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956 Worldwide

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Posts posted by 956 Worldwide

  1. 1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

    God damn Annette Bening was hot as fuck in that flick. She oozed come, and fuck me attitude.

    Let’s eat, grandma.

    Lets eat grandma.

    She oozed come and fuck me attitude.

    She oozed come, and fuck me attitude.

    Commas are important.

  2. Just now, South Austin said:

    And the amount of wind you break later that evening.

    Occasionally I will get a hankering for roast garlic.  I’ll slow roast it in olive oil with a bit of salt and eat a whole head with a bit of crusty bread.  My wife makes me sleep in the guest room those days.

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  3. 5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

     


    Yeah…..but it’s one redeeming muthafuckin’ place. A real treasure. Pick up a bbq plate and some fresh Czech egg noodles to cook up with salt, butter, and parsley….and don’t forget their house-smoked bacon, gotta grab a coupla pounds of that….



    That’s why I never put an about of garlic in any of the recipes I share. It’s either a little (probably 2-3 cloves) or a bunch (6+).

     

    You don’t measure garlic with a recipe, you measure garlic with your heart. 

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  4. 11 hours ago, Anastasis said:

    LOL when he told him that they were operating in "Alex Jones territory".

    Also LOL at Spox @ 4:45: "If you doubt the credibility of the US government....and want to find solace and information that the Russians are putting out, that is for you to do". 

    A reporter pressing the Spox to provide evidence for claims being made by the US government, giving specific examples of its track record when the war drums are beating, is met with a response amounting to go marry Putin if you love him so much. It's called traitorous critic fallacy, for the people keeping score on such things. 

     Good to see a reporter covering this report press them on past failures, evidence, and inconsistencies.

     

    Here's another from the same reporter:

     

     

    Let me make a helpful analogy:

    Cops: “A known sex offender with a history of violence to minors and indecent exposure has been seen around this sports center.  Here’s his photo, call us if you see him and tell him to scram if he shows up to watch soccer practice. He’s not supposed to be here.”

    Normal people: “Ok, thanks for the heads up.”

    Brainworms: “Wait, didn’t you say that it was crazy last year when we thought Hilary Clinton had a kiddie sex dungeon in a pizza parlor? Now you’re asking me to BELIEVE in sex offenders? What is your confidence level, have you actually seen him unzipping his pants at the soccer field? Also, you arrested the wrong guy after the jewelry store robbery 12 years ago, so how can we ever believe you now?”

     

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  5. One piece that’s been mostly ignored is the potential for a refugee crisis in Europe that makes Bosnia look like a day-camp outing.  Many of the countries likely to absorb them are in the East, are small, and don’t have the infrastructure in place to do it.

    And Americans often don’t realize what a massive, long-term impact the Yugoslavia refugee wave made in Europe.  None of those nations wants a repeat, and certainly not at a larger scale. 
     

    For that matter, brushing up on Bosnia will give an insight into U.S. thinking on European effectiveness and ability to resolve a crisis. Remember that this is a generation of foreign policy leaders that came up right as Bosnia happened or right after and they cut their teeth in an establishment where Holbrooke was the gold standard.  And the lesson they drew from Bosnia was that European will happily accept promises they know will be broken and proclaim peace in our time, even to their own detriment. 

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  6. 9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

    It is in NATO's interest.  If Russia invades Ukraine, it justifies NATO's existence, justifies the decisions of those in Eastern Europe who joined NATO, it makes Sweden and particularly Finland start to think about ramping up their "cooperation" with NATO (if not outright join), and it probably causes everybody in NATO to start ramping up their military spending/training.

    It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on Putin's part. Which makes me wonder if invading Ukraine is worth it for Putin.  He questions NATO's relevance/existence over the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, then does something that justifies NATO's existence, and pushes additional countries closer into NATO's orbit.  Doesn't seem very bright.

    I don’t think any NATO nation wants an invasion to happen.  There’s no 3D chess game going on where we’re telling the Russians loudly to knock it the fuck off and are publicizing the ways they might try justify it, but secretly we want them to do it because Raytheon is a thing. Hell, to one constant from Biden had been “we will not send troops to Ukraine.”
     

    And there hasn’t really been a lot of desire to bring Sweden and Finland into the fold. Lockheed, Raytheon, etc. doesn’t really need them anyway. Finland just signed a contract for F-35s.  Bringing in Sweden would HURT U.S. industry. Sweden has a robust defense sector, a consequence of its neutrality, and already competes on the EU market, with Saab Gripens the most visible, but also ground and maritime systems. (Finland has a smaller sector, but Sweden really is a player). Making them an Ally, and in the EU, would just make them more competitive. 

    Everyone in NATO actually does want Russia to chill the fuck out and let Ukraine alone, where you have differences is how best to accomplish that (appeasement) or deterrence by boosting Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself and the threat of economic and other consequences. 
     

    This go-round, the appeasement theory has wormed its way into a particular political segment in the United States (I chose the word worm carefully).  Because they are constitutionally incapable of making intellectually honest arguments, they won’t just say “appeasing Russia is good and cool.” Instead, they have falsely framed the argument by claiming the deterrence and consequences camp wants war. 

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  7. 9 hours ago, Anastasis said:

    How about just releasing the confidence level assessments by each of the components of the IC?  Would that be reasonable in your opinion?

    Do you want confidence level assessments that a plan exists and has been discussed? Or do you want the level of likelihood that it will happen, which are two different things in the IC. (And the latter changed after publicizing). When you say each of the components of the IC, you want Coast Guard and Department of Energy Intelligence to weigh in? 
     

    FYSA, Russia has released manipulated video before (at a U.S. target). But yeah, this and Alex Jones’ theories about a school shooting in Connecticut are totally the same sort of thing. 
     

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  8. In an exchange sure to warm the cockles of @Anastasis heart, a reporter rakes Ned Price across the coals over statements about a potential inflammatory and fake video.

    The “name the tactic” maneuver you’ve seen from the U.S. and Brits is a deliberate strategy.  Neither entity is going to present the hard intelligence.  The point is the opposite of whipping up war fears.  The point is to put down a marker for Putin and to (hopefully) make the hybrid tactics he chooses unfeasible.  They only work in the fog of misinformation and confusion and both counties have learned their lesson— by the time you soberly present all the evidence you have to an international audience, the damage is done, the fence-sitters have used the confusion as an excuse to sit things out, and the urgency is gone to act decisively. The Brits have been pushing to try this technique since Salisbury. 
     

    It’s fine for the press to push on this issue, that’s their job.  But what is really happening is that the UK and U.S. are desperately trying to STOP Putin from deploying these tactics, they are not trying to predict that he will.  The risk, of course, is that if they are successful at heading Putin off at the pass, people will say that all the talk was just alarmist. But better to be thought alarmist than to be caught with your pants down again because you waited till the last minute to pull them up. 

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  9. 11 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    Tucker wishes he could give cover to even the concept of Russian malfeasance as well as you could.  So, you're right, there's a gap between y'all.

    Seriously, let’s just review some of the known shit that Russia has done.  They used a rare nerve agent to try and kill a former spy and ended up killing two British homeless people.  They told people that maybe a Ukrainian jet shot down an airliner, or maybe a Ukrainian missile, or hey- maybe it just fell apart like airplanes do. (Non-official propaganda suggested that maybe it was a fake flight full of corpses that got shot down just to make Russia look bad).

    Yeah, it’s totally nuts that this crew might make a fake video. Better ask the IC to reveal methods and sources if we want to believe them. 

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  10. 1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

    EnchantingExemplaryHoverfly-max-1mb.gif

     

    Seriously, the fucking overcompensating to completely and totally dismiss any discussion of, you know, Russia actually doing tangible and indisputable bad shit, is fucking absurd, chickenshit, and exhausting.

    Russia is a fucking global bad actor.  And noting that "well, they were once accused of X and didn't really do X, so all talk of Russia is brainworms" is such a logically fallacious blindspot that it's fucking infuriating and at least a little puzzling.

    It’s also a complete misrepresentation of what the IC actually said in its assessment of what Russia did in 2016– which is that they deployed a massive and coordinated disinformation campaign designed to interfere in the integrity of our election.  And that absolutely fucking happened. 
     

    Conflating that with some of the claims and theories tossed out by political actors that were wrong and/or exaggerated is bullshit, and it’s also pretty much text book Kremlin deflect and disorient tactics. 

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  11. 3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

    Or maybe just ask the US IC for the release of the actual evidence. 

    It's not like we have not been down this road with the NYT (and the IC) many times before. Ranging from Iraq to Afghanistan. I mean they basically called themselves out after the Iraq invasion.  But here we are again.

    I get that in these times the default response to anyone that suggests that our intelligence community-media dynamic may be totally dysfunctional is to cry "Russia Russia Russia". 

    Since 2014 Russia has marshaled 100K troops on the border of Ukraine, has invaded and occupied vast swathes of a sovereign country while denying what they were doing in front of our eyes, has funneled weapons and logistical support to groups that shot down a civilian airliner, has deployed chemical weapons on foreign soil, has engineered an explosion that killed two people in a different country, among other dirty deeds.
     

    But yeah, “Russia Russia Russia!” That’s all this is.  You’re out of your depth on this. Take the Tucker slogans back to CR. 

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  12. 4 hours ago, Doc Reeves said:

    You are absolutely correct.

    I can’t remember the exact research but basically huge amounts of data were collected to figure out why people who did not experience traumatic events, abuse, sexual slavery were more likely to commit suicide.

    It turns out (according to them) that people have a biological switch that is activated if life is perceived by the body to be very difficult at a young age- maybe as young as 12mos.  They equate it to being born during peace or war. This switch is either activated or not and has in incredible effect on the entirety of the person’s psychological development for the rest of their life. In this way being raised in a loving supporting home could actually be a thread in  what is leading to our suicide problem.

    We should all beat the hell out of babies so they don’t off themselves later. 

  13. On 2/2/2022 at 9:33 PM, atomheartbevo said:

    I don't know if we would do anything militarily, but China is a lot easier to deal with - they have to cross 100 miles of water.  They can't easily fly everything they need in and take over a nation of 23 million - this isn't D-Day, 1944 where they had 3,000+ cargo aircraft and gliders.  Taiwan has plenty of air defenses as well.

    Getting their heavy equipment and large groups of troops into Taiwan means on slow ocean-going ships, which makes for really easy targets to put on the bottom of the strait.

    And that's before we get into the economic losses if the US puts on a full-scale embargo/etc. and American (and other nations) companies take their business elsewhere.  China would have to make that food up somewhere else, and they'd have to figure out how to make up the economic losses/keep their people fed and employed. 

    Hitler also didn’t have spy satellites and was fighting a two front war. Images of China readying an invasion and landing force would make for interesting tabletop analysis. I wonder what a carrier battle group parked in the Taiwan Strait would mean for their planners? 

  14. 11 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

    We've been building towards some nation using deep fake videos for some shenanigans like this, and Russia would be at the top of the list (I'd put them up there before the Chinese).

    Remember in 2014 when a bunch of Russians just took their patches and insignia off their uniforms and the world media seriously debated if they were really Russian soldiers or not?  That was wild, right? Yeah, Putin learned that he can half-ass this stuff and it will give him all the cover he needs. 

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  15. For me, the only question that is interesting is why Putin wants to talk to Macron and Schulz.  Keep in mind, this is after Russia very openly slapped Europe in the face by announcing that it was only interested in bilats with the United Stares or talks with the Alliance at 30 and that no other parties were relevant. One thing I feel perfectly comfortable saying is that Vladimir Vladimirovich will not be convinced to do anything by Macron or Schulz and that the only thing they might be able to bring to the table is to prod Ukraine into doing something Ukraine doesn’t want to do. And that he really enjoys all of Europe’s luminaries tripping over themselves to get an audience and present their case and swallow his barbs and flattery (there is a deep psychological inferiority complex in the Russian soul vis-a-vis the West and this type of thing really scratches that itch). 

    More likely the play is to get one of them to suggest publicly that Ukraine do something unacceptable, then sit back and hope the Alliance fractures over the question of whether Ukraine is doing enough on its end to avoid conflict if Ukraine balks.  It can’t be said enough how mind-boggling it is that a nuclear power has marshaled 100k troops on its neighbor’s border— a neighbor that has never and can never hope to attack them- and still reasonable people are arguing that the neighbor has some responsibility to turn the heat down. 
     

    Ukraine has good reason not to come to the table, while both sides have failed in some areas of Minsk II, Russia has adhered to precisely none of its commitments while Ukraine has fulfilled quite a few.  It’s always grimly humorous to watch supposedly more sophisticated Europeans get sucked into Russia’s “heads I win, tails you lose” style of negotiations, or try to sell it as a win for diplomacy when Russia takes only half of a cake someone else baked instead of all of it. 
     

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  16. 17 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

    They had an opportunity to call the Nationals the “Greys” after the Negro League team. Everyone, I mean, EVERYONE wanted it.  Of course not. It’s Banal as that shitty stadium.

    The Wizards suffer from the Kornheiser curse: they won’t win a championship until they go back to the Bullets.

    Greys was the best choice, and it was an own goal not to pick it. 
     

    Wizards is just awful. The fantasy and sports world overlap starts to shrink rapidly after kids turn 12. 

  17. 17 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

    They had an opportunity to call the Nationals the “Greys” after the Negro League team. Everyone, I mean, EVERYONE wanted it.  Of course not. It’s Banal as that shitty stadium.

    The Wizards suffer from the Kornheiser curse: they won’t win a championship until they go back to the Bullets.

    Greys was the best choice, and it was an own goal not to pick it. 
     

    Wizards is just awful. The fantasy and sports world overlap starts to shrink rapidly after kids turn 12. 

  18. Does Washington have the shittiest lineup of sports mascots in the country for a city with 3+ teams? I think maybe so, there isn’t a good one here:

    Wizards- Stupid AF, 1990s rebrand you regret now

    Nationals— This is non-offensive and also isn’t anything

    Capitols— Washington is the capitol. This is also nothing. Best I can say is that it’s not terrible.

    United— Fine, for soccer 

    Commanders— Might this actually be one of the better ones in a terrible field?

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  19. So, we get the answer on which countries get more NATO troops: Romania and Poland.  Most Americans will be in Poland and from the 82nd Airborne.  Romania also will host some French.  Not a surprise as Romanian is front-line, Black Sea and a frequent target of the Kremlin. They also have a special relationship with Moldova which has its own issues with Kremlin-sponsored separatists and Russian troops.

    Seems like Putin got the answer on NATO withdrawing from Eastern Europe. 

    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/02/world/ukraine-russia-news

  20. I didn’t even think of the DC flag and I lived there for three years.  If I saw them in a row like on the flag, I’d have picked it up. 

    Still not awesome.  If you’re going to allude to a flag or another symbol, lean in so it’s unmistakable. Keep the same pattern, or colors, or something other than just “stars.” The stars here are arranged like the Tennessee flag. The Ravens did this correctly with their crest.

    Bottom line— too many words, too many numbers, not enough that’s visually memorable. It’s a mess of design. 

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