people.html#more
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“ The U.S. Is Winning Its War On Europe’s Industries And People”
Tom wrote: “My biases tell me it’s because the super geniuses aren’t actually all that smart and they become corrupt and self serving.”
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Maybe.I think geniuses are more likely to fall into the moral tyrant category (everyone else being too stupid to know what’s good for them) than the usual types of self serving corruption. The WEF are chock full of this type of thinking. Eyes on the bright golden future. Plans which are doomed to fail without judicious use of the authoritarian boot.
mark,
It took the USA or the UK a century and a half to get where South Korea got to in 30-50 years. Of course, South Korea already had a model to emulate. But industry in the USA was protected by tariffs and an ocean. Railroads were often built with government subsidies that indirectly subsidized any number of other industries.
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Tom,
There is a world of room between central planning and government encouraging the growth of industry.
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It would likely be informative to see how the role of government compares between developing economies. I suspect that there is a lot of daylight between the optimum and complete laissez faire. And a whole lot more space between the optimum and central planning.
Mike,
Yeah, it took time. The ocean of course has nothing to do with the government. And yes, there are many instances where the government had some involvement. If you’re looking for a pure specimen either way [pure laissez faire or pure central planning], I don’t think you’re going to find one.
When in time advances occur matters a lot. Having many examples of success or failure to follow is meaningful, as well as the gigantic information, travel, and commerce infrastructure that is already in place. Joining this economic compact is a lot easier than creating it from scratch. Local culture also has a lot to say about the outcome, hard working people do better.
Tom,
Absolutely.
As Mark suggested you do not see instances of pure laissez faire or central planning in any nation be it developed or not or even in historical times. Even in a regime like the USSR with a near command economy in theory there were black markets that some would contend kept the economy from collapsing. With developing nations, the improvement depends on what the governmental forces were prior to change and those after change.
In their early stages of economic development, South Korea had a lower GDP per capita than North Korea while both were operating under authoritarian governments. Of course, South Korea has become freer and while North Korea I am sure realizes, like China did, that in order to significantly grow the economy concessions to a freer market and recognizing at least some forms of private property, North Korea’s government feels it needs to control its people and activities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_North_Korea#
Comparing individual economies and over shorter time periods is a complex calculation with many factors involved with the usual caveat of ceteris paribus. It is much better to deductively determine which factors positively affect both economic output and freedom for the citizens given the human condition.
1. The recognition of private property is probably the most important positive factor since many rights are extended from it.
2. The recognition of natural rights of individuals that are protected from coercive infringements.
3. The recognition of a system of laws that are applied consistently and fairly.
Little attention is paid in practice to these factors in a number of developing African nations today and their people pay the price with little economic development or individual freedoms.
In the case of developed nations, those factors can be acknowledged as beneficial except when they get in the way of the government carrying out its proclaimed mission. Private property rights can be readily eroded with government regulations and coercive actions. Individual rights can first be eroded in government proclaimed emergencies and later tolerated without an emergency. Laws can be ignored as a matter of enforcement and others enforced selectively.
Indeed, Ken, which gets to the heart of the WEF advert slogan “You will own nothing and be happy” (seriously, what kind of idiot says the quiet bit out loud like that?). Take away property rights and you place your wellbeing in the hands of others. Add in a social credit score and digital currency and you better do as you’re told and be damn well happy about it or you’ll lose your property privileges… And of course, “they” will be exempt from adhering to their “socially responsible” proclamations, as we already see.
If there is ever any doubt about the complete uselessness of the UN, just consider this headline: “UN chief calls for global abolition of nuclear weapons after Putin threat”. UN chief Antonio Guterres seems to have gone about most of his 73 years with his head buried deeply in his a$$hole. Either that, or he is a hopeless fool; perhaps both. The “global abolition of nuclear weapons” is as much an absurd fantasy today as it was when Guterres was in first grade. It is like he learned nothing over the past 66 years.
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Strategic nuclear weapons provide a deterrent against exactly the international coercion that the UN itself represents and exists to enforce. My experience is that coercion is almost never a good thing. Nuclear weapons are much like the second amendment of international politics, and like guns in the USA, nuclear weapons provide protections against the absolute rule of the majority. Nuclear weapons ensure the ‘international community’ is never going to force its will on those countries holding nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are not going away any time soon….. if ever. Eliminating nuclear weapons goes hand in hand with uniform ‘world governance’; neither is likely, and neither is likely good for humanity.
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I rather doubt people in the USA (or most other countries!) want to be dictated to by China, India, and a few other of the most populous countries. And that is what ‘world governance’ actually means. Nuclear weapons will outlive Guterres….. and the UN, because nuclear weapons are what keeps the UN from doing the very bad things to humanity it would otherwise do.
Co hosted a discussion group on morals and ethics yesterday.
looked up the antonyms to good and honest and found 767 at one site!
The situation in Russia, like Iran and Hong Kong and Vietnam is a very strong leadership pushing policies that are out of date but sanctioned by their enormous power.
Someone in the group said morals had declined a lot everywhere in the last 50 years and most agreed.
I pointed out that his morals had not changed, just that younger people have newer morals.
The other issue was ranking priority of rules [ethics].
So the end can justify the means.
Putin can only be stopped collectively or individually by the Russian people.
One hopes this happens sooner rather than later.
His replacement or replacements would hopefully have newer morals.
Joshua
I found angech | July 27, 2020 at 7:02 pm I do not think I wrote on his first post though lots of people here did.
Why herd immunity to COVID-19 is reached much earlier than thought – update
Posted on July 27, 2020 by niclewis
“A key reason for variability in susceptibility to COVID-19 given exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing is that the immune systems of a substantial proportion (35% to 80%) of unexposed individuals have T-cells, circulating antibodies or other components that are cross-reactive to SARS-CoV-2
”
I said
Sorry, it is just not so.
-35-80% sounds like an estimate of ECS, so broad it is meaningless.
Multiple different unprovable contributing factors puts the fudge on top.
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HIT is not a fixed number, the threshold varies seasonally and with the specifics of the infecting agent. The troubling fact that young children find it hard to catch shows that for this virus the other factor is the presence of ACE 2 receptors ? meaning that the load of virus needed to infect could vary with how many receptors you have ( more as you get older).
This may be much more important than speculation about T cells which does not transfer from the Petrie Dish to real life.
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He was not happy with me.
Steve,
I agree. I actually think that in general nuclear proliferation is a positive thing. Excepting nations governed by religious fanatics and madmen I suppose.
I have always thought Iran and the Norks developing nuclear weapons was perfectly rational from their point of view.
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Nuclear weapon proliferation might work if we have rational actors, but do we?
Tom,
Not in my view, no. In the end, it only takes one or two crazies with nukes to potentially kick off wholescale annihilation I think. But then again, I think that’s inevitable anyway sooner or later. Humanity won’t ‘forget’ how to make nukes. They aren’t going to go away. IMO, regardless of what scenario plays out regarding nuclear proliferation, it’s just a matter of time before nukes get used again, and also just a matter of time before nukes get used on a large scale, with numerous strikes from multiple actors.
It’d be great if Elon Musk advances interplanetary colonization enough that within a few hundred years we’ve got some eggs in another basket.
Tom Lehrer:
Mike M,
(applause!)
Us goobers down here in Alabama are definitely not rational actors!
[Edit: U.S. Missile Command *is* headquartered on Redstone Arsenal I believe though. Deep breaths.]
Sigh of relief. Looks like Tampa will dodge the bullet of Hurricane Ian. In 2004 a major hurricane (Charley) was heading right for Tampa according to the official track back then and diverted east in the last 48 hours. Hurricane Ian is almost replicating this playbook.
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As of about a day and a half ago they had it tracking right over my house and then stalling there for 8 hours. Aaaackkk!!!! We may still get 12 to 24 inches of rain but now only tropical force winds likely. Port Charlotte is having déjà vu all over again unfortunately.
I’m sure you’re an old hand at weathering tropical storms and hurricanes and such, and it sounds like the storm isn’t going to stomp right on you anyway, but still; stay safe Tom!
Thanks, Mark
Tom,
Hope you are safe!
Tom
I think there are multiple problems with the “super genius” idea:
1) The real “super geniuses” don’t end up in charge. The ones in charge are the “super-networkers” and “super credit-takers”.
2) Even “super geniuses” need information. Even with huge databases and large sifting programs, it’s not possible to deal with all relevant information.
3) The “circle” of “geniuses” at the top always end up socializing mostly with other “geniuses” at the top. That’s what happens in power structures. And those most skilled at navigating power structures know that you want to socialize with others at or near the top of the power structure. That almost automatically leads to a degree of tunnel vision at the top.
Sure, having “super geniuses” with a variety of skills, outlooks and points of view at the top might hypothetically work. But it’s likely never been tested and never will be tested.
lucia,
I’m not so sure about the dominance of super-networkers and super credit-takers. The evidence from the Soviet Union and China and maybe Spain and Chile is that the most ruthless, Stalin, Mao, Franco and Pinochet, end up in the top spots. Robespierre and his ilk on the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution may be another example and maybe even Cromwell in England.
The American revolution is a counter example, but I think we were just lucky.
DeWitt,
But I think no one ever thought those guys were “super-geniuses”. The are the “top dogs” to come out of the “revolutionary” group.
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The notion of the “super-genius” running governments is usually the top bureaucrats in already established governments. It’s true that sometimes those who moved up in the “revolutionary” camp and then establish something might later decide to claim to select super-geniuses as their advisors. And then they may put many government choices in the hands of these “super- geniuses”.
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But those “super-geniuses” aren’t actually selected for being all that smart. They may be clever like foxes, but they aren’t actually “geniuses” in the sense of having domain specific skills and knowledge in areas government claims to want to oversee and develop (e.g. agriculture, manufacturing, trade, treasury.)
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I do think we got lucky with our founders. Few wanted to take over the world.
I think this statement is a bit too vague to answer in any detail, but that has never stopped me from commenting.
Putting in charge, I assume means putting some entities in charge of making and coercively enforcing decisions that might otherwise be made voluntarily by individuals. That can only be accomplished in the modern political era by governments.
The question to me then becomes why would or should some or any specially attributed group be given this coercive power. From a practical matter the power and benefits of a free market and free exchange of ideas coming from the entire population would far outweigh that of some artificially imposed limitation to ideas from some small group of individuals. In a free exchange environment super geniuses would have their opportunity to contribute on a voluntary basis and through showing evidence of the good of their ideas and persuasion.
The problem with authoritarian power is not who is in power but rather authoritarian power itself – and here I do not relegate that problem to an absolute authoritarian power but to all amounts of authoritarianism at all levels in government.
All weapons of mass destruction are intended to kill and harm innocent people (and in very large numbers) and are very much unlike a gun used in self-defense against an offending person or even the soldier on the battlefield.
The UN’s history on issues of world import would speak against it being worthy of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, but that does not mean that such an effort should not be made.
Nuclear blackmail is a very real issue as can be seen from Russia’s currently not so veiled threats. Nuclear proliferation could make international negotiations a matter of blackmail versus any semblance of reasonableness. Nuclear war is on a world scale analogous to the suicide bomber or the mass murderer who ends up taking his own life. The threat of any of these actions does not appear to me to be even close to a rationale way of doing business.
Polling of US citizens does not make getting rid of nuclear weapons a minority issue.
https://www.nuclearban.us/new-us-poll-shows-strong-support-for-elimination-of-all-nuclear-weapons/
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/opinion-polls/nuclear-weapons/public-opinion-poll-on-nuclear-weapons.html
Ken,
I hate to disagree with you. Still, I disagree with you.
1. I think war is often all about killing innocent people at the end of the day. War is not generally desirable or admirable or any sort of goal to be sought after, it’s more of an occasional inevitable necessity.
2. I don’t think weapons go away, except when replaced by a better weapons. I haven’t been able to find examples where humans have come up with a weapon and then just decided to quit using that weapon by agreement. I don’t think that happens. Weapons become obsolete, but. Instead of the crossbow, we have the rifle. If we didn’t have the rifle (or musket before the rifle) we’d still have the crossbow.
3. War and nuclear war isn’t a rational way of doing business, no. I might have misunderstood, but I though Tom was referring to Game Theory’s idea of ‘of strategic interactions among rational agents’ where rational agent means: ‘A rational agent or rational being is a person or entity that always aims to perform optimal actions based on given premises and information.’ Mutually assured destruction is predicated on the notion of rational agents; neither side wants to get nuked and both sides realize they will get nuked if they initiate a nuclear strike.
I don’t have a lot of interest in arguing this, so if you want to rebut this, I’ll let it go at that and we can agree to disagree.
Many social problems are not really solvable, they can only have more optimal and less optimal solutions. My comment is more towards the “dictatorship of experts” theory of government. The council of elders and so forth. I believe this can work in theory, but almost never does in practice. The ruling class generally believe they are the most qualified to rule, and they have walls full of credentials to prove it.
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Actual smart people, as in wise people, will know the best answer is many times to give people local autonomy even when they truly believe the locals aren’t as qualified to make those decisions as some others.
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There are way too many people whose lust for power is much greater than their wisdom. Democracies don’t vote in wisdom, I think we can conclude that, ha. Trump may have been wise in a contorted way, but perhaps he was wise in exploiting the weaknesses of the ruling class.
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In any event, I think the council of elders solution doesn’t scale.
mark bofill (Comment #215057): “I don’t think weapons go away, except when replaced by a better weapons. I haven’t been able to find examples where humans have come up with a weapon and then just decided to quit using that weapon by agreement.”
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Chemical and biological weapons have been banned by international agreement. I think they are a good model for banning nukes. If we all agree to ban nukes, nations will still covertly create small stockpiles either in the hope that a small number will be sufficient to win any war or in the belief that they will be needed to balance the small, secret stockpiles of enemies.
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In other words, it won’t work.
Mike,
I agree with you.
Chemical and biological weapons have been banned. They’re still used though, at least chemical weapons. It’s hard to say if bioweapons are really not secret weapons anywhere, and it’s also hard to say if it’s the agreements not to develop and use bioweapons that stop them, or it’s just the fact that bioweapons aren’t great weapons (I.E, hard to control, collateral damage, stuff like that).
But essentially I agree with you.
Does anyone here believe Russia would have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine still had nukes?
I am walking the line here on rhetorical questions, I realize that. I think the answer is ‘obviously no’ and that I just asked a rhetorical question. But I am asking it to be sure, so in that sense it is a real question — maybe I have this wrong and people will tell me that Russia would have attacked anyway.
Biden, just now.
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“You should obey all the warnings from the state officials … use their judgment, not yours”.
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Ummmmm … NO. I get triggered by “obey”. I could go on for 1000’s of words on this subject, very predictably. I will attempt to be succinct. Convince me of the reasoning for your judgment, and establish a pattern of credibility. You must establish trust first.
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Everyone who has lived in Florida for a while knows they hear the same tired warnings every single time a hurricane happens. “Get out now”. Emergency officials have no incentive to make a balanced trade off. Disasters do happen, but people ignore emergency officials for valid reasons.
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I use the National Hurricane Center / NOAA. They put out the tracking and strength information. They don’t weight it down with any form of lectures. The same tired 1990 vintage graphics have been going on since … well, 1990.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/220203.shtml?cone#contents
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The actual hurricane path was outside the track of the 3 day cone prediction this time, a rarity. The models were diverging on this one.
People don’t forget how to build nukes no matter what agreement is reached.
mark bofill,
“Does anyone here believe Russia would have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine still had nukes?”
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Of course not. But when the Ukraine agree to return all the nuclear weapons to the Russians, they were close allies… they could not have foreseen 2022.
Steve,
Yes. My point isn’t that they are dumbasses who should have foreseen this, not at all. My point is more that having nuclear weapons deters aggressors. That only madmen and fanatics will do large scale war upon the country in question. Nuclear proliferation tends to promote peace (mostly) in my view.
Eventually it won’t, I know that. Sooner or later some nut job or fanatic will use nukes and the situation may well escalate, and sooner or later after that some nut job or fanatic will use nukes and the situation will escalate. I hope that’s not until the very distant future, but sooner or later someone will make the mistake. I just argue that this is going to happen anyway, regardless of whether or not we strive for worldwide nuclear disarmament. I suspect that limited success in pursuing worldwide nuclear disarmament actually destabilizes the world and brings Armageddon closer.
Tom Scharf,
“You should obey all the warnings from the state officials … use their judgment, not yours”
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Or to paraphrase, “obey the experts”. Just like with covid and every other subject controversial subject. When the “experts” are politically aligned with the left, then shockingly enough, the left wants you to obey experts. Were the “experts” aligned with the right, I rather expect the left would not be so enamored of “experts”.
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As Feynman said: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”… but even more relevant, he also said:
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Too bad Feynman did not live to see the covid panic and the gestapo-like tactics of the “experts”, but I think he would not have been surprised.
SteveF (Comment #215064): “Of course not. But when the Ukraine agree to return all the nuclear weapons to the Russians, they were close allies”.
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I don’t think that is correct. At the time, Leonid Kravchuk was President of Ukraine. He had a pro-Europe stance and wanted to join NATO. Ukraine refused to join the CIS, formed its own military and established its own currency. There was an ongoing dispute over the Black Sea Fleet. Not enemies, but hardly allies.
Thanks Mike. I wasn’t sure about that either, but I didn’t bother to check.
mark boffill
And honestly, I don’t think anyone thinks they won’t be used at all. Sarin gas was used by terrorists in the Tokyo subway.
Chemical attacks were used in Syria in 2013.
Lucia,
Thanks. It’s possible I don’t understand the disarmament argument properly. I apologize if I’ve been knocking down straw men. In my copious spare time I’ll eventually go re-read the arguments people make in favor of disarmament and try to understand what the logic is.
It seems to me that if mostly everybody disarms, but a few actors use nukes, then those few actors have a helluvan advantage. I’d think countries would be highly motivated in that case to develop or acquire nukes, especially if they believed their neighbors to not have nukes. Destabilizing in my view. [Edit: it’s not exactly that it’s destabilizing. I mean it is that too. But I think it’s more likely for a country to use nukes if they believe they will face no nuclear retaliation for it than otherwise – than if they reasonably believe they will face nuclear retaliation. I don’t think this is actually controversial.]
But again, maybe I just don’t understand the argument. I’ll spend some time reviewing it, when I find some time.
Maybe I didn’t express that clearly.
If disarmament proponents realize that they will never be successful – that someone will always have nukes, then I honestly don’t understand why they believe those someones won’t use their nukes, or indulge in conventional warfare like Russia is doing under the protective umbrella of their nuclear threat. It all seems like dangerously naive wishful thinking to me.
If anybody knows the real counterargument disarmament people make to this, I’d be grateful if you could hook me up with a link.
“dangerously naïve wishful thinking”
Progressivism in a nutshell.
We are 24 miles North of the landfall of the eyewall of a category 4 hurricane…. Six hours in and the winds are still 78 miles per hour.
Mike M,
” At the time, Leonid Kravchuk was President of Ukraine. He had a pro-Europe stance and wanted to join NATO. Ukraine refused to join the CIS, formed its own military and established its own currency. There was an ongoing dispute over the Black Sea Fleet.”
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If that is accurate, then they really were pretty dumb to give all the nukes to Russia. I think they were more friendly with Russia than you suggest… and in fact a large fraction of the population was (and is) ethnic Russian who speak Russian both at home and in most daily public interactions.
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The USA and Europe were also pressing the Ukraine oto not keep any nuclear weapons. They might have been better off holding onto several.
“Dangerously naive wishful thinking”
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“Progressivism in a nutshell.”
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I dunno about that. Naivety suggests something that can be rectified with experience.
Russell,
Your pain is my gain, basically just an all day tropical storm in Pinellas. We still have power ay my house, but about 40% of Pinellas is out though. A huge amount of water was sucked out of Tampa Bay in kind of a reverse storm surge thing.
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I heard Sarasota county was going to get 100 mph wind for at least 3 hours straight. This thing has been a pretty slow mover. Looks like Fort Myers got pounded but we wont really know for a couple days who got it really bad. The hurricane angle and landfall location was very unfortunate for storm surge . The 3 day track prediction was pretty poor for this one, as it was in 2004.
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Hang in there. I know it’s stressful.
Tom Scharf,
The direction of the wind matters a lot. I dug clams this morning near shore (Cape Cod). The tide forecast (based on no wind) showed a low tide that should have been higher than an average low tide by 4″, but a 10 to 15 MPH offshore wind dropped the water to about 6″ below an average low. Not hard to imagine what 100 MPH off shore would do.
Nato have declared the start of WWIII?
I don’t get the gas line sabotage thing. Russia could have just stopped shipping gas. I suppose they might have done it to have plausible deniability for their other customers who probably aren’t exactly looking at Russia’s previous actions as those of a good faith business partner. I don’t know why anyone else would have done it either.
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The reality of high cost energy is starting to hit German business.
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WSJ: Germany to Cap Energy Prices as Industry Is Pushed to the Brink
Rising costs are bringing the country’s energy-hungry manufacturers and small businesses close to breaking point
https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-crisis-pushes-german-industry-to-the-brink-11664443801?st=rc5ediz8icpt9f8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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Hindsight is 20/20 but shutting down nuclear power and banning fracking (while buying enormous amounts from Russia) was just insanity.
FYI: These “desktopwebshare_permalink” WSJ links are supposed to get you past the paywall.
The NATO statement blames Russia for attacking NATO infrastructure and vows to respond. That sounds like justification for NATO sabotage to me.
Why would Russia sabotage its own pipeline, other than to blame others for attacking them?
Russia financed the antifracking movements in America and Europe. The Obama Administration pointed this out.
From a “who benefits” standpoint, neither side really stand out. IMO, “NATO” have the most to gain if they want justification to openly enter the war. Russia would seem to benefit the least having effectively lost a bargaining piece while it seems just the day before a new Polish-Norweigian gas pipeline opened…
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Forbes states: “One may be tempted to ask why would the Russians bother with sabotage and denial? After all, hostility towards Ukraine and Europe is neither novel nor secret. The shutoff of gas from sabotage does not fundamentally change Russia’s stated aims or enacted strategy. The answer lies in the strength of Western financial institutions, Russia’s lack of leverage or soft power, and the devastating impacts sanctions are having against Russia. If Nord Stream is shut down suddenly through “force majeure”, a sudden uncontrollable stop that is the fault of neither party, then Russia can void its obligations towards European stakeholders without legally breaking contracts, thus dodging the many penalties in doing so.”
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So Russia sabotaged the pipeline to avoid possible penalties when they are already being faced with economically crippling penalties? Sounds like a pretty poor strategy.
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Maybe the true culprits are actually further abroad. Plenty of others stand to benefit from an expansion of hostilities into Europe and further draining of the US resources. It is merely a matter of means. Even if that doesn’t happen, Europe is already being impacted economically.
Please correct me if I am wrong: At this point it is clear that *somebody* sabotaged the pipelines. Even though is is not obviously in anyone’s interest.
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DaveJR (Comment #215085): “So Russia sabotaged the pipeline to avoid possible penalties when they are already being faced with economically crippling penalties? Sounds like a pretty poor strategy.”
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But it makes the most sense of anything I have heard so far. The “possible penalties” would probably come into effect when the sanctions are finally over and would be in addition to those.
I don’t think NATO wants to enter this war, they could have done so already at any time. They can do a false flag attack on NATO territory. Things are going pretty well as far as this proxy war goes for NATO in my view.
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I have no idea who sabotaged the pipeline. Some bizarre 4-D chess move by somebody I guess.
Like Tom, I also have no idea who sabotaged the pipeline! For all I know it was Greta Thunberg!
Good call Lucia.
The Sherlock Holmes solution.
But have we truly eliminated all the other options?
Not the Russians or the Russian underground, too much self damage and upsets their enemies.
Probably not the Ukrainians lack of resources, not lack of will.
Not the Americans*, currently mental strength of leadership at all levels too incompetent and woke.
Not the Germans or Italians.
Not the British (devious enough but no James Bond and see *)
If we go down the deep depths of speculation.
Follow the money.
It must be the French.
With their nuclear power resources they benefit from higher electricity prices.
Nearly as devious as the English.
Resources , training , and an efficient secret service.
Viola!
Maybe it was the Chinese. They hurt the West and get more Russian gas for themselves.
State Department:
“The idea that the United States was in any way involved in the apparent sabotage of these pipelines is preposterous,” State Department spokesperson Price said during a separate press briefing yesterday. “It is nothing more than a function of Russian disinformation and should be treated as such.”
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It was most likely the USA. Why? Three reasons: Capability, craziness, and Russia, Russia, Russia!. The nutty greens running the Biden administration seem to me quite capable of most any crazy act. Placing multiple (4?) timed explosive packages 200 feet down in icy cold water? That’s not like snorkeling for lobsters on coral heads in the Bahamas! Let’s just say it probably wasn’t the Colombians, Argentines, or the Mexicans.
Mike M,
The Chinese are at least more likely than the Russians.
On the subject of China.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/14/china-opens-unofficial-police-stations-britain-hunt-people-return/
https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-opened-overseas-police-stations-us-canada-monitor-chinese-citizens
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I hope the people who deal with this sort of thing aren’t taking their eye off the ball to chase squirrels. I’m not convinced China is as much a paper tiger as claimed. There are other ways to fight a war in this day and age than projectable might.
US Hiring ‘Extraction’ Agents in Ukraine
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfgvmTcwyQI
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$1k-2k per DAY. From the posting, looks like they are looking for x special forces.
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I wonder what the US thinks of Ukraines long term stability? 🙂
Looking at the general world economic trends on inflation with energy and food production, I have moved money from savings into non parsable foods and household consumable goods.
This is a 2 fer as far as I’m concerned: stockpiles for any local disaster ( very low odds in my area, but cheep insurance) and as a hedge for the absolute knowledge of continuing high inflation for these items.
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I have seen some of my standard purchases of consumables inflated 25% ( or more ) over the last year or so. Food prices are going to be affected worldwide next year by shortages of fertilizer. Mainly in Europe, but will affect the US also as Europe will have to import food.
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Interest rates on savings will be well below inflation on consumable goods that I KNOW I will be using in the future.
Looks like Ian will primarily be a Flood-i-cane. This one is going to be a major disaster in costs. Of all the hurricanes I have seen Ian’s storm surge lived up to the warnings. Some of the videos are indeed terrifying. You know when it takes days to reach some places in 2022 it is going to be bad.
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Almost all the deaths will have been avoidable, but the disaster costs … not so much. You can’t economically build a large scale defense against that type of storm surge and 150 mph winds, however most houses built to current building codes should have survived the storm. The vast number of structures flooded out will have been built before 1990.
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A silver lining here is that people who live in low lying areas will be more likely to evacuate for the next decade. They only need to evacuate locally to higher ground for the most part to survive.
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I very much doubt the Florida home insurance market is going to shrug this off. They have a history of an effective post-pay model by forcing large rate increases after a disaster.
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Large sections of the Sanibel Island causeway were wiped out. This was just south of the center of the storm.
https://www.fox13news.com/weather/hurricane-ian-storm-surge-damage-fort-myers-naples-southwest-florida
Tom Scharf (Comment #215097): “Of all the hurricanes I have seen Ian’s storm surge lived up to the warnings.”
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It seems that it is always the worst case scenario that gets hyped. Of course, the worst case rarely happens. I wonder if some people did not evacuate because they thought “It is never as bad as they say it will be.”
Mobile home park in Hurricane Ian. Storm chasers. Yikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMQ-nTTv4ik
Evacuation is a complicated thing. Fort Myers was actually at the very edge or out of the NHC prediction cone 3 days out and a series of unfortunate events then occurred. The storm “unexpectedly” diverted and then rapidly intensified right before landfall. I doubt I would have evacuated as the 3 day tracking for storms has been pretty good lately.
https://www.wwno.org/news/2022-09-24/tropical-storm-ian-could-be-a-major-hurricane-by-monday-nhc-says-see-latest-forecast
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Once it is within 36 hours you can’t really leave. If you leave at 48 hours then you are likely to be stuck in horrendous traffic, gas will be unavailable, and there are never hotel rooms available. You can leave at 72 hours but you usually just aren’t confident enough in the outcome and wonder if you might be evacuating into the path. By the time there was high confidence in Ian’s track evacuation was not possible for almost everyone.
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Buried in the details of the tracking was significantly larger divergence in the models than usual (the spaghetti plots) and you could tell the models were struggling. Strength prediction has always been mediocre to poor, but slowly improving. They did successfully predict a strengthening after it turned north. What seems to happen is these things strengthen hard for about 24 hours sometimes and then get weaker. The timing here was not optimal for this.
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/220926111011-weather-forecast-plots-20220926.jpg
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I did evacuate for Irma and we got about 100 mph winds at my house.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215100): “Fort Myers was actually at the very edge or out of the NHC prediction cone 3 days out”.
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But given the size of the storm, the edge of the cone was still going to get hit hard.
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But I get that evacuating is hard in the best of cases and must be a nightmare in southern Florida.
I had a thought today about COVID infection acquired immunity vs. vaccination and why the US data was so bad. Of course there’s the effect on the ‘everybody needs to get vaccinated’ narrative and the pharmaceutical companies also have zero (or less) incentive to gather that kind of data, but I wonder how much effect HIPAA has on acquiring the data in the first place. Israel was able to collect data from their relatively few health insurance companies, or maybe it was the companies publishing the data. I’m not at all sure that something like that could be done legally in the US under HIPAA.
Wrt evacuation, nothing but crickets from the media on electric vehicles and the widespread power outage after the hurricane. It wouldn’t take a very big generator to power the pumps at a gas station.
The vast majority of the heavy damage is near the center of the storm. The 100 mph+ winds are confined to a pretty narrow region near the eyewall. It’s a direct hit by this area that one worries about.
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The yellow regions are tropical force winds, the brown regions are hurricane force.
https://media2.cltampa.com/cltampa/imager/u/blog/14258771/nhc_tuesday_11_p.m._hurricane_ian_035341_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind.png
The more I think about motivations, the more I think it is likely the Biden Administration sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines. The Biden administration wants to make sure those wobbly Germans, Dutch, Italians, etc won’t be tempted to press for a negotiated settlement in the Ukraine as their economies suffer astronomical price increases for gas and their industries are ruined. Damaging the pipelines takes the return of Russian gas deliveries off the table for the foreseeable future. I don’t see any other country with both the means and the motivation to damage the gas pipelines.
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This sort of thing can be kept secret for a while, but at some point someone will talk (off the record).
DeWitt,
The opposite can also be true, having a gigantic electric battery in your garage during a power outage could be pretty useful. I’m not sure how many vehicles have useful AC outputs though.
Another interesting theory on the pipeline sabotage: The Russians did it as an implied threat against the Norwegian pipelines that deliver gas to the rest of Europe. Makes as much sense as any other theory I’ve heard.
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Does the Nordstream sabotage really take Russian gas off the table? There are other pipelines. The ones through Ukraine probably are of no use unless the EU forces Ukraine to make peace.
Street view of Fort Myers Beach storm surge. Sure looks like 15 feet all right. Those palm trees are pretty tough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al8yTiCVfro
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20 minute aerial of Fort Myers Beach today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhxavD2hFq0
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Hundreds of structures are completely gone. You can see the stilts without anything on them. The entire beachfront used to be occupied, the gaps here are destroyed structures.
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Many of the buildings missing are older, but some of these structures were built up 10+ feet and were completely wiped out.
This is about as bad as it gets. There is no way they have any idea how many people are missing. No power, no cell network, roads blocked.
Tom Scharf,
Maybe re-building isn’t such a good idea.
A lot of the structures look to be pre-Andrew, so they could not stand up to the storm.
According to this report: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/watch-hurricane-ian-s-storm-surge-inundate-fort-myers/ar-AA12mX3A the actual storm surge (mean sea level above a normal tide level) at ft myers was 5.8 feet, breaking the previous record of 3.6 ft.
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Of course, the effect of that surge was worsened by giant wind driven waves, so that while the mean water level was under 6′ above normal, the wave peaks along the coast were much higher, no doubt causing the worst of the coastal damage to relatively light weight structures. Still, rebuilding looks unwise.
My MN family had planned an early December remote schooling and working vacation on North Captiva Island. I have not gotten any details of the damage there, but suspect their plans may have to change.
Those videos of Ian reminds me that Mother Nature can be a real bitch.
Excerpts from Putin’s speech. Well worth reading to get an incite to Russian view of the world.
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https://www.moonofalabama.org/14i/Putin-speech-20220930.txt
“And all we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.”
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“ Washington demands more and more sanctions against Russia and the majority of European politicians obediently go along with it. They clearly understand that by pressuring the EU to completely give up Russian energy and other resources, the United States is practically pushing Europe toward deindustrialisation in a bid to get its hands on the entire European market. These European elites understand everything – they do, but they prefer to serve the interests of others. This is no longer servility but direct betrayal of their own peoples. God bless, it is up to them.”
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“But the Anglo-Saxons believe sanctions are no longer enough and now they have turned to subversion. It seems incredible but it is a fact – by causing explosions on Nord Stream’s international gas pipelines passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they have actually embarked on the destruction of Europe’s entire energy infrastructure. It is clear to everyone who stands to gain. Those who benefit are responsible, of course.“
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“But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can’t feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can’t heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can’t feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can’t heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.“
SteveF
Hurricanes are the reason Florida is not on the list of states Jim and I ever plan to move to. Obviously, warm weather is a great attraction. But we don’t have kids to lean on if our home is wiped out. We may currently have energy to deal with rebuilding, contacting insurers, shopping for all new stuff, yada, yada. But that wouldn’t be fun and we will have less and less energy to deal with disasters as time goes on. So no living in locations that have a reasonable probability of being hit by a hurricane in the next 10 years, inside the 200 year flood plain, blah… blah…. We can, of course, rent in such a place. But not own.
Ed,
Putin’s speech is, to my mind, the best evidence he blew up the pipelines.
Ken,
They probably need a new destination. It is a low-lying barrier island of sand, mangroves, and a hundred or so houses. No roads except for use by golf carts, and no access to the mainland except by boat. The mangroves will mostly still be there, but probably not much else.
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https://www.dreamstime.com/north-captiva-florida-usa-aerial-looking-south-to-image145876428
Lucia,
“Putin’s speech is, to my mind, the best evidence he blew up the pipelines.”
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Why do you think that?
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WRT to Florida and hurricanes: Statistically, you will be severely influenced (>100 MPH winds) about once in 20 or 25 years. I have lived in Florida for more than 25 years, and we have been a bit unlucky: two storms like that. However, a great deal depends on where you are, the kind house you own, and if you have a generator. My house is far enough from the sea (about 3 miles as the crow flies) that a storm surge is not an issue. It was built after hurricane Andrew, so the basic structure is resistant to >135 MPH. (The pool enclosure would fly, of course!) I have a generator to keep the house livable and enough fuel for 3 or 4 days without power. All windows are coated with anti-shatter Mylar films, so even flying debris breaking a window would not likely be catastrophic. For me hurricanes are mainly an inconvenience, not a menace. For those right next to the coast, in an insecure house (or mobile home), and with no generator, it is a different story, of course.
SteveF,
He’s is blaming specific people without proof. His rhetoric is very inflamed. He’s clearly wanting to escalate. He is wanting to stage things to make a speech to claim he is “forced” to escalate. That’s just what he did before invading Ukraine.
SteveF (Comment #215114)
Steve, the MN family was down to North Captiva in Dec of 2020 doing things remotely during the Covid-19 lockdown. They liked the isolation and were looking forward to doing it again.
The last I talked to my son, he felt there would be a direct hit on Captiva. He said the buildings were on 8 foot stilts, but I think that was no defense from Ian.
Ed Forbes (Comment #215111)
Putin, like most politicians, is a self serving prevaricating SOB. They may say things that are in agreement with our momentary views, but that can be coincidental. When a politician is cornered or seeing their policies go awry they tend to prevaricate at the highest levels – and that is where Putin currently is.
That the US is obnoxious in world affairs is a given that no reasonable person can refute.
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The main point for me in the speech is: ( edit, this point was made mainly for the EU, the US is in the catbird seat in regards to EU energy supplies)
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“But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can’t feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can’t heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can’t feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can’t heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.“
Ed Forbes (Comment #215111),
Putin says what he needs to say to try to achieve his objectives. That said, amid the ranting are some good points.
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“And all we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.”
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and
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“But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can’t feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can’t heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can’t feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can’t heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.“
lucia (Comment #215116): “His rhetoric is very inflamed. He’s clearly wanting to escalate.”
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Just what do you mean by “escalate”? What sort of “escalation” is Putin after? Real questions.
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He surely does not want more sanctions or more western support for Ukraine or direct military intervention by NATO. I think he wants to inflame divisions within Europe and between Europe and the US. But I would not call that “escalation”.
MikeM
War with NATO.
Oh? He is advancing excuses to attack. This is just the same as before he attacked Ukraine. All sorts of people said surely he doesn’t want to attack Ukraine. He just wants…. And then he attacked.
He attacked because he wanted to attack.
Lucia,
I agree Putin’s rhetoric is inflamed…. but so is the rhetoric of the Ukrainians, the Brits, the USA, etc. This seems to me quite normal for war.
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As to escalation: Russia is obviously going to annex the occupied regions in the east of Ukraine and declare them Russian territory. If there is escalation, then I suspect it will happen after Russia declares those regions “part of the Russian motherland”. My great concern is that the Biden administration will adopt policies that may well kill a billion people (or more, including you, me, and most everyone we know) simply because they insist Russia must behave in the Ukraine the way they want Russia to behave. I don’t know about you, but there is nothing happening in the Ukraine I am willing to die over.
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What is more, I very seriously doubt the Russians are going to ever relent, because whether we agree or not, they see western domination of eastern Europe as an existential threat to Russia. I don’t doubt the Biden administration is incapable of understanding Russia’s position, nor do I doubt the Biden administration is capable of insanely bad and insanely dangerous policies that put all of western civilization at risk. They are simply not going to succeed in forcing Russia to do what they want. I find the fact they seem incapable of a reasoned evaluation of reality profoundly frightening…. far worse than any hurricane.
Luica,
“He just wants…. ”
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Putin was very clear in his public statements for years; he insisted the Ukraine not become part of NATO. That is what he wanted; he wasn’t hiding anything.
Lucia,
Interesting idea!
The conflict in Ukraine has been a reminder of the fallibility of conventional wisdom (conventional wisdom said Ukraine would fall relatively quickly) so take this with a grain of salt. But NATO’s conventional forces are thought to be vastly superior to Russia’s. European NATO alone is roughly as much stronger than Russia as Russia was stronger than Ukraine.
Heh.
I have to think if Putin wants war with NATO he means to use nukes. He must know Russia wouldn’t have a realistic chance otherwise, even if the US stayed out of it.
Perhaps he gambles that NATO leaders don’t have the testicular fortitude to risk it. If so, he might be right.
[Edit: Unless he has a secret deal with Xi!]
The trouble is, I don’t see how he has a realistic chance even if he uses nukes. Unless he’s mad, M.A.D. undermines this idea. Maybe he believe he could use tactical nukes and the West would back down? I don’t know.
Or maybe he’s got a secret alliance with Xi and PRC would fight too. I think this is very dubious and there’s no particular evidence I’m aware of that would support this idea, but I’m not aware of any evidence that makes it unthinkable either.
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I think he’s just making noise. I don’t see how if he’s in possession of his faculties he could really want war with NATO. Not impossible, just I don’t see it.
But fun idea though!
mark bofill,
“Perhaps he gambles that NATO leaders don’t have the testicular fortitude to risk it. If so, he might be right.”
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I sure hope ALL NATO leaders are unwilling to engage in a nuclear exchange. I really doubt the Europeans are willing to risk it. Biden and company? IMHO, they are both completely woke and completely nuts (and those two are very closely related to being absolutely certain you are 100% right), so I am not at all sure they won’t risk nuclear war.
mark bofill,
“I don’t see how if he’s in possession of his faculties he could really want war with NATO.”
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I really don’t think Putin wants war. He wants the west to stay out of Eastern Europe; he has said it 100 times.
Steve,
Yeah. There are times when it’s really dangerous to have a guy like Biden in the WH, and the scenario we’re discussing is definitely one of those times.
[(RE next comment): I agree with you.]
Clearly Putin thinks he is losing now and/or the war is not going well. People who are winning don’t act like this. This looks like a speech directed at his domestic audience. He probably thinks he needs to escalate for his own survival and he is just setting up another “look what you made me do” moment. He painted himself into this corner and he increasingly looks like an idiot.
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The best thing for NATO and the west is to just keep handing him the rope to let him hang himself with.
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The west has energy and can afford to pay more for it if necessary. That Putin is leveraging his energy like he has a monopoly on it discredits him to the rest of the world. The EU will suffer for a while and there will be global repercussions but they will adapt and move forward.
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What is Russia’s future here? This war was very unwise.
Tom wrote: “That Putin is leveraging his energy like he has a monopoly on it discredits him to the rest of the world.”
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I don’t think it does. The beef between Russia and Europe is well known and there are plenty out in the rest of the world who welcome whatever Russia can dish out, most of the rest likely don’t give a damn. How many are made to care simply by being required to stay in “The West’s” favor? What if that could be significantly weakened and removed?
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“What is Russia’s future here?”
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“The future” is currently dictated by “Western Hegemony”. Maybe their future is one in which it isn’t. “The West” seem happy to do everything to make this happen.
Contrary to some opinions, Russia is winning. Russia has convinced its trading partners that they have been reasonable and it is the west that are pushing war and are being unreasonable. This has allowed Russia to annex portions of Ukraine without upsetting its allies. This is a VERY important political consideration.
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NATO and the EU have shot their bolt in supporting Ukraine. The west is running short of weapon and ammunition supplies. One just has to see current deliveries to Ukraine from the west to see this. Current supplies of tanks promised is about 20 T55’s, a early 1950’s tank design. Thats good for about 1 day loss on ONE of the 4 main fronts of a 1000km long line.
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Everything else promised by the west is “training”, support for salaries, replacement of already delivered equipment, and light equipment. Current promises for heavy equipment are contracts for items to be delivered sometime in the distant future after contracts are approved and the weapons are produced. No deliveries of heavy western tanks are contemplated as they are not considered to be effective for the terrain seen in Ukraine.
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In the fighting over the last month, Ukraine has fully committed its reserves and in the latest fighting been forced to move forces off the line in other critical locations to try and continue assaults in the west. This is not good for Ukrainian options.
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Ukraine counter attacks have been totally shut down on 3 of the 4 sections of the front and the Russians have stopped the 1 somewhat successful attack in the west from achieving any meaningful success. With an additional 300,000 reserves, plus regular Russian armed forces that can now be deployed, Russia will now outnumber Ukraine forces for the 1st time in the war. It is fast being a war of Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers vs Ukrainian pickups armed with machine guns.
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It is going to be a bleak winter for both Ukraine and the EU.
I think that lucia is flat wrong. Putin is NOT insane. And as mark points out, he’d have to be insane to want a war with NATO. And if he wants war with NATO, he does not need to be coy about it.
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Putin is definitely in a jam. I think he is trying to find a way out any way he can. I suspect that he still thinks that the West is weak and lacks resolve. And that Ukrainian resistance will collapse without massive aid from the West. I do not think those things are true. But as long as Putin thinks those things *might* be true, then it is worth it to him to try to back the West off.
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So he destroys Nord Stream so that there is no doubt that Europe’s energy woes will receive succor from that direction. That has the bonus of making the point that he could take out the pipelines from Norway. He annexes Ukrainian territory to show that *he* is not going to back down and to make the point that beating him will be a long, slow slog. He talks aggressively about nukes to sow fear; it seems to have worked with at least one denizen of this site. I don’t think he is going to split NATO, but I am not certain that he won’t.
Why does Eastern Europe not want to be part of Russia? Perhaps because they know what it is like through direct experience. Russia has an inferior political and economic system with more corruption. The west isn’t perfect by any stretch, it’s just better than what Russia has to offer. Rational people can choose what they want.
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Eastern Europe can continue to be Eastern Europe and still be part of the EU. What is Russia offering? Cheap gas? That’s worth something, but that’s not enough to be under the Putin regime’s thumb for almost everyone.
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I’m not sure what the end of the sentence is “We don’t want nuclear war so …”? Give Russia control of Eastern Europe even if they don’t want to be under Russia’s control? Negotiate a settlement on Ukraine that Russia doesn’t seem to be interested in? Stop enticing Russia’s neighbors with decadent western ideology? Make a formal agreement to not go further with NATO and the EU?
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It’s not the west’s fault that they have better marketing and business fundamentals. We have never been a direct threat to Russia, this is a fantasy. Russia does seem to be losing the ideology war because of the facts on the ground.
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I’m not at all convinced that Russia just wants its own security. Their established behavior contradicts that. Putin does need a face saving way out of this mess he has created, so I don’t object to that. Humiliating Russia is a bad plan.
Mike M,
“He talks aggressively about nukes to sow fear; it seems to have worked with at least one denizen of this site.”
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Well, the truth is, there is not much in the world I am afraid of, but the nutty Biden administration, combined with Russian resolve to not give in to the Biden administrations’s wishes, is indeed frightening. Biden has dementia. I can tell you from personal observation of dementia patients that dementia leads to lots of very bad decisions.
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BTW, I doubt Putin had the Nordstrem pipeline sabotaged, but I can’t exclude that possibility. The USA seems to me both a) more capable, and b) nutty enough to do it to ensure Europe “doesn’t slip” WRT to fighting Russia.
The US has way too much to lose getting caught sabotaging an EU – Russia pipeline. They also don’t need to do this because Russia has been turning it off all by themselves and would be expected to keep up their energy blackmail. EU resolve against Russia looks pretty strong at the moment so this also seems unnecessary.
I just don’t see strong reasons for anyone to do this, it’s a bit bizarre.
Here is my (best case scenario) prediction (that is, assuming nuclear war doesn’t break out): by the spring of 2023 Russia will have annexed the eastern regions of the Ukraine and done enough “ethnic cleansing” of the local population to ensure they will not face much terrorism. The West will continue to wring its hands and demand Russia return all Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea. The Russians will laugh. The rest of the world will shrug and continue to buy Russian gas and petroleum. China will snicker at the folly of the West’s position, and continue arming itself to take over Taiwan in the future.
Tom Scharf,
Look at the video tapes of Biden and Victoria Nuland promising to eliminate Nordstream 2, “guaranteed”, “one way or another” if Russia invaded the Ukraine. These were not veiled threats, they were direct threats.
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“Give Russia control of Eastern Europe even if they don’t want to be under Russia’s control?”
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Well, we did that from the end of WWII until the Soviet Union fell apart, right? No reason not to do it now. Better than everyone getting killed. Russia may (some day) become a more reasonable actor…. but nobody is going to force them into it. BTW, the Ukraine is not all of Eastern Europe… Poland, Romania, etc, are not going back to the Russian orbit.
Even with the major destruction of the recent two Cat4+ hurricanes if you look with a discerning eye you can determine things that just aren’t ever covered. Houses 2 to 3 rows back from shore mostly survived the worst spot of the hurricane, and recent buildings looked to have survived the worst spot of the worst hurricane.
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Houses miles inland all survived, but certainly many were damaged. As SteveF has said there is basically a threshold of around 130 mph where any house built in the last 30 years is unlikely to have a lot of damage.
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Trees falling? Local flooding? Power loss? Yes, yes, and yes. Buy a mobile home in Florida? No, no, no.
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Then there are aerodynamics. Most of the houses with lots of damage are also directly exposed to the wind or very close to shore. Houses in suburbs are generally protected by each other and local forests etc.
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It’s not as bad as it seems, but it sure would be nice to not have to worry about it.
Regarding who took out Nordstream pipelines… check out https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html and https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/10/nordstream-ii-electric-instapundit.html
The theory here (my words are not as good as those at the links) is that the pipelines were full of natural gas for months without any maintenance which leads to build up of hydrates which block the pipe and can be corrosive. If a depressurization event happens, then hydrates are pushed down the pipe due to pressure on the other side moving quite quickly until they hit a bend where they can burst the pipe. So Russia could have done this damage, by accident.
Still lots of room for idiots in the area (including our own) to have done this deliberately, but a stupid accident also has to be on the table.
Steve F
“The more I think about motivations, the more I think it is likely the Biden Administration sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines.”
Putin blames USA therefore logically USA did not do it.
White house blames Russia so Russia did not do it.
Only leaves interested third parties.
France.
Most likely of the unlikely remaining candidates.
History of doing this in the past.
Remember New Zealand/frogmen/explosives?
pauligon59 (Comment #215140): “but a stupid accident also has to be on the table.”
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But it would have to have been two nearly simultaneous stupid accidents.
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OK, I guess it could have been a series of four events caused by deliberate human action, producing either an intentional or unintentional result.
Cascading failure?
I am not any kind of expert on pipelines. The explanation is plausible but that doesn’t make it the truth. All we have to date are plausible explanations. At east two of the breaks occured at or near bends in the pipe if the maps shown are correct.
I doubt we will ever see a detailed report on what actually happened so all we will ever have is speculation.
On second thought, I am not buying the methane hydrate hypothesis. Where does the water come from? The pipeline is pressurized, so it must be from inside. Moisture in the gas could condense and build up. So that combined with poor maintenance could be the source for Nord Stream 1. But Nord Stream 2 never carried any gas; it was pressurized but no flow. So I don’t see how there could have been hydrates in it.
Mike M,
I agree, methane hydrates are a very unlikely cause… I mean, two separate pipelines, one never more than pressurized….. more than a bit too coincidental. Besides, the Swedes estimated the explosions at roughly 200 Kg TNT equivalent…. inside a pipeline, 200kg of TNT would tear the line apart, not just cause a leak.
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The most plausible explanation is sabotage. A photo of the pipeline damage would prove if the explosions were internal or external….. maybe some day we will see a photo, but then again, maybe not.
A quick internet search indicates that hydrates are a big problem in pipelines carrying gas from an offshore well. In other words, gas that has not yet been processed. Can’t find anything about hydrates in delivery pipelines. Of course, I only did a quick search, so not finding anything does really prove anything.
Russia has apparently withdrawn its troops from Lyman, you know, “Russian” territory. This is clearly part of Russia “winning” as per Ed. If they keep up all this winning they might be back at the actual Russian border soon.
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“In connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement, allied troops were withdrawn from the settlement of Krasny Liman to more advantageous lines,” the ministry said on Telegram, using the Russian name for the town of Lyman.”
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Really, this is getting a bit embarrassing for Russia. What is going on? No wonder Putin’s head is exploding.
Tom
Well… geeh… Vlad says his grandmother subsisted on soup boiled from tree bark during the Ukrainian famine. So 30 year old Ukranians grew up on stories of Russian “generosity”. And I suspect some others from former SSR states have similar, though possibly not quite a horrible stories about their grandparents.
There is a reason Ukrainians don’t want to be part of Russia.
Putin being “very clear” he wants to f*** them up the ass when he wants doesn’t mean they want to allow themselves to be f***ed up the ass. And Putin being “very clear” he wants us to say “go ahead and let me treat them however I want to”, and then invadingis provocative.
You can say he’s not “insane” all you want. But he wants whatever he wants (which is, honestly, everything) or he wants war. He is provoking war.
Give him what he wants now and we’ll still get war.
And, of course, we already have war.
I don’t think it adds any understanding to say that Putin “wants war”. He wants Ukraine. He wants victory. He’d be a whole happier if he got those things with a lot less war. He definitely not want the war that he got.
MikeM
When he rolled his tanks into Ukraine, he wanted war. He wasn’t forced into. He chose that–vs. alternatives. Right now, vs. alternatives, he wants war.
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Did he want victory? Of course. Did he hope the war he started would be easy? Of course. But he wanted to roll into Ukraine, and did so: He wanted war. Does he want Ukraine? Sure. He wanted Ukraine enough to want to go to war to get what he wanted. And he chose to go to war to get what he wanted.
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That’s “wanting war”.
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I don’t see how anyone can think he didn’t “want war” in February. He could have stopped his own hostilities at any time before sending troops in to start a hot war.
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The man is now openly warmongering further.
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It’s fine to say he is not insane. But he is almost certainly in a very politically precarious position back home. Dictators who lose wars don’t do well personally. I think at this point, he wants war more than facing his obvious to everyone (other than Ed Forbes) non-victory back home.
Lucia,
Point taken. Putin’s interests and the interests of Russia as a nation are different things. Also, maybe there’s shades of crazy, running from simply mistaken about some things all the way to completely delusional psychotic. So could be.
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[Edit: and there’s this:
https://www.foxnews.com/world/putin-ally-recommends-russia-use-low-yield-nuclear-weapons-ukraine
]
Back to the question of mutually assured destruction. Bearing in mind that Putin’s personal self interest and Russia’s interests may diverge, it could be that he perceives he has nothing to lose by playing nuclear chicken. If he believes a failed Ukrainian war will cost him his political power (and maybe his life and fortune, could very well be), he might be more willing to play nuclear chicken. It might be his view is that he has everything to gain and nothing to lose. *Russia* may have a lot to lose, but maybe not Putin personally.
The Soviet Union was occupying Eastern Europe (and part of Germany) at the end of WWII. It was a fait accompli. We didn’t have a choice about that unless we had taken Patton’s advice and started a new war. It wasn’t anything natural. The Soviets had no ‘right’ to rule those countries then and Russia has no right, other than force of arms, to rule them now. Any form of appeasement will only encourage Putin and others like him.
If we are so afraid of nuclear weapons that we fold because Putin threatens to use them then we might as well disarm and surrender now.
DeWitt,
Agreed.
mark
Yep. Just as Mussolini’s interests and Italy’s were not the same thing. The Italians did not treat Musolini and his mistress well in the end. Many former dictators (or even just heads of state) who lost power run to other countries after having put their money in accounts out of reach from their original country.
I seriously doubt Putin has a safe-for-him fallback address. Where is he going to go? Belarus? Moldova? Turkey? The isle of Elba? If he doesn’t have power as the head of Russian, I doubt anyone wants his bellicose body.
I think he hopes rhetoric can turn Russians into supporters of the war. (Currently it doesn’t seem to be working.) He wants to make their reaction to the pipelines being bombed resemble American’s reaction to Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. Or even Napolean invading Russia way back when. Or…
He’d like them to “defend Russia” the way the Ukrainians are defending Ukraine.
But to do that he needs something like the pipelines getting bombed by “enemies”. Obviously, concrete evidence that the “Anglo-Saxons” bombed it would help. He doesn’t have any. But they’ve always limited real news in Russian. So he probably at least hopes he can convince Russians there has been a material violent attack on Russia by their “enemies”.
I’m sure there are shades of crazy. But I think in this case, Putin is simply between a rock and a hard place. And I doubt he’s ever really given a c*ap about “Russians” relative to himself. He cares even less about “humanity”. So theories based either on (a) Putin not lying when he is “very clear” about something or (b) Putin actually caring about anyone other than Putin have some serious weaknesses.
mark
He’s still lose a lot. Honestly, right now, things look bleak for him. (Well, unless Ed Forbes is right and Russia is actually winning. Maybe those trading partners he’s “convinced” the west is pushing the war will send their own troops to come help him. Maybe he’s got a safe wad of cash and can retire to someplace in China. )
Lucia,
No I meant Putin doesn’t have a lot to lose by playing chicken, if it’s the case that his political and personal fortunes are tied to winning. I agree that he has a lot to lose [in general]. I didn’t express myself very clearly there, sorry.
lucia (Comment #215152): “I don’t see how anyone can think he didn’t “want war” in February. He could have stopped his own hostilities at any time before sending troops in to start a hot war.”
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And Ukraine could have prevented hostilities by giving in the whatever Putin wanted. So did Ukraine want war? Of course not.
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There is a difference between being willing to do a thing to get or keep what one wants and wanting to do that thing. To fail to make the distinction confuses means and ends. There are cases where the distinction is obvious that sloppy language does not matter. But this is not one of them.
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To say that Putin *wants* war is to imply that war is unavoidable and that negotiations are pointless. And to say that he wants war with NATO is to imply that escalation is unavoidable. Sloppy language gets in the way of understanding, especially when dealing with something that is difficult to understand.
I think it is clear that Putin cares very much about Russia. He does not care about individual Russians, other than maybe a few people close to him, because that is the nature of autocracy. But he cares about Russia as a whole. The invasion of Ukraine did not personally benefit Putin; he did it because he thought it would benefit Russia.
From what I have seen, Russia does not have the capability to use tactical nukes in an offensive capacity. Russian troops have neither the training or discipline to operate on a nuclear battlefield.
I think that’s conveniently abstract. He doesn’t actually care about his people. He cares about ‘Russia’. Well, that could mean anything.
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I think he wants to build / rebuild an empire. But I agree that he isn’t concerned for the wellbeing of his people. I think ‘benefit Russia’ has essentially no meaning when divorced from concern for the Russian people. It’s a floating abstraction that probably instantiates in reality to gratifying Putin’s pride and personal self interest, him and his leadership clique. At least that’s my view.
Why does Putin remain popular in Russia? And, yes, he really does remain popular in Russia: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2022/0907/1321067-putin-popular-support-polls-russia-economic-sanctions-ukraine-war/
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It has a lot to do with the improvement in the Russian economy over the past 20 years. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/11/russias-economy-under-president-putin-in-charts.html
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Employment is high, inflation has been reduced from >20% per year to about 5% per year, and per-capita income has increased in real terms by a factor 3. But it also has to do with how Russians think about their near neighbors and how they perceive the West (arrogant, pushy, domineering).
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If Putin faces any real questions from the Russian public, it more about his restraint in not destroying Ukrainian infrastructure (power production and distribution, railways, dams, airports, etc.) and the targeting of political leadership. Putin is most certainly not conducting the war in a way that is designed to beat the Ukrainians into submission or to erode their will to fight. This is the thing that I have found most surprising over the past 8 months…. the effort is anything but all-out on the Russian side.
MikeM
Yep. I absolutely am implying further war with Putin is likely unavoidable. Because he wants war.
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Refusing to see this makes this situation difficult to understand.
BTW, lest anyone believe Putin is only publicly supported (not actually supported) by Russians, it is clear from controlled “list experiment” surveys that he is highly popular, and has been for a long time: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1060586X.2016.1144334?journalCode=rpsa20
Thanks Steve.
Lucia,
I would say Putin is quite willing to use war to reach his political objectives, and in that sense he is no different from many other political leaders. I suspect that if he could achieve those objectives without war, then he would prefer that. When you say he “wants war”, it suggests that the process of waging war is itself the objective… I just don’t believe that is true.
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Or as Clausewitz said, “war is politics by other means”.
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Which is not to say I think Putin’s political objectives with Russia’s near neighbors like the Ukraine are “good”, “reasonable”, or in some way justified. I think Putin’s policies are wrong and immoral. I think Putin is a murderous thug who is willing to have his political opponents killed. But I am not a Russian who supports both Putin and the war in the Ukraine; I am sure there are many Russians who see things very differently from me.
lucia (Comment #215165):
Clarification noted. I think that you are wrong and I don’t see any evidence for your position. I do see evidence for what SteveF (Comment #215168) says: Putin is willing to use war to achieve his objectives, but war is not the objective. And I agree with the rest of what SteveF says in that comment.
Russia has a fully mechanized army and is currently fighting a Ukraine army that is only partially mechanized and that outnumbers the current Russian forces by better than 2:1. Russia is also not conducting an all out war against Ukraine by destroying its infrastructure that would bring resupply of the front from NATO to a stop. Any internal pressure on Putin is because he hasn’t destroyed Ukraine infrastructure. He has not been as hardline as wanted.
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Russia is using their mobility advantage to its favor. Russia defends hard in areas of importance and conducts a mobile defense that trades space for time in areas of little strategic importance and to enable its MUCH stronger air and artillery forces to inflict massive casualties on Ukraine forces that are then moving outside of entrenchments.
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The areas Russia is trading space for time and ability to fight Ukraine forces out of their entrenchments were also quickly vacated by Ukraine forces early in the war. The area in the northeast is very lightly populated, has little strategic value, and can quickly be outflanked by Russian forces coming from over the Russian border.
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Ukraine resupply of tanks and ammunition from the west is drying up. Almost all x Soviet equipment available on the world market for Ukraine has been expended. No western heavy tanks are being supplied to Ukraine as they are not considered suitable for Ukraine logistics and terrain. All major western contracts for Ukraine resupply is for long term contracts, not for immediate delivery.
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So yes, Russia is winning.
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This war with Ukraine will end with the destruction of the Ukraine army to the point it can no longer resist.
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I believe Russia is not destroying the Ukraine infrastructure because it wants it intact for its own use after the war is concluded. No point to destroy that what you will get in the peace terms anyway.
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Russia is conducting war more like the wars of the 1700’s than as seen in the last century. Positional battles defined by fortifications and maneuver, as opposed to total destruction of the civilian infrastructure and population to degrade enemy forces. This is considered by many to be a more “civilized “ way to conduct wars.
mark bofill (Comment #215163): “I think he wants to build / rebuild an empire.”
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I very much agree.
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mark bofill: “But I agree that he isn’t concerned for the wellbeing of his people.”
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I strongly disagree. He does not care about individual Russians. I think he does care about the Russian people as a whole. Those are two very different things.
Ed Forbes (Comment #215170): “I believe Russia is not destroying the Ukraine infrastructure because it wants it intact for its own use after the war is concluded. No point to destroy that what you will get in the peace terms anyway.”
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I don’t think much of most of what Ed has to say, but I think he got that bit right.
Mike,
Can you explain the difference to me? I’ve said I think the ‘good of Russia’ can mean essentially anything Putin wants it to mean. Do you disagree with this, and if so can you share the particulars?
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Take our country. I do believe that many and most on the left do not want to destroy our country. They want what they believe is good for the country. What they believe is good for the country stands in many ways in direct opposition to what conservatives believe is good for the country.
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What’s good for the country ‘as a whole’ appears to be up for grabs. It’s a free floating abstraction that can mean anything. So at the end of the day it means nothing in particular.
mark bofill (Comment #215173): “Can you explain the difference to me? I’ve said I think the ‘good of Russia’ can mean essentially anything Putin wants it to mean. Do you disagree with this, and if so can you share the particulars?”
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I don’t think I follow. Of course not every Russian will agree as to what is for the good of Russia. And Putin promotes what he thinks is for the good of Russia. And what Putin thinks is for the good of Russia is no doubt colored by his own desires, because it would be pretty amazing if that were not so.
I would abstract it out a couple more levels. Putin is a 13 year old bully. This works in his neighborhood and everyone in middle school acts out respecting him or pays the price. However this doesn’t work once he leaves his neighborhood, all the global cool kids make fun of him and openly disrespect him. This leaves him feeling humiliated and fulminating for revenge. There are some similarities to Trump here.
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He wants international respect for Russia, and this exercise was intended to be a showcase of his might army and to garner some respect globally. I’m not sure Ukraine was really the point. It seemed like an easy win at first, but it just didn’t work out that way. Now what? Putin is not sleeping well lately I suspect.
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OTOH giving Russia respect is effectively free and there is no reason to antagonize them.
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You can’t give in to nuclear blackmail. Further there isn’t a single politician that would survive their next election if they did. It’s not going to happen, nor should it. I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving Putin a fifth of vodka and the big red button and leaving him alone in a room for the night.
Mike,
I asked because you kept on insisting on this distinction, that Putin cares about ‘Russia as a whole’. I wanted to understand what you thought that meant, and why you seemed to insist on that distinction. I still don’t understand this.
[Edit: I mean obviously, right? Obama wants what’s best for the US. And Trump wants what’s best for the US. And Biden wants what’s best for the US. So — what was the point of the distinction? Obama and Trump and Biden also want / wanted what was best for Obama and Trump and Biden, just as Putin wants what’s best for Putin.]
MikeM
If he gets his current objectives without war, he will develop new objects for which he will threaten war.
The only way to make him not go to war is to make him not want to go to war. That’s going to be very, very difficult. It is made more difficult by thinking he doesn’t want to go to war.
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Thinking he doesn’t want to go to war is what made people pretty much do nothing to support or defend Ukraine until he went into Ukraine.
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The article linked indicates that he gets more support from Russian people by going to war. In fact, he has a strong incentive to want to go to war.
If the west had lost the Cold War and endured a lot of hardship while Europe was being split up and subsequently aligned to the USSR then I’m sure we would have a galactic size inferiority complex as well.
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Putin’s desire to make Russia relevant globally will of course be popular with Russians. This doesn’t change the fact that the Russian government, its leader, its economy, and it’s policies aren’t winning hearts and minds. Putin knows this path isn’t going to work in his lifetime so he is choosing another path.
Tom
13 year old bullies want to knock kids around from time to time. They do pick smaller kids to smack around. But anyone who thinks they don’t want to smack kids around and would rather just have “respect” rather than sometimes smacking a kid around is mistaken.
Mike,
Let me back up. Maybe what I was asking is ambiguous. I can clarify:
I said:
[Edit: You replied:]
The distinction here is what I was asking about:
So – the difference between caring about individual Russians and caring about the Russian people as a whole. I propose that caring about a nation ‘as a whole’ is vague and meaningless flim flam that is used to justify whatever anyone wants to justify. If you think I’m wrong, or missing some important point, please clarify.
There.
Putin’s unnecessary assassinations of some of his adversaries is telling of the dark side of his personality. This entire mob side of Russia taints them. There is a difference between being feared and being respected.
mark bofill (Comment #215176): “Obama wants what’s best for the US. And Trump wants what’s best for the US. And Biden wants what’s best for the US. So — what was the point of the distinction? Obama and Trump and Biden also want / wanted what was best for Obama and Trump and Biden, just as Putin wants what’s best for Putin.”
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I agree. The important word is “also”. Somebody above said that in Putin’s case there is no also; he wants *only* what is best for him without regard for what is best for Russia or the Russian people.
mark bofill (Comment #215180): “So – the difference between caring about individual Russians and caring about the Russian people as a whole. I propose that caring about a nation ‘as a whole’ is vague and meaningless flim flam that is used to justify whatever anyone wants to justify.”
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I don’t understand how or why you would make that claim. If it is true, I don’t see how it would be different when it comes to caring about strangers as individuals.
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We may be at an impasse.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215181): “Putin’s unnecessary assassinations of some of his adversaries”.
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How do we know they are unnecessary?
A lot of politicians, like Putin, think what is good for them is good for the nation. They also are probably not at the intellectual level to think very deeply about any distinctions.
I think these discussions give politicians, like Putin, too much credit for having the ability to decompose complex issues into understandable parts. They spend more effort timing the use of their store of slogans. Many of them are driven by momentary considerations of what they feel pragmatically might work for them and not so much from any long held principles.
I don’t think these people who were killed represented a true threat to Putin. It was more vengeance for non-loyalty. Not sure we will ever know the real truth though. People who cross Putin have a habit of dying.
Mike,
I was trying to understand your position. If you don’t want to explain your position, then yes. We are indeed at an impasse, and I regret having wasted my time inquiring. I’ll try not to repeat that mistake.
mark bofill,
Let me try. Suppose you run country XYZ with absolute authority, and you believe an implacable adversary, who is already infringing on your territory, is going to try to take over the whole country. So you mobilize the country and go to war. War may not be good for the individuals who fight for your country (many will die after all) and may not even on balance be good for the population as a whole…. with much immediate suffering, physical destruction of property, and loss of life. But you believe that the future of the country is worth today’s sacrifices and losses. So I would say you care about the country, even if you are willing to sacrifice the immediate well being (and the lives!) of many citizens to confront your implacable adversary.
Tom Scharf,
“People who cross Putin have a habit of dying.”
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Yes, he is a murderous thug. I don’t think there is a lot of disagreement on that among those who live in the West. But I wonder how many Russians think he is a murderous thug.
That’s fine Steve, thanks.
Tom Scharf,
“You can’t give in to nuclear blackmail.”
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It is never stated so starkly, but in practice, it happens all the time. Lots of countries run by despots try to acquire nuclear weapons… So do countries who feel threatened by a neighbor (Israel, Pakistan, India). Nuclear weapons make the cost for imposing policies on countries with nuclear weapons far too high in practice. NATO is not in the Ukraine killing Russians or establishing “no-fly” zones for a reason…. actually, 4 or 5 thousand very good reasons. The Iranians are not planning to invade Israel. The crazy N Korean dictator is not worried about being invaded by the South, even though they are still ‘at war’ and the south is 10+ times more economically powerful. Should Taiwan say they are going to develop nuclear weapons, China would invade ASAP. International diplomacy pretty much always recognizes the sorry reality of nuclear deterrence. Call it blackmail if you want, but it is reality.
Thanks, SteveF (Comment #215188). I guess I was assuming that was obvious.
SteveF
Of those, I wonder how many disapprove and how many are fine with that.
SteveF and Mike M.,
Deterrence and blackmail are not the same thing. If a country threatens to use nuclear weapons first to gain an advantage on another country, which also has nuclear weapons, causing the other country to fold up it’s tents and give up what is demanded, that’s blackmail or extortion, not deterrence.
Deterrence would be making it clear to Putin that using tactical nukes in Ukraine would result in the complete destruction of Russian troops in Ukraine . Ukraine is no more Russian territory than Kuwait belonged to Iraq. Putin can do whatever he likes inside the pre-Ukrainian war Russia. An expansionist Russian empire, which seems to be what Putin wants, should not be allowed.
Lucia,
I can’t venture a guess. But I am reminded of the Pew polls conducted in dominantly Muslim countries which consistently show large fractions of those countries support killing any Muslim who leaves Islam. People hold fundamentally opposing views on many subjects, views I absolutely can’t understand, so I would not be surprised if many Russians think the deaths of Putin’s enemies are sometimes (usually?) justified.
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If a nation tosses homosexuals from rooftops (and some do!) and beheads people for infidelity (and some do!), we in the west can either accept that reality and deal with those countries as they are (while encouraging change/moderation of course), or we can declare those countries to be barbaric and irredeemable, and try to force our values on them by any means available. I think history shows the latter approach doesn’t work.
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We are not going to succeed in forcibly imposing our values on the Russian people, but we can, and I fear we will, do great harm trying.
DeWitt,
Look at a map. The countries Putin is most worried about are those with long borders with Russia. It is perfectly OK to speculate Putin wants to take over Hungary and Poland, but I think a more realistic evaluation is that he doesn’t want more NATO countries on his border. Please point to a stated policy by Putin that he wants to establish a Russian ’empire’.
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With regard to what territory is ‘really’ Ukrainian, I think the history is a lot more complicated than you seem to suggest. The Crimea has been part of Russia for most of the past 300 years. Eastern portions of the Ukraine were for sure under Russian control in the past, and have overwhelmingly ethnic Russian populations.
SteveF,
I’m not suggesting imposing values on Russia. I do recognize they might differ from our own. We generally disapprove of murderous things. They may not.
Lucia,
But a big part of the problem in the Ukraine is that Russians (and even ethnic Russians in the Crimea and the Ukraine) do not agree with Western values and do agree with the Russian invasion. I think the West would be wise to recognize that Putin is not the only problem…. change Putin for another Russian politician and the war in the Ukraine would not likely suddenly end.
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We can disagree with the Russians about the Ukraine, but we need to be realistic about what can be accomplished with current policies…. and realistic about the potential harm those policies can do. The loudly proclaimed, absolutist position of US policy (100% of pre-2014 territories must be returned) makes ending the conflict essentially impossible for the foreseeable future, because that is simply not going to happen. Diplomacy is what is needed here, but we are not getting that from the Biden administration.
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I must admit one thing; international relations or domestic policy, the Biden administration is at least consistent: they are incapable of substantive compromise, because they are convinced they are always 100% right and all who oppose them 100% wrong. It is IMHO a destructive and foolish attitude, and not coincidentally, one shared by most ‘progressives’.
SteveF, the US needs to stop being the world’s policeman and allow the private world in the US to use those resources for investments in a freer economy that would greatly increase the standard of living of its citizens. The US is still admired abroad for its creativity and individual freedoms. That does not, however, mean we could not do a much better job in that area – we just happen to still be better than most nations in that area. When we engage directly or indirectly in military disputes in other parts of the world, we expend a lot of that goodwill. It might momentarily appear that we have become better liked or maybe respected by some nations of the world because of our stand on Ukraine, but those feelings can be fleeting.
Having said that I would never want to excuse a political leader of another nation for really bad behavior or give that person purer motivations than those that are more obviously not that pure and often are self-serving. Putin is an example of a corrupt self-serving political leader who with his cronies have made billions of dollars at the expense of Mother Russia’s people. He inherited nuclear weapons that make his nation exempt from attack from the outside and further there is no evidence that any nation is interested in invading Russia. I do not think NATO is a good concept, but I see no evidence that they want to go offensive on Russia. Before the Ukraine conflict, Russia was given opportunity to trade with most all nations of the world. All this evidence or lack thereof makes his inveighing about protecting the motherland seem something more of paranoia than anything close to reason.
Putin is an accidental leader of Russia who has done that nation great harm in that there were elements in Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union who were interested in a much freer and less corrupt nation than the one that evolved under Putin. Like you said Steve, he also is suspected of being a murderous thug and currently has an opposition leader locked in jail. I just do not see where with all this evidence of Putin’s dealings he would come across as anything close to patriotic, honest, or reasonable. He would not be the first politician to see war as a way of increasing the allegiance of nation’s people and even knowing those people would suffer greatly.
SteveF
How is Russians in the west not agreeing with Western values a big part of the problem? If 100% of the French agreed with an invation of Germany, that wouldn’t mean Germany has to tolerate it. Nor would we need to tolerate it.
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The “problem” isn’t that we want to change the values of Russians. The problem is we don’t what Russia or Russians to launched unprovoked attacks on other countries just ‘cuz.
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I guess perhaps I don’t know what you think “the problem” is.
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Sure. Russia probably needs to lose and know they’ve sufferred a loss for it to end.
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Saying they may be returned won’t end it either. Because the Ukrainians aren’t going to return them.
Lucia,
I should have been more clear: I see the problem is mainly that there is no plausible end to the war based on the positions of the two sides (and of course the USA/NATO) and the military realities. I just don’t believe the Russians are going to ‘lose’, if you mean by that they will be forced out of the Eastern regions and Crimea. The Russians have not been conducting anything like a conventional war, where the opponent’s infrastructure is destroyed to reduce their will and ability to continue fighting. I hope the Russians don’t change tactics and put the Ukraine in darkness this winter, with no rail transport operating, but it could happen. If it does, it will be a humanitarian disaster, with millions of Ukrainians fleeing to other countries.
SteveF,
Whether Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union or Russia in the past should be completely irrelevant. It does not justify Putin’s invasion. Nor does Ukraine wanting to join NATO. A NATO Ukraine would not have been an existential threat to Russia. What is relevant is that Ukraine became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union and much (most?) of Ukraine does not want to be part of a country whose leaders created a famine that resulted in the deaths of millions of Ukrainians. I’m not at all convinced that an honest referendum in the Russian held and Russian speaking regions of Ukraine would result in a request for annexation now.
Kharkiv, for example, was sympathetic to the Russians before the invasion. They aren’t now.
DeWitt,
The Donbas regions currently controlled by Russia had much anti-Ukraine civil unrest leading up to the post 2014 declared separation from the Ukraine. If there was a lot of opposition in that region to separation from the Ukraine, it didn’t show up in sectarian fighting. The people in those regions now hold Russian passports and can move freely within Russia. Yet there is not a lot of evidence of sabotage in Russia as you might expect if the populace was opposed to Russian annexation. The “left bank” of the Ukraine (most areas east of the Dnipro river) has been under Russian control (or actually part of Russia) most all of the time since the 1700’s, and has long had Russian majority population and dominant use of the Russian language in both private and public. The history of these regions is different from the Western Ukraine, were control by Poland (and others) dominates the past. The West will declare any plebiscite illegitimate, of course, but the political history of the region is extremely complicated, and I find it plausible (indeed likely) there really is popular sentiment in the currently occupied regions to become part of Russia.
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Seems to me that agreement to respect the results of a truly legitimate plebiscite might be part of a negotiated settlement, but the Ukrainian government (and the West) appear to reject ANY possibility of a plebiscite, no matter how conducted, to determine the future of the occupied regions. Do you think the people in the occupied regions should be able to determine their political future?
Galeev’s view is yes, Putin is looking to bring NATO into the conflict directly and will use nukes if that is what it takes. It’s the only way out at this point with maintaining his domestic power. He can get away with losing to NATO. He cannot get away with from being beaten by Ukraine. Putin needs himself and Russia to be seen as David, not Goliath.
DeWitt,
Please note that most of the deaths from famine in the Ukraine were in exactly the same regions that are now occupied by Russia, and were it appears popular support for annexation is greatest. In fact, a large fraction of deaths during the famine were in southern Russia, not just in the Ukraine.
Who is Galeev?
re Galeev, I find this:
Andrew P wrote: “It’s the only way out at this point with maintaining his domestic power. He can get away with losing to NATO. He cannot get away with from being beaten by Ukraine.”
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Of course, predictions like this are based on assumptions that what we are told and believe about the situation is true. We already know for a fact that we are not told “the truth” and our beliefs are biased by a lack of cultural understanding.
SteveF
Sure. The Ukrainians in those regions died during the Holodomor. Then the regions were resettled by Russians who moved in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
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The people whose families died (Ukrainians) tend not to trust Russia, the country that brought on the famine. The replacements moving in are not the descendants of those who were starved out.
Galeev has been tweeting prolifically since the beginning of the special military operation. Many times dealing with western misperceptions of Russia. e.g. that the opposition would not be better, that Russians as a whole consider Ukrainians and other soviet ethnicities as inferior, calling early on that RAF was a paper tiger and would struggle logistically.(Feb 27th thread). His pinned tweets are a good read. He’s currently in D.C.
I think Putin went into this thinking it was 1968 revisited. He really thought of it as a simple police keeping expedition. Putin loses power, all his house of cards falls down and any spoils will be redistributed to the new leader and he and his will likely be dead or wish they were. He cannot be seen as weak domestically. This has been his way since the beginning. Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, all worked to bolster his domestic image by showing his prowess. The most dangerous part of this is Putin is of the school that you escalate until the other side backs down. The thug or bully mindset.
From what I can tell the Russians and their media openly talk about nuclear weapons all the time, it isn’t a taboo like it is over here. They sabre rattle with these all the time.
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They really aren’t mystical weapons, they are just big bombs that have some longer term effects. It is just another tool in the toolbox for the military. That being said the Russians would certainly know their use would provoke a response from the west.
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I have said several times that Russia losing here is much more dangerous than Russia winning. A wise NATO would calibrate their effort to bleed Russia slowly for a long time and allow them to “win” in the end, but convince them that a war against NATO would be hopeless. That is happening so far, but Ukraine may be screwing up the master plan by winning too much, ha.
I would like to point out that the group that is crossing borders with big armies is the one “forcibly imposing values”. This is not a battle of subtle semantics.
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We are to accept a referendum on eastern Ukraine to choose their path, but the argument appears to be that Russia is under no obligation to do so themselves for any part of Ukraine. One can just claim that the Canadians are historically ethnic Americans and thus should be forced to submit to a force military takeover. We all know Trudeau is really a Nazi, right?
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I’m not against referendums to choose a path. There are big problems here obviously with the timing and the vote being held by an oppressive military force with legitimate fear for those would vote against. One could also argue there has been an ongoing cleansing of the pro-Ukraine population since at least 2014. But I’m for people choosing their path in the abstract.
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One can imagine all the wealthy sections of cities or states seceding to keep all the good stuff, high tax base, and their valuable infrastructure paid for by all the taxpayers. You also want this to be a super-majority result to prevent flip-flopping. It’s more complicated than it seems at first.
Lucia,
As it seems with most of Ukrainian history, much about the famine is disputed:
SteveF’s arguments on Ukraine seem oversimplified. Yes, there are differences in the histories of western, central, and eastern Ukraine. So what? Parts of the US have recently belonged to France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia.
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When the Ukrainian SSR was set up a century ago, the borders were determined by demographics. The eastern Donbas had many Ukrainians but was majority Russian and what made part of the Russian SSR. The western Donbas had many Russians but was majority Ukrainian and was made part of the Ukrainian SSR.
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As lucia points out, the Holodomor altered the demographics of Ukraine. In particular, migration to Ukrainian cities came largely from Russia rather than from the depopulated Ukrainian countryside.
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The history of Crimea is completely different from the rest of Ukraine.
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Note that even in Crimea a clear majority of voters voted in favor of independence in the 1991 referendum and about 85% voted “yes” in eastern Ukraine.
RE Stalin’s intent: I used to ponder endlessly about whether people were evil or just stupid when they brought about things like the Holodomor. I don’t anymore. I don’t think it much matters in the end.
Mike M,
If I have oversimplified, that was not my intent. The history of the region is enormously complicated, with control changing hands dozens of times. Yes, Texas and California were forcibly annexed from Mexico, and Alaska was acquired from Russia. But few in Alaska are politically aligned with the Russians; not so in eastern Ukraine.
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The point I am trying to make is that the Ukraine is complicated, and there are likely very strong differences of opinion within the Ukraine about what the future of the country should legitimately be. On the other hand, the USA and NATO insist that the situation is very simple: Russia has to return all of the eastern areas and the Crimea to the government in Kiev. IMHO, it is not so simple as that, and that there are in fact large differences in political alignment in different parts of the Ukraine. Refusing to acknowledge those differences makes ending the war difficult or impossible. Which may be the real goal of USA and NATO policy.
SteveF,
Sure. Whether it was a genocide is disputed. That falls under “define genocide”? Whether Stalin “intended” it? That falls under “Can we read Stalin’s mind?”
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Whether it happened isn’t. Whether lots of people died isn’t. And that area that were depopulated were repopulated isn’t.
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I merely brought up the re-population issue because you said the people in the Russian areas support Russia more despite that area having had lots of death and starvation during the Holdomor. But a fraction of those in that area are the people, children and grandchildren who moved in after the area was depopulated. They aren’t people who lived there during the Holdomor.
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That doesn’t touch on whether the event was a genocide. It just gives context for their views.
SteveF (Comment #215219): “there are likely very strong differences of opinion within the Ukraine about what the future of the country should legitimately be.”
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Far less than the case 10 years ago. Ukraine used to be divided between pro-Russia and pro-Europe. A year ago, those differences were dramatically reduced, largely as a result of Russia’s actions in 2014 and partly as a result of people who grew up in the USSR being replaced by people who grew up in an independent Ukraine. The places not under Ukraine’s control at the start of the war might be very different; there is no way to know.
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SteveF: “On the other hand, the USA and NATO insist that the situation is very simple: Russia has to return all of the eastern areas and the Crimea to the government in Kiev.”
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That is likely just posturing. Both Washington and Kiev surely realize that Crimea is not going to return to Ukraine and that at least some sort of accommodation will have to be made in the Donbas. But such concessions will be made at the bargaining table in return for concessions by Russia. They should not be made unilaterally.
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SteveF: “Refusing to acknowledge those differences makes ending the war difficult or impossible. Which may be the real goal of USA and NATO policy.”
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I fear that might be true. If so, then Biden and Putin deserve to be room mates in hell.
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Upthread I called attention to reports that a peace deal was reached in early April, then deep sixed by NATO. I don’t know if it is true or not.
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Addition re peace deal: That was Comment #214977 in the thread prior to this one.
Mike M,
“That is likely just posturing. Both Washington and Kiev surely realize that Crimea is not going to return to Ukraine and that at least some sort of accommodation will have to be made in the Donbas.”
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I hope you are right, but fear you may be mistaken. ‘Posturing’ suggests the USA and NATO actually want the conflict to end via negotiations. Everything that the USA and Western Europe have done so far suggests to me they are not at all interested in a negotiated settlement. Russia has been little better. The Germans and French make a few half-hearted phone calls to Putin, but I suspect they are under a lot of pressure from the USA to not offer real negotiation.
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Biden was always pretty dumb, but is now too demented to be held responsible for much of anything; his appointees, on the other hand, are aware enough to be responsible for keeping the war going. Perhaps they could share a room in Hell with Putin.
Tom Scharf,
“We all know Trudeau is really a Nazi, right?”
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Nah, just a very arrogant, self-righteous socialist, with strong authoritarian impulses. A bit like Fidel Castro (ha ha).
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WRT plebiscites: Of course, an independently (eg UN) supervised plebiscite would have to be part of a formally negotiated settlement. I don’t know if the Russians have said anything about that possibility.
SteveF (Comment #215222): “I hope you are right, but fear you may be mistaken. ‘Posturing’ suggests the USA and NATO actually want the conflict to end via negotiations.”
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Indeed. I should have said that I hope it is just posturing. I don’t know how to judge the prospects for negotiation based on public pronouncements. But I have seen enough of our foreign policy establishment to take seriously the claim that we nixed a peace deal back in April. And that they might want to see the conflict drag out to bleed Russia.
I don’t see negotiations possible after Russia claims to have annexed these areas to be part of Russia. Rather than negotiating positioning of troops, now Russia has to give up its own territory.
It makes no difference what it was called, Stalin’s policies/actions killed a lot of people. Those results are symptomatic of a Communist regime. There have been several Communist regimes were millions of people died as the result of the inherent philosophies involved. Some of historical memories of these deaths will be cast as horrors eminating from an evil person/regime for some and the result of an evil regime invoking the policies of an evil philosophy for others.
My solution for Ukraine would be seccesion for those regions that would not want to be part of Ukraine. The choices would be that of an independent nation or joining any other nation which would include Russia.
Kenneth,
agreed.
Ken Fritsch,
“Those results are symptomatic of a Communist regime. There have been several Communist regimes were millions of people died as the result of the inherent philosophies involved.”
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Of course. You are preaching to the choir Reverend. All regimes of the left discount the value of the individual (in property, in liberty, and even in life) to advance the immediate interests of the collective. That we humans are neither ants, termites, nor wasps is completely lost on the idiotic left. Humanity’s advances over millennia are in large measure based on the efforts of the individual… individuals who pursue their own interests, both intellectual and financial. The disconnect of the left, and especially the ‘intellectual left’ of the faculty lounge, from this clear, factual, observed reality is nothing short of frightening.
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Which is why great human suffering, and millions of innocent deaths, seem always to come after the left gains power. Stalin’s 1930’s famine and Pol Pot’s murders in Cambodia (the ‘killing fields’) are cut from the same cloth: the idea that the interests of the collective are far more important than the rights… and even the life…. of the individual. Once people holding those views gain power, there is no upper bound to the evil which can follow.
Mike N,
“I don’t see negotiations possible after Russia claims to have annexed these areas to be part of Russia. Rather than negotiating positioning of troops, now Russia has to give up its own territory.”
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Yes, the Russians have been almost as implacable as the west. Nobody is indicating a willingness to actually negotiate. All are demanding conditions which exclude to possibility of compromise during negotiations. I have been involved in many business negotiations…. the situation in the Ukraine is nothing like what leads to a final settlement. In business, this is a “smile and walk-away” situation. But a lot of people are getting killed. It deserves more than absolute demands and refusal to compromise.
The offensive strategy that has been so successful for the Ukrainians in the North for the past few weeks is show on the following detailed war map:
https://twitter.com/defmon3/status/1577035444730359808?s=21&t=Hu9aXr_Cmk_rqAT9y-HGSQ
He explains:
“If you guys have not noticed (sorry if I’m Cpt Obvious), this is what the AFU seems to be doing.
They envelop a town trying to force a retreat. Every time RU retreats they loose equipment and personnel.”
“By keeping the Russians moving, they keep having to take position at unprepared locations.”
He then make predictions as to the next towns to fall. He’s got a good track record.
If I were a Ukrainian soldier, this would be my position…. “Negotiate? Were winning. We don’t need no stinkin’ negotiations. Those Russian b*stards invaded our land, tortured our people, raped our women and stole our washing machines. I’ll negotiate after I’ve killed every last stinking’ Russian b*stard and my boots are standing on Russian soil.”
Russell,
I am glad that the Ukrainian military has battled so fiercely, not because I believe that the Ukrainian government is angelic, but that the Russian government is diabolic. However, vainglory (as you imagine in your comment) is an excellent reason to leave negotiation to civilians, who have a wider view of the costs of war.
MikeN (Comment #215226): “I don’t see negotiations possible after Russia claims to have annexed these areas to be part of Russia. Rather than negotiating positioning of troops, now Russia has to give up its own territory.”
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That may make negotiations harder, but not impossible. From what I have seen, the newly “annexed” territory has no specified boundaries. That allows Russia to retreat without giving up Russian territory. So I think the annexation is mostly for show. It allows Putin to claim progress domestically while sending a message to the West that we should not get our hopes up.
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So I don’t think things have really changed much. Russia will not simply cede the annexed territory; Ukraine will have to take it back. But I think that has been the case since the spring. Any peace that Ukraine will accept is going to cost Putin a lot of embarrassment. Again, not a big change from several months ago. The only thing that has really changed is that it looks like it might actually be possible for Ukraine to regain most or all of the territory lost last winter.
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I suspect that Putin will never make peace. Defeat will likely finish him. But after he is gone, the situation might be a lot different. Not because the new boss will be any nicer, but because the new boss will have someone to blame.
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Luckily, it seems that Putin may not be long for this world, even without getting helped along the way to the next.
HaroldW (Comment #215233)
You wrote “vainglory (as you imagine in your comment) is an excellent reason to leave negotiation to civilians, who have a wider view of the costs of war.”
I haven’t heard any Ukrainian civilians say they want to make nice with the russians. The russians have been brutalizing the Ukranian people for nearly a century. The hate gets passed down from generation to generation. I think, with Ukrainian civilians and soldiers alike, there is more basic multisyllabic word in play… vengeance.
I hear talk about any negotiations on the Ukraine war being solely between Russia and Ukraine, but without weapons support from the US, Ukraine’s negotiating position would be very different. The US could use its leverage if it wanted or needed to be part of the negotiation process. By the way, where is the UN involvement in any negotiations?
Democrats tend to worry about the tag on their being soft on military issues and this could explain the hesitancy of the Biden administration getting involved, given particularly the upcoming elections. Republicans have a similar problem on the mean tag on domestic issues. Unfortunately the reactions to both problems is more government and government spending.
We have much discussion here on what motivates Putin thinking and how that might predict his future actions, but I wonder how much effort our government expends on this exercise compared to attempting to determine what reactions to Putin have the most political impact.
The UN is useless. That became rather clear during the Gulf War.
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Unfortunately neither side is going to want to negotiate while they think they are making progress. Additionally it is human psychology to not give up after making large sacrifices. Did all my comrades die for nothing? This war is probably going to need to come to a stalemate and both sides will need to be exhausted. Signs are that … ummm … “winter is coming”. Supposedly this will slow down the war although I’m not exactly sure if that still holds in 2022, but many people think so. This will be an opportunity for a negotiated settlement.
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The Russians could also stop providing weapons to their troops and I’m sure that would speed along a negotiated settlement. The thinking that the only thing stopping an end to the war is US weapons supply is naval gazing, the Russians aren’t interested in negotiation, they aren’t even pretending to be interested which would cost them nothing. Ukraine appears to just want to kill the invaders until they don’t find any more.
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This has turned into some existential battle where both sides aren’t even sure what they really want as the soldiers just get ground up every day and the treasuries get emptied. SSDD in European history. Putin’s never going to be satisfied his paranoia about the west has been resolved. He has proven he is willing to fight for Russia against a threat that never really existed.
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As far as the US is concerned they may think that they will end up fighting a near crazy Putin one way or the other and it might as well be in Ukraine. It is interesting that there is almost zero insight to the strategy here, the media isn’t even curious about it. If the war had ended quickly I think Putin would just be lining up tanks on the next border. I have never understood why people assume he would have just stopped. The next country over is really Russia too, no doubt.
I have to ask the question: Where would this war be without US and NATO supplied weapons for Ukraine?
If Russian succeeds in Ukraine, you indicate that Putin will look for more conquests. If Russia does not succeed will that make Putin and his Russian comrades less likely to look for other nations to conquer. Or is there anything reasonable that will quell their thirst for more nations to attempt to conquer.
Tom, you also make it sound as if there are elements of human nature operating here that make the war like two boys or girls fighting it out with great injury to each other with the adults in the room telling each other to let them fight to a conclusion – as if that is what human nature demands.
Sounds like there needs to be an adult or two involved here who does not just stand around watching and waiting for a conclusion or worse supplying the combatants with brass knuckles to insure they really do damage to one another.
There would be as lot more dead Ukrainians without NATO help. They held up decently for at least a month without much help and they may very well have chosen a long term bloody insurgency if Russia successfully occupied Ukraine.
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There is an argument that forcing a quick loss early by withholding help might reduce total casualties. It’s not at all clear that is true in the near or the long term. The current path may be the optimal path, we will never know.
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I don’t think Putin will move past a hard fight in Ukraine because it will be a much harder fight the next time if he does.
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The reality is that all the parties are self interested and led by people who are primarily motivated in protecting their tribe’s interests. When those interests align in stopping this thing then it will stop.
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The US, NATO and the EU all have plenty of adults and they don’t seem very interested in forcing Ukraine to submit to Russia. Why? Because they view Russia as a threat and that backing down to an overt chosen war of conquest by Russia is a bad long term strategy.
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My guess is somebody is likely talking to Russia behind doors. It doesn’t seem to going anywhere though. Any agreement will likely be done in private first, until then it will just be a bunch of public chest thumping.
I think Tom Scharf (Comment #215239) makes good points. Without our weapons, Ukrainians would still have fought to the death but they’d have done a lot more dying.
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If Ukraine had fallen easily with NATO doing nothing, the Suwalki Gap would have been next. Hey, it is perfectly reasonable for Russia to want a land corridor to Kaliningrad. It is just a few hundred square miles and a few thousand people. Risk nuclear war over that? You must be kidding.
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Then Putin would have been in a great position to intimidate the Baltic states.
MikeM
And I think that’s what he would have done.
Of course someone will say this is disinformation from Ukrainian friendly news media, but I don’t think so… the information source is the russian defense ministry:
“LONDON, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Russian defence ministry maps presented on Tuesday appeared to show rapid withdrawals of Russian invasion forces from areas in eastern and southern Ukraine where they have been under severe pressure from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.”
The russian maps show dramatic pullback of the lines in the East:
“retreated some 20 km to the east, as far as the border of Luhansk province.”
…and in the South:
“ Russia’s line of control on the right bank of the Dnipro river had shifted 25 km southward”
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-defence-ministry-maps-suggest-rapid-pullbacks-ukraine-2022-10-04/
For once the President of Ukraine agrees with the russians:
“President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s military had made major, rapid advances against Russian forces and freed from occupation dozens of towns in the south and east of the country.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/4/russian-army-maps-show-major-retreats-in-ukraines-kherson-region
Two oddities today: The underground mappers and OSINT Twitter feeds that I follow are no longer days ahead of the official Ukraine and russian government maps. And the russian ministry of defense is admitting rapid, unplanned retreats.
Russell
Admitting them? Wow!
According to ISW, rifts are becoming apparent between the regular military and the irregulat forces and within the Putin regime:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-4
Lucia,
“Admitting them? Wow!”
Up till now the russian ministry of defense maps were often inaccurate and obscured Ukrainian advances; when they did, at last, show russian withdrawals they were accompanied with long, Ed Forbes-like fairy tales. I don’t know if the change signifies something or not.
I don’t know if this means anything, but the US has one of our most sophisticated manned spy planes [Boeing RC135 Rivet Joint] monitoring the Black Sea and the russian navy base at Sevastopol. It may have been just coincidence but it seems in the past this activity preceded a Ukrainian attack. Live Flight info of JAKE11: https://www.flightradar24.com/JAKE11/2db8e490
If it has landed I have a screenshot of the flight log here:
https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1577663730866954243?s=20&t=HrH1E6x9nCCtjlYjgvtFxQ
Russia may be admitting some battlefield setbacks in order to garner public support for their mobilization. They certainly aren’t doing it to enlighten others. Not that both sides aren’t in 24/7 propaganda mode. They are doing it deliberately for a reason.
The fog of war is opaque, and what is officially stated is almost always intended to deceive, not inform. Try to find out how many Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have actually died or been wounded…… it is impossible to know; virtually everything stated on both human and material losses is pure propaganda.
Whaaaat? NOT trust the media and foreign governments to tell us the truth? Next you’ll be telling us we can’t trust our OWN government to tell us the truth.
😉
Interesting that the media I read and hear does not appear to make an effort to point to news about the Ukraine war that very well could be propaganda as propaganda. They also appear to hold to the same party line view of the war. Kind of like an Ed Forbes version from the Ukrainian prospective. Their united front reminds of the reporting on Covid-19. In both cases it is also aligned with the Biden administration.
The US media is definitely weighted heavily toward Ukraine propaganda and they speak with a unified voice. Very few of them have people on the ground over there, and only momentarily usually. I don’t think they have any special insight.
Tom Scharf,
“I don’t think they have any special insight.”
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Too kind. I don’t think they have any insight at all. Quite the opposite: listen and you come away less factually informed, not more.
mark bofill,
“Next you’ll be telling us we can’t trust our OWN government to tell us the truth.”
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Funny you should say that. When I was a kid, I had a paper route, and routinely had US$20 or $30 in sterling silver coins pass through my hands each week (my profit was only 5% to 10% of that). I heard the politicians say they would NEVER, EVER pull silver coins off the market, so I didn’t think to convert my small paper-money assets (at the time about US$250) into silver coins. Of course, they blatantly lied, and did so specifically to take advantage of the public. The announcement was made that silver coins would no longer be produced (I think on a Friday late afternoon); nearly all silver in circulation had been returned to the Treasury within a couple of days, and steel/copper plugs placed in circulation in their stead. Of course the rapid switch was carefully planned, and huge inventories of copper/steel plugs had been minted and distributed to banks in advance of the announcement. Several years later, inflation was raging… no surprise there.
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I haven’t trusted ANYTHING the Federal government has said since then. And I have been right not to trust them almost every time. 😉
Tom Scharf (Comment #215249)
“Russia may be admitting some battlefield setbacks in order to garner public support for their mobilization.”
If I were one of the tens of millions of the russian population without indoor plumbing [25%!] or paved roads [35%] I would not suddenly want to enlist in the army based on finding out our guys were in headlong retreat. I think something else may be the reason the ministry of defense has for the first time produced accurate battle maps:
1. They did it by mistake
2. The military is splitting from the Kremlin
3. [fill in the blank]
I vote for number 1.
So… OPEC cutting oil production… Those who don’t learn from history, or probably in this case, just live in cloud cuckoo land…
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Maybe it’s not just Ukraine fighting a proxy war.
DaveJR (Comment #215257): yeah no doubt OPEC are taking advantage of the situation, how can you blame them, people buy from them when the price is low without saying sorry.
The demand for petroleum is off from it’s peak, and spot prices have fallen to the $85 per barrel range. The inelasticity of the market means that 1% reduction in production will drive price up by several percent. OPEC and other major producers seem to want prices at or above US$100 per barrel; cutting total production by 2% will likely do that. Of course, US production could ramp up to compensate, but I rather suspect the Biden administration would try to keep that from happening.
The G7 thinks it can impose a price cap on Russian oil. It will probably be easy enough for buyers to make under the table payments to Russia while pretending to comply with the cap.
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But I don’t see why Russia would comply with the cap. They could just refuse to sell at that price. Then either the cap will be ignored or Russian oil will go off the market.
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If we are worried about the effect of a 2 million barrel/day cut from OPEC, what would result from a 10 million barrel/day cut in supply from Russia? This could blow up big time. But not until after the election.
US army recruitment faces worst year on record. Need to run more diversity ads ladettes! Clearly the message isn’t getting through!
Footnote to my Comment #215260. Price controls produce either a black market or shortages. Or both. I see no reason to expect that the G7 price cap on Russian oil will be different.
Yes, I think the attempts to control fossil fuel prices and eliminate Russia from the market are hopeless, basically performative politics. The EU on the other hand put itself into a situation where it could have its fossil fuels controlled primarily from a single source. They are now paying the price for that blunder.
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I wouldn’t go as far to say the Russians intended this all along, but it’s possible. The Russians are far from stupid, although they do make mistakes like everyone else.
I find the contrast of these two recent stories revealing.
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At N.Y.U., Students Were Failing Organic Chemistry. Who Was to Blame?
Maitland Jones Jr., a respected professor, defended his standards. But students started a petition, and the university dismissed him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html
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Meanwhile …
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Illinois’s Shocking Report Card
The Land of Lincoln is failing its children and covering it up.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/illinois-shocking-report-card-reading-math-grade-level-decatur-teachers-school-board-11664722519?st=m7kfx49kwzfpuru&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“Statewide, in 2019, 36% of all third grade students could read at grade level. That’s an F, and that’s the good news. That number drops to 27% for Hispanic students and 22% for black students statewide. In certain public school systems, the numbers plummet to single digits. In Decatur, 2% of black third-graders are reading at grade level and only 1% are doing math at grade level.”
“In Decatur, 97.3% of teachers were rated “excellent” or “proficient” in 2017, according to the Illinois State Board of Education. In 2018 that number was 99.7%. This year 100% of Chicago teachers were evaluated as excellent or proficient.”
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What a farce.
From the WSJ:
Ukraine’s New Offensive Is Fueled by Captured Russian Weapons
There are 421 captured tanks alone!
“Russia now exceeds the U.S. in supplying Ukraine army”
“Captured and abandoned Russian tanks, howitzers and fighting vehicles—quickly scrubbed of their Z tactical markers and repainted with Ukrainian crosses-now used on their enemy.”
Not all the gear is cutting edge. “What they are capturing is a mix of modern equipment that they can use quite effectively, and some that really belongs in museums,”
Free link:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-new-offensive-is-fueled-by-captured-russian-weapons-11664965264?st=1bvgr4lfbqhdj3d&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Mike M.
“Footnote to my Comment #215260. Price controls produce either a black market or shortages. Or both. I see no reason to expect that the G7 price cap on Russian oil will be different.”
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Of course.
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This is just as stupid as most every other effort to punish Russia via refusal to buy their petroleum. Really, it’s just dumb. Someone should tell the geniuses in the Biden administration that Petroleum is fungible. China and India can by themselves purchase 100% of Russian exports. The effect of any imposed price cap will be zero… except for the economic damage it does to countries that are actually foolish enough to comply. Count on skyrocketing oil prices and added economic damage.
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I have a more sensible suggestion: Take advantage of the winter lull in fighting in the Ukraine to offer a cease-fire and start negotiations with the Russians.
Tom Scharf,
“What a farce.”
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Ya well…. wherever teacher’s unions control the quality of education, the only truly educated kids will be those who escape the public schools and are educated elsewhere. Even in very non-PC Florida, teachers’ unions exert tremendous influence, greatly diminishing the quality of education in most all Democrat controlled districts. In many places, it is essentially impossible to fire an incompetent teacher, or even for a teacher to demand students actually learn the subject matter to get a passing grade. Like turtles “all the way down”, it is grade inflation all the way back to kindergarten.
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The obvious solution (fund kids to attend non-public schools, and proportionally cut public school budgets) causes such a furor that even in Republican dominated states it is almost impossible to implement. I would like to think parents will at some point demand reform of public education, but it seems that almost never actually happens.
A very interesting take on the Ukraine war form a Middle Eastern perspective
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/10/6/putins-five-arrogant-mistakes
It’s worse than we thought.
Russia has lost over 1292 tanks in the war. This accounting comes from the website ORYX. ORYX is the gold standard among OSINT sites. Their methodology: “This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here”
Tank loss summary:
“Tanks 1292, of which destroyed: 739, damaged: 50, abandoned: 54, captured: 449
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
And it gets worse. From Forbes: “You can find old Soviet T-62 tanks in museums all around the world, but the Ukrainians are increasingly capturing them on the battlefield. This is an indicator of just how deeply Russia is having to dig into reserves of old vehicles, and the situation is far worse than you might imagine.”
The much ballyhooed russian tank inventory may be fictitious:
“In theory Russia has thousands of tanks waiting in giant warehouses and vehicle parks which can be reactivated. According to the Military Balance 2021, Russia has over 10,000 battle tanks in storage, mainly T-72s and T-80s. However, years of neglect and poor storage conditions (not to mention corruption and theft) means that many of the vehicles have been cannibalized to keep the others running. Some have suggested that only 1 in 10 are still running, but it is hard to know how seriously to take this number: very likely nobody, including the Russians, really knows.”
And the have many variations in the field simultaneously:
“Many nations, like the United States and United Kingdom, only operate one tank variety, which greatly simplifies logistics, maintenance and training. Russia has a patchwork fleet of tanks, a living history of armor development, from the rare and precious T-90M which only started service in 2020, through the T-90A from the 1990s, the T-80 which was mainly built in the 80s, and several different versions of the T-72 – modernized and upgraded, but still based on the original from 1973. There are even a few of the even older T-64.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2022/10/06/ukraine-capturing-more-antique-tanks-is-such-bad-news-for-russia/
On the use of the T62
While not suitable for use head to head vs modern main battle tanks, they perform very well in their current use by Russia as an assault gun.
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The T62 were given to the various allied militia to use for direct fire against the heavily fortified positions seen in the Donbas. They work very well for this use. The older T55 would also still be useable for this role.
A big gun with heavy armor that can suppress machine gun and infantry positions to support attacking infantry in densely built up areas. As support, they are held back from the very front and only move forward behind the infantry.
A side note on NATO vs Russian armor design philosophy and ability for Ukraine to replace and or repair losses.
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NATO tanks were designed as a defensive force to counter a possible Soviet attack on Germany. As such, NATO went for heavy armor to survive in a defensive position where they expected to be heavily outnumbered. Russia went for more of a medium weight armor as they expected to be moving over long distances where fuel consumption and weight limits of bridges were a major issue.
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As a somewhat rhetorical question, why is NATO not supplying its main battle tanks to Ukraine? Answer: they are not suitable for the local conditions. They are too heavy to cross many of the local bridges, fuel consumption sucks, and Ukraine is not in a position logistically to keep them running.
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Existing western stocks of Soviet tanks have all been transferred to Ukraine. The cupboard is empty.
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With the above considerations, Ukraine is not in any position to replace combat losses to its tank force, where Russia has no problems in either replacing or repairing tank losses.
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Ukraine is reaching deep into its strategic reserves of tanks in its current offensive and is expending irreplaceable numbers of tanks on a daily basis. This is not sustainable.
Ukraine is capturing more russian tanks than Ukraine is losing in battle. Over 400 russian tanks have been captured and are being employed by the Ukrainians. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-new-offensive-is-fueled-by-captured-russian-weapons-11664965264?st=1bvgr4lfbqhdj3d&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Russell/Ed
From WSJ link:
Sounds like Russia reaching deep into its strategic reserve (stored in museums.)
Russia has a lot of tanks. My most accurate number is one exact sh**load of tanks. A lot of these are from the Soviet era where they had one exact double crapload of tanks. A less accurate summary is they had 50,000 tanks in 1980.
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A lot of these are now sitting in fields rusting. Thousands and thousands of these in several different places in Russia.
https://i.redd.it/cir7emcdwlr81.jpg
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It makes some sense to use as much of your old inventory as possible, Use’em or lose’em (from aging out). I wouldn’t read a lot into the Russians using old inventory. They will not run out of tanks anytime soon. If they truly believed a war with NATO was in the future they would hold back their new stuff.
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If you are a Russian tank crew you don’t want to be riding around in a stock T-72 or earlier against modern anti-tank weapons, but I don’t think the Russian command cares a lot about this. Russian doctrine has always placed less importance on crew survival. This isn’t a moral judgment, just a different way of thinking. Economics of warfare.
“Many nations, like the United States and United Kingdom, only operate one tank variety”
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This isn’t really true. We use the M1-Abrams (entered service in 1980) but there is a long series of upgrades over the decades and this tank is getting pretty long in the tooth. Just like aircraft these things are better thought of as weapons platforms that get continuous upgrades over their lifetimes. Just throwing away perfectly operating weapons of war because they aren’t state of the art isn’t wise. The romanticized A10 Warthog is an example. You go to war with what you got.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215275)
“If you are a Russian tank crew you don’t want to be riding around in a stock T-72 or earlier against modern anti-tank weapons.”
That may explain why the Ukranians are finding so many abandoned russian tanks… The russian tank crews are fleeing in terror.
Ah, yes, war is all about suspension of moral judgement. Suspension is a matter of degree and the circumstances that allow the political/military leaders to rationalize the suspension.
Militarily it appears to me that Russia would want a quick end to the war either by winning it or negotiating a favorable settlement. With a crapload of tanks not being used must mean that the Russian leadership does not see employing more of those tanks as an advantage (where and when would it be an advantage) or they prefer an extended war.
I am far from competent in rationalizing military decisions in wars, but it seems to me that their are those who can rationalize just about any decision as being reasonable.
Wars to me often seem to be more like a wrestling or boxing match where the fighter takes an overall strategy into the ring and then has to react to momentarily changing conditions of the fight that makes even a well thought out strategy appear to have never existed.
I think a lot of this equipment appears to be breaking down and just being abandoned. They may be running out of fuel as well, these things use an enormous amount of fuel. Also armored vehicles aren’t supposed to be running around solo, they are supposed to be in units for mutual support. If your vehicle is exposed to the enemy and solo then it might very well be a good idea to get out and walk instead. They are supposed to wreck the vehicle to not allow the enemy to use it.
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I think the Russians thought, and continue to think, they had adequate miltary might to win this fight. Exactly nobody was predicting the Ukraine advance to be so effective. ISIS rolled over half of Iraq in a couple months. it happens. The will to fight seems to be a major force multiplier and modern warfare hasn’t changed that. Russia clearly underestimated Ukraine, as did myself and much of the world.
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The fight is on. The Reddit war video channel has huge amounts of content over the past several days. Russia can recover, they still have advantages that they look to have poorly managed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNNoaRp5lz0
“How Many Tanks Does Russia Have Left Now? With Exclusive Satellite Imagery!”
Great pictures of Russian armor storage. A few unsupported comments, but overall a good job.
On Russian war fighting doctrine: General Zhukov supposedly said that Soviet armies cleared minefields by marching through them. That turns out to be not quite true. But a lot of people believed it.
This might be significant:
From: OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical, 30m ago,
“Images are emerging of a large fire on the Crimean bridge”
“Location 45.311763, 36.503714”
“Looks like something went boom”
This is russia’s only rail and vehicle link to Crimea.
Video and photo evidence looks catastrophic.
It has been a stated target of Ukraine, but they had no munitions capable of reaching it. Time will tell.
Wikipedia:“It has a length of 19 km (12 mi),[d] making it the longest bridge Russia has ever built,[13][e] and the longest bridge in Europe.”
It’s possible that it is just another russian screw up.
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1578592745827930113?s=20&t=Gbs_sbJtRwJXraMDbJd-ww
Looks like it may be a suicide bomber
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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0cDxrqbSvEQ
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“ This is russia’s only rail and vehicle link to Crimea.”
No, Russia has a road & rail corridor through the Donbas.
It is the most direct route, but not the only route.
Just for laughs… today’s Dilbert pokes fun at the attention given to Greta Thunberg
https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-10-08
Ed Forbes
“Looks like it may be a suicide bomber
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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0cDxrqbSvEQ”
Looks like that video doesn’t exist.
There are stories of the fire on the bridge
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/08/europe/crimea-bridge-explosion-intl-hnk/index.html
This supposedly shows the blast. (Possible truck bomb.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MajtcfaAaZk
https://twitter.com/OleksiyDanilov/status/1578636142055870464?s=20&t=c5UY0P7zgdCA1jI4dtLb-g
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/limited-road-traffic-resumes-intact-133605863.html
This is why Russia wanted a land bridge.
Russell, just because the clip is censored does not mean it doesn’t exist.
Alleged experts say this was more likely a demolition from below the bridge. Russia has other routes, but they are within artillery range. There will no doubt be a price to pay for this one. I expect Russia to strike back with cruise missiles and so forth at Kyiv’s infrastructure. Yet another embarrassment for Moscow, similar to the sinking of their missile cruiser.
SteveF (Comment #215292): “This is why Russia wanted a land bridge.”
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That is circular reasoning. The 2014 war meant that they could not resupply Crimea through Ukraine. So they built the bridge. The bridge became vulnerable *because* of the current war. It is perverse to use that as a reason for the war.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215294): “Alleged experts say this was more likely a demolition from below the bridge.”
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I don’t see it. The roadway span that collapsed was the one further from the rail bridge and was much lower than the rail bridge:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIF.06ofYVhSMlb4AQk7EJ5f%252fQ%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=01918f0cd2c87bc4853a7ae15909fa1c7e7416959bcb2e1ba6f45c25c35fe000&ipo=images
How does an explosion from below that span leave the adjacent span undamaged and take out a train so far away? I think the answer is that it can’t. But an explosion from above the bridge could do that.
They said a truck bomb would just blow a hole in the bridge from the roadway and likely would not take down the span. This is consistent with some other bridge attacks by missiles, mostly holes in the bridge.
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I’m just reporting the info, I have no idea. I have read previously the best way to take out a bridge is to destroy the abutment which takes a long time to repair. Obviously taking down a span will take time to fix, but they only got one of the two although the other had significant damage. There was a truck on the bridge when it exploded.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/major-explosion-hits-the-bridge-between-crimea-and-russia-halting-traffic-11665215052?st=lndzdcgrrlfgghr&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“Some demolition experts who analyzed footage of the blast questioned the Russian version and said that the explosion must have come from under the bridge, caused either by an explosives-laden boat, manned or unmanned, or by shaped charges placed by divers.
Tony Spamer, a former British Army expert on bridge demolitions, said that a truck bomb would have created a hole in the middle of bridge, but wouldn’t have been sufficient to cut the reinforcing bar and cause the structure to collapse. “You’ve got to attack the whole width of the bridge. Looking at it, it looks like it was attacked from underneath. It’s a monster job,” he said.”
If divers placed shaped charges, why only one span? And what took out the train? If an exploding boat, how did it damage just one span? And what took out the train?
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I see that it would take a much bigger bomb to take out the bridge from above. But the truck could have been carrying several tens of tons of explosives. That would do a whole lot of damage.
Mike M,
I am not suggesting a land bridge to Crimea was the motivation for invasion, but rather once there was invasion, the existing bridge was too vulnerable to be the only supply route to the Crimea. A land bridge then made sense. No circular reasoning involved. Securing the canal that supplies water to the Crimea (in southern Kherson) probably was a motivation for invasion, since there had been water shortages in the Crimea.
On the video it does look like the explosion was centered on the semi-truck on the right side of the bridge. But if it was the truck, then it was a suicide bomber. Of course, it could be just coincidence a truck was passing when the blast happened. The footage after the explosion seems to show white hot liquid metal falling on the roadway. Donno if that is consistent with a truck bomb, but a semi could be carrying a lot of explosives…. 20-30 tons.
“The first test train passed over the Crimean bridge — the Ministry of Transport”
That didn’t take long
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G33v0mm1zFA
Ed,
Could be any train, anywhere. The fog of war is opaque, and any information provided is likely designed to deceive, not inform.
Steve, true…but
I know reports were all saying damage to the rails were noted as minor and mostly cosmetic
I also know that Russia fields several regiments of specialist troops who are trained and regularly practice railroad repairs, bridge repair, and other such.
So I take this as very likely. May be wrong, but is likely true.
As cars were going over the bridge within very few hours after the attack, rail movement will be confirmed somewhere even as we speak.
It does seem a train has crossed on the train part of the bridge.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/08/world/russia-ukraine-war-news
A satellinte image at the NYT article shows that the fully collapsed part is on the car span– not the train span. There was a train on fire on the train span. Even on the car side, there are ordinarly two lanes in one direcction and two in the other. Two lanes in one of the directions has a portion collapsed and in the water.The two lanes in the other direction just look charred.
So with the train traffic, what we are seeing is the part that never collapsed still has not collapsed. And trains can currently go over it. Why the Russian information campaign did not pick a clearer more distinctive video is something of a mystery– as SteveF said, that video could be any train anywhere. But it does seem that trains can go across the train part (which never collapsed in the first place.) It may be all they had to do was clean up some debris and haul off the burning train. But that’s been done. Not too surprising they could get that done fairly quickly.
. Whether it’s actually safe we can’t be sure– but trains can make it over.
On the care side of the bridge, they are down to two lanes from 4. Whether it’s actually safe to drive on it, we don’t know. But cars are evidently driving across one way. (I guess they’ll stop then let traffic go in the other direction.)
The Russians might want to start inspecting trucks before they cross.
I will note the difference between Russia and the US on repair.
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The US would close the bridge for several days for law enforcement
Then.
The US will spend weeks studying the problem before putting out requests for proposals to start the process for design to start repair.
As a former Resident Engineer for county construction projects for both the state and the feds, I saw this as the standard mode of operation. It took years to get even minor projects from concept to construction.
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Russia cuts the damage away, gets traffic moving ASAP, and immediately starts repair under direction of engineers on the spot.
Tom Scharf,
News reports were that inspection of trucks was supposed to be routine. Probably not as careful as was needed; I am guessing they will be a lot more careful from now on.
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. Samuel Clemens
… The euphoria over the destruction of the bridge was premature. Russell Klier
I propose supplying Ukraine with just enough ATACMS units to make the bridge inoperable.
“In bid for new long-range rockets, Ukraine offers US targeting oversight”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/03/politics/ukraine-weapons-us-atacms-targeting-veto
It’s probably not related but a few days ago I posted:
“October 5th, 2022 at 8:19 am
I don’t know if this means anything, but the US has one of our most sophisticated manned spy planes [Boeing RC135 Rivet Joint] monitoring the Black Sea and the russian navy base at Sevastopol. It may have been just coincidence but it seems in the past this activity preceded a Ukrainian attack.”
I have a screenshot of JAKE11 flight log here:
https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1577663730866954243?s=20&t=HrH1E6x9nCCtjlYjgvtFxQ
Ed Forbes (Comment #215307)
“I will note the difference between Russia and the US on repair.”
The russians also have a novel way of clearing minefields:
“He [Russian Marshal Zhukov] certainly stunned Eisenhower by revealing that his way of clearing minefields was to let infantry run through them.”
From the Hoover Institution, https://www.hoover.org/research/zhukov-soviet-general
Russell, I remember a friend’s father talking about his experience as a junior officer in WWII. Winter with snow on the ground on the Rine River, Germany. He was ordered to check the river bank for mines. No engineers, no mine detection equipment.
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He said any Germans watching him from across the river, stomping through the snow at the river bank, must have thought he had lost it and gone crazy.
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Lots of “good stories “ come out of wars
I am surprised this story is not getting more traction than it is. If Russia has hacked Skylink, that is a problem for more than Ukraine.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/starlink-outages-put-dent-in-ukrainian-counteroffensive-against-putin/ar-AA12Kj5l
“..the Financial Times reported on Friday that a senior government official in Ukraine said Starlink outages have created a “catastrophic”
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“..loss of communication on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. One anonymous official told the newspaper that such outages occurred as forces were making advances into Russian-occupied areas. Soldiers also told the newspaper that the communications systems stopped working mid-battle, and that some Starlink technology hasn’t worked in areas recently taken back from the Russians…”
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Russia “basically took out all of Ukraine’s military communications” at the beginning of the war, and it’s only when Starlink technology was introduced that “those comms went back to fairly reliable form.”
Ed–
I’m not sure how much traction you think that story deserved. The story is definitely recovered. Obviously, it doesn’t make for nifty youtube videos in the same way a flaming bridge does.
Lots of OSINT sites quoting this… “Shoigu and Gerasimov were likely removed from their positions as the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Head of the General Staff”. I can’t verify it. I guess “being removed” is better than falling out a window.
https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1579065505586958336?s=20&t=9b-HifJOHV-W7KX7x2oypQ
Commercial communications are designed to barely work with economics being the first priority. They aren’t designed to be super robust when somebody is intentionally trying to jam them. It’s entirely possible the Russians are jamming the signals, basically just supplying a more powerful local signal at the same frequencies the satellite use. It’s not particularly difficult for systems not protected. See electronic warfare, et. al.
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The military spends enormous amounts of money and time on communications. Artillery shells are one thing, but not knowing what’s going on around you is a serious detriment. The first Gulf War was a major leap in battlefield management. Knowing exactly where everyone is (including the enemy) is a rather large advantage. Russia should have a significant advantage over Ukraine here, but NATO supplied intel is evening out the odds here a bit.
Humorous.
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NYT: Feb 16, 2011
Florida’s Governor Rejects High-Speed Rail Line, Fearing Cost to Taxpayers
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/17rail.html
“Gov. Rick Scott of Florida on Wednesday rejected plans for a high-speed link between Tampa and Orlando, in the process turning down more than $2 billion in federal money.”
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NYT: Today
How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html
“America’s first experiment with high-speed rail has become a multibillion-dollar nightmare, so expensive that almost no one knows if it can ever be finished.”
“When the California High-Speed Rail Authority issued its new 2022 draft business plan in February, it estimated an ultimate cost as high as $105 billion. Less than three months later, the “final plan” raised the estimate to $113 billion.”
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The US does have a serious problem building things. It can be fixed but it is going to take a while, and almost certainly Republicans to do that job. Note that there is a clause in this funding that if the state fails to complete the rail line, it must pay back the federal investment.
Tom Scharf,
It is not too funny; it is a waste of many billions of dollars for no good reason. You are right that that only Republicans can change the construction conundrum we face, but I don’t see complete Federal control by Republicans as very likely. Could happen in 2025, but only if Trump does not run, and that seems to me very unlikely.
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Same with nuclear power, which is the obvious technical solution to reduce warming by CO2 (and even James Hansen agrees)…. but only complete control by Republicans can make it happen. So not likely.
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On the east coats of Florida we have a ‘mini-California’ rail issue. What were freight rails along the East Coast are being converted to “high speed rail” between Miami and Orlando. Issues: 1) these rail lines were set up for slow freight service through many small communities; 2) high speed passenger service will be loud, dangerous, and will force trains to run through at relatively slow rates (eg 60 mph). 3) The trains will not stop in the many communities they disrupt. 4) No person in their right mind would choose to arrive in the Orlando area with no car…. simpler and cheaper to rent a car in Miami.
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It is a boondoggle that will damage multiple communities and provide fast (3 hour) train service nobody wants. That last part is the most important: Does anyone arriving in Miami *really* want to wait for a train to Orlando that leaves every 2 hours for a three hour trip? No, they will just rent a car, get there an hour sooner and be able to go wherever they want with no hassles. The high speed train is so stupid that it boggles the mind. It is like some people imagine Florida is Germany….. it’s not.
Yes, just like Tampa, there is already a rail line to Orlando that absolutely nobody uses. I only found out that Tampa had one when they started talking about a bullet train. The standard BS is to way overestimate ridership to get funding. Then government subsidizing the rest of the way. It works better in Europe and Asia because they also have all the rest of public transportation sorted out. You take a train to Orlando, then what?
Whenever I see Gerasimov, I am reminded of ‘You’re a fool Gerasimov’ a senior Soviet official in a Tom Clancy book, who was persuaded to do something(possible releasing The Cardinal of the Kremlin) by letting him know the US stole the Red October.
Looks like Russia is responding to the Ukraine terror attack on the bridge. Admin buildings in Kiev are being hit today.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1gLUgK0Oxg
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Claims are being made that Russia has started targeting grid infrastructure…. but I have seen zero evidence of this. So far Russia’s retaliation for the bridge attack looks to be against government buildings in cities far from the front. Dedicated targeting of the grid would likely bring it down pretty quickly and put most of the Ukraine in darkness.
Ed,
Terror attack? It was an attack. I get that you favor the Russian side. But it’s a bit much to call an attack on an important asset used by the military to aid their side of the war a “terror” attack.
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Putin deeming it “terror” does not make it “terror”. Bridges come under attack during wars.
“terror attack”
That’s pretty funny Ed. At least make an attempt to not sound exactly like a Russian bot.
You have probably missed the news on the at least 100 residential buildings that have been hit by Russian missiles over the course of the war. If Ukraine wanted to do actual terror attacks inside of Russia it wouldn’t be very hard, and Russia has pretty much earned that response given the high casualties of Ukrainian civilians. I expect the tight leash connected to western weapons supply has something to do with that, as well as the expected response from Russia of actual terror attacks.
That kind of thing can certainly happen, but it hasn’t yet. This war will get really ugly (uglier) if it does. If the war turns into an insurgency and a Russian occupation of Ukraine then I expect it will cross the border as there is not much to lose at that point. A lot of moving parts to war strategy.
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Russia seems pretty peeved about this, indicating the symbolic nature has precedence over actual military significance. Putin’s vanity is ruling the decision making.
The proper US response to russia blowing up civilian targets is to supply Ukraine with enough ATACMS to completely disable the bridge.
Russell Klier
Whose destruction remains a military objective as long as it can be used and is being used to transport military materials and personnel.
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Also: while some people were killed during the bombing of the bridge (I read 3), this was hardly a “terror” activity designed to strike fear into the general population going about their daily business.
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Whether you like Ukraine or Russia, this clearly does not fit the definition of “terror attack”! (Or if it does, then there is no distinction between “no adjective attack”, “military attack” and “terror attack”.
During the Gulf War Saddam started firing Scud missiles into Israel. During the Iran/Iraq war they were firing ballistic missiles into each other cities with regularity. There aren’t rules in war, just considerations of the response from the opposing side to escalations. So far the Ukraine war seems pretty well behaved all things considered in my view.
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Russia could be much more brutal, so why not? One is that they fear weapons supply escalations from the west, another is that they want to absorb Ukraine and they are damaging their own future goods, but the main one may be that an unjustified escalation (nukes) would likely sever their tenuous China / India relationships. If they lost those fossil fuel markets then they have very serious long term problems.
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Russia is not going to accept losing the war outright to Ukraine, so they will escalate to prevent that. Ironically this may be a worst case outcome for everyone.
Russell Klier (Comment #215326): “…to supply Ukraine with enough ATACMS to completely disable the bridge.”
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Can those missiles reach that far? I think the answer is “no”.
Range of ‘up to 190 miles’ so probably 150.
Yes , It is at the extreme limits of the published range of the ATACMS. I’m betting it’s within range. But, if not the bridge it would be valuable in other ways:
“ATACMS would give the Ukrainians the capability to make Crimea untenable for the Russian Black Sea Fleet and for the Russian Air Force and logistics in Crimea. That would be a significant step in the eventual liberation of Crimea,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who served as commander of U.S. Army Europe from 2014-2017. “ATACMS would accelerate the collapse of Russian forces.”
“Ukraine’s Appeal for Longer-Range Missiles Presents Fresh Test of Biden Administration Support
Kyiv is eyeing Russian military sites in Crimea, while Washington worries the American weaponry could risk escalation with Moscow”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-appeal-for-longer-range-missiles-presents-fresh-test-of-biden-administration-support-11665083684
MikeN (Comment #215330): “Range of ‘up to 190 miles’ so probably 150.”
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I don’t think that could hit the bridge from securely controlled Ukrainian territory.
The nearest Ukrainian controlled land is just over 300 Km, 189 miles from the near side of the bridge. The ATACMS with GPS guidance may be able to reach the bridge, but it is a stretch. The missile carries a 500 lb warhead designed for “penetration” prior to explosion (it was originally used on anti-ship missiles). The ATACMS was phased out of production due to cost in 2013, but there is an ongoing program to upgrade the guidance and warhead on some older models. Donno if this is a suitable weapon to use against a bridge, but it is clearly at the limit of it’s range. Any ATACMS unit that close to the Dnipro would be in easy range of Russian artillery, so Mike M is probably right: ATACMS is not likely going to be used to attack the Russia-Crimea bridge.
I believe the logic for Putin to sabotage the Nordstream pipelines would be that it accomplishes his goal of hamstringing the EU while being able to proclaim his innocence.
Russian bot ? 🙂
RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA
Bridges are most definitely legal military targets, but the mode of attack matters.
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For example: the US was at war with Afghanistan and was occupying same. If a suicide truck bomb carried out by Afghans took out a major target on US soil it would most definitely be listed as a terror attack.
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So yes, the Russians list the bridge attack as an act of terror.
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Politically, this opens up Russian ability to massively upgrade their operations in Ukraine under an anti terror campaign instead of the current SMO which severely hinders their military options. It will be a much better sell both domestically and to Russian allies.
In lighter news, 38 year old professional golfer Dustin Johnson, who left the PGA tour to play on the Saudi-funded LIV Golf tour in June 2022, has pocketed ~$125 million for signing with LIV (3 year commitment, I think), another $30 million in prize money since June, and with more millions likely to be added in the last two events of 2022. $155 million, and counting, in 4+ months. In 15 years playing the PGA tour Johnson earned $75 million. Hard to say what will happen with LIV golf and the PGA Tour in their legal fights, but Johnson is set for life….. and then some.
DeWitt,
So maybe Putin had the bridge blown us as well? Nah. It was probably the Biden administration that had the pipelines sabotaged; both Biden and Victoria Nuland made very clear threats during news conferences to “end” the pipeline if Russia invaded the Ukraine. Means, motivation, and stupidity; that combination can lead to almost any crazy policy.
Ed
(1) There’s no evidence this was a suicide truck.
(2) Even if there was, mode of attack is not what makes something a “terror attack”.
What makes something a terror attack is motive— to advance ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.
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The Ukraine is involved in a military war of self defense which began because Russia attacked them. Their goal is to keep their country free of foreign domination. This is a military attack.
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Russians making a claim does not make the claim correct.
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Russia was always giving itself permission to do what they think they want to do. This doesn’t “open” anything.
Maybe. Or not.
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What Russian can continue to sell domestically or to its allies will be seen as the future arrives. That Russia is willing to use lies to sell things is certainly the case. That they will try.
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That doesn’t mean anyone has to accept their lies. The bridge bombing was not a “terror” attack.
DeWitt
That’s a possible motive for Putin. Even if SteveF doesn’t buy it!
SteveF
No. I don’t think Putin blew the bridge. The bridge being blown actually inconveniences him. The Nordstream pipeline being blow mostly inconveniences the EU.
Lucia,
“Even if SteveF doesn’t buy it!”
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I’m going with believing the clearly stated, public threats against the pipelines by Biden and Nuland “if Russia invades the Ukraine”. The sabotage could be the result of some bizarre, incomprehensible machinations by Putin, but I really doubt that. The Biden administration doesn’t want those wobbly Europeans ever depending on Russian gas in the future. Solar panels and energy poverty in Europe seem to be the goals. Which are actually the Biden administration’s goals in the USA as well. 😉
SteveF,
Any Biden opposition to Nordstream is recent. Biden reversed US (Trump’s) opposition to completing Nordstream II shortly after taking office.
Blowing up the bridge is not a terror attack. That is a crazy analysis. Ukrainian agents releasing nerve gas in the Moscow subway would be a terror attack. Nor is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a terror attack or a ‘genocide’. Nor will the likely escalations in the coming months be anything more than normal ‘war’.
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Exaggeration, deception, outright lies, and any other manner of discrediting the opponents are the NORMAL consequence of war. People would do well to ignore most of what is publicly stated.
Biden publicly stated on Feb 7, 2022 a clear threat to the Nordstream pipeline. Is that “recent”? Donno. I do know that Trump opposed the second pipeline because it would make Europe ever more dependent on Russia.
Terror vs uniformed combat and the “laws of war”
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The Laws of war” were written to support the highly technical and overwhelming military advantage of western powers vs weaker 3rd world states. The weaker 3rd world states have no ability to fight western states in a straight up military contest. Defining attacks by non uniformed agents as “terror “, degrades weaker states ability to resist the stronger states such as the US and NATO.
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The US and allies in WWII were more than willing to engage in attacks of mass destruction of civilian populations to hinder German war effort. So US commitment to the “laws of war” is situationally.
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As to Lucia’s question if there are differences in types of attacks during war….no, there are not. Burnt crisp and torn asunder is burnt crisp and torn asunder.
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For the survival of the state, ALL actions are on the table. Ukraine would have been remiss in the defense of their state to not use ANY means necessary.
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But….the bridge attack does give Russia a political tool to exploit in generating additional support for its war in Ukraine with its domestic population and foreign allies.
Paypal apparently considered plans to fine users for spreading “misinformation”. What’s with corporations these days who seem more interested in social engineering than selling a product? This is 80s dystopian scifi coming true!
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Edit: that’s not quite true. Corporations taking over the world was always in service to making profit. I can’t think of any that considered they’d use that wealth and leverage to enforce certain political doctrine.
DaveJR,
They walked it back pretty quickly once they saw the extent of the opposition. Yes dystopian, but really not at all inconsistent with all of PayPal’s (indeed all of tech’s) recent political pandering. I expect there will be some unpleasant days ahead for those so obviously abandoning the financial interests of their shareholders to demonstrate their woke bonafides. Shareholder lawsuits, Congressional hearings, etc. make flaunting one’s lefty-wokeness a bit less attractive.
I think you’re exactly right in what you say here Steve and it bothers me a lot. It wasn’t an accident (although I have read statements claiming that it was indeed accidental). I think it was that they saw they couldn’t get away with it. Five, ten years down the line, who knows? Maybe we will have degraded far enough as a society by that point that they would/will get away with it.
SteveF (Comment #215342) is 100% correct. Blowing up a strategic bridge is not terrorism. The invasion of Ukraine is not genocide. There is a lot of excessive language on both sides.
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Ed Forbes is wrong. A non-uniformed combatant is not per se a terrorist.
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It does seem that the truck driver must have been a suicide bomber. But that does not make him a terrorist; Japanese kamikaze pilots were not terrorists.
mark bofill,
It is troubling. It is even more troubling that large companies with multi-billion dollars in market cap end up being run by people so disconnected from (indeed, hostile to) the interests of the shareholders. How the hell were these people even hired in the first place, never mind promoted to were they can damage the business? I simply can’t understand it. The actions of managers at large corporations suggest a political/cultural rot which will not be simple to reverse. It is even stranger than just making business decisions that are contrary to shareholder’s interests: the things these corporations do are *opposed* by many of the people they claim to want to help. It seems to be the same ‘elitist’ mindset that is so evident in government bureaucracy and, and of course, in the faculty lounge. They don’t actually say the prols are a ‘basket of deplorables’ but that surely appears to be what they think.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism
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In 2006 it was estimated that there were over 109 different definitions of terrorism.[31] American political philosopher Michael Walzer in 2002 wrote: “Terrorism is the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders”.[4] Bruce Hoffman, an American scholar, has noted that it is not only individual agencies within the same governmental apparatus that cannot agree on a single definition of terrorism. Experts and other long-established scholars in the field are equally incapable of reaching a consensus.[32]
C. A. J. Coady has written that the question of how to define terrorism is “irresolvable” because “its natural home is in polemical, ideological and propagandist contexts”.[11]
Experts disagree about “whether terrorism is wrong by definition or just wrong as a matter of fact; they disagree about whether terrorism should be defined in terms of its aims, or its methods, or both, or neither; they disagree about whether states can perpetrate terrorism; they even disagree about the importance or otherwise of terror for a definition of terrorism.”[11]
PayPal can choose to be more transparent than simply say it was “in error”. I’d like to know more. This wasn’t some random typo.
How dare those terrorists attack a bridge during a war! A logistics bridge no less. Why, I never! There were tanker rail cars ON FIRE. I cannot possibly see how this can be justified. The UN needs to bring war crime charges immediately. I’m pretty sure bridge attacks are the very first thing mentioned in war crimes definitions. It does look look like it is terrorizing Putin’s vanity, I will concede that.
Tom Scharf,
Paypal’s behavior has been consistent. They try to put out of business anyone who uses their services (of any kind) and publicly states political views (or even views on factual reality) the managers disagree with. This has been going on for years. That they would try intimidation of all small business with the threat of an automatic $2,500 penalty for “wrongthink” is just the next logical step in a long revolting process. The solution is for a rival without their garbage politics to take their business…. but like much (most?) of tech, Paypal has purchased multiple potential competitors, and would likely do so again. Anti-trust actions against much of tech seems to me perfectly reasonable; good for shareholders and good for the country.
One has to wonder where the brass balls come from to try to implement polices that have eff all to do with their business, and, up to a few years ago, would be complete anathema to a US company. At least social media companies can pretend it’s to be “inclusive” and maintain “standards” etc. Do they attend WEF meetings? Spend all their time on Twitter? Get kickbacks from China? Political backhanders from democrats? Complete takeover by the ideological possessed? What is this new devilry?
Wars kill huge numbers of innocent people. Terrorist can and do kill large numbers of innocent people but not on the scale that wars do. The results are the same with wars being the larger killer.
If you go to motivation one might look first whether the killing was intentional or accidental. Terrorist killings are readily evidenced as intentional. Wars killing of innocent people can be either intentional or in some cases accidental. Collateral damage that is anticipated to occur has to be considered intentional even if not direct. Drafting individuals to coerce them to go to battle and for some portion of them to be injured or killed goes as much against the sender as the enemy being responsible.
War as a matter of self-defense may get some cover for motivation, but if one were to use as an analogy an individual case of self-defense where a potential victim knew that somewhere in a crowd of people there was an individual who was shooting at the potential victim and the potential victim’s response was to shoot many people in the crowd including the shooter to defend himself, the morality of a purported self defense gets very murky.
Lots of moral issues get suspended in wars not unlike what occurs with terrorism and that is why both are human tragedies.
I would think that PayPal would require some kind of contractual agreement with customers in order to penalize them for comments or even actions that do not involve the PayPal customer relationship. I would think that even such a contract would not hold up in a court of law. Why would anyone do business with such a company when there are any number of other ways of accomplishing what they do for customers.
Of course, if the government wanted to do something of this nature (emergencies, wars and other excuses) one would not have any other choices except leaving the country – if so allowed.
Ed Forbes (Comment #215350),
Let’s see this I’ve got this right. People use “terrorism” to mean whatever they want it to mean to serve their ends. Thus, whether the bridge attack was “terrorism” is just a matter of which side you are on.
GoFundMe tried to take money from Canadian trucker donations and redistribute it. People do stupid things. It does seem that a lot of these “mistakes” all point in one direction, namely against people who don’t support the politically correct narrative.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/gofundme-backtracks-canadian-trucker-money-fraud-investigation-threat
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Silicon valley used to be highly libertarian in ethics, not any more.
SteveF
You mean this:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/if-russia-invades-ukraine-there-will-be-no-nord-stream-2-biden-says-2022-02-07/
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That was not a threat to blow anything up.
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In fact: Biden appears to have accomplished what he threated which is to stop Nordstream 2.
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So: after Biden’s Feb 7, 2022 threat to put an end to Norstream II, an “end” was put to Norstream II on Feb 22, 2022. It’s ended in the sense of not being certified. The company filed for bankruptcy in March 2022. T
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But even if somehow you don’t think that was the “end” Biden threatened to Nordstream 2, Biden’s “threat” to “end” Nordstream II was certainly not a threat to do anything to Nordstream 1!
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Also, if he planned to blow it up because of the invasion, it’s rather amazing he waited 10 months.
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Sorry, but claiming Biden threatened to blow up or damage any pipeline is a really amazing stretch. He didn’t threaten that. I don’t think we did it.
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Ed Forbes
I didn’t ask a question. I told you you made several wrong claims. One of them is about what makes something a “terror” attack.
You seem to now be wanting to switch to some issue regarding the “law of war” and are waving vaguely at “laws of war”.
That’s changing the subject away from “terror”. So I assume you have conceded it’s not terror (if only by abandoning that and changing the subject.) I’m not going to counter argue any claim about the “laws of war” since you’ve made such a vague allusion that it’s impossible to know what you are actually claiming now.
Ed Forbes
And the only one you manage to quote would exclude blowing up this bridge from the list of “acts of terror”. It did not involve deliberate killing of innocent people. It was not at random. It was not done to spread fear through the population. It was not done to force the hand of some political leader.
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It was done to achieve a military objective with minimal civilian casualties.
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I’m guessing if you could find a definition of terror that could be made to fit the blowing up of a militarily important bridge with the minimum amount of casualties, you would quote it. You haven’t.
Holman Jenkins says it much better than I did:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-nuclear-weapons-and-my-emailers-russia-ukraine-war-demands-energy-nord-stream-pipeline-occupied-territory-11665176276?st=pal3bq70d0famjy&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I don’t have to defend the bridge attack as terror as Russia has defined the attack as terror. As long as the Russian population and allies accept the attack as terror, it is a terror attack. It is now a terror attack by definition.
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As this is a political issue, not a legal issue, the Russian position on this is the only one that matters. No one else gets a say on this. If Russia decides to upgrade the war to an anti terror operation, no one is in a position to force them not to.
Ed Forbes
You, yourself called it a “terror attack” in Ed Forbes (Comment #215321)
That was not Russia posting here in comments. Nor was it Russia “defining”. That was you choosing to call it that yourself when typing a comment here.
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If you want to back off from the characterization which you elected to make, I’m perfectly willing to let you back off from your characterization.
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But don’t try to know claim it was just “Russia” “defining” something. You weren’t just telling us Russia claimed or defined something. You yourself called it a “terror attack” here in comments.
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That’s just nonsense. Even if it’s a political issue, Russia’s position is not the only one that matters. Russian doesn’t have a monopoly on being the only one whose political position matters! To claim so is just nutty.
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Other people get a “say” on whether it was or was not a “terror attack”.
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That Russia will do what Russia wants to do when waging war is true.
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We’ve already seen that. They rolled into Ukraine and waged war because they felt like it. They are doing all sorts of things no one can seem to stop. Putin will continue to make all sorts of ridiculous claims that are not true. I certainly can’t stop him.
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That I can’t stop Russia from waging war or making false claims doesn’t make blowing up a militarily important bridge a “terror attack”. It doesn’t mean other people don’t have any “say” in observing the fact that blowing up a militarily important bridge with minimal casualties is not a terror attack. Nor does it mean no one else gets to point out that it was not a terror attack.
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And we can all certainly tell you that you are making a ridiculous and false claim when you call it a “terror attack here in comments.
Ummmm … OK. Nice explanation Ed. Also “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.” I assume you really meant upgrading the special military operation to an anti-terror operation although I don’t really know how that would change things.
Looks like the Ukraine power grid was taken down. The below is a pro Ukraine site with a pretty good overview. 1st part is on the power grid, middle is kind of boring, 4th part pretty good battlefield overview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVd9JQLpVyU
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Another battlefield view
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhqaLs8wKQk
More on the bombing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlXYRg9rszs
Lucia,
Biden got a follow up question in the same news conference: And how will you do that? Biden did not answer directly but said “we have the means to do it”; sure doesn’t sound like he was talking about the Germans not giving final approval. Like I said, motivation, means, and stupidity can lead to almost any crazy policy.
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We will likely never know for sure, but if I had to bet my life, I would bet it was the Biden administration…. or a surrogate. We will have to agree to disagree.
There appears to have been some limited targeting of the power infrastructure in the Ukraine by the Russians…. but nothing like all-out. One Russian commentator said:
SteveF,
I know he said that. I still think he meant having its operation turned off– which happened very quickly. He does say stupid things. I really don’t think we bombed it. I don’t interpret anything he said as a threat to bomb or damage it. I think his threat was fulfilled by the end of March when NordstromII went bankrupt because the Germans didn’t certify it in February.
That said: time will tell.
In my never-ending quest to inform about significant events, I pass on this report about the retirement of the 17-time toe wrestling champion Alan “Nasty” Nash. In his own words, “I’m not as strong now. I’m not as fit. You just can’t keep going forever can you?”
This morning’s satellite imagery from FIRMS [NASA | LANCE | Fire Information for Resource Management System] shows the widespread russian terrorism in targeting of civilian areas. Be sure the buttons are set to “Current” and “24 Hours”
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:2022-10-10..2022-10-11,2022-10-10;@33.4,50.6,5z
Russell,
When I click, I just get a map of the world. I suspect there is more detail in the full link but that perhaps it was stripped out at the ‘..’. Can you give us more specific instructions?
Somehow it worked this time? Anyway, the link I’m at is
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:24hrs;@33.4,50.6,5z
It says “fire”. There are lots of red dots in Ukraine, but Russia too. Can you explain more?
Ed Forbes (Comment #215363): “I don’t have to defend the bridge attack as terror as Russia has defined the attack as terror. As long as the Russian population and allies accept the attack as terror, it is a terror attack. It is now a terror attack by definition.”
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So Ed’s position is as I said earlier (Comment #215357): “whether the bridge attack was ‘terrorism’ is just a matter of which side you are on.”
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lucia (Comment #215364): “You, yourself called it a ‘terror attack’ in Ed Forbes (Comment #215321)”.
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Exactly. Ed Forbes has declared himself to be fully an ally of Putin. Albeit a rather insignificant ally.
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I hate it when somebody gets accused of being on Putin’s side because that somebody has expressed a contrary opinion on the war. But that is not the case here. Ed has claimed for himself the mantle of Putin ally.
lucia’s link (Comment #215373) works. I also do not see Russell’s point.
Lucia,
Those red dots in russia are in forested and tundra area [zoom in]. They are legitimate forest fires. Usually there are very few red dots in the West and Central areas of Ukraine, but many in the Eastern war zone.
MikeM,
I’m amused by the contrast between Ed Forbes (Comment #215350) and Ed Forbes (Comment #215363) . In the former, it could be a “terror attack” because there were so many definitions. (Since he points to no definition that actually would make the bridge bombing a “terror attack”, and simply justifies it is one because the definitions are numerous, that argument could be used to deem baking cup-cakes is a “terror attack”. I mean: so many definitions!)
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In the latter comment, Ed lets us know the “definition” of a “terror attack” is that Russia says it is. Once again, Russia could, hypothetically decree baking cup-cakes is a “terror attack”, if Russia says so. Then baking cup-cakes would be a terror attack and no one elses opinion matters!!!
Thanks Russel, I could see sort of dark blobs near light blobs by the Russian fires. But I didn’t know the significance.
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There definitely are a lot of fires in Ukraine.
Mike M,
Ed Forbes is right about a few things, but very wrong about many more. Attacking a strategic supply line during war is not a terrorist act by any rational definition. Maybe the name was recently changed to Forbes from Forbetov. 😉
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But seriously, exaggerated claims, distortions and the like are part and parcel of wars; when people are getting shot and blown to pieces by bombs and artillery shells, niceties like honestly and accuracy in public statements are ignored by all sides to the conflict. Come to think if it, the need for honesty and accuracy is pretty much ignored in *any* political conflict, as we can see plainly in most US elections. Do democrats really believe half the country is irredeemably racist Nazi? I believe most do not, but that is what they constantly say. War just takes common political dishonesty to another level. Politics is the ultimate zero-sum game, and most politicians care about holding power, and little else…. just ask the ghost of the execrable Harry Reid.
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Or as the old joke says: You know a politician is lying whenever his lips are moving.
lucia,
If I understand Ed’s position, then it is actually consistent. He is claiming that ‘terror attack’ is an epithet with no real meaning.
It is just run of the mill demonization of the enemy, just like calling them Nazis and so forth. It’s one thing to say “Russia is calling them terrorists” just like “Russia is calling them Nazis”, and it is another thing to repeat the assertion as fact. This requires one to defend the assertion and when you get the explanation “because Russia says so…” then one is just voluntarily part of an organ of state propaganda. One can be a propagandist 24/7 and still be right about a few things.
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When you have a country full or terrorists, Nazis, and fascists, you have no other option but to invade them. Obviously. How do we know this to be true? Because Russia says so. Once all the evil doers are removed then the benevolent Russians are sure to return Ukraine to the local citizens where they can live in peace free from the oppression of their own locals. Or not.
I have never seen this before….There were four US manned spy planes monitoring the Black sea and Southern Ukraine. Two were USAF and two were US Army. The army aircraft were smaller and have left the area, but the air force birds are still on station.
REDEYE6 Boeing E-8C
https://www.flightradar24.com/REDEYE6/2dcc8f18
JAKE11 Boeing RC-135W Rivet Joint
https://www.flightradar24.com/JAKE11/2dcc4c6f
One of the US Army spy planes in the air this AM is the latest thing… ARTEMIS.
I have only seen them show up a couple of times. It landed on a small airstrip in Eastern Romania, at the town of Lasi. I have no clue as to what is going on.
“The U.S. Army has been flying a special-mission Bombardier Challenger 650 as part of the NATO surveillance effort monitoring the build-up and subsequent operations of Russian forces in and around Ukraine. Known as the Leidos Special Mission Aircraft (LSMA), the Challenger technology demonstrator is outfitted with the Aerial Reconnaissance and Targeting Exploitation Multi-Mission Intelligence System (ARTEMIS).”
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2022-02-24/artemis-challenger-joins-ukraine-surveillance-effort
I posted it’s landing here:
https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1579868831220391936?s=20&t=wdg_7L3Ry40gmqSsaphD5w
“There are none so blind as those who will not see”
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My point is, again, that if Putin decides an act is terror, and the political groups that support and back Putin agree, then it is an act of terror.
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The use of the term “terror “ is a political statement, not a legal statement in itself. Because the term terror is so loaded a term, defining something as terror, and is accepted as such by the relevant parties, much stronger actions can be brought forth than might have been possible previously.
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Putin was originally elected by declaring an act of terror by Chechens in bombing some apartment buildings. People who said it was a false flag ended up dead.
SteveF
No one has disagreed with him on that claim. Being right on that doesn’t redeem his other incorrect (and so incorrect as to be just silly) claims.
EdForbes
And my point is: Claims like this are incorrect. Putin deciding it is an act of terror and some people agreeing with him doesn’t make it an act of terror.
Your claim doesn’t pass the “cupcakes are terrorism” test.
And you keep missing this point: The fact that Russian can and does do something doesn’t magically make their claims true. Yes: Russia has been doing what it wants — certainly since February. That doesn’t make Russia’s claims true.
IMO, there’s more reason to call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a terrorist attack than anything the Ukrainians have done, most especially blowing up the bridge. Btw, Russian troops have looted Ukrainian museums in occupied territory. Those stolen artifacts are likely gone forever.
“Truth” is the first casualty in armed conflict. Waving the bloody shirt is effective for increasing political support and tamping down on dissent.
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And for something as vague and with as many definitions as in the term “terror “, arguing over which sides version of the “truth” is more correct is silly. What matters most is getting a better understanding of what dynamics are at play and how the situation will be impacted by the waving of the bloody shirt.
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The bloody shirt exists in the bridge attack. On this point there can no argument. People died.
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How the side waving this bloody shirt will react and what likely changes in policy will follow is important as the act of waving the bloody shirt WILL change policy.
Ed Forbes,
No, blowing up a key bridge that used for supplying your wartime opponent is obviously NOT a terrorist action. No rational person believes that.
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Flying planes into office buildings with no state of war in place is terror. Releasing nerve gas into a subway system is a terrorist action.
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Rule 1: When in a hole, stop digging.
Rule 2: If in doubt, refer to Rule 1.
Russian policy in Ukraine has changed since the bridge attack.
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I am not sure if the change in policy was pre planed or a reaction to the bridge attack. I lean towards it being a pre planed policy change and the bridge attack used to solidify political support as Putin is not known for spontaneous actions.
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The changes seen in policy are the heavy attacks on infrastructure, mainly electrical power distribution networks and the rail net. These attacks coincide with the arrival of the first groups of the 300k Russian troops called up as reinforcements for the Ukraine war. The attacks have all the earmarks of attacks on command and control centers and logistical supply lines in preparation of a major offensive.
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Ukraine in currently in the mud season. It looks as though first frost when the ground hardens will see a Russian offensive start that Ukraine will find hard to redeploy and counter due to the attacks on their rail net.
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Ed,
I don’t know what sort of solidification of support you think Russia has gotten lately. News reports are that China and India are expressing “concern” and asking Russia to not escalate since the bridge attack. As far as I can tell, no one outside Russia has suggested this gives an Russian an excuse to escalate. And those inside Russia who wanted to escallate did so before.
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Yes. Russia has ignored the concerns of those outside Russia. What we see here is Russia doing what they want.
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As for what happens: We’ll see. But the bridge attack does not appear to have gotten Russia even one iota of external support.
Steve, sorry ( well, not very ), but the use of the term “terror” is more a political statement than anything else and needs to be viewed in a political context to get any useful content from the usage. It is getting a better view of what a sides use of the term implies that is important.
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I think I see the problem with the current discussion. The only thing that interests me in this situation is the political dynamics.
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If Putin is calling the action at the bridge “terror”, and his supporters agree, then they will take actions consistent as if it were a “terror “ attack. This is the key point. Arguments that it’s not actual “terror “ is meaningless if the side using the term believes it is “terror”.
Lucia,
I think the only result of the bridge attack is a greater willingness for Russia to start attacking Ukrainian infrastructure (and government structure). My real concern is that this will lead to great suffering among the Ukrainians and wholesale fleeing of much of the populous toward Europe. Count on destruction of infrastructure to be targeted to avoid those regions Russia wants to control, while making life miserable (or nearly impossible) in the rest of the Ukraine.
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To the extent Russian attacks on infrastructure become the ‘norm’, the war will have entered a new, escalated stage. This is a real danger IMHO.
Lucia
Almost all vocal Russian critics of Putin in Russia were those who were furious over Putin’s “soft” approach to the war. They wanted more of a US “shock” campaign to destroy Ukraine and get the war over with a complete and total victory.
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By declaring the bridge attack “terror “ and would be responded to, it gave Putin the ability to bring these critics onboard as supporters. Criticism in Russia has gone WAY down since his response to the bridge attack.
Ed–
“In Russia”. Yes.
But you have been making claims about allies response. Allies are not in Russian.
In Russia. That is: by people who are not allies.
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It’s fine to make claims. But be correct about your claims. What people in Russia might feel (even assuming it’s all of them) is not evidence for what people outside Russia do. So don’t go around making arguments about what “allies” are saying and then switch to explaining what Russian’s themselves might be saying. Russiand themselves are not “allies” of Russia.
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Ed Forbes,
Words have meanings, and usually the definitions of those words are broadly agreed on. If you reject that, and claim some words mean whatever the heck you (and Mr Putin) say they mean, then any conversation about those words (eg ‘terror’) becomes rather silly. Cio.
SteveF
And next week, Ed Forbes could be claiming baking cupcakes is a terrorist act. Because Putin said so. And only Russian’s opinion “matters”. Obviously, that’s not the way language works.
Ed Forbes (Comment #215392): “Russian policy in Ukraine has changed since the bridge attack.”
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We shall see. There are reports that the Russian missiles used for Putin’s tantrum are in short supply. So the “change in policy” might be very short lived.
Russia policy on the battlefield is changing because they are losing lately. They would be incompetent to not change things. Military leadership changes have occurred, a new draft was ordered, and they have started to hit infrastructure. The bridge has little to nothing to do with it tactically, although the humiliation factor apparently has affected some decision making and the partisans seem to be losing their minds.
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Russia needs to change things if they want different results.
Mike M,
Why do you use the word ‘tantrum’?
SteveF (Comment #215402): “Why do you use the word ‘tantrum’?”
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Using a limited resource against targets with little or no military significance.
Mike M,
I don’t think anyone really knows in detail what targets were selected, but to the extent those targets were government and its administration, electric power production and distribution, and transportation infrastructure, I would suggest they are just the *opposite* of ‘no military significance’. Disabling transportation, disrupting government administration, and plunging the country into darkness (in winter!) seem very good ways to reduce the Ukrainians’ ability (and will) to fight.
SteveF (Comment #215404): “to the extent those targets were government and its administration, electric power production and distribution, and transportation infrastructure … seem very good ways to reduce the Ukrainians’ ability (and will) to fight.”
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Not to mention apartment blocks.
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Even transportation and power are basically civilian targets, unless they are of particular strategic importance. Yes, there theoretically might be some strategic value to such targets. But they will not reduce Ukraine’s will to fight any more than the Blitz hurt Britain’s will to fight or bombing Hanoi hurt North Vietnam’s will to fight. Any effect will be just the opposite. Using a limited supply of high value weapons for that purpose is a tantrum.
Mike
On Russian ammunition shortages, a few prior statements. Plenty more prior articles if you take the time to go look. Russia running out of missiles and artillery ammunition has been a “thing” since the war started.
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Russia has consistently fired 20,000+ artillery rounds per day for months now and use missiles daily to attack rear area units. They have been said to be running short for months.
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March 18
The senior official with the U.S. Department of Defense said that Russia appears to now be relying more on so-called “dumb” bombs than on precision-guided munitions in its full-scale offensive against Ukraine—something that could indicate Russia could be suffering shortages and sustainment issues.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-invasion-war-suffering-shortages-struggling-sustain-troops-pentagon-update-1689334
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April 22
Putin Has A Problem: Could Russia Run Out Of Weapons And Ammo?
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https://usaherald.com/russia-has-ammo-shortages-from-ukraines-himars-and-mlrs-hits-on-weapons-depots/
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Jun 28, 2022
As Russia Runs Low On Ammunition, Ukraine Targets Its Supply Depots
http://www.thelowdownblog.com/2022/06/as-russia-runs-low-on-ammunition.html
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Russia has ammo shortages from Ukraine’s Himars and MLRS hits on weapons depots July 12
https://usaherald.com/russia-has-ammo-shortages-from-ukraines-himars-and-mlrs-hits-on-weapons-depots/
On the strikes on the power grid. One immediate result is the disconnect from the EU grid that had been bringing in 10M EU per DAY to Ukraine.
One of the better talks on the current Ukraine situation IMO.
Col. Douglas Mc.Gregor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u519OI7pPM
10/12/22
FEMA contractors are scheduled to start removing debris from our neighborhood this week, so I decided to memorialize our hurricane Ian experience.
Ian made landfall on September 28 at 3PM at Cayo Costa Florida. It was category 4 with 150 MPH sustained winds. The storm was huge, eye about 46 miles across and sustained hurricane force winds about 125 miles wide along the coast. It was moving very slowly and weakened only slightly as it moved NW. At 9PM it was still a category 2 over the center of the state.
Our house was about 28 miles North of where the eyewall crossed the coast. I estimate we had category one sustained winds of about 86 MPH and gusts of between 105 and 115 MPH. The hurricane force winds lasted a long time. I guess 4-6 hours.
We had 12.6 inches of rain in my backyard over about 16 hours. The street in front flooded to a depth of about 18 inches for about 8 hours.
We had a 8 in diameter oak limb come down on the roof. It caused only cosmetic damage. Several sections of wood fencing were blown down. We live in a forest and have spent $400 so far having debris moved to the street.
Mike M,
“But they will not reduce Ukraine’s will to fight any more than the Blitz hurt Britain’s will to fight or bombing Hanoi hurt North Vietnam’s will to fight.”
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I doubt the parallels are apt. The biggest difference being climate. Ukrainian winters are not like those of London (nor Hanoi), and at the time of the blitz, most of the UK did not depend on electricity in the way people do today. If many Ukrainians face freezing to death for lack of electricity, then their will to fight may be lessened. Many will flee to the west. The targeting of government infrastructure and political leaders will almost certainly focus political leader’s thinking about the cost of the war. I have said for a long time that Russia has not been attempting to win in any conventional sense, because they have not been targeting infrastructure or civilian government. That may be changing.
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Henry Kissinger has been excoriated for suggesting there should be a negotiated settlement of the war. His position is unpopular, but I suspect a lot more sensible (and less dangerous!) than current US policy.
SteveF,
If negotiations and diplomacy were as effective as you seem to think, then the UN would be a force for peace. They aren’t and it isn’t.
Lucia: “It’s fine to make claims. But be correct about your claims. What people in Russia might feel (even assuming it’s all of them) is not evidence for what people outside Russia do. So don’t go around making arguments about what “allies” are saying and then switch to explaining what Russian’s themselves might be saying. Russiand themselves are not “allies” of Russia.”
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One outside ally supporting Russia closer now is Belarus. They had been keeping directly out of the actual fighting, but are now foraging closer integration with the Russian army.
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Continuing on the subject of defining “terror”, I note that a number of Ukraine and other commenters are classifying Russian attacks on the Ukraine power grid as a “terror” attack. Seems to me a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here.
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Ukraine’s army is rollin’. Almost every day they are taking significant territory in the North and the South. Meanwhile, russia’s attacks in the Central region have been stalled for months.
The prospects for russia are bleak. They are needing to steal replacement armaments from Belarus, North Korea and Iran. Their top of the line battle troops have been all but wiped out and are being replaced with untrained stumblebums from the streets and prisons of russia.
Mother nature may have something to say about this war in the coming months, but for now Ukraine is not going to stop. Negotiate hell!
“Ukraine takes swaths of territory, despite Russia’s mobilisation” 5 Oct 2022 Al Jazeera
“Pressing on two fronts, Ukraine extends its gains in the east and makes a sudden advance in the south” Updated Oct. 9, 2022 NYT
DeWitt,
Sometimes negotiation is fruitful and sometimes it is not.
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Fruitful negotiation is only possible if both sides accept that while the other may hold very different views about their interests, both sides accept those differing views have enough legitimacy to the other side to require substantive compromise. What I think has so far prevented any negotiations (save for the negotiation of food exports from the Odessa region, which was actually between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN) is that the USA/NATO completely reject substantive compromise with Russia. The USA/NATO say very clearly that Russia has 1) no legitimate security concerns, 2) no legitimate claim to the Crimea or eastern territories, and 3) no legitimate interest in protecting the large ethnic Russian population in the Ukraine. So the USA/NATO reject any need for substantive compromise, and there are no negotiations.
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The USA/NATO position reminds me a bit of my first wife’s negotiating position when we divorced: ‘You are evil and wrong, so give me 100% of everything we own and 90% of your income until you reach age 67. You can live at the YMCA or on a park bench and ride a bicycle to work until then.’ She didn’t accept I had any legitimate interests, so didn’t really want negotiation. Neither does the USA/NATO.
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The war in the Ukraine will continue until that changes, which may take a very long time. Whether that is good or bad is not a matter of fact, but rather a matter of opinion.
SteveF,
You’ve completely ignored the Russian position which, IMO, would be equally unacceptable to Ukraine. Also it’s not very good negotiation tactics to publicly give up the farm before you even sit down. That’s called negotiating with yourself. Obama was really good at it. As I remember, Kissinger wasn’t much better.
You have to ask for more than you expect to get or you won’t even get what you need. I think your ex’s opening gambit was only a little over the top. If you didn’t start with a similarly over the top position, you probably got rolled.
Russia probably hasn’t been targeting infrastructure because they had hoped to occupy all of Ukraine and there will be global political blowback for intentionally making civilians suffer for no legitimate miltary reason.
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The hopes of occupying all of Ukraine is looking pretty dim at this point. My feeling is there is enough animosity toward Russia in Ukraine that this would be unwise militarily with NATO handing out insurgency weapons like they are candy.
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They do have to worry about losing support from China and India. We can define support as willingness to buy gas and oil. China and India can buy fossil fuels from elsewhere and lets just say they aren’t very likely to form a dependency on Russia.
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What’s next? They don’t really have enough of these cruise missiles to sustain a long term attack without seriously depleting their resources. A sustained attack also invites NATO to legitimately provide air defenses to protect civilians. Russia can likely destroy significant infrastructure for power and water, but it is a risky move. They can also “accidentally” target Zelensky. With the war going badly this move becomes more likely.
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Ultimately though they should just try to negotiate a settlement over the winter. Both sides can save some face. The Ukrainians performed well and beat back a Russian assault. The Russians end up with a lot of Eastern Ukraine. Otherwise it looks like at least another year of death and destruction with neither side looking likely to prevail.
Russell,
It took about 10 days for them to pick up yard debris after Irma here. They had a local field for storage that had ginormous piles of debris that took months to remove. Realistically Irma limited the amount of debris from Ian up here.
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My local neighborhood also has a significant forest on both sides of the street. I think that this will limit wind damage aerodynamically but I have never seen any science on this. The other side is that you may get a lot of flying debris which can start taking out shingles and windows. The wind speeds have to be pretty high for this to start happening.
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A huge problem is going to be that a lot of the damage from Ian was caused by flooding and (in theory) not wind damage. If one doesn’t have flood insurance then they may not be covered. If you are a lawyer, move to Florida now. The standard dispute is proving wind damage caused water to get into a house that caused the damage. It’s going to be a rough ride for Florida homeowner inusrance over the next couple years.
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From my review of YouTube videos houses that weren’t flooded by storm surge held up well unless directly exposed to the ocean near Fort Myers area. There weren’t really a lot of windows and garage doors taken out inland. Houses that had been built recently had minimal roof damage for the most part. The building codes seems to have done well, but the older houses, especially those under 10 feet above sea level realistically need to go. These might become uninsurable.
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Example, modern home in area of older homes. The entire neighborhood was flooded out and their home came within inches of flooding. Crazy to stay so close.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4eVVyCgAE8
DWitt,
I didn’t ever adopt an over-the-top negotiating position, with my ex or in dozens of other negotiations; it is too likely to completely inhibit negotiations. I didn’t get rolled, BTW, I ultimately issued a ‘nuclear option’ ultimatum: start negotiating in good faith immediately, or all the money you get now with no negotiated agreement stops. I think someone (Germans? French? Turks?) will have to get off-the record assurances of compromise from the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the USA, for negotiations to start. I am pretty sure the USA has zero interest in a settlement: “How about you and him fight while I watch” seems to sum it up.
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BTW, I completely disagree with your evaluation of Obama: he never made substantive compromises with Republicans…. ‘my way or the highway’ was pretty much it. He preferred to issue executive orders in violation of law rather than actually compromise on proposed laws.
SteveF (Comment #215414): “Fruitful negotiation is only possible if both sides accept that while the other may hold very different views about their interests, both sides accept those differing views have enough legitimacy to the other side to require substantive compromise.”
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Both sides need to see the other as legitimate and need to be willing to only insist on their legitimate goals.
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Yes, some of Russia’s issues are legitimate. And the US/NATO and/or Ukraine might be unreasonable; we don’t really know. As DeWitt says, they might just be refusing to negotiate with themselves. But Russia insisting on keeping territory gained by force is NOT a legitimate position. Until they are willing to give that territory back, there is no basis for a negotiated settlement of the sort that SteveF (and I) would like.
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There is another basis for a negotiated settlement: Conditions imposed by force. If Russia can prove that they can hold the seized territory, then a negotiation based on that might become necessary. But that is not the current situation and is not likely to be the situation in the foreseeable future.
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I don’t think that fruitful negotiations will be possible until one of two things happens. One is if Ukraine can take the occupied territories off the table by driving Russia out. The other is if Putin is replaced by someone who finds it expedient to end the war and blame Putin for the failure.
Tours of the neighborhood post storm tell you a lot about house integrity. Definitely some roof damage here. The interesting question is why some houses do better than others. Part of it is the building codes in place the last time your roof was redone, and the other is just luck. Flying debris taking out tiles and shingles which start a cascade effect. Realistically I saw almost no structural damage to houses built in the last 30 years except from storm surge (mobile homes are a different story).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1u8-i2pWg0
“How about you and him fight while I watch”
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This may in fact be the actual position, it’s hard to know. But it is also a good position for the Russians to think you have for a final negotiation.
Tom Scharf,
“They can also “accidentally” target Zelensky. With the war going badly this move becomes more likely.”
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Why would targeting Zelensky ever be accidental, or even claimed to be accidental? (Real question.) I am actually shocked that Zelensky is still around; I would have guessed he would have been targeted early and often, not later or never.
Mike M,
“Both sides need to see the other as legitimate and need to be willing to only insist on their legitimate goals.”
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Sure, but who is to say what are both sides ‘legitimate goals’? Those are defined by the parties, not the ‘God of Negotiations’. All successful negotiations on contentious issues involve acceptance of some of the other party’s goals, even when you don’t think they are legitimate! We have few compromise laws on abortion because those on the extremes will not compromise on what they see as the “illegitimate goals” of the other extreme.
Zelensky happened to be at a command and control center and Russia didn’t know it. Russia will target Zelensky and deny they targeted him specifically to placate their allies with some plausible deniability. I think that is how it will go down.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215420) “Part of it is the building codes in place the last time your roof was redone, and the other is just luck.”
Part of it also is the integrity and competence of the construction inspection process. I have first hand knowledge that before Hurricane Andrew the building inspection process in the Miami Dade Area was corrupt, incompetent and lazy.
Another tidbit… My engineering practice was in Englewood Florida during the time Hurricane Charley hit just South of there. The stuff built after Andrew under the new codes held up remarkably well. The 10-20 year old stuff, not so well. But, the old stuff [30+ years] did pretty well in comparison. They really did make stuff better in the old days.
Russia has added Facebook and Instagram to its list of terrorist and extremist organizations.
I guess it’s official then.
Tom Scharf “It took about 10 days for them to pick up yard debris after Irma here. They had a local field for storage that had ginormous piles of debris that took months to remove. Realistically Irma limited the amount of debris from Ian up here.”
Irma also blew through here before it got to you. We had sky-high piles of debris with that one too. But a lot of stuff that stood strong for Irma came down in Ian. We have even higher piles of debris from Ian than we did for Irma. Ian was heading Northeast so maybe you were spared by the track. At my place the sustained winds and gusts were much higher and lasted a longer time.
Things changed after Andrew which was a wind storm event. Our county inspects all roof updates. A lot of damage done in Andrew was buildings not built to code by poor contractors. I’ve posted this before, but this is the FEMA post mortem on Andrew from a building construction standpoint. They definitely note the inspection problem. It’s a fascinating read from an engineering standpoint. A lot of structural damage in Andrew which we see much less of now.
https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08/fia22_complete.pdf
It was just an all day tropical storm up here. Maybe 50 mph winds and only 2 inches of rain. We never lost power. It was heading right at us 2 days out though.
Tom Scharf
“but the older houses, especially those under 10 feet above sea level realistically need to go. These might become uninsurable.” Both FEMA and the State of Florida have regulations about rebuilds. Basically, you have to build on pilings driven into the ground. The finished floor elevation has to be above the local 100 year storm surge [plus wave] height. Everything below that has to be break away construction so the water can flow under the structure. FEMA requires the same elevated construction… a house on stilts.
Ed
Commenters where? You should quote whoever it is. Then we can see what you think they said. I did see “tantrum”. That’s not “terror”.
Lucia,
I didn’t see anyone on your blog call Russian attacks on infrastructure “terrorism”; I suspect Ed is talking about other places.
It’s all the houses that are grandfathered in that are a problem. People are working around rebuild limits with “multiple rebuilds” billed separately and other ingenious workarounds. I guess it varies by county. I think here if you expand square footage by more than 15% you have to bring the house up to code, which effectively means a bulldoze job for a lot of older houses. So they sit with old building code for very long time periods.
I hesitate to write this. I’m a long time lurker, having posted but once and then to help Lucia with a Mac computer problem. But . . .
I keep reading all the posts about the Ukraine war and Russia and want to add my personal experience.
When I was in the US Army, I was in the Air Defense Command. One of my duties was CBR (Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Warfare) NCO. In that position, I monitored tele-exes from NORAD headquarters in our war games. I remember vividly the first message I received: It began with notices of suspicious activities around the U.S. Then, suddenly, I got this: NUDET Edwards Air Force Base. NUDET = Nuclear detonation. Soon, it was NUDET after NUDET, all over the country. We were anticipating the end of the world.
Everyone seems to have forgotten the Cold War, but not me. I was trained in it day after day.
Current projections expect 90 million casualties worldwide in a nuclear war. That doesn’t include the millions that would day from starvation and thirst and radiation poisoning post-attack.
We must, absolutely must, find a negotiated settlement to the current situation. No one wins in a nuclear conflict. It doesn’t matter one iota who’s at fault. No one wins, everyone loses.
I never dreamed I would see what I’m seeing today. Every time I come to this website now, I worry. Whatever reasons we may come up with to label Russia as our enemy, they are not sufficient to justify the disaster that could ensue.
By the way, my last duty in case of attack was to go outside our heavily shielded headquarters and measure radiation levels. It would have been, quite literally, my last duty.
I greatly respect all the commenters here, but the potential horror is too great to allow ourselves to overlook the horrendous consequences that are staring us in the face. It doesn’t matter who’s right or who’s wrong.
FYI: AstraZeneca tested nasal covid vaccine. Failed phase 1 trial. Back to the drawing board.
“In the 42-person, phase I trial, nasal administration of the vaccine produced only modest mucosal antibody responses in just a few participants and also spurred weaker systemic responses than the intramuscular shots.”
SteveF,
I did a word search and didn’t see anyone here calling bombing Ukrainian infrastructure terror either. It may bother Ed that I’m not going out hunting for people all over the internet to tell them that’s not terror. But I’m not going to survey the whole internet.
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That said: bombing lots of civilians in what appear to be npt very well targeted attack knowing it’s likely to kill lots of people while not taking out very much of military use is closer to terrorism than bombing militarily important bridge. But it really don’t fit terrorism either.
Ok, here are a few, of many, posts on the subject
Ukraine has condemned Russia as a “terrorist state” for launching missile attacks on major cities, including the capital Kyiv, at a United Nations General Assembly meeting initially called to discuss Moscow’s annexation of four partly-occupied regions of Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r73FQW8ysc
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Russia’s terror bombing will fail if NATO helps Ukraine withstand it
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/10/russia-bombing-ukraine-nato-support/
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Putin’s wounded military is using suicide drones to spread ‘terror and chaos’ among Ukraine’s civilians, experts and officials say
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https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-suicide-drones-terror-chaos-among-ukrainian-civilians-expert-officials-2022-10?op=1
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Ukraine Calls Russian Terror Bombing ‘Dying Convulsions of a Wounded Beast’
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-calls-russian-terror-bombing-dying-convulsions-wounded-beast-1750302
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Ed Forbes,
As we thought: None of those comments are posted here. I’m pretty sure you don’t know what the “pot-kettle-black” means.
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If you want to volley out “pot-kettle-black”, you’ll have to go to the comments at that you tube video, on the washington post, business insider and newsweek, and if those authors tell you your use of “terror attack” is wrong, you may be justified in your “pot-kettle-black” volley. (It depends on precisely what they wrote or said, which I”m not going to spend time doing since it’s got no relevance to what anyone says here at this blog.)
Lucia, we were, I thought, in a general discussion of the term, not specific to this site.
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Maybe we can agree that the world at large uses “terror “ in a very imprecise way?
Ed Forbes,
You wrote this:
That statement, which you posted here, is constitutes an accusation that someone here is doing what you are accused of, which is using “terror attack” in the same way you are. No one here is doing that.
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Maybe you can stop volleying false accusations. Until you do, you stand in a position where people (including me) will criticize you for your false accusations.
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That’s you attempting to change the point of the criticism. The criticism of you specifically is that your use vis-a-vis the bridge attack is clearly wrong.
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Outside of terms-of-art in professions there is often no pin-point precise meanings for a word or phrase. Neverthless, some uses are clearly wrong: yours is. And some arguments for why a use might be correct are also clearly wrong– as yours have been.
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With respect to terror attack there are some features required in all definitions.
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One of these is the main goal is to create terror rather than achieve a military objective. Other aspects can be debated. But bombing a militarily important bridge in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and does not make people fear going about their day to day business is not a terror attack.
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Your arguments would permit someone to call “baking cupcakes” a “terror” activity. It’s not.
I found the culprit…
“This morning’s satellite imagery from FIRMS [NASA | LANCE | Fire Information for Resource Management System] shows the widespread russian terrorism in targeting of civilian areas.”
Russell Klier (Comment #215371)
I’m not exactly sure what Russia is firing, but a lot of older cruise missiles were intended to carry nuclear payloads first so accuracy within 100M or even 10M was perfectly OK. That accuracy isn’t so effective for conventional payloads. They will generally use up this older stuff first unless high accuracy is very important.
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Certainly when Russia is firing these things they aren’t aiming for the middle of a road in a city where only a few windows and cars are destroyed. I also highly doubt they are aiming for residential buildings unless there was convoys of military equipment sitting out front or they are holding military meetings there. It’s possible the not so smart cruise missile just ran into a building on the way to another target. If they want to kill a lot of civilians, they can. There is no reason for them to do that.
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They are hitting a lot of weird places though which is likely just unsuccessful targeting. Ukraine will only rarely invite the press to the successful targeting examples.
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I also don’t think Ukraine is a particularly target rich environment for Russia now, especially for stationary targets, unless they change tactics to infrastructure. Russia isn’t so great at hitting dynamic targets of opportunity to my knowledge.
The German V-1 flying bomb in WWII was a terror weapon in effect. There is a distinction here because there was no capability for precision bombing in those days. Nighttime bombing was very inaccurate, daytime bombing was very dangerous and still inaccurate.
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Would we fire bomb Japanese cities if we had precision weapons? Probably not, but I wouldn’t rule it out. The thinking was that we were going to have to invade Japan to end the war. If fire bombing cities (or using nuclear weapons) ended up saving a lot of solders in an invasion then it very well might have happened anyway. The estimates for casualties for an invasion of Japan were huge. Japan was mobilizing their entire population for defense. There is a strong argument using nuclear weapons here saved lives versus an invasion. It’s rather unclear whether an invasion could have been avoided.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Estimated_casualties
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You just don’t want to get to these type of decision making points.
Wars are bad. Avoid them.
Paul,
I completely understand your concern. There has never in my memory been a US administration willing to run a significant risk of nuclear war…. until the Biden administration. I think they are quite crazy, or if not actually crazy, act so convincingly crazy that I can’t distinguish their act from truly crazy. Maybe it is that they are so very arrogant and dismissive of anyone who disagrees with them…… on any issue, something I have observed crazy people tend to do.
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There is frankly nothing happening between Russian and the Ukraine (both corrupt formerly communist countries) that is worth destroying most of civilization over. Whether the long suffering people of the Ukraine suffer under Russian corruption, Ukrainian corruption, or some of each, it is simply is not important enough to me to risk the future of the USA and, indeed, all of Western civilization.
Tom Scharf,
Had the Japanese not surrendered, the USA was building nuclear bombs at a rate of ~10 per year, and I have no doubt every Japanese city would have been destroyed in short order. There was simply no stomach in the USA for a ground battle on the Japanese mainland when nuclear weapons were available as an alternative. Fortunately, the Japanese did surrender, bringing the nightmarish killing to an end.
Let there be no doubt about my position… Putin is a terrorist and Russia is a terrorist state. If indiscriminate bombing of civilians isn’t terrorism, nothing is.
By definition: “violence or the threat of violence used as a weapon of intimidation or coercion” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terror
By the Editorial Board of the Washington Post 10/10/22
“Russia’s terror bombing will fail if NATO helps Ukraine withstand it”
“Mr. Putin targets civilians at a time when his side is floundering and facing defeat in the actual contest of armies, so add desperation to the list of his motivations he shares with past terror-bombers.
His first objective was to instill fear in residents of population centers far from the front lines and cripple the electricity, water and other critical infrastructure on which they depend.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/10/russia-bombing-ukraine-nato-support/
Dan Rather, remember him…. @DanRather Oct 10
After the strikes today targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, where the only goal is human fear and suffering, it is time to call Putin what he is — a terrorist.
Garry Kasparov, remember him…. @Kasparov63 Oct 10
Russia is no longer a state sponsor of terror, but a fully terrorist state. The only way to end the terror is to give Ukraine everything they need to defend and win the war as quickly as possible. Any further delay means being Putin’s accomplice in murder.
Russell,
At least you can and did find an accepted definition by which that is terrorism. You didn’t say “If Zelensky says it’s terrorism, it’s terrorism! By definition!”
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In contrast, Ed Forbes arguments for the bridge bombing being terrorism are utterly lame.
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The problem with Ed’s proclamation is that bombing the bridge is not in the vicinity of terrorism.
The island nations of Australia and New Zealand, which managed to keep covid from spreading until nearly all over 65 were vaccinated, have both had their peaks in cases and deaths, with deaths now reduced to an extremely low rate. For both, the overall rate of death is nearly identical: near 600 deaths per million residents, only 15% to 25% of the States and most of Europe. Part of the reduction is probably due to omicron being less fatal than earlier strains, but mostly due to the protective effects of vaccinations against severe disease.
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Should another new viral disease arise (from a laboratory or otherwise), I hope the vaccine technologies for covid will be more rapidly applied to the new virus.
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Meanwhile, the number of covid deaths in the States has gradually fallen to about 380 per day, with the continuing decline in cases suggesting deaths will soon be under 100 per day, compared to about 7,800 per day from all causes. So far more people are dying from heart disease, cancer, stroke, etc than from covid. Which I guess is why covid no longer generates breathless headlines in the MSM. Instead we have breathless headlines about how horrible it will be if Republicans take control of Congress. But quite independent of factual reality, we remain in a permanent state of national covid emergency, which like most everything the Biden administration does, is a mix of stupidity, dishonesty, and political malfeasance.
It’s worse than we thought… D-1 howitzer M1943 is showing up on the russian battlefield. It went out of production in 1948. It is characterized by poor accuracy and short range [8 miles!]
From my favorite OSINT site:
“The D-1 howitzer M1943 is a Soviet WWII-era 152.4 mm howitzer. The gun was developed in 1942 and 1943, based on the carriage of the 122 mm howitzer M1938 (M-30) and using the barrel of the 152 mm howitzer M1938” (M-10).”
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1580235767145562113?s=20&t=Aw4-XdtYISSL3CWjuU5uyw
[read some of the comments on that post]
Lucia,
I think a definition of terrorism which leads to most any military action taken during war being declared “terrorism” is neither accurate nor useful. Better I think to define terrorism as politically motivated violence in the absence of war. Flying planes full of civilians into office buildings full of civilians in the absence of war is terrorism. Murdering the staff at Charlie Hebdo for publishing political cartoons is terrorism. Killing Van Gogh’s great grand nephew for producing a film critical of Islam is terrorism. Releasing Sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system is terrorism. Dropping a bomb on Hiroshima was not terrorism, nor was the bombing of London, Dresden, Berlin, Hanoi, Tokyo, and the bridge to Crimea, at least not according to any common understanding of the word. The Humpty Dumptys of the world don’t get to change the meanings of words whenever they find it politically convenient.
I don’t think Russia is indiscriminately bombing civilians. I do think their rules of engagement are a lot looser than the US, but a lot of that is because they lack some of the capabilities the US has. It is a … ummmm … privilege to have precision capability where you hit what you are aiming for most of the time.
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They have killed a lot of civilians. 1000’s probably. But they will bomb a rail station whenever they feel like it. What we don’t really know is how much military traffic is going through that station or was sitting there before or during the attack. Russia could further minimize civilian casualties with more careful targeting but they don’t. It’s a war. They have absolutely leveled towns and villages with artillery. The Ukrainians do the same thing to the extent they can. It’s a war.
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You have to think through the purpose of intentionally killing civilians, or at least completely disregarding their safety. Terrorizing the population has some minimal benefit but has even larger downsides as Ukraine uses it continuously for propaganda (rightfully) and the rest of the world judges Russia on their actions. Their own people wouldn’t support it. So far I am giving Russia a pass on this. They are more brutal, but still restrained in the big picture. They could launch 10,000 artillery shells a day into Kyiv if they wanted to.
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If you want to play the “I’m inventing a new definition of terrorism” to suit my side game, then you still have to apply the definition equally to both sides. What we have here is both sides or neither side being terrorists. Neither IMO.
I think ~300 deaths a day may be the floor for the US, the elderly dying with covid number. We are going to have people dying with covid forever just like the flu is my guess. The flu caused about 100 deaths / day. If you compare the existing all cause mortality rate against historical averages then you can find where the floor is.
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See graph “Weekly number of deaths (from all causes)”
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
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We are currently at approx. the annual average deaths now. It’s a bit complicated as a lot of people got killed by covid the past few years so in reality we should fall under the average for a few years to catch up. The floor might be 300 or 200, but it definitely is not zero.
To the russian apologists quibbling over my calling Putin and his goons “terrorists”…
How about if we just call them War Criminals. I am OK with that.
WARSAW, Oct 11 (Reuters) – “Mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities by Russia constitute war crimes under international law, the presidents of the Bucharest Nine group of countries, accompanied by the presidents of North Macedonia and Montenegro, said on Tuesday.
“We, the Presidents of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia condemn the mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities recently carried out by Russia, which constitute war crimes under international law,” they said in a statement.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bucharest-nine-presidents-say-russian-bombardments-ukraine-are-war-crimes-2022-10-11/
“Milley calls Russia’s attack on Ukrainian civilian sites a ‘war crime”
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3684937-milley-calls-russias-attack-on-ukrainian-civilian-sites-a-war-crime/
“The United Nations human rights office said that Russia may have committed a war crime by appearing to deliberately target civilians and critical infrastructure in cities across Ukraine.“
Video: https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000008576601/united-nations-russia-war-crime.html
Allegations from partisans are not convictions. It is a certainty individual “war crimes” have happened, whether they were sanctioned by leadership is another story and very difficult to prove. Wars are messy.
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Intentional on target bombing of civilian shelter in Iraq. 408 killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiriyah_shelter_bombing
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How you feel about this is almost entirely dependent on what you think the intentions were of the attackers. Had Russia done this I would suggest the feelings might be different. I think it was mistaken targeting, but was it? The same standard has to apply to everyone.
While nuclear war is a suicidal, difficult-to-comprehend and horrific proposition, the consequences of non-nuclear wars are as difficult to comprehend. It is difficult to make analogies in comparing war situations, but there are similarities in apparent attitudes of people directly involved in the Ukraine war and those involved in the US-Japan war towards the end of WWII. The US fire-bombing of Japanese cities (not including the two atomic bombings) killed and injured an estimated 300,000 and 400,000 Japanese people, respectively, while destroying 60% of over 60 cities. The deaths and injuries from the fire storms were at least as horrible as those from the atomic bombs. We can get into the rights and wrongs of these actions, but in the end, it affected many innocent people. Germany and Japan were bombing civilian populations before Great Britain and the United States did the same.
After the Japanese experienced the fire-bombing, their citizens remained in majorities in favor of continuing the war, which makes one think what would it take for the Ukrainians to give up the fight even in the face of Russia turning full force on the civilian populations in Ukraine. After the second atomic bombing most Japanese must have determined that the United States had the capability and will to wipe out cities one after the other until most of Japan was destroyed. That seems to be the limit for the Japanese at that time.
In the United States an estimated 85% of the population favored the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. The reasoning was that it saved soldiers lives that would have been required to invade Japan. The exact number has become more controversial with the time distance from the war. There remains a majority of the US population that favors the atomic bombing of Japan, although it keeps shrinking over time and particularly with the younger part of the population. The polling options during the war, as I recall, included the options of no bombing, bombing demonstrated in un-populated areas of Japan, bombing a single city and waiting a length of time for negotiation before continuing and bombing one city after the other until either Japan was destroyed or surrendered. The last option got as much support as the second one.
There is no doubt in my mind that wars change the attitudes of the people involved such that the killing of innocent people gets rationalized to the point of considering them as pawns in a chess game and wars’ strategies in these regards are talked about as moves in a chess game. The dehumanizing process is not easy to contemplate.
The woke train wreck continues apace. Incoming Minnesota medical students recite a new oath including :-
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“We commit to uprooting the legacy and perpetuation of structural violence deeply embedded within the health care system.
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‘We recognize inequities built by past and present traumas rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, the gender binary, ableism and all forms of oppression.
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‘As we enter this profession with opportunity for growth, we commit to promoting a culture of antiracism, listening and amplifying voices for positive change.
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‘We pledge to honor all indigenous ways of healing that have been historically marginalized by western medicine.
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‘Knowing that health is intimately connected with our environment, we commit to healing our planet and communities.
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‘We commit to collaborating with social, political and additional systems to advance health equity. We will learn from the scientific innovations made before us and pledge to advance and share this knowledge with peers and neighbors.
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‘We affirm that patients are the experts of their own bodies, and will partner with them to facilitate holistic wellbeing.”
As Tom Scharf says, war is not terrorism and civilian deaths in war are not terrorism. It is not a matter of one or the other being worse; it is just a matter of those things being different. It is not conducive to communication or understanding to insist on using the same word for things that are different.
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I see no reason to believe that we are significantly closer to nuclear war than we were a year ago. It makes no sense for Putin to use nukes to achieve any plausible objective in Ukraine since tactical nukes are extremely difficult to exploit on offense. That could change if Ukraine were to plausibly threaten to retake Crimea since that would threaten the Black Sea Fleet. I don’t think that is at all likely and expect that we would tell Ukraine that is off limits.
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I don’t know for sure that Putin is not so unbalanced as to use nukes out of shear petulance. But I doubt that is the case. I suspect that if he gave such an order, he would not live to see it disobeyed.
SteveF, I believe you let off too easily Biden and the Biden administration when referencing their positions on the Ukraine war as being the result of craziness. That would appear to give them in a non-responsible and non-blamable way out.
My take on this situation is that Biden and his administration is being lead by the voting public’s views and positions on the war which are probably more antithetical to your position than the Biden administration would ideologically want to be. The midterms, I judge, are having a major influence on their positioning. Presidents and their parties have historically used strong military positions where fighting is occurring and in the initial stages to bolster their voting support. Democrats might tend to overdo it because of their normally considered position on a strong military being less than that of the Republicans. (In actuality (over)spending on the military and domestic programs has been made both easier for Democrats and Republicans by way of their irresponsibly totally forgetting about fiscal integrity).
Being a cheerleader for an already pumped-up voting public on the war is not a politically bad position to be in.
DaveJR (Comment #215456)
Reading between the lines we have:
“As we enter this profession with opportunity to cure the ills of the world be those medical or social, we commit to promoting a progressive agenda and amplifying our voices in support of the left wing of the Democrat party.”
That would have summed it all up in a single paragraph and would have made it easier to remember when the oath was repeated 5 times a day.
Soldiers are pawns. Civilians are tools to be exploited. War is the ultimate game of survival. Nobody has to like this and its inhumane outcomes to recognize that is the reality we live in. Plants are literally at war with each other for survival, as are insects, viruses, bacteria. It’s turtles all the way down.
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Declaring it immoral is trivially true and amounts to an attempt to outlaw war because it is bad. I’d say this is closer to a religious viewpoint except religious groups are some of the worst offenders over history. The human species may be able to ultimately rise above this, but they haven’t so far. In absolute and relative numbers less people are dying from wars today than previously, so progress is being made.
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Groups that are at war are convinced they have something worth fighting for. Exactly who is to tell them they don’t? An oppressive overlord? Maybe, except it is usually the oppressive overlord they want to fight against. Calling off wars assumes there is some type of obvious universal justice that both sides can agree to, such as “Ukraine is really just part of Russia”.
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Dehumanization is constant. We don’t talk about how we defeated the “Germans”, we talk about how we defeated the Nazis. The Russians constantly talked about De-Nazify Ukraine at the start of the war. How subtle. Now it’s an existential battle against the west and NATO who want to destroy Russia.
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Why does this work? Because the human brain is wired to be tribalistic. Form groups for self defense. Fear of outside influences works for survival. Evolution has hard wired the entire planet like this. Ants and earthworms are just not wired for negotiated settlement. I’d rather live in a peaceful world, and we have for the most part since WWII. Deprogramming human tendencies is going to be hard though. It is mass insanity in a way.
The debate about whether any action, no matter how terrible or how clearly intended to terrorise, during war can be considered terrorism has been interesting. I would note that since Putin doesn’t considered the military action in Ukraine to be war then almost any Russian military action is not warfare and must, by Putin’s own identification of the action as not-war, be considered terrorism or criminal.
Andrew,
Well, by that standard, every military action (with no formal declaration of war) by the USA since at least the Korean war must be nothing but terrorism, right?
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Maybe there is a more practical definition: War involves uniformed military combatants. Terrorism doesn’t.
Ken Fritsch,
Maybe you are right, and Biden is trying to please the voters with his “never negotiate'” policies in the Russia-Ukraine war.
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If so, it is not going to work; Republicans will almost certainly take control of the House, and have a good chance of controlling the Senate. Biden is going to be investigated for personal corruption, if not impeached for refusal to enforce federal laws. I hope there is no effort to impeach, since he would never be convicted, but I also hope Biden’s apparent personal corruption is throughly investigated. In any case, there will be no more nutty laws passed via reconciliation in the Senate for at least a couple of years. And just maybe the execrable Chuck Schumer will decide retire along with the execrable Nancy Pelosi.
SteveF (Comment #215462):
“Andrew,
Well, by that standard, every military action (with no formal declaration of war) by the USA since at least the Korean war must be nothing but terrorism, right?” SteveF there are many around the world, if you read their media, that would agree that these actions by USA and its allies (including Australia) are by definition state sanctioned terrorism.
Andrew,
Yes, and there are lots of people around the world who believe throwing homosexuals from rooftops is perfectly appropriate. In fact, I’ll bet there is a lot of overlap of that group with the people who think the USA is a state sponsor of terrorism.
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I’ll stick with the obvious: wars involve uniformed military combatants.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215460)
Tom, you sound as though our natural tendency is to be at war, or at least warlike, and that repression of that tendency would be unnatural. As humans we have the ability to reason which makes us much different than even higher orders of other beings on earth. That ability is not something that is automatically on but it is there and its what gives hope for the future.
I view wars as unnatural for human beings given their abilities to reason and show compassion for a fellow human being. Wars are a manifestation of governments with great power over their constituents, or the capability to have that power given a real or imagined emergency. Wars are not the doing of the common man but rather that of politicians and military personnel in high places who do not participate in the battles but rather rally the people with propaganda, attempt to control the war as if it were a chess game and finance it with printed money and sacrifices of the common man.
It would be a more meaningful and fruitful analysis if we, instead of looking at some common human instinct for war, looked at those people in powerful places in powerful governments and their tendencies to commit to war.
Is Kherson at a risk of returning to Ukrainian control? Vladimir Saldo (Russian appointed mayor of Kherson) said overnight on Telegram “We suggested to all people of the Kherson region to, if they wish, leave to other regions to protect themselves” Ukraine retaking Kherson would be the biggest result of the counteroffensive so far.
SteveF (Comment #215465): “Yes, and there are lots of people around the world who believe throwing homosexuals from rooftops is perfectly appropriate. In fact, I’ll bet there is a lot of overlap of that group with the people who think the USA is a state sponsor of terrorism.” This seems a very strange suggestion, most of the people in Australia, UK and EU that callout USA for state sponsored terrorism are those most supportive of LGBQIT+ rights.
SteveF,
You must be younger than I thought. I remember the Cuban Missle Crisis quite well. If Castro had control of the launching, we would have had a nuclear war. Kruschev lost his job over it. Or are you saying that there was no risk of nuclear war in 1962?
SteveF,
The rate of bomb production in 1945 was going up exponentially as the bugs were worked out of the uranium enrichment and plutonium production processes. According to someone I knew who worked at Oak Ridge, there was material for thousands of bombs a very few years after 1945.
The thing that impressed the Japanese the most was that it was one plane and one bomb to destroy one city. Fire bombing used fleets of hundreds of bombers and a significant number were shot down.
And it wasn’t just American lives that were saved. It was estimated that in an invasion, there would be ten or twenty Japanese killed for every American. The Japanese considered that acceptable.
By the end of the war the Japanese air defenses were spent and the US was basically flying almost unopposed. The Kamikaze program was the last gasp. The Enola Gay mission actually flew just 3 planes. Japan was in pretty heavy distress industrially.
“you sound as though our natural tendency is to be at war”
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Only because that is what history tells me. Europe can’t seem to go 30 years without a war. The Middle East, ten seconds? When we aren’t at war we are spending 7% of our GDP preparing for war or selling lots of weapons to everyone else for their wars.
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It is my view that ever since cave men figured out how to use sticks and rocks that group conflict has been more or less a constant. Has there even been a generation without large scale conflict recently?
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Perhaps it is all the fault of the monolith. Our ability to reason also taught us that using rocks and sticks could get us to the top of the food chain and impose our will upon others, and it did. We didn’t get there by negotiating with lions or appealing to their better nature. Effective aggression is a major reason we got to the top and it is very hard to turn off. We aren’t that special, we just figured out this weapon’s thing before the apes did.
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The world would be a better place if everyone just stopped the conflict, but history says that groups are certain to continue to organize and try to impose their will upon others by force. The tyrannical a**hole ratio for humans is still too high.
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The John Lennon Imagine plan is fine if everyone buys into it, unfortunately they don’t. Ukraine gave up their nukes in return for a promise of sovereignty, now look where they are.
I’ve not read this guy before but he makes a lot of interesting points. Some samples:
“It’s hard to comprehend how stupid Russia’s ‘vengeance strikes’ for the Kerch Bridge attack truly were, and this is outside of the blatant targeting of civilians”
“They wasted what precious cruise missiles they have left against targets with no military value. Fighting a war they are losing, one in which they never achieved air superiority and cannot access the majority of the country with their manned air force, they use the only weapons that can reach these places against worthless targets”
“This idiotic decision just massively accelerated Ukraine’s acquiring a modern integrated air defense network made up of advanced western systems.
foundation is being laid to give Ukraine a top-rate IADS that will make operating any Russian aircraft over the country and even beyond its borders very risky to its enemies and the idea of ever achieving air superiority over the country…
which is a fleeting dream now will become all but impossible in the future.This means Russia’s fixed and rotary-wing capabilities, standoff weapons, and whatever it buys from Iran etc, will be less effective and will have less of an ROI as time goes on. “
“this attack just binds everyone closer together, including Kyiv and its many allies ready to pour even more advanced weaponry into the country and unites everyone further against a common foe. Allies working together is Russia’s biggest enemy and they have been incredible architects at seeing the very thing they despise comes to pass.”
Full post and references here: https://twitter.com/Aviation_Intel/status/1580698314949152769?s=20&t=YKWsxnv3azyPZhalgxryRw
This may signal a change. The last 24 hours of FIRMS fire reports only eight incidents in Ukraine outside of the combat zone (and some of these are probably wild fires or agricultural burning.) Previous 24 hour periods have shown many (like 100) fires in this area. I am hopeful that the OSINT writers saying russia is running low on mid and long range missiles are right.
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:24hrs;@31.2,47.6,6z
DeWitt,
I remember the Cuban crisis very well. The difference was that the Kennedy administration was responding to an existing threat of nuclear war, not generating one. Kennedy acted because every East coast city could have been wiped out in 15-20 minutes or less, and Castro could have gotten control.
DeWitt,
I don’t know how much plutonium and U-235 had been produced, but there was an inventory of under 10 complete bombs a year after Nagasaki. Maybe the rate of bomb production could have increased, but in any case, I agree every Japanese city would have been completely destroyed, before any contemplated invasion, had the Japanese not surrendered. I also suspect potential targeting of the Japanese Emperor entered into the calculation for surrender.
Andrew,
Yes, but most of the people in the Muslim world who think the USA is a state sponsor of terrorism do want to throw homosexuals from rooftops, and I suspect there are more of those folks than people in Europe or Australia who also think the USA sponsors terrorism.
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BTW, I completely agree that the USA needs to stop trying to institute democracy in places it is unwelcome, and adopt a foreign policy that recognizes important national interests really do vary enormously based on history and culture. My impression is that US foreign policy is based on almost a complete lack of respect for history and culture, including those of the USA itself.
Editorial Board WSJ, 10/14/22
“What the committee has accomplished, however, is to cement the facts surrounding Mr. Trump’s recklessness after Nov. 3 and his dereliction of duty on Jan. 6.”
I would hope this means Trump is finished, but I doubt that it does.
Free link:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-jan-6-inquiry-accomplished-donald-trump-liz-cheney-subpoena-congress-11665699321?st=5orrwb5i99h1j6g&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
FDR’s unconditional surrender terms in WWII had to be a factor in prolonging the war even if the many historical defenders of Roosevelt will rationalize it as a means of preventing future wars (how did that work out). With those terms for the Japanese the choice was further limited to an invasion or the submission of Japan through the killing and injuring of thousands of innocent Japanese citizens. The US Navy was pushing for a naval blockade instead of a land invasion. Truman’s political interests required getting the war over as fast as possible and keeping the unconditional surrender terms – which a large portion of the voting public favored. Dropping two atomic bombs met that requirement. I judge that governments can very readily rationalize for any military action the killing of innocent people to end wars and thus producing a predicted net saving of lives.
Wars are fought by national governments that have or are given the power to commit to and carry out the undertakings of war. Drafting personal for combat is giving the ruling politicians the power to enslave and with no impediments from constitutional considerations. It is that emergency thing. It also goes against a war requiring drafting as being a popular war. Further going against a popular war is that wars are primarily financed through borrowing (for future generations to repay or default) and printing money that eventually causes inflation. The immediate effect of raising taxes could well go against a popular war. It is the government that propagandizes the war effort and rationalizes that the lies justify the ends with the assumption that the public should not or need not have all the facts.
There is a connection between wars and the level of destruction of lives and property with the power of governments involved. My answer for diminishing the occurrence and level of destruction of wars would be much less government with more individual freedoms, free markets and trade and free exchange of ideas between the citizens of the various nations. On a practical level having smaller nations would be an impediment to war or at least large wars. That could occur through the process of secession.
Russell,
To some extent I think it depends on what you mean by ‘finished’.
Is Trump ‘finished’ with holding office as President? I think and hope so.
Is Trump ‘finished’ with influencing politics? I don’t think so. See also the Pennsylvania Senate seat contest between Dr. Oz and Fetterman.
In fact I speculate that Trump may derail DeSantis for 2024, and if so he will probably lose to whomever the Dems run. So sadly, nope. I wish the guy were finished, but like you I doubt it.
The cruise missile attacks appear to be mostly performative chest thumping to show Russia’s people that Putin is not weak. The bridge attack could not go unanswered for someone like Putin. The smoke screen of misinformation and propaganda still applies, we don’t know what the goal really was.
NYT today:
“A Monmouth University poll last month found that 29 percent of Americans believe Mr. Biden won because of voter fraud — exactly the same as in June when the hearings opened. (Sixty-one percent of Republicans thought so.) And 38 percent of respondents last month held Mr. Trump “directly responsible” for Jan. 6, compared with 42 percent in June.”
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The hearings were a partisan circus show. This result was entirely predictable as the messenger was never going to be trusted, as if nobody could figure that out. I hope Trump fails but I’d like to see a whole lot less of this type of behavior in DC all around.
Russell
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Let’s discuss the proposed integrated air defense proposed for Ukraine.
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Very little equipment is available for immediate shipment. Only a small number of close range systems are available immediately. Each of these provided systems can only cover one item of critical infrastructure. Almost all of the proposed equipment for an Ukrainian intergraded national air defense has to ordered and constructed prior to shipping to Ukraine. This will take years, not weeks or months.
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As the proposed integrated system will be delivered piecemeal, the individual components can easily be overloaded and destroyed piecemeal.
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NATO does not have any significant numbers of long range air defense systems in inventory. NATO wars are expected to have total air dominance, so have seen little need to produce these types of systems.
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With the destruction of the electrical grid, Russia has brought Ukraine ability to move forces and supply its forces to a critical reduction as a very large % of Ukraine rail is electric. Attacks on Ukraine rail marshaling yards and repair depots also degrade Ukraine ability to move by rail. Moving these systems to their required locations will be a major problem.
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Time is a major issue for Ukraine. The critical point to the war will be this winter, not a year from now. Time also is an issue for NATO. The EU will be well on its way to deindustrialization by this coming spring, so production of any goods, including military, will be problematical.
Global warmers are the winners of the Russia-Ukraine war.
MikeN,
How so?
Ed Forbes, remember this?
Ed Forbes (Comment #211388)
April 19th, 2022 at 6:30 pm
“Ukraine’s main issue with supply is a lack of trucks and fuel. They have 1 rail line going into the east that is not cut at Kharkiv in the north and Donetsk in the south. This line intersects the E40 at about Slovynsk, about 50km south from Lzyum (by scale if I have the locations correct). This line is in danger of being cut by the Russian advance down the E40..
lzyum is the base for the new Russian offensive in the north. Russia now has direct rail access from Russia to Lzyum. This reduces Russian supply issues significantly. Direct supply means sustained and heavy artillery fire, which Ukraine lacks. Ukraine forces that can be targeted by Russian artillery batteries will now come under intense bombardment in this new forward push and Ukraine is not able to respond. This will be decisive. The Russian dominance in heavy and sustained artillery fire will allow breakout through the Ukraine defense and the encirclement of major portions of the Ukraine army in the east.”
My response to your post today can be summed up in three words: HA HA!
Russell, so no defense of the misleading air defense articles you linked to.
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No surprise on my part as a defense would require you to actually know something about the issue instead of just mindlessly passing on propaganda.
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Or is “HA HA” the most intelligent response you are capable of?
Edit
“ My response to your post today can be summed up in three words: HA HA”
Having problems counting are we 🙂
Russell,
I assume that your reposting of my April post was made in some attempt to embarrass me. I must say that I have made a number of incorrect guesses on a number of posts over the years, but my April post would not have been one I would have highlighted to show error on my part. My April post has stood up remarkably well over time.
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So let’s address this April post shall we.
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Main points of the post
1.Ukraine’s main issue with supply is lack of heavy trucks and fuel. This was true then and is true now. Fuel has a 1000km supply run from Poland as Ukraine has to import almost all fuel from NATO.
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2. The rail line Ukraine depended on for much of the year that ran a distance south of Izyurn was in danger of being cut. It was in danger, but Russia redirected its main line of attack to the southeast, away from Izyum.
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3. The captured railway lines that ran directly from Russia to Lzyum and other locations in the east made Russian logistical supply MUCH easier and supply could now be run directly to the front. This was true then and the point remains true today. Railway that runs directly from Russian mainland directly to the front is a major advantage for Russia.
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4. Ukraine forces will come under heavy artillery bombardment that Ukraine will find difficult to respond to. This is being noted as true on a daily basis.
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So again, I think you will have drag something else out to save you from an intelligent discussion.
Ed Forbes, The conclusions you drew from your “facts” in Comment #211388,April 19th, 2022 were dead wrong, and I quote:
“lzyum is the base for the new Russian offensive in the north. Russia now has direct rail access from Russia to Lzyum. This reduces Russian supply issues significantly. Direct supply means sustained and heavy artillery fire, which Ukraine lacks. Ukraine forces that can be targeted by Russian artillery batteries will now come under intense bombardment in this new forward push and Ukraine is not able to respond. This will be decisive. The Russian dominance in heavy and sustained artillery fire will allow breakout through the Ukraine defense and the encirclement of major portions of the Ukraine army in the east.”
The exact opposite is what happened on the battlefield at Izyum. There was no russian breakout and encirclement of the Ukranians. It was a stalemate until September when the Ukrainians attacked and the russians got routed. The Ukrainian army encircled the russians, took a lot prisoners and captured a lot of war stuff, including tanks. You are now sprouting the same “facts” to draw the same conclusion that you were dead wrong about before. IZYUM is now a stronghold for the Ukrainians and evidence of russian war crimes against civilians has been found there.
Three words: HA,HA!
Idea for discussion: Ed Forbes is not who he says he is.
In the above posts he challenged me to engage. My response contained two traps. Ed Forbes fell for both of them. Any one familiar with US news events and anyone in the West who follows the war would have known better.
The Ed Forbes method of argument: Take some things that are true, exaggerate their importance, then make predictions. When the predictions prove wildly wrong, point to the grain a truth as evidence he was right.
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So yes, fuel is a challenge for Ukraine. But Ed claimed it was crippling and would contribute to the doom of Ukrainian troops in the east. Completely wrong, except for the obviously true bit.
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Yes, Russia has lots of artillery and will use it ruthlessly. But Ed claimed that would be decisive and result in the doom of Ukrainian troops in the east. Events turned out just the opposite.
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Similar comments apply to the railway lines.
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Ed claims he wants people to engage with him. Ed needs to engage with reality.
Ahhh….but none of you will directly address my points regarding air defense.
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As you seem to be unable to dispute the argument at hand, you then dispute the author. Is this the best you can do? You are taking the lazy man’s approach to argument.
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Ed Forbes
I don’t debate whose got more military strength because I know little about it. So my not debating that point means nothing.
That said: I would suggest you repeat the point you are referring too. It’s likely buried among a zillion other points that have been addressed. I have no idea what it was. If you think it was a devastating killer point, you ought to bring it back up directly rather than sending people to find a needle in a haystack.
Ed Forbes,
I don’t really recall what you said about Ukraine’s air defense. My impression is that they were a bunch of unsupported assertions containing a grain of truth. Not worth commenting on.
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Either restate them or give a comment #.
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Addition: Ukraine’s woefully inadequate air defenses have been able to deny Russia control of the air and shot down about half the Russian missiles in the last wave of attacks on civilian targets.
More COVID fear porn:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-omicron-covid-19-subvariants-on-the-rise-in-u-s-cdc-says-11665761579?st=x5w1qi5mcl7y5qq&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
You really have to dig through the article to find out that the number of cases are still declining in the US. They put in a lot of caveats about home testing leading to a probably much higher number of cases than oficially reported. But this has been true since day one even without at home testing.
They have to do something to justify Biden’s extension of the state of emergency. And, of course, no mention whether deaths attributed to COVID are patients who tested positive on admission for something else or that the primary cause of death was COVID.
Kenneth,
Military conscription is not slavery. It might be equivalent to indentured servitude, though. Conscripts, if we restored the draft, would have the same rights under the UCMJ as voluntary recruits.
DeWitt, a slave is owned by another person as property and in perpetuity. A conscript is owned by the state for as long as the state needs the conscript’s services. The state has to be a gentler and kinder owner than a slave holder might be required to be in order to keep the recruits from going permanently AWOL and to keep potential conscripts from leaving the country in great numbers.
In addition the state might have to present a better rationale for going to war with voluntary recruits or, alas, in might not be able to convince voluntary recruits (and their families) of the need to go to war. Drafting is giving the state great power and obviously at the expense of individual freedoms.
Ed is proclaiming Ukraine’s barely functioning air defense system which it has had since the beginning as a “victory” for Russia, or something. I assume these assets will be surrounded, destroyed in detail and the war will be over soon, real soon, very very soon. Right along with the EU economy being reduced to hunting and gathering. Soon. Please send bows and arrows to your friends and family in the EU.
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Russia’s air offense is basically non-existent. They don’t really fly very much, they have had a few planes shot down but really aren’t putting them in danger. They definitely don’t have air dominance and I’m not even sure they have air superiority. This against a country that has some S-300 and older systems and some really old jets. Why? Who knows.
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Russia had clear military superiority back at the start, 4 months ago, and now. They have badly mismanaged this advantage, even the Russia propagandists are admitting as much lately.
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It’s been a bit embarrassing, which no doubt was why the response to the bridge bombing was a bit of an overreaction.
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Cruise missiles are expensive. They have to be self guided and don’t come back and get reloaded. The subsonic ones are relatively easy to shoot down with a viable air defense system. Ukraine will continue to be vulnerable to these attacks. They really can’t be easily stopped in quantity. Russia submarine launched cruise missiles can hit DC in 6 minutes and are unlikely to be stopped if unexpected.
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There just isn’t a lot of value that can be gained using these in Ukraine at this point. Taking out $100K of infrastructure with a $1M missile is not a great gain. Russia still has superiority, we will see if they can get their sh** together.
Putin has to go, then the war will settle.
Hard to see him going voluntarily.
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On a brighter note , less than 4 weeks to a very exciting election.
Jan 6th hype
Abortion
Inflation
Hurricanes
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So, predictions
Putin gone by end of month
Republicans to control house by a huge margin
An October share market shock
A very large Iceland volcanic explosion
For DeWitt Arctic sea ice to increase from 8th to 15th lowest.
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angech
I hope so. But I think, like Trump, the horror is eternal.
I doubt the margin will be “huge”. How much of a majority do you consider huge?
angech,
Not much chance of Putin going anywhere for years.
There will be breathless Jan 6 committee hearings which very few will watch or pay any attention to.
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Republicans taking control of the House is virtually certain, so not much of a prediction. The more important question is if they also take control of the Senate; if so, then Biden’s parade of nutty-left Federal judges ends after two years.
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Almost certainly there will be Congressional investigations of the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce laws, the politicization of the ‘intelligence agencies’ to punish political opponents, and Biden’s personal corruption. House Republicans will be tempted to punish Democrats will political payback, like denying committee seats to the extreme left (10 or 20 Democrat representatives), a show trial/investigation of Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to accept added security January 4 to 6, 2021, and investigations into many 2020 election irregularities. I hope they resist those temptations, but it is not clear they can. Political over-reach is always foolish…. just like the Jan 6 committee is foolish.
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The 2024 election will be far more critical for the future of the USA. Republicans will almost certainly take control of the Senate in 2024 if not in 2022 (many unpopular Democrat Senators will be up for election in 2024). If Trump does not run, then President DeSantis and a Republican Congress will undo much of the damage done since Jan 2021. If Trump does run, then he will lose, and much of Biden’s damage will become more or less permanent, with another lawless Democrat President refusing to enforce laws, issuing unlawful directives to the bureaucracy, and vetoing every attempt by Congress to undo the lunacy of 2021 – 2022.
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Icelandic volcanoes? October stock prices? You must have a direct line to Nostradamus.
Appears russia has increased the number of missile attacks on civilians. The last two days have shown maybe 50 fire spots outside the combat zone. There had been a lull of two days of maybe 25 fires. It is still reduced from maybe 100 fires the first few days of the attacks. Ukraine claims to intercept 50% of the missiles, so some % of the fires may be misses.
Interesting video of a Ukrainian soldier using MANPADS to hit a missile [they claim]: https://twitter.com/TDF_UA/status/1579451018013999106?s=20&t=cL4afjCWMLRqaJbJGpsZ-A
I am starting to see more of the intercept videos [without verification].
The US has an unmanned spy plane fling reconnaissance at 52,000 feet in No-Mans-Land over the Black Sea near Sevastopol.
https://www.flightradar24.com/FORTE12/2ddc353b
…as well as another [manned] spy plane in the air over Romania near the Black Sea.
https://www.flightradar24.com/CL60/2ddc6dc6
The Senate is still uncertain. To flip control Republicans need a Walker win in GA, or a Dr. Oz win in Penn (Republicans need this among other things which are more likely – need no surprise upsets). [Edit: This is assuming Republicans win Nevada, which I see is pretty darn close too]
Maybe. Maybe not. Hershel Walker is said by even hostile media outlets to have done better than expected in the recent debate.
[Edit: I think it’s less likely than otherwise. I’d predict Republicans do not retake the Senate this go-round.]
The range of possible outcomes is the collapse of the putin government to intercontinental nuclear war and everything in between…. I said that early on in the conflict and still think it’s true.
Will the US Covid Emergency rules apply to the 2022 election as in 2020?
With regard to the election, I very much doubt that the polls are reliable. The last RCP average for the generic ballot includes results ranging from Democrats +4 to Republicans +7. That seems too large to be random error.
Politico consistently shows the Dems to be ahead, with margins of 2 to 5 points for 5 polls since the start of September (average D +4).
Rasmussan show Republicans leading by 1 to 7 points for 5 polls over the same time frame (average R +4).
There are clearly systematic errors. And we know the direction of the systematic errors in recent years.
Predicting the outcome of the mid-terms is a difficult task even with polling data. Polling data in the recent past elections have underestimated the Republican vote and most likely because the more right-wing Republicans have been less likely to respond to polling requests. On the other hand, polling probably does not reflect well in predicting voter turnout.
The Republicans have the economy and border control in their favor, while the Democrats have the Trump factor and abortion favoring their side. Democrats being the party of big government and elections being a big part of government, they are more motivated as a natural tendency than the Republican party to take a large interest in the voting process. The Republicans must get their motivation by way of major Democrat screw-ups. Motivations alone will not work unless the motivated party can explain the consequences of the screw-ups in terms the voting public understands. The intelligentsia and especially that part that is represented by the media have the forum to explain away any big government screw ups.
The Republicans for the most part have only been pointing to these screw-ups, but mostly in more emotional terms and not very well explaining in non-emotional and intellectual terms the problems of big government. The elections could well be decided by which party can make the most of the voting publics emotions. I see (too) many emotional pleas on both sides but see the Democrats as more emotional. Whether that can overcome the screw-ups of big government and the feeble attempts to explain it remains to be seen. It does give me some areas to look at as the elections approach and get a better picture of what might result.
WSJ Today:
Failure to Control Ukraine’s Skies Betrays Key Flaw in Russia’s War Strategy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/failure-to-control-ukraines-skies-betrays-key-flaw-in-russias-war-strategy-11665915386?st=y8ugbsuixwebto8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I think Nevada made the 2020 election rules permanent.
PE Harvey,
Some states (for example Georgia) passed laws explicitly prohibiting the changes that took place in 2020. Others made some or all of the changes permanent. Ballot harvesting by political operatives was and is still illegal in almost all states, but it appears to have been widespread in 2020 and seldom pursued. Voting by Alzheimer’s patients, unconscious nursing home residents, and the dead definitely increased in 2020, at least in very competitive states, facilitated by mail-in voting, drop boxes, and ballot harvesters, of course.
Mike M,
The polls have not been reliable at all since 2016, and weren’t all that accurate for decades before then. I think the issues are two-fold:
1) Most pollsters either can’t or won’t account accurately for the ‘basket of deplorables’ voters who will not participate in a survey. I think it is mainly confirmation bias when they accept nonsensical polling data if it shows their preferred candidate is ahead. (More than a bit like climate science. 😉 )
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2) Sadly, many pollsters appear to aim not to inform, but rather to gas-light the public and suppress turnout for any candidates (almost 100% conservatives!) those pollsters don’t like. They announce preposterous leads for progressive democrats, then say “See, it is not even worth the effort to vote for xxxxx, because he will lose anyway.” Along with “How could anyone support such an unpopular candidate?” They are aided in the fas-lighting efforts by the MSM, of course.
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These are not random errors. The conservative, Republican, nationalist candidate is ALWAYS reported to have lower support than they have in fact. And not just in the states: polls for Brexit, elections in Italy, Sweden, etc ALWAYs have the progressive position far ahead of the actual votes. Too many pollsters have their thumbs on the scale; I think they should be mostly ignored.
I am not making a claim that organized cheating occurs here. I am merely making the observation that if one wanted to conduct and get away with large scale voter fraud, manufacturing polls to provide cover for the results would have to be a part of it. Otherwise people wouldn’t accept the results and would (correctly) insist that fraud had occurred.
Mike M. (Comment #215508)
“With regard to the election, I very much doubt that the polls are reliable. The last RCP average for the generic ballot includes results ranging from Democrats +4 to Republicans +7. That seems too large to be random error.”
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Interesting comments.
The polls seem to reflect the concerns of the particular voting samplers, ie bias rather than random error.
Having said that all is not equal in outcomes v average.
Republicans get more seats than average with a lower average outcome.
When the polls split 50/50 the Republicans tend to get say 15 seats up .
Huge majority?
Lucia. I would confidently predict at least a 40 seat majority in the House of Reps.
If not for the Supreme Court decision maybe up to 60.
A landslide.
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Senate, SteveF Republicans are struggling . A lot of cross currents.
McConnell supporting Murkowski and not helping out the other Trump backed radicals.
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America is changing, but what I see is the Americanisation of the Afro Americans and Hispanics. Large swathes are turning conservative at the same time as our naive 70’s dreamers, we all were once, face turning, 70.
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Nostradamus I am not, hopeful I am.
angech
Thanks for making your predictions quantitive. Now we’ll wait and see.
I’m pretty sure Afro-Americans have been “Americanized” a long, long time. Immigrants generally become Americanized. But I’m not sure I have the slightest notion what you consider “Americanized”.
Starting to see NATO air defense equipment on the Ukraine battlefield. Here is an interesting video of the German-donated Flakpanzer Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG):
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1581449748728360961?s=20&t=EHFWaws834vfItNt05DL2Q
Also on air defense from the WSJ, 10/16/22:
Failure to Control Ukraine’s Skies Betrays Key Flaw in Russia’s War Strategy
“… Ukraines air defense has relied largely on Soviet-era systems that Ukraine has maintained and improved over three decades. In many ways, Russia’s failure to disable the systems is more notable because Moscow uses the same equipment, including S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs, plus smaller and highly mobile Buk and Tor launchers, analysts say. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine had a particularly large number of the systems and still has a high ratio of systems to territory compared with standards of countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization”
“Without air supremacy, Moscow can’t stop Kyiv’s offensive or target precisely, relying on drones and missiles”
Free Link:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/failure-to-control-ukraines-skies-betrays-key-flaw-in-russias-war-strategy-11665915386?st=irgb4gmshk63tb0&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Americanized.
But I’m not sure what you consider “Americanized”..
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In Australia we had a lot of Italian and Greek migrants over the last 100 years.
Different with European values opposed to British “Australian” values.
Nowadays language and values have moved to correspond or correlate with the “Australian” views which also had the British identity mutate.
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Billy Bunter and Phantom comics changed to DC Superman and Marvel Spider-Man .
Davy Crockett and Bowie at school play epitomised my idealistic view of America.
Truth, justice and the American way.
Give me your huddled masses.
With great power comes great responsibility.
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Americanised to me means becoming conservative I guess.
Believing in an honest justice system, the right of law.
Helping others out first despite an emphasis on individual responsibility.
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This idealised view of America is what the groups I refer to now aspire to and some of us old fogeys remember.
Values.
Sorry to be maudlin.
angech,
I think the shift you see with blacks and Hispanics is real enough, but I suspect it is mostly driven by more people in those groups recognizing that what progressive Democrats want is not good for them and their families. Far too many Hispanics understand from personal experience the cost of living under a leftist regime, with lost of liberty… just talk to a Cuban, Nicaraguan, or Venezuelan who fled leftist regimes. For both Hispanics and blacks, there is an ever greater realization that progressive policies are making their lives worse (inflation, crime, etc(.).
angech,
But African American’s aren’t immigrants. They are Americans. By definition, their views contribute to the definition of American views. How would their views be “different” from Americans?
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I don’t see any trouble seeing a shift in what a group of Americans views. But I think it’s pretty odd to define them as “unAmerican” when, in fact, they are just contributing to what the “American” view is.
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Well… I guess that’s the Australian view. 🙂
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The rest has been kinda-sort of the “Founding Father’s” view and has been pretty typical. But I suspect Hispanics and African American’s have been for those. Part of the Civil Rights movement was honest justice system and the right of (due process) under law. etc. Lots of that wasn’t really held up well in places with strong amounts of “Jim Crow”.
Russell,
I note that the radar dish is down and not activated. These things are easy targets for radar seeking missiles. That thing is pretty old, I wonder how effective it is. Should be good enough for drones and some cruise missiles.
Putin heavily targeting energy infrastructure still. It’s a bit weird he is using Iranian drones. It’s a war, but this is a clear change in the game to intentionally inflict suffering on the citizens. Russia’s true colors are shining through. As Biden would say, two words: Never trust Russia.
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Part of this may be related to the multiple attacks in Belgorod Russia, things keep spontaneously exploding there recently.
I think that when angech says “Americanized” he means “assimilated”. Many Blacks are not really assimilated. They have their own culture and give a hard time to other Blacks who “act white”. Many Latinos are not yet assimilated; I don’t know if they are taking longer than other groups.
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I grew up thinking of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as part of my heritage. I am pretty sure that my non-English-speaking grandmother did not share that view. I am assimilated, she was not.
My impression is a lot of immigrants come to the US for economic opportunity which is related to capitalism. There is likely a self selection process that allows us to get more strivers than typical which reinforces the success. American / Western culture is pervasive globally. I always find it strange that almost the entire world wears t-shirts with English even though many don’t speak the language.
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I’m not entirely convinced that they find what they were looking for when they get here, but that is hard to judge. Most of them stay if they are able to. I think the US tends to take for granted this appeal.
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What I do believe is that we have less corruption than most places and try harder to keep it out of government. There is a hard core streak of (l)ibertarianism in the US unlike any other place. Take this job and shove it, ha ha.
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As much as we like to paint ourselves as decrepit at multi-cultural assimilation, this fails to replicate when you visit the rest of the world and come back to the US. It is very hard and we are far from perfect, but who does it better? Nobody.
Blockbuster new documentary from Candace Owens, “THE GREATEST LIE EVER SOLD: GEORGE FLOYD AND THE RISE OF BLM”
They took in 90 million dollars and it disappeared.
Getting high ratings including at Rotten Tomatoes [94% with 250+ reviews]:
“In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, the media concocted a narrative that justified a summer of worldwide riots and helped contribute to the rise of Black Lives Matter, who used the chaos to raise 90 million dollars. In this new documentary, Candace Owens follows the money and discovers exactly how the money was spent and where it did–and didn’t–go.”
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_greatest_lie_ever_sold_george_floyd_and_the_rise_of_blm
Also good press reviews “Black Lives Matter, Owens charges, is “a fraudulent organization that … uses black emotion and black pain to extort dollars from white America.” https://nypost.com/2022/10/14/george-floyd-roommates-others-slam-black-lives-matter-in-film/
Stream on YouTube for free: https://youtu.be/Hxdz8oZwecQ
I do not judge people by how they vote, but rather by how they live their lives. I see no need or advantages for different groups of people to be assimilated into a national culture. What is important is that different cultures can reside side by side and respect others individual freedoms and private property and avoid any inclinations for having the government pick sides.
What gives me hope for our nation is the diversity of thought that one can see within the various cultural groups. It shows that individualism is still alive – and counter to such group thinking as wokeism.
People can appear to take partisan political positions counter to how they live their lives which I take as a matter of doing what many voters do and that is voting against a party and not for one. I think we are stuck with that tendency until we break with the 2 party system and get more philosophical discussions and fewer emotional ones.
Immigrants, we are a nation of immigrants. At the request of my daughter-in-law, I began a two year quest to identify our family immigrant story. It was difficult but very rewarding. I discovered the history of all our immigrant ancestors except for one, my mother’s grandfather. Some findings:
-My great-great grandparents that escaped the potato famine from a village in Ireland. They opened a saloon down the street from Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill in Pittsburgh.
-My great-great grandparents that were poor dirt farmers from a town in rural Bavaria. I know the ship and dates they came over [in steerage of course]. Johan Klier fought for the Union in the Civil War, Company K of “The Pennsylvania Volunteers”.
– My great grandfather from wine country in Germany was supposedly a “confectioner”. He died in a car crash running bootleg liquor to Atlantic City. [I’m not entirely positive of this one]
My great grandfather from Central Germany who worked as a laborer in a brewery.
…and more!
Tom Scharf,
The relatively recent multiculturalixm movement, which has not been good for the US, is strongly opposed to assimilation. According to them, no culture is better than any other culture. That’s obviously wrong, but they’re progressives. I suspect that most of the multiculturalists also think that children are just small adults and need to be treated like adults rather than barbarians who need to be civilized. That’s not been pretty either. Look up Gentle Parenting if you want to be depressed.
MikeM
Sorry, but I think you need to finish that sentence. Assimilated into what? Obviously, they are “assimilated” into American culture. They are part of it and have been for a long time. You can’t just call the values of a subset who has been here for a since the founding of the country “not assimilated”. That’s just weird.
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Even if their position in the country made them as a group have a different view form another sub-population they are still just as “American” and just as “assimilated” as the “white” population!
Yes. Newly arrived Latinos are not “assimilated”. Newly arrived Indian’s from India are also not “assimilated”. (That’s why they hire tutors for their kids.) I don’t think either group is taking “longer” to assimilate that Irish, Italians, Poles etc. Heck, the Ukrainians immigrants in Lake County got here several generations ago. They still have Ukrainian gatherings and many still learned Ukrainian from their grandparents. (Vlad says it’s funny speaking Ukrain with them because it’s all old fashioned. But that’s probably like French vs. Quebequois!)
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yeah… well if black didn’t think of slave owners and slave owning as part of their heritage, I don’t think that means they aren’t “assimilated”. Nor do I think it means they are not “Americanized”. Part of being American is accepting that people do have different views, that they have every right to hold those views, and holding different views doesn’t make them “not American”.
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I think assimilation takes longer now. Previous generations of immigrants could gather exclusively amongst themselves if the numbers were high enough, but they could not be watching TV from their home country via satellite dish.
lucia (Comment #215529): “Even if their position in the country made them as a group have a different view form another sub-population they are still just as “American” and just as “assimilated” as the “white” population!”
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Not sure I understand. Are the Amish assimilated? I’d say no, even though they are definitely American.
Mike,
Amish as such a small group. I think you might be able to pick out some Jewish groups as different. And these groups say they intentionally stay separate.
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I think both factors make a difference. But African Americans are a huge group. I think African Americans are clearly assimilated even if, in the aggregate, some of their views differ from your. Assimilated doesn’t mean “shares MikeM’s views”.
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How one defines assimilation is all over the place. I see it as the ability to provide equal opportunity while retaining the ability to choose your own values and maintaining your freedom of association. There are very real limits though, we aren’t going to implement local shariah law, therein lies actual forced assimilation. Your expression of values is limited by state and federal laws.
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The left’s view is increasingly incoherent and I don’t know what the word for that is. The closest definition is “clear prejudice toward the correct groups”. As if believing your specific prejudice is justified (by social science!) is a special and morally correct way to view life. Not new or special.
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The view appears to be different cultures must be completely integrated to fine grained statistical outcomes, but groups must also retain their unique mono-culture and be judged by their identity as defined by an outside group of the cultural illuminati. LatinX! LGBT…? If you stroke them enough they may even put you in a protected class. As long as you vote for their people and limit your public facing prejudice to the correct groups. Freedom of association is not in play here.
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Basically what I am saying is there are endless examples of immigrants and individuals from different groups becoming very successful in the US and the chances of doing it here are better than almost anywhere.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215521)
“Radar: The Gepard has two radar dishes—a general search radar at the rear of the turret and a tracking radar at the front between the guns. Some are also equipped with a laser rangefinder on top of the tracking radar.”
In the comments someone says they use the front radar for close in targeting and the rear one for distant scanning.
I think this is just a guy showing off his new toy and didn’t bother to engage the radar.
This stuff is dated but it appears to be in good working order. I have no idea of the effectiveness. I saw a video of some cops in Kyiv shooting down an Iranian drone with automatic rifles.
Tom Scharf (Comment #215533): How one defines assimilation is all over the place. I see it as the ability to provide equal opportunity while retaining the ability to choose your own values and maintaining your freedom of association.”
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I don’t know about definitions being all over the place. I keep finding something along the lines of
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/assimilation
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It seems to me that “equal opportunity” is a pretty decent test. A group is assimilated if retained aspects of their culture don’t significantly hold them back. So to be assimilated they had better learn proper English, but no problem if they also retain another language. Religion per se would not be an issue, but dress might be. Food would not be a problem.
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So the Ukrainians lucia refers to are probably fully assimilated. The Amish are definitely not assimilated. Blacks who insist on speaking black English and make no effort in school because that would be acting white are not fully assimilated.
African Americans are obviously part of American culture. They have a different culture than European ancestors in general, different than Jewish, different than Asians, etc.
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If the goal is to become a homogenized melting pot than these different cultures will have to want and choose to assimilate, thus losing some of their cultural identity along the way.
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There seems to be a lot of mixed signals here. People pointing out that there isn’t a defacto melting pot in existence and blaming one or another culture for not “allowing” it to happen. Meanwhile there seems to be the exact opposite, people pointing out that asking for a melting pot is akin to being racist and different cultures should be allowed to retain their identities. All the while maintaining a bizarre gatekeeping function against cultural appropriation, thus redlining your allowed culture by your designated identity.
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Do people want a melting pot, or not? I don’t know. The messaging is incoherent. People want different things as individuals and should be able to choose those.
There is nothing wrong with different cultures as long as they don’t form a significant detriment to society as a whole. The Amish are certainly different but they do no harm to others and ask nothing from others. And they aren’t large enough to have a big impact.
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But the black subculture in America is extremely detrimental to society. It breeds dependence and crime at great cost to the country. That is not OK.
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That is not the result of slavery or discrimination. It seems to be mostly self imposed with misguided government policies as a force multiplier.
Tom Scharf,
My main issue is angech somehow seeming to think African Americans are just now “Americanizing”. That’s clearly bunk. They are obviously “Americanized”.
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Whether they are “assimilated” depends on what group you consider them “assimilated into“. They are obviously “assimilated” into “the american population”.
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Mike is trying to create some sort of economic test to decide if someone is “assimilated”. No one considered impoverished Okie migrant workers or West Virginian coal miners “not assimilated” into “American culture” because they didn’t make money. There’s been tons of white poverty and there still is– and among natural born americans whose grandparents and great grandparents were natural born Americans. Yet I don’t think anyone considers that group “not assimilated”. They are just poor.
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I do agree English speaking matters. But I think the only requirement for assimilation is speaking English that is mutually understandable to most other American’s. Whether you like “Black” English or dislike it, it perfectly understandable to most Americans. (I understand it. Meanwhile I do have trouble with some UK accents or dialects. ) So I don’t think speaking black English a sign of being “not assimilated” into American culture.
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People who speak Black English may not be assimilated into something else, (e.g. academia?). But they are perfectly assimilated into American culture. So are people who speak “Trucker”. (Yeah…. I’ve known white people who insist on ain’ts and all sorts of non-standard stuff. They don’t fit into academia well. But the are perfectly assimilated into American culture.
I don’t know how real this is, but this is an absolute outrage if true.
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Boston University researchers claim to have developed new, more lethal COVID strain in lab
https://www.foxnews.com/us/boston-university-lethal-covid-strain-lab
“Researchers at Boston University say they have developed a new COVID strain capable of that has an 80% kill rate following a series of experiments first thought to have started the global pandemic that began in China.
The variant, a combination of Omicron and the original virus in Wuhan, killed 80% of the mice infected with it, the university said. When mice were only exposed to Omicron, they experienced mild symptoms.
The research was conducted by a team of scientists from Florida and Boston at the school’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories.”
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Looks real.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.13.512134v1.full.pdf
Tom Scharf (Comment #215539)
October 17th, 2022 at 2:52 pm
“I don’t know how real this is, but this is an absolute outrage if true“.
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Thanks Tom
Saw that in our news just now and was going to post it as well.
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Absolute outrage?
Equals Wuhan!
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That being said it shows they all have the technology to do it, and have had for some time.
No morality and no shame.
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At least we know it will never get out of that Lab.
“The research was conducted by a team of scientists from Florida and Boston at the school’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories.”
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I believe that lab is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Fauci strikes again.
lucia (Comment #215520)
angech,
“But African American’s aren’t immigrants. They are Americans.
By definition, their views contribute to the definition of American views. How would their views be “different” from Americans?”
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You are proposing a paradox or, horror, asking a rhetorical question.
Everyone is an immigrant.
Even the original inhabitants came from somewhere else.
Immigrants come in different groupings.
Legal or illegal.
Voluntary, forced or enslaved .
We put labels on the different groupings that make up the immigrants.
By dint of arrival time, appearance, ethnicity, religion and viewpoints.
There is a definition, in my view, of being American.
It is called the constitution.
Americans of all different views and origins got together and put forward a set of rules and principles to live by and did a darn good job, for their time.
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Certain groups were and are and perhaps always will be marginalised
In America.
This does not make them or their views any less American.
They are truly American.
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However different groups have different values and views and cultures.
Once people are labelled, and it happens all the time in America, those groups can be said to have a view that does not support living in harmony with the constitution ( my definition of becoming Americanised).
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Hence I can talk about Australians becoming Americanised even though they have never been born there or lived there.
There is a distinction between being American purely because your feet are on the soil, and being Americanised.
Natural / Vaccine immunity study from country of Qatar. July 2022
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01914-6
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Protection against reinfection wanes as reported previously, but key takeaway:
“All the same, infection with any SARS-CoV-2 variant is highly effective at combating severe, critical or fatal COVID-19 after reinfection: effectiveness was around 100% up to the 14th month after primary infection and showed no signs of declining.”
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Israeli Study, June 2022
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2118946
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See Table 1. Natural immunity in unvaccinated offers 7X better protection against severe covid than three doses of vaccine.
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Hybrid immunity is still the best, but once again natural immunity is carrying the bulk of the load with this combination.
angech,
No. I’m asking you a real question. You claimed they were “Americanizing”. That suggests they were previously not “Americanized” and are now changing into “Americans”. I honestly want to know what you thinks is changing about them and also I want to know why you think what they were before the change is not “Americanized”. I need your definition, view etc because it’s your claim!
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No. Not by the normal definition of the word. Immigrants are individuals who moved here from another country. They aren’t people whose ancestors, whether recent or ancient, came here from somewhere else.
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Which means, as far as I can tell, it’s ridiculous to say they are just now being “Americanized”. They already were Americans and Americanized.
I assume you mean like Jim Crowe southerners (who were mostly white). As far as I can tell, African Americans live as much in harmony with the US constitution as white people.
angech
I don’t think you’ll find tons of Americans who think Australians in Australia are “Americanized”. I think of them as “Australians”.
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I also note that most Australians and those in the UK don’t really understand the US constitution, particularly not the 1st amendment.
lucia (Comment #215545): I think what angech refers to is the, often lamented by us baby boomers, tendency for the ‘youth’ to use more and more american slang, to refer to american tv and movies, to play american sport like basketball. We even see Australians trying to claim rights from the USA constitution or using 911 for emergency phone calls. In the food and agriculture industry we often see activists etc making claims about chemicals (eg corn syrup) that are commonly used in the USA but rare in Australia. All this gets grouped under ‘Americanization’ (yes even using ‘z’ not ‘s’ in words like this).
Andrew
You mean Australians are lamenting this, Right?
Funny. 911 isn’t an american “right”. It’s just the emergency phone number.
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Lots of American’s lament “high fructose corn syrup”. There is evidently other corn syrup too. But “high fructose” is used to sweeten a lot of commercial beverages. I’m not sure the type of sugar really matters. Drinking lots of flavored sugar-water is probably not a terrific diet plan.
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There are many innovations first introduced in the US that travel out. Some of them– like sweetened sodas– are probably just latching onto general human weakness to want to drink sugary stuff. It obviously has nothing to do with the US constitution and more to do with cheap addictive food stuff.
lucia (Comment #215547): Yes of course I mean Australians are lamenting this — I doubt anybody else cares (well maybe some Brits).
As to my 911 comment I should of put a comma before the or … We even see Australians trying to claim rights from the USA constitution, or using 911 for emergency phone calls .. so it was clear I didn’t mean 911 had anything to do with the constitution only that it was another example of americanization. And of course High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) was a further example, nothing to do with the constitution.
HFCS is very rarely used in Australia since we don’t grow much of the right type of maize and grow a lot of sugar but we still get activists claiming food manufacturers are poisoning us with HCFS and they then give a reference to USA websites or books. I’ve been called a liar when I try to point this out by showing the ingredient lists.
lucia,
The type of sugar matters. While the body and the liver are able to utilize small amounts of fructose, larger quantities are metabolized by the same pathway as ethanol and is stored as fat in the liver. Not good. The incidence of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in children is increasing. Most of the victims are obese, but not all.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-high-fructose-intake-may-trigger-fatty-liver-disease
Lots of other hits on the search ‘non alcoholic fatty liver disease fructose’. And it doesn’t have to be sweetened with HFCS. Apple juice is loaded with fructose. The ratio of fructose to glucose in apple juice is at least 2:1.
And if you want to see an example of denial, there’s this:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/germans-see-affluence-ahead-putin-ukraine-energy-crisis-manufacturing-lng-hydrogen-china-economy-11666036504?st=y8rtyeuck5sqa79&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
They actually think that the hydrogen economy will somehow save them. So much for German intelligence.
Then again, maybe it’s an example of the greater fool theory. They will get rich by selling hydrogen engineering to the rest of the world before anyone notices it’s not very efficient or economical.
DeWitt,
So does table sugar also cause liver disease? It has essentially the same ratio of fructose to glucose as high fructose corn syrup.
Mike M. (Comment #215551): Correct and the metabolic pathway is almost the same. Glucose goes to Glucose-6-phosphate and then to Fructose-6-phosphate, Fructose goes directly to Fructose-6-phosphate, and then it is off to the rest of glycolysis. The Fructose to glucose ratio in HFCS, sucrose (white table sugar), and honey, are all about 1:1. Fructose is sweeter at about 1.17 to 0.75 for glucose and 1.0 for sucrose.
Tom Scharf
WSJ article about rebuilds after a Florida hurricane, Reiterates that the homes built to the new codes made it through Ian….
Free link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/florida-coastal-living-reshaped-by-hurricane-housing-codes-11666019241?st=whl6x5ekb6rdn32&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Andrew/Mike M/Dewitt,
I think beverage makers used high fructose corn syrup instead of table sugar because both are equally sweet and the former is cheaper.
I had heard high fructose corn syrup was worse for you than not-high fructose (aka ‘regular’) corn syrup. But that was never the substitution. Since those two particular sugars seem to have the same % of fructose it seems it doesn’t matter which is used.
(I have no idea about how much fructose is in other possible alternatives– honey, maple syrup etc. But those are expensive. So they aren’t going to be used.)
lucia (Comment #215545)
October 17th, 2022 at 5:25 pm
angech Hence I can talk about Australians becoming Americanized even though they have never been born there or lived there.
I don’t think you’ll find tons of Americans who think Australians in Australia are “Americanized”. I think of them as “Australians”.
-That’s fine.
When other nations are described as becoming “westernized”
do you think of them as westernized, an attribute, or other nations and not give any value to the term?
Similarly though one can be an American, born or living in and therefore part of America they can still become Americanized in the same sense that one becomes “westernized”.
That is they develop the attributes and customs that define them as being typical of the country.
I also note that most Australians and those in the UK don’t really understand the US constitution, particularly not the 1st amendment.
I plead the 5th.
Also changed Americanised to Americanized to be well, more American here.
This thing has a long way to go:
NPR:In Ukraine, trend lines point to escalation, not an endgame
“Even if President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy reached some conclusion that maybe we should, to stop the punishment, we should negotiate. I don’t think he can do that anymore because of the conviction of the Ukrainian people.” retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus
“Putin’s muscle memory when he runs into an obstacle is to escalate,”
Yes I agree. Time to ramp up the range and lethality of the weapons we give Ukraine.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1129396409/in-ukraine-trend-lines-point-to-escalation-not-an-endgame
The NOAA always does a final hurricane report about 4 to 6 months later. Here is one for Irma:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL112017_Irma.pdf
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FEMA also does a report. It’s kind of like the reporting on airplane disasters. 185 mph winds in open ocean, no wonder I left the state. These are quite useful and one of the main reasons survivability has gotten better. Thank you America for subsidizing this!
https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/mat-report_hurricane-irma_florida.pdf
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If you want to live in Florida, the “armpit” or the northeast definitely the safest. This has to do with the tendency of hurricanes to turn straight north. It’s almost like Florida’s coastline is indeed shaped by it.
https://www.guycarp.com/content/dam/guycarp-rebrand/wp-blog/2019/08/FL-hurricane-landfalls.png
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Between Charley, Irma and Ian it sure seems the storms like to divert east as they approach the west coast of Florida. Ian was definitely a storm surge event. The worst I have seen.
lucia (Comment #215554): “I think beverage makers used high fructose corn syrup instead of table sugar because both are equally sweet and the former is cheaper.”
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Fructose is sweeter than other sugars. So if you split sucrose (table sugar) into fructose and glucose, it gets sweeter. In addition to lower cost, using high fructose corn syrup might mean that less sugar is needed.
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Any number of theories have come and gone as to why high fructose corn syrup is bad for you. It seems to me that people are trying to come up with a justification for their preconceived conclusion.
Loss of life- hurricane Ian.
This is the worst one in Florida in 100 years. I have some thoughts:
The National Hurricane Center storm surge communications are always way too conservative…. Except for hurricane Ian. NHC announcements caution that the model is ‘experimental’ but always hang a godawful number out there. My part of Florida has been hit with three major hurricanes in the past 20 years [after a 75 year quiet spell]. The previous two came with the same obligatory dire storm surge warnings that never materialized. Of course we got cocky!
The NHC does a good job of informing about the uncertainties and probabilities of wind danger prediction; I guess the storm surge model is just not very robust [is robust the right word?]. Maybe no storm surge number publication would be preferable to always being overly conservative.
Angech,
The reason I don’t consider Australians to be “Americanized” is that to be so, they need to have actually developed attributes and customs that are typically American while not also Australian.
And they need to be some sort of fundamental values. It can’t just be using jargon and it can’t be (stupidly) dialing 911 when in Australia.
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So saying you writing the following is not evidence of being “Americanized”
I think it was Andrews example of dialing 911. But an actual fully Americanized American in Australia would learn the local emergency number and use that. There is nothing “Americanized” about using the wrong local value that makes you “American”.
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Based on your general posts here, I definitely don’t consider you to have “develop[ed] the attributes and customs that define them as being typical of the [US].” I’m constantly reading things you say and then saying, “Yeah. He’s not American. That’s must be what Australian’s think.” I like that people from other places visit and give other points of view. And you definitely have points of views that differ from Americans.
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Maybe some how there is some Australian somewhere who has truly come to adopt American views that differ from Australian ones without actually living here. But I doubt it’s very many.
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That some Australians might think the habit is “Americanized” I don’t doubt. That doesn’t make it recognizably American to Americans.
I think the discussions of assimilation and Americanization could use some definitions by all sides and avoid overgeneralizing what is American.
Australia will pay the costs of your funeral if you die from their mandatory vaccine.
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/deceased-covid-19-vaccine-recipient-payments-and-funeral-costs-you-can-claim-through-covid-19?context=55953#a1
The only way this can get screwed up now is if Trump gets involved.
Real Clear Politics 10/19/22:
HOUSE
Republican: 221, dem: 176, Tossup: 38
SENATE
Republican: 47, dem: 46, Tossup: 7
Projected R 52, d 48, [GOP+2]
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/house/elections-map.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/senate/elections-map.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/senate/elections-map-rcp-projection.html
If the RCP numbers are correct, the situation is not so good for the GOP. If they get narrow majorities in both chambers, then nothing will get done and the Republicans will look bad. The extreme right wing will block any non-extreme measures from passing the House, anything that does pass the House will die in the Senate, and the Dems and their media mouthpieces will blame the Republicans, not entirely without justification.
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The Republicans need a big enough majority in the House that they can send reasonable bills to the Senate. Then there is at least a chance of holding Dem feet to the fire when they try to block it.
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Fortunately, I think the RCP numbers understate the coming landslide. Unfortunately, McConnell is unlikely to put real pressure on the Dems.
Never underestimate a party’s capability for self sabotage. This would probably be an epic blowout if that abortion Monkeywrench hadn’t been thrown in. Inflation is hurting the Democrats and there isn’t going to be a recue from this. Incredibly the “Inflation Reduction Act” doesn’t seem to be working.
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As long as we get to a split government I am fine with it. The student loan give away will hopefully be reversed by the courts, but not clear. This is way too much money to be handed out without congressional approval.
Russel
You mean gets more involved. He already is involved– some of his hand picked Trump promoted candidates got nominations.
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Yes. Mostly Republican anti-abortionist candidates need to not talk about abortion. The moderate on abortion candidates (which is numerous) can talk but mostly won’t so much.
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Democrats will work to make this a very visible issue and emphasize keeping it legal at all. Right now it motivates lots of Dem’s to the polls. That the bills Dems want to promote aren’t actually that popular will not be apparent until they write the bill. The won’t do that until after the election.
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So Dems want to run “keep it safe and legal (let’s not talk about us wanting it to be totally a choice up until delivery.)” vs. “keep it entirely illegal!!” And they’ll be able to do so if the fully anti-abortion crowd yaps a lot.
Mike M,
Hard to say how many seats the Republicans will hold, but a reasonable estimate is 230 to 240, vs 205 to 195 for Democrats. Why would that size majority not generate reasonable bills? If Democrats hold the Senate, then there will be deadlock…. and absolutely nothing of substance will get past both houses. But if Republicans control the Senate, then at least reconciliation bills will get past both houses. Biden’s staff and wife (assuming Biden is still in office) will veto them, of course. But if the bills are in fact reasonable, then those vetos will be costly to Democrats in 2024. Dems have done a lot of economic and social damage since January 2021; vetos to make sure that damage is preserved will not be popular.
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The danger for Republicans is trying to pass crazy legislation (eg attempting to prohibit abortion everywhere) which will backfire on them big-time. The SC (after 50 years!) finally stated the obvious clearly: abortion is state issue that the Federal government should not be involved in. Only an idiot would attempt to institute a national ban based on Federal law…. one which the SC would kill in a second.
Tom Scharf,
“The student loan give away will hopefully be reversed by the courts, but not clear.”
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Yes, not at all clear. It may get reversed, but if so, not for a long time. The fact that it is a moral outrage, and horrible fiscal policy to boot, will not enter into it. Lawless Democrats will always do lawless things; the illegal transfer of $500 billion debt from former students to all taxpayers is perfectly consistent with that lawlessness. Progressives care not a bit about the law nor about what the Constitution says, only the results of policies, illegal or legal, constitutional or not.
It is not at all clear that abortion is a problem for Republicans. Since early summer it has gone way down on the lists of what people are concerned about; perhaps as people realized that Dobbs does not override state laws. This conservative commentator claims that Republicans have been getting the upper hand on the issue:
https://thehill.com/opinion/3695068-the-gop-is-playing-offense-on-abortion-and-theyre-winning/
SteveF (Comment #215568): “a reasonable estimate is 230 to 240, vs 205 to 195 for Democrats. Why would that size majority not generate reasonable bills? ”
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Such majorities mostly failed to produce reasonable bills from 2010-2016. The Dems vote as a block, forcing the Republicans to get majorities with only Republican votes. That means that leadership needs the votes of their more extreme members who use their power to block anything that might smack of compromise.
It’s been announced Biden will give a speech that if Democrats gain some Senate seats their top priority will be passing a law that codifies Roe v Wade nationwide.
Nancy Pelosi said she didn’t believe the poll that had inflation as a top concern.
Stacy Abrams summed it up with ‘Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas.’
Russia declares martial law in the occupied territories. People can be detained for 30 days for no reason, they probably won’t have a referendum on that point. I guess this is just more evidence of Russia “winning”. Perhaps they are having a hard time telling apart the good locals from the bad locals.
Tom,
More winning
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https://www.newsweek.com/russia-conscription-officers-grim-fate-mobilization-ukraine-1752834
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“Conscription Officers in Russia Keep Suffering a Grim Fate”
Mike wrote: “Stacy Abrams summed it up with ‘Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas.’
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This was a good one. “Have abortions, peasants, then you’ll have more money!”. I expect post-term abortion to get rid of those parasites who made it out of the womb to be the next pressing issue to help people suffering from democrat imposed poverty.
MikeN,
“It’s been announced Biden will give a speech that if Democrats gain some Senate seats their top priority will be passing a law that codifies Roe v Wade nationwide.”
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He has dementia, and so can’t remember that both houses of Congress have to agree to a bill. He was pretty stupid and completely unprincipled before dementia set in; now he is just a sorry joke.
Russell Klier (Comment #215563)
October 19th, 2022 at 9:53 am
The only way this can get screwed up now is if Trump gets involved.
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Trump has been front and centre for nearly 10 years.
Where are you going to hide him?
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The right to have an abortion is a big ticket item for me ( not that I have a vote)
But sometimes other issues, crime, inflation, fuel etc are bigger ticket items and one has to compromise one to get the rest addressed
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Post the SC decision the Democrats made a big comeback on emotion but now reality bites.
Does anything a politician do to buy votes work?
Yes .
Can it change the mood of a whole nation?
Extremely doubtful.
Do not know about the Senate but the House is building to a flood.
Hopefully the Senate follows.
Jimmy Carter education for 2 years.
–
Here is a thought.
Replace Kamala with Newsome midterm.
Wait 3 months, Joe steps down pleading health issues.
Incumbent look good into the next election.
Here’s a comment right on up there with “let them eat brioche” : “Chicken is what poor people eat.” Too bad it was just a clueless person on the TV show Below Deck rather than a politician.
Note that it was never ‘let them eat cake.’ The French word used was ‘brioche’, which is baked from bread dough enriched to varying degrees with butter and eggs. About the only things that brioche and cake have in common are water and wheat flour. Perhaps those who first translated the French to English thought the rabble wouldn’t know what brioche was.
angech,
Harris isn’t going anywhere; she could be (and I think will be) challenged in the primaries for 2024 and will lose to multiple alternatives. She is just way too dumb to get the nomination, and a terrible retail politician as well. The fact she got her political start in the bed of a married, powerful California politician (Willy Brown) is baggage I think she will never shed.
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I believe Newsom is almost as unelectable as Trump, and for similar reasons: he is profoundly self-centered and arrogant, and promotes policies which offend a very sizable portion of the voters. He is also more than a little over-the top in his public comments…. giving even more offense to those who disagree with him on policies.
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WRT abortion: there is a fairly broad consensus (~60%) for moderate abortion policies, like free availability to ~15 weeks, but substantial restrictions after that, except in extreme cases (rape, incest, fetal deformity, risk of life to mother, etc). Unfortunately ~20% insist on no restrictions on abortion ever, and ~20% insist on no abortions ever. Those extremes tend to be the strongest ‘base’ voters, something which terrifies politicians…. they risk being ‘primaried’ out of office by someone who toes the line with the ‘base’, and many have in fact been driven from office when they deviate from the preferences of their party’s base. So the consensus position gets little support from politicians.
Historians think the “let them eat brioche” narrative was fake news, particularly as it was applied to other monarchies before applied to Antoinette. Fake but true, no doubt.
I am surprised by the brioche, as I had read that it had to do with a shortage, and cake was a reasonable substitution in response to high prices.
angech
Uhhmmm how? Oh. That’s right. Your Australian, not American. If you were “Americanized” you’d know the sitting VP can’t be replaced midterm. She’s the sitting VP until 2024 unless Biden exists the presidency of she dies or becomes incapacitated. She can’t be “replaced”.
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Now maybe you mean announce that Newsom would be the candidate for VP with Biden still presidential candidate. Hahahahaha.
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But even if you mean that, it’s not “replacing” Harris who remains VP until 2024.
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If Dems are going to replace anyone, they need to admit Biden cannot be viable as president from 2024-2028. They need a new presidential candidate. They can pick a different candidate for VP. But that’s not replacing Kamala. Because Kamala isn’t candidate. She is the actual sitting VP.
Oh.. ok. A new VP can be proposed. But they can’t replace the old VP. There has to be a vacancy. As in: she either has to leave the position voluntary or involuntarily. The former could happen if she become president. The latter…. pretty much if she dies. The Dems can’t just “replace” her the way they might in a Parliamentary system. (Is that what you have in Aus?)
DeWitt,
Cake usually also has egg and butter. But yes, they aren’t really similar. Though more similar than cake and bacon.
SteveF (Comment #215578): “WRT abortion: there is a fairly broad consensus (~60%) for moderate abortion policies, like free availability to ~15 weeks, but substantial restrictions after that, except in extreme cases (rape, incest, fetal deformity, risk of life to mother, etc). Unfortunately ~20% insist on no restrictions on abortion ever, and ~20% insist on no abortions ever.”
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I am wondering how you arrived at that conclusion. Other than exceptions for exceptional cases, I doubt there is a position with strong majority support, let alone consensus. Some want no on demand abortions, some would allow it up to around 15 weeks, some up to viability and some all the way to delivery. I’d guess that the extremes are each 25-30%, but I can’t back that up with a reference.
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It would seem that there is a basis for compromise, which is different from an existing consensus. But that is somewhat problematic since both extremes see the issue in terms of moral absolutes.
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That said, I think quite a few Republican candidates endorse a moderate position while stating a personal opposition to abortion. But it is hard to know without going campaign website by campaign website. The Dems and their media mouthpieces characterize all Republicans as total abolitionists.
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The Katie Pavlich article I cited above says:
https://thehill.com/opinion/3695068-the-gop-is-playing-offense-on-abortion-and-theyre-winning/
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But I have no way of determining if that really is the case.
It seems to me that the translation “let them eat cake” is appropriate. The point is that if people don’t have bread it is because they don’t have grain, so it is silly to suggest as a substitute a more luxurious food that also requires grain.
MikeM
The Dems can get away with this so long as GOP candidates won’t state their position while only the “no abortion under any circumstances every” GOP candidates air their views.
When pressed…. The GOP moderates with popular views on abortion need to volunteer these views. Not wait for someone to drag it out of them and then admit it only grudgingly. Otherwise no one feels they can really know that’s the candiates view.
lucia (Comment #215582)
” A new VP can be proposed.
But they can’t replace the old VP.
There has to be a vacancy.
As in: she either has to leave the position voluntary or involuntarily. The former could happen if she become president.
The latter…. pretty much if she dies.
The Dems can’t just “replace” her the way they might in a Parliamentary system.
(Is that what you have in Aus?).”
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Yes, the party in charge can vote them out through a challenge.
The leader as well.
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I get it now.
Thanks.
Explains the angst re Dan Quayle and Spiro Agnew in the past!
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Only other options would be a section 25? or impeachment which would be extreme.
She could quit and come to Australia as the American ambassador, I guess.
The VP used to go to the person who received the 2nd highest votes in presidential elections. Each elector cast two votes for president one of which had to go to a candidate from another state. After back to back president and VP being from separate parties, the 12th amendment changed the process to having the electors vote for president and VP in separate votes.
Regardless of that removing a black female VP would infuriate a large portion of the base of the democratic party so that wouldn’t happen even if it was allowed.
Mike M,
In California, the deepest of deep blue states, there is a 51% majority for limiting abortion to between 1 and 3 months. https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/most_california_voters_support_limits_on_abortion
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There are 14% of California voters who think abortion should be prohibited except in extreme cases. There are 14% who think abortion should be prohibited after 6 months, and 13% who say it should never be limited at any time.
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Seems to me you could find a broad consensus even in California for limitations after 12 to 15 weeks; but of course that is not going to happen, because politicians pass laws, not usually voters. Even when the voters do pass laws via plebiscite (as in California’s legal ban on racial preferences in college admissions) politicians often just ignore the law and work to reverse it. The extreme tails of the political distribution (sadly) do actually wag the dog.
angech,
“She could quit and come to Australia as the American ambassador, I guess.”
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Were that to happen, you ‘americanized’ Aussies would see her in action and understand how embarrassing to the USA Harris is. ‘Air head’ is too kind a description. She doesn’t know much of anything, and it shows.
The “Jim Crow” nonsense we keep hearing from the democrats and their media co-conspirators is crap …and has been crap for decades.
From Washington Examiner, October 19 “Democrats’ voter suppression myth exposed again as Georgians set a turnout record” “Democratic activists went to great lengths to plant stories in the media, which lazy journalists dutifully filed, claiming that Georgia’s new voting law was a new attempt to suppress the black vote.”
Fox News on the Georgia ‘Jim Crow’ law that wasn’t:
“Flashback: CNN, MSNBC ran with ‘Jim Crow’ voter suppression claims in Georgia before record turnout.” “Democrats and their allies in the media repeatedly argued that the law was a racist effort to deny people the right to vote, especially minority Americans, and could push U.S. democracy off a cliff. “President Biden even called the law “Jim Crow 2.0” and was supportive of Major League Baseball moving the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta as a response to left-wing pressure.”
And it’s not just conservative media saying it, Pew Research:
“Seven-in-ten Black people in the U.S. are eligible to vote, compared with 72% of all people living in the country.” “Regionally, more than half of Black eligible voters (57%) live in Southern states.”
And Black voters are tiring of the dem rhetoric too….
“Stacey Abrams has a surprising problem with Black voters”
https://www.foxnews.com/media/flashback-cnn-msnbc-ran-jim-crow-voter-suppression-claims-georgia-record-turnout
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/democrats-voter-suppression-myth-exposed-georgia-turnout
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/10/12/key-facts-about-black-eligible-voters-in-2022/
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2022/09/24/stacey-abrams-has-a-surprising-problem-with-black-voters/69513793007/
Angech
Not only extreme, but you need grounds Being an idiot is not grounds for impeachments. Whatever faults Kamala has no one has accused her of anything that could be grounds for impeachment. She is also not incapacitated. Suspected incompetent isn’t incapacitated.
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lucia (Comment #215586): “The Dems can get away with this so long as GOP candidates won’t state their position while only the “no abortion under any circumstances every” GOP candidates air their views.”
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Not so easy. They have to overcome the massive Dem spending and the media megaphone. But then they risk drowning out their own message on the things voters care about.
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But if Pavlich is to be believed, Republicans are having some success at countering the Dem/media narrative. But at best such success seems to be local.
SteveF (Comment #215590): “In California, the deepest of deep blue states, there is a 51% majority for limiting abortion to between 1 and 3 months.”
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You are adding up support for differing positions. And the results from that poll are all over the map. It also says that 66% support Proposition 1, which effectively guarantees unlimited abortion. There is no consensus but there may be a chance to build a consensus around a compromise position.
Andrew P (Comment #215589): “Each elector cast two votes for president … After back to back president and VP being from separate parties”.
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Actually, that only happened once, in 1796. In 1800 the parties had organized enough to have President/VP tickets as we have today. But with the old system that produced a tie between the two candidates (Jefferson and Burr) on the winning ticket.
MikeN,
I’ve also seen stuff like that. Another one was cake was supposedly a term for some sort of baking waste that could have been edible.
And that’s exactly why cake is a bad translation of brioche. It’s easier to misinterpret. Whoever said it, assuming it was actually said, knew exactly what he was saying. Oh, there’s no plain bread to be had? Then you peasants should eat fancy bread. Ha ha.
There doesn’t need to be a national consensus on abortion. I am fine with letting states figure it out. My opinion is it should be available in the approx. first trimester and when it threatens the life of the mother (etc.). That’s just my opinion and I respect other people who have strong feelings on the subject. It’s a bit ridiculous to have to travel to another state to get an abortion, but I don’t find this excessively burdensome in the grand scheme and am sure there will be support from NGO’s to make that available.
DeWitt,
“Oh, there’s no plain bread to be had? Then you peasants should eat fancy bread.”
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Hummmm… sounds a bit like “You peasants have no money for expensive gasoline? Then just buy a $60K electric car, and you won’t have to worry about the price of gasoline.”
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Arrogant and obnoxious never plays very well. Good thing for tone deaf politicians that the guillotine has gone out of style.
I’ve been waiting for this..A russian warplane shadowed and fired a missile ‘near’ that British spy plane that flies no-man’s-land over the Black Sea. [The US usually flies unmanned spy planes here]. The ruskies claim it was an equipment problem. And this may be related. The British suspended these flights and two days ago I saw a Turkish spy plane flying at this station. I had never seen that before.
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/russian-jet-fires-missile-near-british-aircraft/
FYI: Hubble vs Webb telescope in one of the Hubble’s iconic images – “The Pillars of Creation”. Webb on the right. The main difference is wavelength with Webb being deeper in the infrared, thus able to see through dust.
https://cdn.esawebb.org/archives/images/large/weic2216d.jpg
Curious that the bright white/yellow stars in webb are absent from hubble, and the brightest stars in the hubble picture are much dimmer in the webb picture and colored blue.
DaveJR,
The Webb image is a false-color image, not the actual colors the telescope sensors see. Different infrared wavelengths are assigned corresponding visible wavelengths, and the image then re-processed to produce an image that can be seen by humans.
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Interesting factoid: even though Webb’s mirror is much larger than the Hubble mirror, the large difference in wavelength (Webb longer wavelengths) means that both telescopes have comparable angular resolution (sometimes called the ‘diffractive limit’ of the optics). The advantage Webb has (as Tom Scharf notes) is that much longer wavelength infrared is not scattered much by ‘dust’ (not really dust, actually mostly molecules), so Webb can see details that are clouded in many Hubble images.
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Webb’s long infrared wavelength also means the telescope can see very distant galaxies, with huge spectral red-shifts, which are pretty much invisible to Hubble in its shorter wavelength spectral range. That why the first Webb deep-field images were surprising; Webb shows many more very distant galaxies with far more spiral galaxies than expected based on Hubble data and current theories of how galaxies evolve over time.
These situations have a way of escalating…. Two British Typhoons Fighter Jets (callsigns PSYCO61 & PSYCO62!) are escorting the British spyplane on its mission over the Black Sea. https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/typhoons-escort-british-surveillance-aircraft-over-black-sea/
It’s not like the Russians haven’t accidentally shot down planes before, they have a couple airliner kills to their credit. The US has one, and so does Iran. It’s definitely a dangerous situation that can get out of hand quickly. Usually the Russians and US keep each other notified more or less of their intentions to prevent unfortunate outcomes, they had to do that in Syria.
I just read this, I don’t know the source, but it makes sense:
“Americans think of everything as economics, including war.
Russians think of everything as war, including economics.”
How do you spell ‘Provocation’….. At 7:10 AM EST [2:10 PM in Kyiv] A RAF manned River Joint spybird, callsign RRR7271, accompanied by two RAF Typhoon Eurofighters, PSYCHO61 and PSYCHO62, entered No-Man’s-Land over the black sea. They all promptly went dark and I lost them. NATO, US Navy and RAF assets are flying onshore over Romania. Nearby, the Czech Air Force has two SAAB 39 Gripen fighters in the air. Elsewhere, an Italian Air Force spybird is menacing Kaliningrad.
Russell, how does a reconnaissance aircraft “menace” Kaliningrad?
Russell,
What is “No-Man’s-Land over the black sea”?
State Department is declaring Iran is engaged in war in Ukraine by supplying Russia with weapons and trainers.
Mike M., I call ‘No Man’s Land’ the air space over the central Black sea where no other aircraft fly. It is about midway between Crimea and the Turkish coast. Examples below.
Live shot with no one flying in ‘no man’s land’:
https://www.flightradar24.com/43.35,32.64/6
Previous screenshot of US unmanned spy plane track:
https://twitter.com/rklier21/status/1512386303345709059?s=20&t=_OAuFqwVuHK639fYuFrdhQ
They had a hot mic moment on Russian Media a day or so ago where when the network went to commercial a government spokesman(?) reminded the people running the show that they are not to bring up the Iranian drones because Moscow’s official position is that they aren’t from Iran. It’s a bit mysterious why something so obvious is being denied, I guess there are sanctions or something that will be triggered.
MikeN: “State Department is declaring Iran is engaged in war in Ukraine by supplying Russia with weapons and trainers.”
And is the State Department also saying that the US (& other countries) are engaged in war in Ukraine? If not, just typical gov’t doublespeak.
HaroldW,
“how does a reconnaissance aircraft “menace” Kaliningrad?” The Italian spy plane was their new, top of the line Gulfstream G550 CAEW. It flew a racetrack pattern, with one leg parallel to [and almost on top] of the border with Poland. It did this for many hours. I have only seen a spy plane in this area once, many months ago. Maybe ‘menacing’ isn’t the right word..how about ‘trying to piss them off’.
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/26734-italy-to-acquire-two-gulfstream-g550-caew-spy-planes
I withdraw my prediction regarding the Senate. I don’t have any idea how it’s going to turn out.
And now for something completely different.
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A long and hilarious interview with an anti-woke heretic in the literature world opining on the state of the “lit industry”.
https://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/alex-perez-on-the-iowa-s-writers-workshop-baseball-and-growing-up-cuban-american-in-america
“These women, perhaps the least diverse collection of people on the planet, decide who is worthy or unworthy of literary representation. Their worldview trickles down to the small journals, too, which are mostly run by woke young women or bored middle-aged housewives. This explains why everything reads and sounds the same, from major publishing houses to vanity zines with a readership of fifteen. The progressive/woke orthodoxy is the ideology that controls the entire publishing apparatus.
You’ll never read a story about a pro-lifer or someone unvaccinated, as you said, because the woke commissars don’t consider them worthy of being humanized or represented in literature.”
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To make it even funnier, the self parody everyone expected:
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Most of lit journal Hobart’s editors resign over tedious, “anti-woke” interview.
https://lithub.com/most-of-lit-journal-hobarts-editors-resign-over-tedious-anti-woke-interview/
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I’m not a lit guy, but I do read a lot of books. I can confirm the book review industry and editor’s recommendations have become tainted beyond belief over the past 5 to 10 years. Now almost worthless. Amazon / Audible reviews are faked many times, GoodReads seem to be OK. Glowing reviews from places like the Washington Post or NYT are almost exclusively reserved for politically angled material. Don’t get me started on recommended books at places like NPR, an Olympic virtue signaling event. I absolutely sympathize with this guy in the interview.
“A road map aims to improve the lives of junior scientists in Europe
University associations, legislators, students and other stakeholders release a declaration on ways to recruit and retain early-career researchers in academia.”-Nature
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The problem in research is simple. Too many hopefuls for too few positions. The people at the bottom constantly need to move up to make room for those entering. There is no room at the top. A car crash happens in the middle. After being enticed into the “profession” with starting grants and promises of help, it’s sink or swim time. You get lucky or you don’t. All the hand wringing isn’t going to solve this problem. Fierce competition for too few grants naturally means many people are going to get screwed.
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The knife in the back is the drive to recruit medical professionals into scientific positions. The revered “physician scientist”. Apparently, seeing disease in practice gives you some kind of unique insight that a bog standard scientist just cannot understand…
mark bofill (Comment #215615): “I withdraw my prediction regarding the Senate. I don’t have any idea how it’s going to turn out.”
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FWIW, RCP is now predicting 53 Senate seats for the GOP, with flips in GA, AZ, and NV. It seems they must be applying some sort of corrections since the Dems still lead in the averages for GA & AZ.
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Oops. Omitted the link: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2022/senate/elections-map-rcp-projection.html
HaroldW (Comment #215613): “And is the State Department also saying that the US (& other countries) are engaged in war in Ukraine? If not, just typical gov’t doublespeak.”
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I was thinking the same.
HaroldW (Comment #215613)
It depends on what engaged means. By my definition all of the above are engaged.
‘Amazon / Audible reviews are faked many times, ‘
I remember Michael Mann had a whole campaign to get the folks at Skeptical Science to put up reviews of his book upon release and vote up their reviews.
They even picked which would be the top 1 star and 2 star reviews.
something along the lines of ‘this book shows too much of Mann’s genius and not enough about the evil people opposing him’.
Crowd sourced reviews were a really good idea, but like anything once they started being seen as legitimate all the shysters started exploiting the system.
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Why does this weird cheap thing from China have 50,000 reviews?
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For example you give 1000 people $50 to buy and review your product, then they simply ship the product back to you for resale and give you back the money (well, maybe $45). Instant verified reviews that cost almost nothing. Amazon has to try to fix this problem at an enormous scale. Good luck with that.
Mike M,
Yes, they are applying a correction based on the differences between polls and actual votes in elections for those states. Donno if that is an accurate approach or not, but probably better than just taking the poll numbers as is: they have been consistently low in predicting Republican vote share in most states. One thing is for sure: there will be 4 or 5 very close senate races, the outcome of which will make a big difference between January 2023 and January 2025.
Perhaps the russians are talking to the world through Al Jazeera again… “Much softer: Is Russia eyeing a way out of the Ukraine war? The war’s unpredictability raises questions about whether Washington and Moscow should engage in negotiations to avoid an expansion of the conflict, including a nuclear confrontation.”
I don’t pretend to understand diplomacy and negotiations, but russia seems to want to freeze Ukraine out of the talks about the war in Ukraine:
“Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview that Russia was willing to engage with the United States or Turkey”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/21/much-softer-is-russia-eyeing-a-way-out-of-the-ukraine-war
Tom Scharf
You can’t ever the ***** rating on reviews for
(a) beauty products from unrecognizable brands.
(b) electronics from unrecognizable brands.
Amazon is starting to delete some. But those two things are infested with fake reviews.
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Beauty products have always had nearly impossible to believe claims. Sometimes some are kinda-sorta real. But still not.
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One BIG problem with the reviews is Amazon seems to allow the vendor to switch out products. I can often tell the review for a more “fashionable” woman’s clothing product was for something different from shown. (The reviewer loved her slacks. The item shown is a blouse. It’s not even close.)
SteveF,
Those Senate races *might* not end up being all that close. The latest RCP generic results give the GOP from 225-260 seats in the House. For reference, the last time the GOP won as many as 250 seats was 1928.
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It might be even better. The recent shift in the generic shows the GOP gaining mostly at the expense of undecideds. If that trend continues, it could put the GOP up by 8 or 9 points, and even that might be low.
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If that happens, it should also shift the Senate races a lot. Note that this is all speculation as to what *might* happen.
The shift in the generic ballot is probably the high prices are boosting their numbers in districts where Democrats win with over 70%.
Any country who wants to be ruled by Russia, raise your hand. What, nobody? The targeting of energy infrastructure is a “legitimate” war tactic, but it sure isn’t going to win hearts and minds. This is definitely intentional suffering of civilians, there is no plausible deniability here. Exactly nobody is surprised because this is what everyone expected out of Russia and why they have to clamp down so hard on internal dissent and media coverage.
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Apparently Blinken talked to Russia for the first time in months. Russia has no interest in negotiations.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-sees-no-evidence-russia-is-interested-ending-ukraine-aggression-blinken-2022-10-21/
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This may just be public facing bluster but you can’t end a war when both sides don’t want it.
NYT’s covers the recent covid genetic engineering:
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Lab Manipulations of Covid Virus Fall Under Murky Government Rules
Mouse experiments at Boston University have spotlighted an ambiguous U.S. policy for research on potentially dangerous pathogens.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/22/science/covid-virus-laboratory-experiments.html
“Scientists at Boston University came under fire this week for an experiment in which they tinkered with the Covid virus. Breathless headlines claimed they had created a deadly new strain, and the National Institutes of Health rebuked the university for not seeking the government’s permission.
As it turned out, the experiments, performed on mice, were not what the inflammatory media coverage suggested. The manipulated virus strain was actually less lethal than the original.”
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https://www.statnews.com/2022/10/17/boston-university-researchers-testing-of-lab-made-version-of-covid-virus-draws-government-scrutiny/
“There is no evidence the work, performed under biosecurity level 3 precautions in BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, was conducted improperly or unsafely. In fact, it was approved by an internal biosafety review committee and Boston’s Public Health Commission, the university said Monday night.
But it has become apparent that the research team did not clear the work with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was one of the funders of the project. The agency indicated it is going to be looking for some answers as to why it first learned of the work through media reports.
Emily Erbelding, director of NIAID’s division of microbiology and infectious diseases, said the BU team’s original grant applications did not specify that the scientists wanted to do this precise work. Nor did the group make clear that it was doing experiments that might involve enhancing a pathogen of pandemic potential in the progress reports it provided to NIAID.”
“The email, from Rachel Lapal Cavallario, associate vice president for public relations and social media, said that the work was not, as claimed, gain of function research”
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No evidence! That now triggers me when I read it in a “science” article, ha ha. That this wasn’t even cleared is beyond the pale. Highly irresponsible, even if it was cleared. This is GOF, I don’t care how they want to parse English. Their “less lethal” statement directly contradicts their own paper, and even if it is true for humans they have no way of knowing that was the case, their combination was one that can reasonably be assumed to be more lethal. This is dangerous stuff.
Further in the NYT article:
“Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, noted that the coronavirus is already rampant among humans and has evolved far beyond the variants used in the experiment. The hybrid lab virus would be unlikely to cause a serious threat if it escaped.
“I understand why it worries people because you are making a virus for which you can’t totally predict the properties,” Dr. Bloom said. “But this does not seem to me to be a particularly high risk.””
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This … from the very same people who supported locking down schools for years, supported vaccine mandates, and shamed anyone who didn’t toe the line of worst.virus.ever. Everyone needs to pledge fealty to dictates of experts, but the experts can’t be bothered to fill out paperwork when modifying a pandemic virus.
Tom Scharf,
Of course nobody wants to be ruled by Russia.
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“Every indication is that far from being willing to engage in meaningful diplomacy, President Putin continues to push in the opposite direction,” Blinken
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“Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview that Russia was willing to engage with the United States or with Turkey on ways to end the war, now in its eighth month, but had yet to receive any serious proposal to negotiate.”
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Maybe those apparently contradictory statements are related to the two sides very different definitions of “serious proposals” and “meaningful diplomacy”. If “meaningful diplomacy” starts with initial demands (and based on Blinken’s many public statements, almost certainly it does), then that might not be considered a “serious proposal” by the Russians. Perhaps it is more accurate to say neither side will accept the minimum starting conditions for negotiation the other side requires.
Tom Scharf,
From Wikipedia: Biosafety level 3 is appropriate for work involving microbes which can cause serious and potentially lethal disease via the inhalation route.
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OK, so if the modifications to the covid virus were so very safe, then why were they conducted in a level 3 laboratory? This is crazy, dangerous work, which should be prohibited by national laws and international agreements. The most likely source for covid was coronavirus research in Wuhan. Virologists have to be terminally stupid to think manipulating an existing covid virus to make it more deadly to mice is a good thing.
538 has a 12% Biden down, greater than RCP for the first time ever of ? 11.7.
Usually their algorithms demote Republican biased sites.
The world seems upside down in so many ways.
Less than 3 weeks to go.
I thought Trump would lose the last 2 elections big time as per the polls.
This time I feel a sense of hope rather than despair for my biases:
Good for one of my predictions at least.
But who knows?
Hubris generally gets flattened.
CDC has added COVID-19 vaccine to its vaccine schedule for kids.
This is automatically adopted by many states and school districts for their mandatory vaccination list.
WRT justifying virus modification research: Please give me examples of actual experiments actually helping with something practical. No handwaving and speculation allowed. Unless they can do that, then all future research should be banned. It should already be banned because it is, to all intents and purposes, biological warfare research.
MikeN,
Which states have mandated it for kids? I checked and Illinois hasn’t.
Lucia,
California and maybe a few others have added covid vaccination for kids to their required vaccination to attend school. 20 states have laws on the books prohibiting school districts from requiring covid vaccinations to attend school. IMO, it is a tempest in a teapot: the 99.9% of kids are never going to get very sick from covid unless they first contract it in their late teens or later. Assuming they have been infected before that age range, it is very unlikely they will ever get severe covid, even as adults. I find mandating a vaccination for people at essentially zero risk simply bizarre, and based on politics rather than logic.
SteveF,
I agree Covid vaccines should not be mandated for kids going to school. MikeN said they are. I’m just trying to find out which states have mandated it. At least for now, California has not https://edsource.org/updates/vaccine-mandate-for-schools-delayed-until-at-least-july-2023
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Yeah… eventually they might. It sounds like the plan to. But right now… no.
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I’m not saying they didn’t come close– but in the end they didn’t mandate it.
This sounds like New York City has some mandates for extra curricular activities, but no general mandate
https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2022/9/20/23363415/nyc-student-athelte-vaccine-mandate-dropped-psal
They are dropping the mandate for sports (but perhaps have it for band and chorus.)
New Mexico is considering mandating covid vaccines. Without the irresponsible CDC action, they would not likely be considering it.
MikeM
If by ” irresponsible CDC action” you mean “approval”. All the CDC did was approve it to be given to kids– as an option. It’s true that if the CDC did not approve it as an option no state would mandate it. But I think refusing to give an option would be the more “responsible” action. I know Tucker Carlson is upset (and evidently mischaracterized what they did. ) But upsetting Tucker Carlson doesn’t make something “irresponsible”.
Mike M,
I am not surprised that your home state would mandate kids receive the covid vaccination… NM is really much like Massachusetts, but with more empty space and lower humidity. 😉
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Still, I do wonder what benefit people who want those mandates see in them. They certainly are not going to benefit kids very much, and the vaccinations will cost quite a lot of money. So where is the justification? Do the local politicians have an answer beyond “the CDC recommends it”?
Lucia,
I have read multiple places that the CDC did recommend kids get covid shots before going to public schools.
lucia (Comment #215642): “If by ” irresponsible CDC action” you mean “approval”. All the CDC did was approve it to be given to kids– as an option.’
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No, that is not what I meant. I meant the thing that started this sub-thread. MikeN (Comment #215635: “CDC has added COVID-19 vaccine to its vaccine schedule for kids.”
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The CDC approved the vaccine for kids. That was questionable. Then they recommended it for kids. That was bad. Now they seem about to add it to the recommended schedule, which amounts to support for making it mandatory. That is irresponsible.
Florida “pre-announced” they wouldn’t be following the child’s vaccine mandate no matter what the CDC said. It’s all a bit weird, the media stressed it was a unanimous recommendation. This was no doubt a political statement by the committee, I find it very hard to believe that there isn’t dissent here. Apparently there isn’t even trial data released yet (although it is very likely to be found safe and effective). The reality is that for places where mandates were already in place that another new mandate will have no major impact either way.
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I’d say I would be for a mandate for an effective “vaccine”, but this is now closer to a temporary “shot” that is rather ineffective for its stated purpose. It has little impact on stopping the spread and kids just aren’t at much risk for severe disease. If this thing stopped the spread and gave lifelong protection then it would be a different story.
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As usual the “experts” are silent on whether previous infection should exempt one from a vaccine. I think we have about 70% or so already infected here? Given EVERY time I look natural immunity is shown to be superior in protection this is just inexplicable and the continuing media silence on it is disappointing.
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Are they requiring an additional shot or just any previous shot? A 2 year old shot at this point is completely worthless for stopping the spread. Like I said, this has become too politically tainted, and in theory that is when actual experts step in to fix the taint. What we have here is the experts being politically tainted as well. This drop confidence in the entire system.
Lucia,
Apparently California has mandated covid vaccinations to attend school, but that mandate will not take effect until the 2023 school year. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/20/health/child-vax-rates-school-mandates
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Of course, since it is a very political issue, it could change between now and fall 2023, especially if California politicians get much push-back from parents, as a suspect they may. I still have not seen any reasonable argument for requiring covid vaccinations for school attendance. Covid is a significant risk for those 45 and up….. but it is just weird to mandate vaccinations for kids at essentially zero risk. The only explanation that makes any sense to me is that it is just another of progressives’ brownshirt like demands: “You will do what we say, or else!”
Mike M.
I don’t think it’s “bad” to recommend it for kids. In any case, lots of people seem to be ignoring them.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/covid-19-vaccination-rates-among-children-under-5-have-peaked-and-are-decreasing-just-weeks-into-their-eligibility/
People will continue to ignore this until Covid rates go back up. And many parents will continue to ignore it until there are stories of kids getting seriously ill. (There haven’t been many or we’d see that in papers.)
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I think the CDC is doing something that is cutting into its credibility. People are starting to not believe them. That’s really the main down side I see of what they are doing. But they’ve always advocated vaccines and been ignored by many. I mean: Flu shots? Lots of people don’t get them. (For the same reason lots of people aren’t getting Covid shots at this point.)
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No one seems to be making it mandatory for kids. Maybe your prediction will come true. But it hasn’t yet. It’s fine for you to worry about it. But as far as I can tell: The sky is not falling.
SteveF
Yes. I see a “mandate” far off into the future and “not a mandate”. There is plenty of time for that to change. I anticipate it will.
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I suspect right now they are throwing a bone to teachers unions. The bone will be pulled back as July 2023 approaches and parents who care more will complain. Unless we have a big surge that affects kids, the date will be perpetually rolled back.
States tend to follow the CDC list for mandates is my understanding, but I really don’t know.
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Seeing Democratic states waffle on this vaccine mandate is interesting, this probably means they don’t see this as a good move one month before an election cycle. They are all pretty much following the “Republican plan” now (no lockdowns, no mask or vaccine mandates, etc.). Although the shot is safe, it just isn’t that effective for kids. They would need to mandate shots at least twice a year to have a measurable impact on spread. Science has left the building in this discussion.
“Apparently California has mandated covid vaccinations to attend school, but that mandate will not take effect until the 2023 school year”
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Ha ha, that is plain silly. DC was going to require a mandate for high school last year until they found out that 50% of POC (Kids of color?) in local high schools were unvaccinated. Then their anti-racism took over and the mandate was cancelled, because this makes sense somehow. It’s all so nuts.
lucia (Comment #215648): “Mike M. … No one seems to be making it mandatory for kids. Maybe your prediction will come true. But it hasn’t yet.”
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I made no prediction. I only noted that the likely CDC action amounts to encouraging states to make the shot mandatory and called that irresponsible. The risks outweigh any benefits for young people.
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Of course adding the covid shot to the CDC schedule has not yet had any effect. It has not yet happened. It has just been made virtually inevitable by the “advisory” panel’s recommendation.
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It will interesting to see if states start making the shot mandatory. I note that CDC put the HPV vaccine on their schedule about 15 years ago, but only about 3 states require it.
Sorry,
I confused you with MikeN
He said it “is automatically adopted”. It hasn’t been automatically adopted.
Valkyries with a blue and yellow flag and a catchy tune.… Ukranians have become masters of PSYOPs…. Also explains why there is no shortage of manpower in the Ukrainian army.
https://youtu.be/hLrKArbIMgI
I watched the PSYOPS video again and was wondering who the intended target was. Perhaps a recruiting tool for the army, fear of goddess (valkyries) for russian soldiers, liberal democries, Western bloggers like me… all of the above?
https://youtu.be/hLrKArbIMgI