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Bateshorn

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Everything posted by Bateshorn

  1. Staff should have known better. But that letter is weird, because it’s signed by Jim Jordan, who is not the chair (James Comer is the OGR Chair). Here’s a full oversight letter I found on line (I’ll admit I haven’t read it in detail. I don’t do transportation stuff for a living) https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023-02-24-Letter-DOT-Norfolk-Southern-Derailment.pdf
  2. I liked it, I didn’t love it. Agree that Colman is masterful, but the movie is a touch uneven. It’s nothing like the trailer. I tried The Fablemans the other night and turned it off after about 25 minutes. It failed to hook me, and Michelle Williams is just creepy.
  3. When they talk about bullet magnets in Black Hawk Down, that is the Russian version.
  4. The “quantity has a quality all its own” worked for Russia, exactly once: WW2. And that’s partially (mostly) because we were supplying them with the materials they needed beyond humans to make it work. Plus we destroyed the Nazis oil sources in Romania. Had the German’s not elected to try and fight and win a 2 front war after D-Day and invest his reserves in the Bulge, started quiet negotiations with the West, and instead focused on the Eastern Front, I’m not sure the Russians get across the Oder before we capture most of Germany and Berlin. Basically it was a one off that needed everything to come together to be successful.
  5. Yeah, modern Tankies are not classic Tankies. I suspect that if say, Nikki Haley won the presidency, and continued support for Ukraine, you’d see some left wing MOC, like Jayapal or Ro Khanna suddenly start talking about the need to negotiate.
  6. One of the very clever things this Administration is doing is remaking the Ukrainian military into our military’s image. Just Like the Poles. This makes it very hard for certain elements (no CR) to walk away from Ukraine because there are jobs in their congressional districts that are now dependent on our continued support for Ukraine. And that means getting the Ukrainians on board with our SOP. And that likely doesn’t involve use of old, warehoused cluster munitions that probably are only still in existence because the Pentagon doesn’t have the cash to do safe and proper disposal (I.e. not burnpits).
  7. My understanding is the US Military moved away from them not because they are woke babies, but because they were seen as a military liability all things considered, and not in line with our overall focus on accuracy when blowing shit up. Basically the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. It’s similar to our abandonment of napalm: there are better tools for the job.
  8. I’m in short sleeves, with the grill on, in February, in Washington DC. At least one cherry tree on my street is in bloom.
  9. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tankie Tankies are basically left wing people who will excuse anything former Soviet/current China does as it’s all for the cause (which is completely malleable depending on the issue) in this current setting: because Biden is ascendant and all of Europe(including the Greens) is unified, they are very quiet. Amnesty International is probably as close as you are going to get as their public face.
  10. Not sure about ATACMS, but there is wisdom here about the politics. Tankies are a thing. They might be hiding, but the are waiting to come out the moment a pro-Ukrainian GOP leader shows up.
  11. With China, you strangle them economically. Use sanctions and trade embargoes to force EU and US manufacturing to look elsewhere for low cost producers.
  12. It’s been a good day.
  13. I don’t want to downplay the Russia-Iran thing, but “sophisticated “ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that statement.
  14. Fair enough. I loved it, but it’s always tricky recommending foreign language movies
  15. It’s just so damn hard to find anything good these days that goes bang and doesn’t take 2.5 hours and is a mediocre quality CGI fest. I felt like the movie wasn’t trying to explore a deeper meaning and instead just took the viewers for a ride, letting them find their own meaning.
  16. I wasn’t aware there was a sliding scale for riot quality. You’ve obviously never tried to keep up with lightning fast German subtitles before. There were no good guys and lots of tactical wtf in Apocalypse Now, and yet it’s a classic. Literally nothing made sense in Maverick, which was basically a rewarming of the first movie, with the Star Wars trench scene tacked on and Miles Teller’s mustache. If you can find a quality sub 100 minute action movie with cool visuals and multiple long tracking shots, I’m all ears.
  17. Athena. About a riot in a French housing project and a group of brothers living/fighting through it. It's pretty much straight action from the jump. 99 minutes. Cinematography is absolutely astounding and the action is breathtaking. Because it's French, the subtitles are easy. I don't know how this movie didn't end up on everyone's top ten lists. 5 out of 5 stars. Maybe the only movie this year that can hang with Maverick on the action/entertainment front.
  18. One of the benefits of living in DC is I won’t have to try my hand at surviving in a post Apocalyptic world. I have an old coworker whose joke was “when the nuke sirens go off, Ima a grab a bottle of scotch from the liquor store down the street and just walk towards the White House. Won’t feel a thing.”
  19. I had it in January. Basically a really intense 3 day flu, fever and hideous congestion, then on day 4 my fever broke and I was symptom free by day 6. Just like that. my wife had it too, it took 2 weeks to clear, and she still occasionally gets short of breath. We’ve both had the max shots and I mixed and matched Moderna and Pfizer.
  20. KC will remain at the top of the game as long as Reid stays and Mahomes is willing to take a home town deal (via restructuring) to allow the team to bring in good talent at other positions.
  21. The worst part will be tomorrow when everyone is bitching about the anti-climatic ending and wailing for rule changes. If you watch the NFL regularly, every week there is a game that ends like this with smart kneel downs, intelligent clock running and a boring ass short field goal.
  22. It is a pity that the GOP is so clownish and stupid on entitlement reform. SS is not really that complex to bring into funding stability, but it will likely require raising/eliminating the tax cap, moving to chained CPI, and potentially monkeying around with the bend points to cut benefits to the wealthy. Since Rick Scott walked into the room and publicly blew his dick off, there’s very little chance of a viable bipartisan reform that could deflect voters anger.
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