ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
I meant that if all of Ukraine falls you have Poland abutting Russia and Belarus to the east and Russian Kaliningrad to the north.
ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
Yes probably, when I say freezing the conflict I was being a bit unclear. I’m including solutions like giving away the eastern half and making the remaining rump swear neutrality, not just a Korea style freeze. Anything that could stop the conflict without getting Poland encircled.
ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
when we've been able to help hold back Russian forces for this long while barely even lifting a pinky.
Two trillion dollars, 20 percent of all existing Patriot systems, several dozen western and Warsaw Pact fighter aircraft, 700 Soviet pattern tanks donated by former Warsaw Pact NATO members, 250 NATO standard tanks donated by Western European NATO members, 100 modern MLRS systems, hundreds of tube artillery pieces, and 2000 light armored vehicles isn’t a Herculean effort, but it’s not “barely lifting a pinky” either.
ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
It’s not a breakthrough yet. But Ukraine’s leverage is slowly decreasing and if there ever is a major rapid breakthrough it all goes out the window.
The battle lines are moving pretty fast by Ukraine war standards. Pokravsk and Konstantivka are surrounded. Bilohorovka has finally fallen, tightening the Russian cauldron around Siverisk. The result of these three sieges is that the final 2014 era Ukrainian hardened defensive line through Sloviansk-Kramantorsk-Konstantivka is on the verge of being cauldroned.
Additionally, Kupiansk on the northern end of the eastern defensive line is almost encircled. In the south there’s a slow moving but consistent Russian breakout coming from the Avdiivka-Vuhledar direction.
In far north-central Ukraine, the offensive salient into Kursk has been fully rolled back. Russian troops are beginning to push into Ukraine towards Sumy.
Taking all these things together, it means you could see a complete collapse of the front in about six months.
ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
Elections in Ukraine are cancelled indefinitely with US State Department approval, so barring a military coup Zaluzhny can’t force anything through. The State Department might be changing its tune though. The war is going very badly for Ukraine. Budanov was supposed to be the hard-headed butcher that would fight to the last Ukrainian, so if he wants to tap out that means the situation must be very dire. A catastrophic, total Ukrainian collapse would make NATO a lot harder to defend because the Russians would be sitting right on the Polish border. The Balkans would also be at much higher risk. It would be better for NATO to force Ukraine to give up everything east of the Dneiper and freeze the conflict for another ten years. That at least gives Europe time to rearm.
ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
Ah there it is. The appeal to Politically Correct “history” that is the final refuge of every anti-human subversive. “The witches abduction of Gunnlaugr in the Eyrbyggja Saga is clearly a premodern attempt to describe an alien abduction!” bleats the graduate student with a research grant sponsored by The Groom Lake Institute for Advanced Aeronautics and Cultural Understanding.
ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be any roles for Extraterrestrial-American actresses. I’m just saying these roles should be where historically and dramatically appropriate. Playing a genetically engineered creature in Morgan? Yes that’s a perfectly reasonable role for an ayy. Queen’s Gambit? It’s a bit of a reach, there were no ayylmao chess grandmasters back then. But given how much covert extraterrestrial involvement there was in the Cold War it doesn’t seem too ridiculous. But we don’t need to go cramming an ayy into a movie set in Scandinavia in the 11th century. It’s intentional human-erasure. And they clearly take special glee in casting her in romantic relationships with Earthmen. It’s about as subtle as a pornography video from PROBED .com.
ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
The reason is that most woke stuff kills verisimilitude (think fantasy filled with black people in clearly Northern Europe).
True, all The Pitt’s lecturing about Current Thing is still less immediately risible than getting fifteen minutes into The Northman (a serious movie about Vikings) and seeing an actress that is obviously a Martian.
ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
Basically the scenario outlined in Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission where Europeans don’t put up any fight at all and basically consent to their own Islamization.
ABigGuy4U
2mo ago
The Warren Commission studiously avoided ever interviewing Jack Ruby because... BECAUSE THEY JUST DIDN’T NEED TO OK??
You didn’t like Bernie, that doesn’t mean that other people didn’t. You probably didn’t think Trump had a snowball’s chance in hell at winning either. If Bernie was so unpopular, why did the Democratic Party have to undertake heroic action every single primary to thwart him? And even if Bernie couldn’t win, it would have been better to let him take his shot, lose bigly, and put the issue to bed for good instead of creating a permanent Lost Cause myth and losing the left wing of the party for good.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
I think the risk of political violence is going up, but it no longer has the level of public buy-in you would need for a civil war. Especially for the youth, which is the primary demographic you would need for that. Zoomers are too checked out and there’s not enough of them, Boomers are too old, and Millennials finally managed to grab a small slice of the pie and are now just a bit too comfortable. I think the primary danger zone in the United States was 2014 to 2021. I think the chances of civil war in Europe are higher, but the most likely scenario is the Day of the Shed, when all the native peoples of Europe rise up and viciously cuck themselves to death Michel Houellebecq-style.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
As far a China — I’ve no doubt that most elites or potential elites are on very similar lists.
I’ve wondered about that. I think blackmail schemes might have less value in unfree countries when you can just have your enemies executed for “corruption” or mysteriously fall out a window.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Before Trump himself started to act in this extremely and transparently suspicious manner I was under the impression that the Epstein case would ruin the lives of a few connected celebrities and rich donors and add one scandal to the CIA's list. Now I don't know what to believe.
I suspect the blackmail networks are extensive enough that the United States is effectively not a republic anymore, and hasn’t been for decades. The primaries and appointments have been gatekept so that the Presidency and most of the higher level legislative judicial and executive branch positions only go to people that have kompromat on them. That would be too big to reveal and definitely not just another scandal. Trump could very well be on the list, or just scared of accidentally sparking a revolution.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Because it makes marriage look like it’s just a long-term form of prostitution. Which I guess for some people it basically is.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Evangelicals are even worse — they're pretty much having the liberal kids current liberals aren't.
US Evangelicals are picking up a lot of younger Catholics and young people from the blander Protestant denominations. There are no young Methodists, Presbyterians or Episcopalians: they are all atheists or evangelicals now.
On a global level, evangelical denominations are getting huge inflows from former pagans in Africa and former Catholics in Latin America.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
If the temple is going to be rebuilt, the site would need to be consecrated with the sacrifice of a red heifer. It has to be a heifer that has no other colored hairs at all. That is very rare. Ranchers in Texas are working with ultra-orthodox groups in Israel to breed a line of such cows to have it ready in case the Dome of the Rock suddenly....goes away.
I’m less concerned about the rare cases of complete psychotic break and more concerned about the rapidly nucleating cult behaviors that are quickly assembling into an actual new religious movement.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
@DradisPing @OliveTapenade @ChickenOverlord
They are confusing those songs with The Show Must Go On which the band really did write while Freddie Mercury was dying and is very much about that.
In a press conference Antony Blinkin stated that Ukraine wasn’t going to have elections until all its territory is recovered, including Crimea. In other words, Ukraine is never going to have elections again. My point is, Zelensky isn’t going to call elections and the US State Department isn’t going to lean on them to either.
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