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atomheartbevo

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by atomheartbevo

  1. 2 hours ago, MagicSoccerSpray said:

    I want this to be true, but how so?

    @Gatorubet covered most, but I'd say that Ukraine is getting modern fighters in numbers the Russians can't (along with the munitions for them), and Ukraine is increasing production of their homegrown long-range munitions (drones/missiles) which are performing admirably, all the while Russia can't currently keep up with air defense system production (as Ukraine continues to destroy/degrade them and target the manufacturing chain). 

    Russia also can't seem to shake the strategy of lobbing a significant number of missiles/drones at civilian targets, which, just as the Germans did during the Battle of Britain (when they switched from targeting the RAF to civilians), is going to bite them in the ass, since every missile or drone put into civilian targets is a missile or drone that's not used against military targets. If their production/acquisition slows down, they are going to wish they had those missiles and drones.

    When Germany was unable to defend the Fatherland from allied bombing, things started turning slowly, and then suddenly. There's going to come a point where Ukraine drops the Kerch bridge, and shuts down large-scale navel re-supply to Crimea, and starts putting missiles into Moscow. They are already hitting power facilities around Moscow as it is, and there seems to be few targets in Crimea and along the Russian coastline that Ukraine can't touch (and Ukraine has been working over Russia's cargo ships that would be used to supply Crimea).

    I won't join Gatorubet in his bet about next June, but I do think things will look completely different by then, and probably even by February.  This is a very unique moment in history - Ukraine is able to put an economic (and arguably psychological once the heating and electricity fails for longer and longer times) pressure on Russia that few other countries in history have been able to accomplish in the same situation.

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  2. 34 minutes ago, berlinerbaer said:

    Trump +22 in ‘24

    And the R is a Hugely MAGA West Pointer.  It's pretty amazing that it's this close, but the Rs in Tennessee have pissed off plenty.

  3. 43 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

    Harry Enten putting odds on whether ACA subsidies are extended is pretty silly. 

    Republicans have already publicly admitted that the healthcare thing is going to really hurt the Republican party. And there are a lot of people who are not aware of what's going on and what will be happening with costs/fees.

    And they don't want to address healthcare because it's the right thing to do (if you are "pro-life") or because it saves all of us money in the long run and keeps our ERs free for, you know, actual emergencies, versus a shitload of uninsured showing up at the ER for the flu, they want to address it because they are afraid Democrats can use the horror stories against them next November.

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  4. A little more on that factory hit.  It probably didn’t slow production too much, but hitting a vital factory 1000km into the country is pretty serious.

     

    Ukrainian drones struck the capital of the Chuvash republic of Cheboksary in Russia, which is around 1,000 km from the Ukrainian border. Target was VNIIR-Progress factory. Explosion from the factory area can be seen from multiple angles.
     

    VNIIR is a leading Russian developer, manufacturer, and supplier of hardware and software solutions for relay protection and automation, automated process control systems, electronic component base (electronic modules), electrical engineering products, radio-electronic products, as well as automation control systems and hardware and software solutions. They also produce antennas for anti drone protection.

    All airports in that region have been closed.

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  5. 2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

    So how do we stop this?  There has to be a way to regulate it. Not with this admin and congress of course, because they are traitors, but if we can somehow get control back, this has to be stopped. 

    Keep dropping those community notes about where he's from, keep reporting him, etc.

    My guess is Elmo removes the feature in a few days.

  6. 6 hours ago, Macanudo said:

    Bacon has kind of been a lone voice of dissent.  I doubt any more jump on this.  Especially since this is just the "disaster of that day" and something else will be the top disaster tomorrow.  

    The Witkoff recording leak is drawing a large amount of attention, especially given that Rubio and others would probably like to see him fall.  A lot of attention, and none of it good. Trump is trying to distract/delay/whatever by sending him off to Moscow, but that was the wrong thing to do.

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  7. 8 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

    As a former adult leader and long time acting Scout Master, those assholes pretending that the BSA charter mandating no political affiliations does not matter makes me so ragey.

    Unfortunately, MAGA is deeply embedded in scouting right now.  

    I think it depends on where you are at and the chartering organization.  Girls have already made up nearly half (and growing) of the claimed number of Mormon kids who were pulled out in 2020, and COVID had a larger impact overall than them leaving. We know of a lot of Mormon, err LDS outside of Utah who stayed in Scouting so for all of the LDS threats, I'm not sure they were able to pull out as many as they claimed they were as well.

    Now I have seen it here in Austin - one of the nearby packs and troops was chartered through a conservative church and they made it clear girls were not welcome back when it was opened up to girls (we were looking for a Cub Scout pack with girls as well and they made it clear girls had no place there). Whether they've changed that stance or not, I don't know since we never hear of those units, other than when they have kids transfer to our units.

    It's been 7-8 years since it started happening (LBGTQ stuff and girls being added) so I'd imagine that those parents for which it was an issue have either bailed on scouting or made their peace and stuck it out (and are on their way to aging out anyways).

    7 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

    As a current Scout leader, I have seen much less of this.  Like any volunteer organization, I suspect it strongly depends on the quality of volunteers in your local unit.  I can truthfully say that amongst our leadership, I'm not entirely sure where everyone stands politically.  Be we all stand together in the focus on our youth.  Going camping, cleaning up parks, and generally having fun while doing good works should not have to be a political act.  

    Same.  Being Austin, we will obviously trend more a certain way, but we have plenty of dads who are Good Ole Boys and you're not sure where they stand, and that's good that they keep political things out of it.

    5 hours ago, Ojo Rojo said:

    Same.  I'm part of two different Scout groups - one Boy Scout and one Cub Scout.  I'm a den leader for the pack and on the parent committee for the troop.  I've been on many campouts and other events and I can happily say that politics never came up.  I have occasional thoughts about where certain people stand politically, but it's not germane to what we're doing.  Both groups have a lot of really high-quality people running them, so we've been lucky, I guess.

    Same (and I'm in the same leadership boat as you). And those times when politics have come up, it was less about a certain party, and more about a certain policy that affected us directly (earlier this year there was a lot of discussion about DOGE and getting rid of national parks).

    I will say this though, with the older kids, just by virtue of the merit badges involved with making Eagle Scout (and many in our troop aspire to that), those kids are a lot more engaged in terms of knowing what the politicians are doing that helps or hurts them, and how the political processes work, and they are pretty vocal about things. They watched DOGE and the White House trying to fuck up our National Park system, and today some of them have been discussing Whisky Pete's threats on a group discussion (they have plans for the National Jamboree).

    Republicans ain't helping themselves with a lot of kids coming out of Scouting.

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  8. 7 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

    Amen, amen.

    We just had our first young woman make Eagle out of our Troop.  On paper, because we're required to do so, we have a boys and girls Troop.  But they all work together and effectively operate as a cohesive unit.  Because guess what?  Life is co-ed.  And our Troop is growing with both boys and girls for all the reasons you mention.  Mainly, because it's fun to go outside and do challenging stuff.   Onward and upward.  

    Yeah, we are in an odd situation because there are a lot less girl troops in our area, but they are gaining fast and new ones are coming online this year (and the switch-up to allow co-ed/family troops will change/improve that even more), and as a merit badge counselor, I've seen them work harder to make Eagle than the boys. Some of that maybe due to some of the girls coming into it later and so they are on a time crunch, but the majority show up prepared for whatever they are working on, and some of the boys, you have to drag it out of them. My son is that way - it's like "come on kid, it's right there in the book you are holding, at least show me that you are serious about it."

    We work with a couple of troops (as merit badge counselor) and our son is in a troop and our daughter is in Cub Scouts, and all of them appear to be growing fairly well (COVID really messed things up and we lost troops and packs in the area from them not pulling in young kids during that time), and the ones with girls appear to be growing very well.  It seems like the girls in both Cubs and in the troop we work with are a lot more outdoor-focused than the local Girl Scout troops.

     

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  9. 5 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

    Well, when I first saw this bit I was five.  So physical comedy was my jam.   I thought Mr. Bill was the peak of comedic humor.  

    That sounds just like me except my Mr. Bill was Benny Hill.

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  10. 4 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

    A master sergeant or chief petty officer needs to cuff this sorry bitch until he cries.

    Bless Beavis And Butthead GIF by Paramount+

    A master sergeant or chief petty officer would have recognized that the photo was taken in a mirror as well.

    But not Major Whisky Pete.

     

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  11. 6 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

    surly scouters (that are not magats) please pm me we'll get an offline thread going

    6 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

    We had a decent Scout thread going but I can't seem to find it right now?

     

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