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Thetexashammer

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by Thetexashammer

  1. I cannot compete with anyone here vis a vis their love of wine. I've more or less moved to whisky, mainly because I can put the top back on the drink it again a month later. That said, I am a gentleman and will always have a bottle of champagne in my fridge.

    A couple of years ago when I was living in Stuttgart, I was able to attend the Salon des Vins des Vignerons Indépendants Strasbourg. I don't know if anyone has been t one of these, so I will tell the story.

    https://www.tradefairdates.com/Salon+des+Vins+des+Vignerons+Indépendants-M13982/Strasbourg.html

    Basically, it's all the smaller winemakers. Tons of champagne for example, I took home a case. Not the big names, I've  been to Reims-Epernay, they weren't there. I also bought some a couple cognacs, which were amazing. All were around $20 per bottle or less.

    So when you walk in, you pay like $5 and they give you a glass. Some pro types had a lanyard to hold the glass. There was probably 500 booths for wine, maybe more. An entire large convention center filled to the brim. People were buying everything by the case. So you wander around getting free samples until you find what you like. Then you get a couple cases. So you would get a hand truck (for free) and fill it up. Then you go over to the temporary storage area, and drop off your goodies. When you are ready to leave, there is a special loading lane. So you drive over, grab your purchases and a hand truck, and load up your car. People were literally filling up their cars, they must have a bought a years supply. 

    All in all, it was a completely amazing experience. They do similar shows across France. I didn't need to ship anything back to the US as I was living there.  Has anyone ever been to one of these?

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  2. I think they are going to have to cut rates massively to avoid out of control deficits. To be fair, this is what I am hoping for anyway.

    When this happens, I want to get massively long on some personal real estate. It will be the last time we see low cost mortgages, and just like the inflation from the 1980's, if you held on to your home the mortgage cost inflated away and the home value (driven by nominal wages) just kept going up. 

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  3. 7 minutes ago, Blotto said:

    I dont get it. Are we funding Iran now, too? Fuck I'm so behind. 

    That depends. How much truth do you want to know? Did we take them missile shopping and hand them our credit card? No. Did we give them a few billion in the vain hopes they would behave themselves? Yes. 

     

  4. 28 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

    12-Deaths.jpg

    Holy shit bro.

    Most people won't remember, but a couple years before the event, the stack fell down. We were there for the fall lacrosse tournament, and looked over at their leaning tower of stupidity and kind of just laughed. They got it rebuilt before the game. The point is, they knew it would happen. It wasn't some out of the blue "we didn't see this coming" black fucking swan event. It was a known thing.

    My recollection was they blamed the rain, I think, when I was there. Soft ground.

    According to wikipedia, they will have to use a professional engineering firm this time.

    Quote

     

    The Texas Board of Professional Engineers announced in 2000 that the Aggie Bonfire met the requirements to be considered a complex construction project subject to regulation under state engineering laws and would thus have had to be designed and overseen by a professional engineer.[15]

     

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  5. 12 minutes ago, B00M said:

    Except it does matter. A lot. An Odesa invasion would’ve been much easier for Russia with that fleet that included several landing ships. Much of Ukraine’s economy is agricultural exports through the Black Sea. Those went to zero when Russia dominated the sea. Now they’re back to like 60% of pre-war levels if I recall. To sustain this “stalemate” until Russia breaks requires a mostly functional Ukrainian economy.  

    Except the Ukraine sea drone success is recent. Ukraine has been exporting grain from Odessa long before they fucked up the Russian fleet. They had a formal agreement with Russia to do it, then when Russia walked away, the Ukranians just kept exporting and the ships moved unmolested.

    People continue to insist that Thanos will snap his fingers and all the Russian soldiers will die. That's not reality. Russia won't quit until Putin is gone, and there is zero sign he is about to be killed. In fact, there is good evidence of broad public support for the war inside Russia. 

  6. What's not included in the analysis of contributions is the active duty support we are providing them. The SAG-U has been in charge of coordinating international aid shipments since the beginning, and it's always been funded and operated by the US, even before it was formally stood up as I think a 2 star command. I am linking everything I say now so there is no issue. But I will say the fuckers took my parking spot. 

    Press Release - US Department of Defense establishes Security Assistance Group-Ukraine in Wiesbaden > U.S. Army Europe and Africa > Article View Press Release

    Of course, it is also public that we are in charge of the actual handoff of materiel to the Ukrainians. 

    How a tiny Polish airport became a key node for Western aid to Ukraine - Defense One

    Quote

    More mundane but no less important were the logistical burdens. Eighty percent of allied military aid flows through Poland, much of it through Rzeszów-Jasionka. 

    Of course we are training them at our bases, that is also public. New unit of Ukrainian troops training in Grafenwoehr as US soldiers from Mississippi take over mission | Stars and Stripes

  7. 2 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

    How bout this. What if we fully committed our military into Ukraine? Do you know how fast we would have all those support systems in place? Do you know how fast we would have air supremacy? How fast we would break through those mine fields and defensive lines? 
     

    The answer to all of those questions is “really fucking fast.” Unless you believe the US military couldn’t beat this garage Russian army, stop claiming that we gave them everything they needed. 

    I made very specific recommendations. Perhaps you should read them.

  8. image.thumb.png.1aad7768fcb58657d5411c45eddfc0a3.png

    Source is the Kiel institute. I believe the red bars are "allocations" meaning the EU separately made a commitment, and Kiel is "allocating" that proportionally by GDP. I would be curious as to how much EU commitment has been delivered, they are a famously ineffective group who generally prefer strongly worded letters over action. 

    Not scaled by GDP, obviously.

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  9. 15 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

     No one does combined arms offensives without air superiority. It's one of the basic conditions set before starting. The lack of tanks was a big issue. Why were Russian defenses so well prepared going into Ukraine's summer offensive? Because equipment deliveries took fucking forever. 

    We didn't crack the door open for Russia to gain the initiative and advance this year. We pretty much blew it open. I highly doubt Avdiivka falls if we had kept up supplies. 

    I don't really disagree with any of that. But even if/when they get more shells, they are still playing defense. All I am saying is there is no obvious tactical path forward.

    The people who really know strategy aren't talking, and the people who are talking don't know strategy. All I am saying is a thing that is sublimely obvious. It is a stalemate. Status quo means whole lot of dead people and billions of dollars and euros spent for no obvious reason. Until something changes, it will remain a stalemate. If could've done it, we would've. 

    I wanted nothing more than for the Kerch bridge to fall. I think a massed missile strike would kill both bridges permanently. It didn't happen. And the Ukranians have not shut off the northern route to resupply either. So until both of those things happen, there will be no collapse.

    I watched many videos where Ben Hodges was talking about how Ukraine would take Crimea last summer. I believed him. He was wrong. Crimea chokes down to about a 2 mile wide swampy bottleneck at one point. It is fully mined and targeted with missiles and artillery. The only was Ukraine is getting Crimea back is with an amphibious landing. They aren't crossing that no man's land.

    Ukraine is fucking up the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. But armies win land wars, so it's awesome and makes me smile to see those guys die, but it doesn't matter. 

    I disagree with the Republicans tactics, it is extremely reckless. And they are wrong on principle. They constantly say "Putin's not going to take the Baltics". Except he will, if we let him. But Ukraine will lose a war of attrition. Russia has 6x the population and 10x the economy and Putin is a dictator. He can't lose, it would end him. And we doing nothing to make him think he is going to lose. Putin will take Kyiv if we do not massively increase our commitment to winning. That's where we are now. 

    giphy.gif

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  10. 100% on the football fatwa, nobody disagrees.

    penelopewitherspoon has dished out 5114 negreps in total.

    Felix has given 4240 negreps.

    VRHorn has given out 2477 of them.

    Safe sex has done it 2457 times.

    JimmyJames is a piker. He has but a mere 2259. Most of them directed at me LOL.

    For some of these people, they are doing like ten negreps per day every fucking day of the year for years on end.

    Bottom line, your query was correct.

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  11. Jimmy James was not in the top 5, so I willl pay up later. Right now I am going to bed.

    I am not entirely sure I trust your methodology though. You queried among the set of all posters, which posters gave out the most negrep? In other words, who are the angriest most hateful posters.

    Nevertheless, that's very interesting. Two women in the top 5. Bevoette would never had done such a thing.

    The others I don't even recognize for the most part. Who are VRHorn and UnivTex34 and Felix? 

    Different topic, but what is your opinion on posters spree repping? Meaning, they want someone banned so they go and find every post you've ever made and negrep it.

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