Ukraine - somebody explain to me

[Goatnapper'96]

Big anti-war protests today in Russia due to the mobilization order. It is all a bluff. No way do they have the capacity to train and adequately arm these conscripts. And given that they have massive morale issues with professional soldiers, wait until the conscripts show up. Putin is in serious trouble.

Only an idiot or a coward would back down to yet another Putin threat.

Everyone of us who put bandanas on our heads and crawled around our backyards with BB guns screaming "WOLVERINES" in the 1980's and then joined up in the 90's during the "peace dividend" and spent more time in "Consideration for Others" training instead of gunnery have a tinge of jealousy about the Ukrainians getting to destroy the vaunted Russian Army. I still remember the glee and humor on my platoon frequency during a joint patrol of Brcko in 1998 with those drunk, unkempt organized crime living gawdless commies.

We would have absolutely obliterated them in a conventional fight. The Ukrainians are making that obvious to the world.

Putin's only support by the end of the week will be Serbia.

[All-American]

Only an idiot or a coward would back down to yet another Putin threat.

We have plenty of both here.

[myboynoah]

Big anti-war protests today in Russia due to the mobilization order. It is all a bluff. No way do they have the capacity to train and adequately arm these conscripts. And given that they have massive morale issues with professional soldiers, wait until the conscripts show up. Putin is in serious trouble.

Only an idiot or a coward would back down to yet another Putin threat.

Ummmmm, excuse me, Putin specifically stated that it wasn't a bluff.

[Uncle Ted]

Ummmmm, excuse me, Putin specifically stated that it wasn't a bluff.

Yeah, someone should double dog dare him.

[Katy Lied]

Four Tweets from Igor


Ihor1.jpg

--------------------------

Ihor2.jpg

----------------------

Ihor3.jpg


---------------------

Ihor4.jpg

[Bo Diddley]

Poor Igor.

[Clark Addison]

This feels like a perfect representation of 90% of people who stoke the flames of war in any country.

I don't know if it is real but I want it to be.

[Bo Diddley]

This feels like a perfect representation of 90% of people who stoke the flames of war in any country.

I don't know if it is real but I want it to be.

Yep. I remember watching news coverage at work on 9/11 and listening to our nurse demand we send troops to the Middle East to go kill the terrorists. I remember thinking how she had no skin in the game and how easy it was to say send our boys into harm's way.

Now 20 years later, I wonder if she would think it was worth it.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Lots of video clips on twitter of people being rounded up for conscription. Protesters are being arrested and sent off to the military. Putin explicitly claimed that students would be exempt from the draft but there is video of students being pulled directly from classrooms and herded onto buses. Geez, good luck motivating these people to fight and die.

Contrast this to the resolve and spirit of the Ukrainians who are giddy over recent advances and the prisoner swap for some of the heroes of Azovstal.

[myboynoah]

lol

Go get 'em Ivan.

Embedded Tweet

[myboynoah]

Too bad, so sad.

Embedded Tweet

[wuapinmon]

Now we need to find a way to detangle ourselves from China. Stop doing business with autocrats and authoritarian regimes. You would think that this would be a libertarian principle, but libertarianism seems to have completely lost its way.

That assumes it ever had a way. They can't even agree on a platform without half their convention delegates walking out in protest like a bunch of Socialist Labor Party of America conventioneers splitting off then splitting off then coming back then splitting off, ad nauseum.

Basically, to my mind, the modern Libertarian is someone who either:

1. Believes that private industry should do almost all government functions, including paid, armed security instead of police. Firefighting, Ambulance, utilities, you name it: private. They want more things private than incognito-mode users.

2. LINOs who just don't want to pay their fair share of taxes.

3. True Libertarians, in the sense you use, but like Santa Claus, they are more figments of our imagination that others act out than real people.

The only way to stop doing business with China or other despots, like KatyLied has said, is when regulations make it more profitable not to do so than to do so (this was years ago in reference to ethanol subsidies). Punish companies that offshore things that could and should be done here, for national defense reasons. I've got no problem with STRATEGIC government subsidies of critical industries, high tech, military-industrial, and agricultural being key ones.

I also think that sharp enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act would help us greatly as consumers and as a way to fight sending our trillions to East Asia for plastic shit we can make here or don't need. Going birding now. TTYL.

[myboynoah]

That assumes it ever had a way. They can't even agree on a platform without half their convention delegates walking out in protest like a bunch of Socialist Labor Party of America conventioneers splitting off then splitting off then coming back then splitting off, ad nauseum.

Basically, to my mind, the modern Libertarian is someone who either:

1. Believes that private industry should do almost all government functions, including paid, armed security instead of police. Firefighting, Ambulance, utilities, you name it: private. They want more things private than incognito-mode users.

2. LINOs who just don't want to pay their fair share of taxes.

3. True Libertarians, in the sense you use, but like Santa Claus, they are more figments of our imagination that others act out than real people.

The only way to stop doing business with China or other despots, like KatyLied has said, is when regulations make it more profitable not to do so than to do so (this was years ago in reference to ethanol subsidies). Punish companies that offshore things that could and should be done here, for national defense reasons. I've got no problem with STRATEGIC government subsidies of critical industries, high tech, military-industrial, and agricultural being key ones.

I also think that sharp enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act would help us greatly as consumers and as a way to fight sending our trillions to East Asia for plastic shit we can make here or don't need. Going birding now. TTYL.

I really don't mind buying plastic shit from China. That isn't critical to our economy. We need to take China out of the global supply chain for critical, next generation technologies. The Chips Act and the Inflation Reduction Act put into place measures that will do this in semicondcutors and EV batteries. Let China continue to make plastic shit.

[Non Sequitur]

That assumes it ever had a way. They can't even agree on a platform without half their convention delegates walking out in protest like a bunch of Socialist Labor Party of America conventioneers splitting off then splitting off then coming back then splitting off, ad nauseum.

Basically, to my mind, the modern Libertarian is someone who either:

1. Believes that private industry should do almost all government functions, including paid, armed security instead of police. Firefighting, Ambulance, utilities, you name it: private. They want more things private than incognito-mode users.

2. LINOs who just don't want to pay their fair share of taxes.

3. True Libertarians, in the sense you use, but like Santa Claus, they are more figments of our imagination that others act out than real people.

The only way to stop doing business with China or other despots, like KatyLied has said, is when regulations make it more profitable not to do so than to do so (this was years ago in reference to ethanol subsidies). Punish companies that offshore things that could and should be done here, for national defense reasons. I've got no problem with STRATEGIC government subsidies of critical industries, high tech, military-industrial, and agricultural being key ones.

I also think that sharp enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act would help us greatly as consumers and as a way to fight sending our trillions to East Asia for plastic shit we can make here or don't need. Going birding now. TTYL.

I've missed the hell out of you.

[Bo Diddley]

I've missed the hell out of you.