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Posts posted by Bateshorn
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The thing about climate change, and this is no CR, but think of it like loaded dice, and you want to prepare for the worst case scenario being both worse than historical standards and more often. Whatever the worst case is: flash floods, hurricane winds, tidal surge, drought, heat death, lake effect snow, etc.
To stick with the gambling metaphor: if in the past you’d roll a snake eyes occasionally and lost your original stake, now you roll it much more often, and your stake and house is on the line. And you don’t roll a 9 nearly as often to make money/have a good time.
So for central Texas, you’ll have both more drought and, given how heat affects atmospheric dynamics, more catastrophic flooding.
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1 hour ago, FORTY NINE TO ZERO said:
they did. i have family diaries talking about floods and droughts outside of marble falls from the 1840s to the 1930s even then they were furious when the rivers were dammed
My grandfather used to tell me stories about the dam before Tom Miller failing.
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5 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:
mother nature gives zero fucks
A atmospheric chemist I know put it this way: carbon dioxide doesn’t think about you at all when it absorbs radiation at one wavelength and then gives it off in a different wavelength.
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39 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:
There is absolutely no more worthless group in a situation like this than the Red Cross. They literally made things worse in Wimberley.
If you're going to donate money to the relief efforts, PLEASE do not donate to the red cross.
As somebody who works/worked in and around the DC not-for-profit community, I second this. They are one of the most inept organizations on earth. You are better off using actual cash to start a cooking fire.
I know it’s challenging but please wait until local verified rescue groups are on the scene to contribute money.
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FWIW, I listened to portions of the birthright citizenship case and when they were not discussing injunctions, at least 6, and possibly 7 judges were extremely skeptical of the government’s position.
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3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:
"We've seen the end of major ground wars in Europe."
And we don't have to abandon Germany entirely. We just need to give them sufficient reason to doubt that we will continue to provide our umbrella of nuclear deterrence. Dude. We've done that ALREADY. The discussions on the european side are already (and rightly) happening: https://apnews.com/article/france-nuclear-weapons-deterrence-ukraine-russia-trump-a53dc73395455c753287ae2ecbb7a9a5
The only question is whether Germany will accept France extending its nuclear deterrent as sufficient. If I were Germany, I sure as fuck wouldn't. I would get me some nukes, and right quick. They have to make themselves too prickly a hedgehog for Russia to even think of ingesting.
As long as Marine Le Pen draws breath and the French far right remains a viable political party, I wouldn’t rely on the French for anything beyond cheese and wine.
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10 minutes ago, Macanudo said:
You think the Israeli's want this to end? Especially Bibi. He needs an antagonist.
I don’t disagree with that. Just the narrative that the Iran’s just straight trucked a bunch of 60-90% enriched uranium out and nobody in combined intelligence community said “hmm, I wonder what’s in those 18 wheelers?”
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I find it a little hard to believe that over the course of a week since the war started, with air superiority, the Israelis just watched the Iranian's back up trucks to Fordrow and load it up with an unidentified cargo and drive away. Or the US overhead satellites feeding intelligence to the IDF.
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3 minutes ago, victory88 said:
One thing we know... 1-2 years from now Bibi will claim Iran is weeks away from having a nuke.
I mean, we can't have that wartime cabinet dissolve and him be exposed to criminal indictment now can we?
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Depending on how successfull we ultimately determine the Fordrow attacks to be, this kinda seems like the Iranians are all but begging us to ask Isreal to stop.
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1 minute ago, SimonBolivar said:
LOL NYTimes good one.
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26 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:
The best analogy I can think of right now is, Iran finally got caught outside in the streets and is catching these hands from Israel and everyone is standing around and watching it. No Arab/ME are jumping in to help and the West is just yelling "Worldstar!".
The internal calculus has to be one of two things:
1) do you let up on them and hope they've learned their lesson though they likely get down the block and barely within earshot start talking mad crap again before running off with threats of "just wait til I get back" and try to rally his friends, or
2) beat the pulp out of Iran to the point where they don't even come outside of the house again
Given what Israel just did to Hezebollah and continues to do to Hamas, I think we know the answer to that question. They've gone full Judge Dredd.
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4 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:
That's our concern, dude.
That's Marvelous!
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4 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:
Russian response. We sold you a bunch of shitty weapons and got a bunch of drones.
Lol. The Russians:
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8 minutes ago, KYHorn said:
I don't have a dog in the fight, but just for clarity, I think the disagreement was over Macron's use of the phrase "ceasefire".
Technically you may be right, but it's a pedantic difference only this White House and the Surl would engage in. I'm sure Macron was using some artistic license, or b eing polite. Unlike Trump, I'm sure he didn't want to say "yeah, my understanding is he's going back to bomb the fuck outta Iran."
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9 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:
Yes, there are Baluchi's there, but also other Sunni groups. Agree there would be some ideological differences. And external influence (Look north and west). Baluchis have always wanted their own place. They are a pretty big ass tribe sitting on some valuable land. Here is what they claim. Some pretty damn important ports, but also a lot of Chinese investment.
No, it would not look good, and why I said no US troops. Canadians, Nordics, they do not carry the animosity. Sure high level of force protection, but it can be done. That is why you have contractors to protect those sites.
Israel? yeah, they are not going to pay shit, but the Gulf Arabs will. They can fun reconstruction. They need the good press in the Shia world. Let each country adopt a province. They will try to outdo each other so hard.
Risks-
Iran breaks up into regions controlled by warlords. Make sure people have jobs and they tend to not fight. We failed at that in both Afghanistan and Iran relying on third country nationals for even down to the most basic jobs.
Limit the Influx of foreign private capitol from Iranian diaspora. This tends to change the national make up a lot. Limit what they can do. If you create an Iranian first policy, make residency a requirement.
Man, I love you, but there ain't no fucking way the Persian Diaspora isn't going to meddle incessantly in post Ayatolla Iran. The US ones alone will pay-for-play with the Trump White House for concessions.
It's not quite going to be on the grift level of South Florida Cuban meddling in the case of a Cuban government collapse, but it's going to be bad.
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1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:
Perhaps you missed the foundational theme of this regime: they will regularly say two things that are complete opposites of each other, then when one of them turns out to be the case, they point to it and say they were telling the truth.
"I predict Texas will win!"
"I predict OU will win!"
[Texas wins]
"See, I was right!"
I posted it above, but the White House said Trump was leaving G-7 to deal with Israel-Iran.
Macron, when asked, said President was leaving to deal with Israel-Iran.
Trump goes on Truth Social and says I didn't leave because of Israel-Iran and Macron is talking out of his ass.
That's just in the last 18 fucking hours.
Gaslighting and bullshit is default for this administration. They are the fuckboi of Presidential Administration.
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1 minute ago, hornbri said:
If I put my conspiracy hat on, something something Israel if you can maintain air superiority over Iran then the US steps in to help do this…
I really hope we don’t for a variety of reasons but I think it’s coming.
If I put my conspiracy hat on, something something Israel if you can maintain air superiority over Iran then the US steps in to help do this…
I really hope we don’t for a variety of reasons but I think it’s coming.
Either that, or the Isrealis may try some sort of airborne force to take the facility. Which may also require our involvement from an overwatch and logistical support.
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4 hours ago, Bevo said:
Israel says it killed senior Iranian general
Israel’s military said it had killed a senior Iranian general “in the heart of Tehran” overnight.
The Israeli Air Force said it struck a command centre and killed Ali Shadmani, the commander of Iran’s main centre for designing, coordinating and overseeing military operations.
Israel said the killing “adds to a series of eliminations of Iran’s most senior military leadership and degrades the chain of command of the Iranian armed forces”. It said Shadmani was appointed following the killing of his predecessor at the start of Israel’s campaign on June 13.
Iran has not confirmed the Israeli claim.
https://www.ft.com/content/03475842-014c-402b-8fd0-be77a89decc1
Trump says Macron wrong about his G7 summit exit
Donald Trump said his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron was wrong about the reason the US president left the G7 summit in Canada early, saying it was not to work on an Israel-Iran ceasefire.
“He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Much bigger than that.”
Earlier, Macron said Trump told G7 leaders that discussions were under way to obtain a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
Trump, who described Macron as “publicity seeking”, said: “Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!”
G7 backs Israel and calls Iran ‘principal source of terror’
The G7 leaders agreed a statement on the Middle East late on Monday backing Israel’s right to defend itself and saying Iran can “never have a nuclear weapon”.
The statement, backed by all members including the US, reiterated the group’s “commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East”.
They added: “In this context, we affirm that Israel has a right to defend itself. We reiterate our support for the security of Israel.”
The leaders described Iran as “the principal source of regional instability and terror”, adding: “We have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”
The statement urged that the resolution of the Iranian crisis leads to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, “including a ceasefire in Gaza”.
They said the G7 countries would “co-ordinate” to ensure stability in energy markets.
The Press Secretary literally said he was leaving because of Israel-Iran.
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As an aside, I've heard anecdotally the Air Force is loathe to use B-2 for almost anything these days, out of fear that each time use them, there's the potential the Chinese pick up improved data on stealth detection.
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12 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:
I think, most likely some amalgamation of 4 and 5 are what ends up happening. But... I admit I tend very hawkish in regards to my disdain for Iran and frankly this conflict. Purely selfishly I am ready for the can kicking to end.
Same. Although I'm getting more isolationist as a I get older.
3 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:On one hand I understand being hawkish against the current regime and I definitely agree they need to go, but it's always amusing to me how no one wants to look back and consider why Iran is the way it is now and how that should factor in to how this goes.
It doesn't seem to be that bombing the shit out of this country and then installing whatever puppet government we choose is going to ultimately lead to a better outcome than what we have today.
Seems like a lot of selfish, short term interest is driving a lot of this.
America never thinking more than one step ahead and resorting to force as a solution for everything?
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1 minute ago, Brian Fantana said:
Tbh, dissolving every Likud party member in acid would probably be a net positive for the world.
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13 minutes ago, Laxtonto said:
So, as we get to the hard realization that Iran can not stop Israel in the air and Israel does not have the air and ground capability to fully accomplish their full set of goals, we get to the "what now" part of all of this.
1. People keep discussing destroying the Iranian oil and gas production to bring "Iran to their knees" and thus ending the war. This is probably both overly simplistic and missing a huge part of the puzzle. If the idea were so binary, the US would have wiped out Kharg Island years ago, and Iran would have just drifted off into obscurity, right? The problem goes beyond OPEC+ and economics, and falls into the simple idea of what comes after. If you ever view the dream of a return to the classic Iranian Persian Monarchy with sympathetic ties to the west, the environment needs to be viable for success. If you wipe the refining capabilities off the map, you are looking at decades and decades to rebuild the refining capability at the cost of billions and billions of dollars. Without the ability to both extract and refine the natural resources, Iran has no economic future, and the Iranian people are looking at mass poverty and hardship. If you expect the current style of government to stay in power, you are balancing the idea of keeping the populace alive and having hope while trying to limit the headaches they can bring about with the hard currency they can make. If you expect a regime change and want that regime to last long term, you can't destroy the one resource they have to provide them a viable future.
So what do you do? That is the hard question, and why you are seeing Israel right now targeting domestic storage, production, and use facilities instead of the big refineries. I swing back and forth on how I view this because, without resources, Iran as a regional power player shrivels and dies. But without a future, the idea and dream of a Western-aligned Persia dies as well. This is why sanctions have always been used instead of strikes on refineries in the past. The "cut the baby in half" approach would be to target the field incrementally to halt production and therefore halt supply instead of the refining capability. Recapping a burning well is still a problem, but in the grand scheme of things, it is not viewed as a generational timeline that the loss of refining capability would be.2. We are seeing a steady degradation of the Iranian response capabilities. Ignore the "damage porn" of missiles getting through to the Israeli cities, and just focus on numbers. Missile intercepts are always going to be a fixed value tied to a distribution. That distribution will be a function of intercept capability and missile path. Missiles will get through and there will be casualties. That should be a given. What is more telling is not the damage but the count of missiles launched per wave. That is tied directly to the finite number of launchers. If you are paying attention, we are seeing a steady degradation of Iranian launch capabilities, with Israel having assigned a heavy priority of targeting launchers (even over air interdiction of missiles in flight). As there are fewer and fewer launchers, the intercept rate will steadily increase. The mix of a finite number of launchers and a limited number of ballistic missiles always puts a natural time limit on the number of days Iran could provide a military threat of response (not a nuisance threat), and by targeting the launchers, the volley size per wave is steadily decreasing. At some point, the launches lose military value and move into political theater.
3. What do you do as Iran at this point? They have limited military responses available in the air. Israel is not invading on the ground (yet), and their neighbors are not going to let them move an army over their territory to let them attack Israel. Besides, any form of land assault would be a disaster with Israel having total control of the skies. Unless Egypt goes rogue and surprise attacks Israel, there is little to the idea Israel will have to engage in a large land battle at or near their territory. So Israel is insulated by a major land or air assault, and Iran has a finite number of ballistic missiles and launchers and the window of their ballistic missile response being anything other than a nuisance threat is closing. The only thing they have going for them is that the overall goal of Israel cannot be accomplished via air attacks (without the US becoming involved) and would require Israeli forces on the ground in mass. So what do you do? You have already hardened the locations you can, and troop distribution and movement mean very little in this type of war. There are already as many troops protecting their hardened nuclear production and research facilities as would be functionally possible, and your lone military response is a finite resource. At this point, the best approach would be unconventional warfare strategies (ie terror attacks, suicide bombings, ect.) and political pressure. The problem is that the unconventional strategies are something Israel has become hardened to due to decades of Hezbollah, Hamas, ect. attacks, and they have little to no political capital to use (which erodes even more if they use unconventional warfare).
Iran is in a waiting game and is in a completely reactionary stance that will be dictated by what Israel and the US decide. The best approach is to try and get Israel to the table now under the condition of a complete ceasefire. The problem is that Israel has a "plan" of targets that covers 10-20 days of targets, and unless it becomes politically disadvantageous, they will stick to it. Much like with Gaza, their willingness to ignore the "bad" press on the global stage has insulated them from these types of demands by Iran. The only thing Iran has left to trade is their nuclear weapons program, and until it becomes apparent that it is either trade that or their regime being in power, Iran will not truly negotiate, and Israel knows this. What makes it more dangerous is at some point the US (or someone else) may decide that the only way this stops is to provide Israel the airframes needed to drop the ordnance to collapse these hardened facilities.
There is no real "end" to this that is positive to the current Iranian regime, without outside intervention on their behalf. Without their proxies, Iran is a "paper tiger" and the ME political landscape has made it more advantageous to be neutral on this topic than it is to be an ally to Iran. We can get into the religious/cultural ties with all of this, but even the Sunni/Shite rift and Arab vs. Persian divide only mean so much. We are now seeing the ME starting to act more "rational" as they begin to accept that the problems Iran brings to the region are no longer worth what it would take to "save" them. You can call it becoming westernized, or the power of capitalism, or the spread of exposure to rational discourse because of the internet, or the desire to normalize relations for a stronger ME as a whole, but the shift has occurred and now it doesn't look like anyone is coming to ride in and save the Iranian regime. Without it, it is just a matter of time for either Iran to cave to the Israeli and US demands (which may lead to a regime change) or being overthrown.
Good shit.
I think for the Isreali's they have 3 military options for the nuclear program, none of which are perfect:
1. Use their limited bunker buster weapons repeatedly in hopes of eventually breaking through deep buried Iranian facilities. Both inefficient and risks potential dirty bomb scenerio.
2. Use nukes tactically. I don't believe this is really on the table short of some sudden existential threat we haven't seen.
3. Some sort of airborne operation to take the facilities in force. The chances of this turning into a debacle are high.
Which leaves them with two other outs:
4. We use our bombers to destroy the facilities, which is possible if option5 doesn't happen.
5. Iranians capitulate and give up weapons and/or internal regime change.
It's worth noting, while Iranians are suffering civilian casaulties, the Israelis appear to be using much more caution than they are in Gaza.
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2025 Thread of the Rains
in Daily Texan
Posted
I have a vivid memory as a young scout of an assistant scout master forcing us to break camp in the middle of the night in Perdernales during a pop up storms, with more than a bit of panic and urgency. I was tired and annoyed at the time, but thankful today.