[Red State] A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew back from Houston on Southwest. Southwest is open seating, and if you’ve ever flown Southwest on a busy route you know that if you check in late, you’ll be in group "D." Note the flip-flops. He'll be kicking those off as soon as he is seated.
D stands for "Doomed."
You’ll get a middle seat. The "pre-check" included a wheelchair-bound obese woman. I don’t mean she was fat — she was the size of a fridge. The flight was announced full, which meant someone was going to be seated next to her. My wife and I were in A group. As we entered I saw her in the first row in the window seat. Well, most of her was in the window seat. The rest of her was draped over and into the B seat. Some unlucky passenger was about to spend four hours using about 40 percent of their seat.
Unless you fly first class, flying is a pain. I mean an actual, literal pain. The seats are uncomfortable and they’ve gotten narrower, and now because of our dear leader, the cost has gone up dramatically. It wasn’t long ago that we had mask Nazis roaming the aisles looking for any part of a nose peeking out from the top of a mask. Six months ago, a flight attendant hovered over me like an exterminator who just found a bug and demanded that I push my mask over my nose. It was already covering my nose but not sufficiently high for Herr Blucher. When I moved my mask further up (but not far enough for the stormtrooper) he loudly asked if "we are going to have a problem."
Then, there are the people who jump out of their seats the second the wheels stop and rush up the aisle. On a flight last year two people pushed up and stopped at my seat. I stood up and pushed in front of them, and I helped everyone in my row exit. "Take your time," I said.
My worst fear about flying isn’t crashing — it’s being stuck in a middle seat between two obese bodies. My nightmare happened to Sydney Watson. On an American Airlines flight from New York to Texas, Watson got stuck in the middle seat between two large bodies. She described it as being a human sardine. Instead of being encased in tin, Sydney was marinating in obesity.
Watson made the best of living my nightmare. She live-tweeted the experience. American Airlines was tagged by Sydney and it responded with a less-than-optimal answer.
#1
Then, there are the people who jump out of their seats the second the wheels stop and rush up the aisle.
I used to sit in an aisle seat and body block the runners, permitting those in forward seats to exit in an orderly manner. It usually only took a few seconds for the aisle to become impassable.
"Excuse me, excuse me....I've got to catch a plane." ........ Yes, so does everyone else.
#2
"Our passengers come in all different sizes and shapes. We're sorry you were uncomfortable on your flight."
Well your seats obviously don't come in all different sizes and shapes. But passengers pay for a full seat, not 60% of it.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 6:26 Comments ||
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#3
One of my other pet peeves was the guy who stows his Mini-Cooper size carry-on in the C28 overhead, then returns to A04 to be seated. Of course this thoughtless SOB usually attempted to swim against the flow during deplaning to retrieve his bag.
#4
Had an A-hole, IT Consulting group boss in the 90's caught telling the travel agency to assign seats in order to sandwich consultants, he had it in for, either between 2 other "large" consultants or bulkhead window seats for 6ft+ 250+ consultants on long flights.
#5
@#1 - No doubt about it. Flying "fun" went downhill after TSA came to the "rescue". Now, it's incredible how crappy the flying experience has become.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/18/2022 12:11 Comments ||
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#7
As I deplaned in Seattle Recently I loudly mentioned that the airlines must have spent billions on researching the most uncomfortable seats possible.
I've been in the middle seat between large individuals. Also in the middle seat between two rather attractive ladies. It's the luck of the draw.
#8
Family vacation on Silverton steam train, assigned tickets 3 people per bench. Daughter (small 17 year old) could not fit next to the two obese people on her bench and one of our family had to rotate standing for the trip. Too bad, so sad, no recompense possible.
[FoxNews] The Biden administration's policy on the Middle East has fractured some of the United States' most dependable partnerships in the region, causing typically friendly countries to build stronger relationships with China and Russia.
"That countries that historically have been close partners of the United States are turning to Russia and China is a massive failure of American leadership," Victoria Coates, a senior research fellow for international affairs and national security at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital.
Coates' comments come amid a chaotic time for U.S. relations in the Middle East, including a disastrous retreat of American forces from Afghanistan, an on-again, off-again, nuclear negotiation with Iran, and a disconnect with Saudi Arabia over global energy policy.
That disconnect between President Biden and Middle Eastern partners became more evident in March, when leaders from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates declined to field a phone call from the president. Biden had hoped to discuss having the oil-rich countries increase exports amid soaring gas prices in the U.S. and a ban on imports of Russian gas, but was given the silent treatment for his efforts.
The Saudis issued a statement of their own in response on Thursday, saying that Biden had attempted to nudge them toward delaying the decision, which will likely boost oil prices in the U.S., until after next month's midterm elections, a move they argued "would have had negative economic consequences" for the member nations.
"These outcomes are based purely on economic considerations that take into account maintaining balance of supply and demand in the oil markets, as well as aim to limit volatility that does not serve the interests of consumers and producers," a Saudi Foreign Ministry official said in the statement.
"In the case of Saudi Arabia, the fundamental disconnect is that they see oil as a commodity that is a key pillar of their economy, while the Biden administration sees oil as a domestic political issue," said Coates who is also an advisory board member of the Vandenberg Coalition.
Russia and China have emerged in recent years as the chief geopolitical foes of the United States, a realization that has caused American leaders to pivot the country's foreign policy strategy toward addressing the emerging threats. But doing so has led traditional partners in the Middle East to look for other ways to further their own interests, which has often led them to pursue tighter ties with Moscow and Beijing.
China has continued to push its influence in the Middle East, becoming the largest buyer of oil from the Gulf region, investing in the region's infrastructure, and partnering with Saudi Arabia on ballistic missile development.
The Gulf states have also rebuffed a U.S.-led effort to isolate Russia on the international stage over its invasion of Ukraine, taking a more neutral stance on the conflict while standing by their agreement with Russia not to push a large increase in oil production.
"None of them want to partner with Russia and China—but they are exploring the option because they feel Washington is offering them nothing," Coates said.
Gulf states may also have an easier time in negotiations with Russia and China, who view such partnerships as transactions more than a declaration of values.
The fracturing of relationships with Middle Eastern partners started under the administration of former President Barack Obama, Schanzer argued, pointing out that American policy in the region started to become inconsistent under his leadership.
"The United States has been operating with a trust deficit in the Middle East since the Arab Spring of 2011," Schanzer said. "The Obama administration went from that policy of supporting chaotic revolution to a policy in 2013 of appeasing Iran, the most destabilizing force in the region."
Making matters worse, American policy in the region became more inconsistent as power in Washington changed from party to party.
"America’s foreign policy has been one of whiplash, with Democrats and Republicans racing to undo the policies of their predecessors," Schanzer said. "It should not be surprising that Middle Eastern states now seek stability, even if that means doing business with China and Russia."
Posted by: Skidmark ||
10/18/2022 06:10 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Thank you notes from Xi and Putin should be arriving at the WH very soon.
Joe Biden has made waves this fall with his plan to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars of student loans, shifting the burden to taxpayers. Five years earlier, his family cashed in on a zero-interest, forgivable loan of its own from an energy company in communist China, according to evidence in the possession of the FBI.
The loan arrangement, confirmed in documents obtained by Just the News and also new information released by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), shows the Chinese energy firm CEFC Beijing International Energy Company Limited understood the transaction would benefit Joe Biden's family (referred to as "BD family" in the emails), but it also was creating heartburn with the Chinese company’s own compliance/risk management officers. …
Posted by: Black Charlie ||
10/18/2022 10:26 Comments ||
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#7
Biden's family got 'interest-free,' 'forgivable' loan from China, new evidence reveals
Interest free and forgivable but inquiring minds want to know what strings were attached.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 12:30 Comments ||
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#8
I mean, we have all suspected for some time that Biden is a puppet but the question now arises with greater urgency: Who is pulling the strings?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 12:34 Comments ||
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#11
/\ Obama may have started out symbolically 'apologizing' but he quickly starting acting like US Allies were chattels that he could order around at whim. True character showing through the mask... Biden was just a posturing idiot and now he is just demented.
[Rudaw] The use by Russia of Iranian drones in its war against Ukraine makes clear the weaknesses of its domestic industry and Tehran's growing claim on the market for unmanned aircraft, experts say.
Washington believes Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites.... has delivered hundreds of drones, which Ukrainian officials say are now being used in strikes like those launched against cities and energy infrastructure on Monday.
Continued on Page 49
#3
So Putin is the leader of a country that can't even make drones and yet we fear that he will conquer Western Europe? Far more likely that he fears Western Europe will conquer Russia.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 12:38 Comments ||
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#4
Far more likely that he fears Western Europe will conquer Russia.
So why provoke them with invading his sovereign neighbors?
[Zman] Is the Biden administration planning to use tactical nuclear weapons against the Russians in defense of Ukraine? It should be unthinkable but we live in an age in which the most offensive and absurd is celebrated, so we can no longer assume anything, no matter how monstrous, is beyond the pale. The bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines was an outlandish act of provocation, so we cannot assume there is anyone in the admiration on the side of restraint.
The first clue that the Biden people are talking about the use of nuclear weapons is their endless talking about the use of nuclear weapons. For months they have been talking about it, in the context of the Russians threatening to use nukes. The trouble is, the Russians have never threatened to use nuclear weapons. Western media keeps making this claim, but an examination of the record shows that Russian officials have repeatedly said the exact opposite.
It is a well known aspect of regime psychology to project what they are doing or plotting onto some enemy of the regime. In 2016 we got the Russian collusion hoax in which Trump was accused of plotting with foreigners to rig the election. What we eventually learned is that it was the regime that was working with foreign intelligence services to not only rig the election but undermine the Trump administration. The opposite rule is an iron law of understanding regime behavior.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Spike the Hairy6811 ||
10/18/2022 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[12 views]
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#4
"The trouble is, the Russians have never threatened to use nuclear weapons."
You should be watching more Russian State Television.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 5:58 Comments ||
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#5
“It is a well known aspect of regime psychology to project what they are doing or plotting onto some enemy of the regime. In 2016 we got the Russian collusion hoax in which Trump was accused of plotting with foreigners to rig the election. What we eventually learned is that it was the regime that was working with foreign intelligence services to not only rig the election but undermine the Trump administration.”
Exactly so. Nearly everything these morons claim about their opponents applies in reality to they’re own behavior.
They said Trump was corrupt and a Russian stooge but in reality it’s the Biden Crime Family that’s been receiving millions from Russian and Ukrainian bandits.
They call their opponents election deniers — after they spent four years denying the results of the 2016 election.
They deny the vast evidence substantiating the horrific side effects of their useless gene therapy and then they persecute anyone, the world’s best medical experts included, who tells the truth about this monstrous scam and its lab origins.
They fuck up the economy beyond all recognition, trash our savings and destroy the industrial economies of our Allie’s — and then they lay the blame at the feet of their opponents.
They stage an actual coup in DC and accuse unarmed trespassers of “insurrection.”
They call the man in the Kremlin a warmonger after they provoked the Russians with insane calls to “take back” Russia’s most important naval base and bulwark, one the Russians have owned for 239 years.
Every single word these degenerate fuckheads speak is a lie, including “a” and “the.”
Damn.... first time I agree with Chaim. More like the cabal of criminals (the demoncrats have always been a crime family that acted like a political party) helped put their empty suit in power.
#9
EC, If Chaim is a ST. P troll, he is writing what many of the MAGA believe, including me. And I'm no troll.
Over here they are pushing stories that it is no big deal to have a limited nuc war in Ukraine. Were I a conservative Euro I'd be very worried about Biden.
#11
Biden-Scheisskopf is literally destroying Germany now with his idiotic crusade. He’s reducing Germany to a version of Detroit… and there are actually Germans who support this insanity
#12
St Petersburg trolls push their Russian agenda by playing nice with the MAGA crows.
Frankly, I'm getting a bit irritated here. This article is simply BS.
The only country threating to use nuclear arms is Russia.
If Putin doesn't use nukes, there won't be a nuclear war. I'm effing tired of this stupid fearmongering.
I watch Russian State TV to know what they are up to. Any day they aren't proposing to wipe out London or Washington D.C. is an exception.
It's completely nonsense that the U.S. plans to use a tactical nuke in Ukraine. This is called "projection".
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 6:55 Comments ||
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#13
Btw the word "Scheisskopf" isn't used in Germany. It's just an invented literal translation of "shithead".
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 6:58 Comments ||
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#14
The only country threating to use nuclear arms is Russia.
Yep. The US only has 150 or so "tactical" nukes in its arsenal. It got rid of the rest as the conventional weapons we have now (lookin' at you MOAB) have the same blast destruction without all that nasty radiation. We would most likely use that or a fuel air bomb rather than a tacnuke.
Trump is a blustering asshole. Trump is also correct on many things.
Trump’s approach to Russia was tough but respectful, measured, balanced, appropriate to our interests. Biden the Shithead broke every single rule of intelligent statecraft: Issue empty threats. Fling needless insults. Threaten other nations’ vital interests where you have none at stake. Ignore your own nation’s vital interests.
And destroy literally everything you touch along the way, from the US border to our energy independence to the schoolrooms to race relations to the global economy and on and on.
#16
Indeed. Tactical nuke were (once) meant to stop the advance of a major Soviet Army in Germany as a last resort before going fully nuclear.
The use of tactical nukes in Ukraine would serve no tactical purpose at all. Not even for Russia (except intimidation, but Ukrainians won't be intimidated).
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 7:06 Comments ||
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#17
The reply was to Darth Vader, of course.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 7:07 Comments ||
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"Now it’s a very big area -- a very important area. Russia has its submarine. That is where they do their submarine work and that is where they dock large and powerful submarines, but not as powerful as ours and not as large as ours, but they have their submarines, and President Obama was pure and simply outsmarted. They took Crimea during his term. That was not a good thing. It could have been stopped, it could have been stopped with the right, whatever. It could have been stopped but President Obama was unable to stop it, and it’s too bad."
Now please explain "with the right, whatever". Because Trump, of course, doesn't.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 7:34 Comments ||
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#22
Seriously now, Fritz: Why do you support Biden?
Now you’re really confused, Mein Herr Doktor. Everything I’ve written comes from an American perspective. It’s been pointed out repeatedly by fellow Americans who are disgusted with what’s happened to our country. Nothing parrot-like about it.
Tell us, please — dear Sir — why the hell do you support Biden? He’s literally destroying your country, no less than our own.
US intelligence operatives and likely Polish henchmen just destroyed German industry’s energy lifeline. Biden had sworn publicly to German journalists that the U.S. would do exactly that.
Now your country’s industrialists and other businesses will pay 7 or 8 times as much for their energy as previously — to American LNG producers.
German industries will go bankrupt. German consumers will slide into poverty. This will be a permanent change — not a recession or a depression but de-industrialization.
Are you a masochist? Or just completely in denial of reality?
“If Russia invades … there will no longer [be] a Nord Stream 2,” Biden said during a joint press conference with Scholz. “We will bring an end to it,” added the American president.
Scholz said Germany was ready to act together with the United States. Asked specifically whether Germany was prepared to pull the plug on the pipeline, the chancellor said “we are absolutely united.”
Posted by: Black Charlie ||
10/18/2022 10:11 Comments ||
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#38
And there's no reason to attack EC, Chaim. He is pro EU. The EU's interests do not align with Americans. They may align with the establishment once in a while, but not all the time. A loaded 'transatlantic relationship' is what they want, with the POTUS a nodding monkey ready to support the climate thingy, trade with China, any and every NATO enlargement experiment, etc. Which is why they didn't like Trump. Any President good for Americans will give zero fcuk's for the supranation and its suited thugs. As populations within the EU nations are now realising. It is the tower of Babel, mon Ami. And it will not continue for long.
No need meeting the Russkies in an all out nuke war, or even losing a penny over it.
Agree… The EU’s globalists are just as corrupt as the American globalists. For ex., we’ll soon find out how much payola that corrupt little cvnt Ursula von der Leyen pocketed from Pfizer for inflicting those criminals’ monstrous gene therapy on the EU.
Fair point about the European nations and their interests. Their national interests most definitely clash with those of the American globalist scum.
Joe Biden has made waves this fall with his plan to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars of student loans, shifting the burden to taxpayers. Five years earlier, his family cashed in on a zero-interest, forgivable loan of its own from an energy company in communist China, according to evidence in the possession of the FBI.
The loan arrangement, confirmed in documents obtained by Just the News and also new information released by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), shows the Chinese energy firm CEFC Beijing International Energy Company Limited understood the transaction would benefit Joe Biden's family (referred to as "BD family" in the emails), but it also was creating heartburn with the Chinese company’s own compliance/risk management officers
Posted by: Black Charlie ||
10/18/2022 10:44 Comments ||
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#42
U.S. presidents come and go.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 10:50 Comments ||
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#43
I always read European Conservative’s comments, because even when we disagree he is thoughtful and informed. And his opinions are distilled from time spent in all three streams of society: military service, business, and politics.
The online mob has decided that any support for a negotiated settlement—even proposals that Zelensky himself appeared to support at the beginning of the war—is tantamount to taking Russia's side, denouncing voices of compromise and restraint as Putin apologists.
This removes them from acceptable discourse and shrinks the Overton window to those advocating the total defeat of Russia and an end to Putin's regime—even if it risks WWIII.
We've seen this before: "Woke mobs" on Twitter routinely demonize and defame their political opponents, impugn the motives of anyone who questions their goals or tactics, and squelch dissent even in their own ranks by declaring the debate on certain topics over.
What makes the "I stand with Ukraine" version of the Twitter mob unique is that it brings together two forces that used to be sworn enemies of one another—the woke Left and the neoconservative Right. It turns out they share many of the same loathsome ideological and personality traits, and have a similar "slash and burn" approach to political engagement. It's a new political marriage
#45
David Sacks brilliantly skewers the Neocon-Woke Bund’s twisted logic that borders on idiocy:
“…Warping the debate in this way allows delusional and contradictory thinking to go unchallenged.
Thus, we get the argument that Putin is a madman who will kill indiscriminately to achieve his aims—but he is also somehow definitely bluffing about using nuclear weapons.
And he's only using that bluff because he's losing the war—but if he's not stopped in Ukraine, he will go on to conquer the rest of Europe.
Putin's regime must fall because he has killed or jailed all the liberal reformers and yoked himself to a hardline Far Right, but somehow he will be replaced by a liberal reformer when his regime collapses.
It's nonsensical, and a real debate would expose some of the delusions in this thinking. But we aren't allowed to have one.”
Posted by: Black Charlie ||
10/18/2022 11:32 Comments ||
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#47
Reality check for Chaim
Ukraine is (currently) not losing the war because we provide it with the weapons to defend itself. Without our help, Ukraine would have faced defeat and barbaric Russian occupation Bucha style, at least the whole coast and all land east of the Dniepr.
With this victory Putin could have easily menaced Georgia, Moldova and the Baltic States.
Putin wants to keep what he has now and a hudna, to rebuild his troops. He wants Europe to face economical collapse.
Times will be tough but what Putin wants will not happen. We won't give him time to rebuild.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 12:02 Comments ||
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#48
They said Trump was corrupt and a Russian stooge but in reality it’s the Biden Crime Family that’s been receiving millions from Russian and Ukrainian bandits.
Don't forget the Chinese Communist Party.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 12:51 Comments ||
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Posted by: Matt ||
10/18/2022 12:55 Comments ||
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#50
They fuck up the economy beyond all recognition...
I've never seen fubar used as a verb. I like it.
If Chaim is a Russian troll, he has taken trolling to a whole new level. The grammar is pretty good for a troll and he's improvising with the word fuck as well as any American could. He is earning his rubles...maybe even gets a bottle of vodka for a bonus.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 12:57 Comments ||
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#51
^ you’re deranged, Herr Doktor Kronkheit. Ukraine has not only lost over 1/5th of its territory; its economy is shattered. The NY Times just reported that Ukraine is now without thirty percent of its entire electricity supply. (The Times hilariously spins this catastrophe as “Ukrainians conserve energy” 😂)
**THIRTY PERCENT of its electricity.
**SIXTY PERCENT of its GDP.
**TWENTY PERCENT of its territory.
Not even the Pentagon spin masters are pretending that Ukraine has any chance of winning. The war has been an unmitigated disaster for those poor wretched people.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/18/2022 13:08 Comments ||
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#55
St Petersburg trolls push their Russian agenda by playing nice with the MAGA crows.
I think you must mean MAGA crowd, EC. Now, we discussed this yesterday about how we don't like foreigners criticizing Donald Trump. Far be it from me to disparage all Germans just because a few of them do that. Sorry if I didn't read the part about "F^>k kr****" before I praised that guy's post. I understand that is a hateful slur and and we should avoid taking the conversation to that level.
But Donald Trump has called for negotiations to bring a peaceful resolution to this conflict before it escalates out of control. I don't hear Scheisskopf Joe Biden doing anything of the sort. Instead, he fans the flames of war like some kind of reckless medieval asshole.
Seriously, people, you'd follow Joe Biden into war?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 13:13 Comments ||
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#58
If I break into your house with weapons blazing and the police show up (in a couple of hours) And let me leave with 50% of your stuff including all your valuables, is that an acceptable compromise?
That seems to be what I'm hearing from a lot of people. Sounds pretty shitty to me, especially since I get to keep the keys and come back at any time.
#59
If I break into your house with weapons blazing and the police show up (in a couple of hours) And let me leave with 50% of your stuff including all your valuables, is that an acceptable compromise?
That seems to be what I'm hearing from a lot of people. Sounds pretty shitty to me, especially since I get to keep the keys and come back at any time.
#60
Yep. The US only has 150 or so "tactical" nukes in its arsenal. It got rid of the rest as the conventional weapons we have now (lookin' at you MOAB) have the same blast destruction without all that nasty radiation. We would most likely use that or a fuel air bomb rather than a tacnuke.
Comforting, DV.
But I still think this war is madness provoked by Joe Biden's insistence that NATO expand into Ukraine. Biden has poked his nose into a part of the world where he does not belong and thereby recklessly, needlessly jeopardized America's national security...not to mention the national security of European countries like Germany. And for what?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 13:24 Comments ||
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#61
Tell me Chaim: Which side would you want to win?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 13:25 Comments ||
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Posted by: Matt ||
10/18/2022 13:26 Comments ||
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#63
Abu Uluque
"crowd" of course.
You write: "Now, we discussed this yesterday about how we don't like foreigners criticizing Donald Trump."
Why not? Do you think foreigners have no right to criticize a U.S.president?
Any U.S. president?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 13:32 Comments ||
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#64
I have a good souse who has said our Marines are in Sweden now. The swamp and Biden want a war to divert attention from the many failures of this administration.
#65
Times will be tough but what Putin wants will not happen. We won't give him time to rebuild.
Posted by: European Conservative |
With all due respect EC, I don't see your government doing much here (in Ukraine) now or in the future. Germany has no armed forces to speak of and soon no economy to build on. Given time, not too long, the US will be reducing it's influence in the region.
#66
If I break into your house with weapons blazing and the police show up (in a couple of hours) And let me leave with 50% of your stuff including all your valuables, is that an acceptable compromise?
If you were to look closely at the history of that part of the world you might see that the ownership of that "stuff" has been in dispute for millennia. If we put the questions to a legitimate court of law, or a truly legitimate plebiscite for the people who live there, you might be surprised at the outcome.
But instead we have Joe Biden playing the role of World Policeman. You've heard of cops being "on the take", haven't you? Like I said, it is a part of the world where Joe Biden does not belong.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 13:49 Comments ||
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Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 13:51 Comments ||
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#68
Why not? Do you think foreigners have no right to criticize a U.S.president?
Criticize away but try to be even handed. Don't get all sanctimonious about Trump's claims of shenanigans in the 2020 election when Democrats were screaming their heads off about "Russian collusion" after 2016. You should be aware that psychological projection is a key part of the Democrat playbook.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 13:54 Comments ||
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#69
The New York Times? Seriously?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 13:56 Comments ||
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#70
The same New York Times that still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer Prize?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 13:57 Comments ||
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#71
Dale called it a good source (with a typo)
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 14:01 Comments ||
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#72
"Criticize away but try to be even handed."
I must confess that this isn't easy with Trump, even for me. And I usually try.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 14:03 Comments ||
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“What have Ukrainians done to me? I have a tonne of friends there. What am I going to do, go and shoot at their relatives? Are they serious?”
Posted by: Matt ||
10/18/2022 14:08 Comments ||
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#74
#61 Tell me Chaim: Which side would you want to win?
‘Murrica- seriously. I don’t really care about anyone else’s country. I expect other nations’ leaders to advance those nations’ interests, just as we advance our own.
As I said above, we have our Monroe doctrine and the Russians have their own equivalent doctrine regarding Crimea. They and the Chinks should stay out of our patch, and we should return the courtesy.
This is what every sane and wise student of international relations has understood since at least the days of Morgenthau and Waltz… if not Thucydides. The Quincy Institute’s “Responsible Statecraft” website (which featured one of our wisest ambassadors, Jack Matlock) has excellent, superb and independent commentary by many of our best minds on the subject.
This is just fucking surreal. Batshit crazy.
As crazy as this story:
independent media sources report that Moscow has required citizens to move their cars out of underground parking garages, so they can be converted into bomb shelters.
There is nothing at stake here that is worth a war with Russia. Nothing worth a single US soldier’s life in that part of the world.
The Biden Pentagon is out of control and needs to be reined in ASAP. End this insanity
November 8 cannot arrive soon enough
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/18/2022 14:18 Comments ||
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#76
instead we have Joe Biden playing the role of World Policeman. You've heard of cops being "on the take", haven't you? Like I said, it is a part of the world where Joe Biden does not belong.
Joe Biden belongs in the world of the little girls’ showers
Send that demented shithead-pervert out of the White House.
Get his and his freaks’ hands off the nuclear trigger before they blow us all to smithereens
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/18/2022 14:22 Comments ||
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#77
Tell me Chaim: Which side would you want to win?
Dunno about Chaim but I'd like a negotiated, peaceful settlement that all parties could live with. I'm pessimistic about that outcome, though, especially with leaders like Joe Biden.
Fact is, Ukraine has been at war since the 2014 Maidan Coup, in which the Baraq Obama administration is implicated. That is when ethnic Russian rebels in Donbas decided they'd had enough of Kiev. It's been a bloody mess since then so I'd think Ukrainians would be glad to get rid of it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 14:23 Comments ||
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Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 15:38 Comments ||
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#82
EuropeanConservative,
Btw the word "Scheisskopf" isn't used in Germany.
Maybe, but not knowing that, I used it very successfully in Paris. The French punks went from Americans are this and that to skittering away.
The Russian attacks seem to have two focal points:
1. To turn off all thermal (coal, gas) power plants in Ukraine.
2. To destroy those switching station where more than two 330k lines connect.
This will cut the generation capacity in Ukraine by half and totally disconnect some regions, especially in the east, from any generation capacity.
It will thereby darken the cities in eastern Ukraine which will make waging war more difficult for the Ukrainian military. It will also make it more difficult for material support like weapons and ammunition to reach the front lines. (The regions that were integrated into Russia receive electricity from Russia.)
…
Russia has also changed the war's rhythm. While it had so far refrained from hitting civilian infrastructure, aside from electrical transformer stations serving the railroad network, it has now launched attacks on thermal power stations and Ukraine's 330 kilovolt long range electrical distribution network.
In Ukraine, as in Russia, thermal power stations are also used as district heating sources. Hot water is distributed to houses over large pipe networks. When the power stations are out people's homes will freeze. There will also be no drinking water. The freezing lines will experience serious damage.
The Russian attacks are effective — NYT:
From towns near frontline battlefields to high-rises in the capital, Ukrainians were trying to conserve energy as President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Tuesday that Russian attacks over the past eight days had destroyed 30 percent of Ukraine’s power stations and caused “massive blackouts across the country.”
The latest strikes have increased the likelihood of a miserable winter, with residents having to do without basic services such as heat and water.
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/18/2022 16:35 Comments ||
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#84
^ What a proud day to be a Russian.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/18/2022 16:57 Comments ||
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#85
Writing for the Wall Street Journal earlier this year, David Knight Legg, a renowned energy expert and adviser to investment and political-risk firms, claimed there were “four reasons to think this war is, or will default to, an energy heist”.
You don't think that Biden, whose crack head son was granted a seat on the Burisma board, Biden who held up a $1 billion loan to Ukraine until the prosecutor looking into that corruption was fired, wants to get his hands on those assets? I mean who is stealing what from whom?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 17:18 Comments ||
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#86
Mods, I'm getting a little tired of watching the "new guys" call long-time citizens of The Burg names - even when I agree with some of their points. Decorum gentlemen decorum. You aren't making any real converts here when you call people like EC names!
#91
^The thing is Chaim that I haven't called you names, am not necessarily your enemy, and you are factually one of the people that showed up after Russia invaded the Ukraine. And some of us have been posting here for a decade or more. So my advice is mellow out and focus on convincing people that you are right.
#92
Great globe-spanning curves once again
Threaten doomsday! Oh, wait, it's a Venn...
Or a Spirograph sheet...
No, a little less neat,
Sorting out our New Soviet Men.
Though Ivans may strive to be dicks,
Natashas are best known for tricks!
Of passionate Russians
You're having discussions
With, most must be smart Slavic chicks.
#100
To everyone talking about how we shouldn't be there I agree in principal, but, we shouldn't have started. For that I blame Obumbles reaction to Crimea. What happens when the Ukraine falls and Russia / Putin turn on Poland or the Baltic states?
I seem to remember a rather bad situation when part of a country was seized because there were German speaking people there...then they moved on Poland.
Dementia Joe missed his chance to stop this now it's probably too late.
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/18/2022 21:28 Comments ||
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#105
That's not lame. This is lame...
Two flamers named Billy and Chaim
Keep claiming me limericks are lame
So I'll torch the whole shelf,
Shoot and A-bomb meself,
Then commit hara-kiri in shame...
And Ukraine is entirely to blame!
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/18/2022 21:44 Comments ||
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#108
And what on earth do you have against Larry Johnson? Did he hit on your wife? Kick your dog?
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/18/2022 21:47 Comments ||
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#109
Dude used to beat up on my Pistons most distressingly back during the year or two I paid attention to hoops. Shaking a palsied fist at him as I swipe, I am.
Normal person: I think it would be good if everyone didn’t die in a nuclear holocaust.
Crazy person: That means you love Vladimir Putin.
Normal person: No I just think it would be a good idea to try to prevent the horrific death of literally everyone.
Crazy person: How much is the Kremlin paying you to say that?
Fucking lunatics.
Resisting nuclear armageddon is the least partisan position that anyone could possibly have. The least one-sided. The least “campist”. It’s just being a normal human organism with the most normal human impulse you could possibly come up with. It’s absolutely insane that anyone tries to spin it otherwise.
A society where opposing nuclear armageddon is treated as freakish and evil is the most backwards and insane society imaginable. Seriously, try to imagine anything crazier and more backwards than that. A society where everyone walks and drives backwards? That’s less crazy and backwards. A society where the dogs own the people? That’s less crazy and backwards.
This is it. This is peak crazy. A thinking species which regards as outrageous heresy any opposition to brinkmanship that can cause its extinction cannot get any more crazy. It’s turned as far away from sanity as any thinking creature could possibly be.
The only way you can believe Russia is threatening with nuclear weapons in a way the US is not would be to think the US has a No First Use nuclear policy. Which would of course be false and silly.
When one side of the new cold war wants multipolarity where world power is much less centralized and the other side wants unipolar planetary domination where the entire world obeys Washington DC and its puppet masters, it’s not hard to figure out which side is the aggressor.
Be completely dismissive of those who object to your criticisms of western imperial aggression. The one and only reason they expect their dopey opinions to be taken seriously is because their position has been artificially normalized by copious amounts of propaganda. That’s it.
The one and only thing making your worldview look strange and suspicious and the worldview of empire apologists look normal is the fact that we’ve all been swimming in empire propaganda our entire lives. It’s got nothing to do with the factuality or validity of anyone’s position. In reality, focusing one’s criticisms on the most dangerous impulses of the most powerful and destructive power structure on earth is the normal thing to do. It’s not strange and suspicious when you do it, it’s strange and suspicious that everyone else does not.
Posted by: Spike the Hairy6811 ||
10/18/2022 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
Good grief.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/18/2022 6:00 Comments ||
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We’ve reached the surreal point where merely pointing out the lunacy of dragging us to the edge of nuclear war — over territories where the US has no vital interest whatsoever — triggers a barrage of inane insults. It happens constantly, at this site and across Twitter and the rest of the garbage media.
All of which are stoked by the most ridiculous bullshit. As one of the CIA’s own Cold War-era propaganda experts recently observed about the bullshit spewed by the US and UK establishments, “it is titanic and it is out of control.”
“As someone who worked first hand on the CIA’s Afghanistan propaganda campaign in 1985-86, I feel somewhat qualified to comment on the scale and scope of the current propaganda campaign intended to whip up support in the West for Ukraine and galvanize international outrage against Russia–it is titanic and it is out of control.”
#4
The new Karens. Growing up in the 50s and 60s. Open air nuke testing. ICBM that were liquid fueled meaning you can't get caught fueling when you have incoming. Cuban Missile Crisis. The entire Cold War.
Keep pushing Fear, Uncertainty and Dread. We have lived with it for over half our lives. The sky is falling!! Ho hum.
#5
What's crazy?
1. Germany/Europe would sacrifice it's economy for Ukraine.
2. Some one would blow up Nord Stream 2.
3. Europe would let their people freeze this winter at the behest of the CIA.
#7
The Germans sacrificed their economy and warmth on the alter of Green.
With shady statistics, they could claim they were near zero C02 emissions as energy sourced from foreign sources didn't count in their official statistics. It was a Ponzi scheme all the way down, and now they are paying for it.
Funny you should bring that up. What’s happening now is almost the mirror image of October 1962, with the roles reversed.
We have the Monroe Doctrine, and told the Russians to GTFO of our backyard. The Russians have the exact same principle: GTFO and away from Crimea. What we’re doing is no different from the a hostile foreign power installing a puppet regime in Mexico or Canada and waging war on our citizens for 8 years. Of course we wouldn’t tolerate that for a second.
Kennedy wisely de-escalated and reached a fair and durable settlement.
Biden and his Freakshow are escalating, and Oahu g us to the brink. #Unfuckingbelievable
#12
Nothing to see here. Move along now. Ukraine’s victory is assured. Russians are retreating.
Oh wait… What’s this: Italy has suddenly ordered all their citizens OUT of Ukraine as soon as possible and cancel any plans of returning to Ukraine.
Not just Italy.
Oct 16: “CHINA urges its citizens to LEAVE UKRAINE and surrounding areas immediately”
Oct 17: “ISRAELI EMBASSY IN KYIV URGES ITS CITIZENS TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY”
Newsmax (13 hours ago): “A growing number of countries are urging their citizens to leave Ukraine. China, Serbia, Iran, Belarus, Egypt, India, Kazakhstan and the other ‘stans have all suddenly ordered all their citizens out of Ukraine.”
What do these nations know that our shitty propaganda garbage media isn’t telling Americans and Brits?
Ya think maybe, just possibly, the Russians are finally getting serious and that we’ve been fed a mountain of lies and BS about the course of the war?
The cabal responsible for the coup is trying to recreate the 60's when their ilk were on top.
I'm praying nightly again. I lived through all that shit once and that was enough. That given the rest of the world can help put the brakes on by reining in Vlad and Xi and anyone else that thinks they have a right to just lay claim to any neighboring territory.
#14
The weapons technology for nuclear weapons is light years beyond anything we had in the 60s
The warheads are more compact
Guidance systems are much better
A nuclear war is an extinction level event
These idiots will have our beautiful planet look like Mars or Venus
#16
^ those were installed by the hostile domestic power here at home
Posted by: Billy B ||
10/18/2022 16:45 Comments ||
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#17
I remember how shook up I was at four years of age when I was able to understand that fallout from an atomic explosion would poison the air that I had to breath and cause hideous diseases like cancer. Yes, I was traumatized. I thought I could relax when Ronald Reagan won the Cold War for us. I voted for him. It was scary but I believed in his strategy of standing up to the Soviets. I trusted him.
I don't trust Joe Biden. I'm quite certain that he needs to be impeached. Clearly, he is not the least bit interested in a peaceful negotiated settlement to this war. He still thinks he can win, whatever that means. I remember how Reagan would meet with Gorbachev and try to reason with him. I don't see Biden trying to reason with anything except an ice cream cone.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/18/2022 18:04 Comments ||
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#18
Joe Biden is not in charge.
The scary thing is that we no longer have the horizontal contacts that would eliminate misunderstandings before they escalate to nuclear war.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Red State] A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew back from Houston on Southwest. Southwest is open seating, and if you’ve ever flown Southwest on a busy route you know that if you check in late, you’ll be in group "D."
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites....
