Jump to content

956 Worldwide

Full Members
  • Posts

    10714
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    26

Everything posted by 956 Worldwide

  1. We are in the unfortunate position where Russians are relatively content with the battlefield realities and the collective West is unwilling/unable to implement more painful pressure measures and the UAF are strained to the maximum.
  2. Gabbard is purging career officials mostly for their nexus to any Russia-related analysis that may have ended up in the 2016 report. Nguyen was running AI initiatives at the NSA, whose director specifically asked to retain him. His radical credentials include being a McCain staffer. There are also several CIA Russia analysts here.
  3. Seems close. Here’s a quote from Corban. Notable that UATX and all these schools drone on about the canon and engaging with history’s great minds that have eternal relevance. And then this kid says that the most influential book he can think of is some American culture war slop. Embarrassing. And I’m not against the canon; I have some regrets at not attending St. John’s in New Mexico.
  4. *I’m going to be really compliant the first few times.”
  5. Gripe/looking for tips thread: My 8th grader has a stupid early start time: at the bus stop by 0645 and we are lucky we are fairly close because she has to be on-campus by 0715. Just started this year and she’s a zombie by end of day. I can’t blame her, I am cranky about that early of a start. She has to get up between 0545 and 0600 to have time for breakfast, wash, dress, out the door. It’s kind of fucking up the day and leaves her with zero energy for after-school anything. Clubs, activities. And you can’t tuck an 8th grader in too early. Completely pissed at the district. Teenagers need more sleep and IMO no school should be starting before 0800x
  6. Ha, he’s this absolutely massive (6-4 or 6-5, pushing 300), older guy who is a new white belt (I’m a not-so-new white belt) who just wouldn’t play nice in the sandbox. He wanted to do positional sparring, and specifically asked “let’s dial the intensity down.” I’m fine with that but he proceeded to ape out with as much strength as he could and then would say “hold on, my knee” and stop to readjust the his knee braces. There was another WTF moment during the drilling portion where the first time we went to practice a sweep, he didn’t go for it but instead reached out and yanked my posting arm like a madman while I was compliant and just waiting in position for him to try the sweep. I did tell him off for that shit; “what the hell man, we need to drill the move we are learning; we aren’t sparring. I’m trying to let you feel how to do it and I’m not going to be really compliant the first few times so trying to yank other shit isn’t cool.” He also hadn’t washed his rash guard. Asshole. He just won’t get another roll from me.
  7. I like them but they feature a pet peeve of mine. I get that the more compact shoulder pads and tighter jerseys make it tough, but I hate it when the shoulder stripes stop above the armpit and don’t loops all the way down. It’s like a vestigial tail that keeps getting shorter. The stripes should look like this: Not this:
  8. That’s not a country club. That’s a Panera Bread patio that opens onto a parking lot which in turn opens onto a six-lane state highway in a third tier suburb of a fourth tier city.
  9. The knee brace guy in any sport. Dude today was rocking two, neither of them the actual medical meaningful pieces but the Walgreens rack special. Told me to go easy on him and gestured at the knees then proceeded to explode for about 30 seconds then stop the roll to readjust his braces.
  10. The most asshole driver on the road is whipping their 2009 Nissan Altima across lanes at 90 MPH while rolling on one donut, another missing hubcap, and fake or expired dealer tags. It is ever thus.
  11. They’ve been mostly fantastic since 2022 but there needs to be a sober assessment of how we got here. Those leaders were in the Oval Office pressing and flattering an American mediocrity to do the thing that (for once) is both right and in our interest. It’s embarrassing to be here. The flip side of this is that a continent of close to 500 million, with an advanced and larger economy than the U.S., two declared nuclear powers, and a border with Russia is in the pathetic position of needing the United States to deal firmly with Russia in defense of a European neighbor. There have been islands of clear-headedness but prior generations of German, French, and Italian leaders smirked down their noses at the Poles and Balts while they pursued gas deals and feckless aid-based diplomacy. They got high off their own supply; the EU really is a garden but they came to believe they could make the rest of the world one too and neglected good walls, fences, traps, and weed killers. It is my belief that Merkel will go down as the most disastrous German chancellor except for that one guy. She could have gotten with the program and let Ukraine and Georgia join NATO in 2008 when Russia was weak. She could have torn up the Nordstream 2 deal and kept her nuclear plants running. She could have used her formidable role to push Europe to invest in defense and cohesion. She could have done literally anything aside from letting Russia solve its Syria adventure by flooding Europe with migrants that Russia then weaponized to empower the AfD. She did none of that and did so in the most obnoxious, smug, self-satisfied, moralizing way possible. And all the while let partners engage in feckless nouveau-Ostpolitik while laying down cover for people like Berlusconi to pursue less noble engagements with the Russians. So yeah, I celebrate their coming even at the eleventh hour and am beyond furious at our government. But they got themselves here.
  12. DJT rules out American ground forces but leaves open the idea of American air policing post-war. This is not at all a terrible proposal and outcome. I was a firm advocate of a NATO air-policing and no-fly declaration which should have been spun up quickly in January 2022 or December 2021. As awful as this admin has been; the previous one suffered from chronic “crisis management” syndrome instead of crisis solutions. https://www.twz.com/air/no-u-s-peacekeeping-forces-on-the-ground-in-ukraine-air-support-possible-trump
  13. lol, he really does just do what the last person he talked to suggested. This is not as surprising as it seems on its face. Bears remembering that Trump doesn’t really have any personal affinity for anyone. He’s also gotten really impatient on this and the article hints the EU leaders told him that Orban’s intransigence on the EU is making it harder for Europe to take ownership of the issue. There are lots of ideologues in the U.S. foreign policy establishment who do genuinely align with Orban and see him as a model. They must be super pissed off right now.
  14. Link in the tweet thread. Looks like Susie Wiles is having another go at getting Loomer out of Trump’s orbit. The first was when Trump staff told Laura that because of Bill Maher’s comments, they needed her not to fly with him. Laura then sued Maher and gave these embarrassing depositions.
  15. Lavrov (who, it bears repeating, used to be a respected and formidable diplomat) comes screaming in with a bucket of cold water. The last point is the most succinct description of Russia’s position yet laid out: Ukraine loses its right to independence if it actually behaves independently.
  16. Amateur fight clubs are incredibly stupid and it’s also just play-acting at being a badass. The gulf between people who have had even a little training and those who haven’t is a chasm. I did some years of amateur boxing in junior high and high school and our dorm started one my freshman year (this was on the heels of the movie). I showed up, spent three fights (actually just a round each) lightly pummeling guys who had never worked a bag, and then never came back. It’s the same kind of “fun” a decent HS chess player would have playing against me, who has occasionally pulled out a board with friends— not fun at all. The risk to untrained people who can’t protect themselves is real and the “club” ultimately got stopped when a bad head injury happened. The thing is that most real state colleges all have MMA clubs, BJJ clubs, boxing clubs. You can go do it for real and find out exactly how badass you aren’t while actually learning something! No one is stopping you!
  17. I don’t even what to imagine what kind of 18 year old boy sees that photo and says “thars the place for me.” This place has to be overwhelmingly dudes, right?
  18. Watch out our you’ll catch hands from those hard-asses.
  19. Ushakov said the call between Trump and Putin was “frank” (read: the Russians are pissed). Also, the Kremlin is currently not on board with a presidential level meeting with the Ukrainians (this is for sure something they want to dangle in front of Trump to try and get more concessions). Today’s meeting went as well as could be expected for Ukraine. But it bears remembering that all of this fuss and ego stroking is being done to try and persuade the American president to support American national interests and our Allies.
  20. “Co-Deputy Director.” Assistant TO the Regional Manager? This is likely based on a need to have some actual management so Bongino can tweet and Kash can cosplay UFC in Vegas.
  21. Europe will buy 100 billion in American arms for Ukraine as a sweetener for security guarantees. Also, they will partner with us to build drones with the Ukrainians. Not yet a done deal it seems but part of Ukraine’s proposal.
  22. Crimea is not currently achievable by military means, but it’s important that Ukraine not formally surrender it. Putin won’t last forever. Even if it’s a permanent Cyprus-type division it’s very important that Ukraine not surrender its formal claim to Russia and for the world to maintain baseline sanctions as long as Russia is there.
  23. They don’t have any regard for the U.S. Constitution or view it as binding and so they can’t imagine anyone else having high regard for their own constitution. Theory of mind problem. It pervades the entire Ukraine issue. Trump can’t imagine bravely fighting a stronger enemy on principle and patriotism and so he intuits that there must be some devious personal reason Zelenskyy and Ukrainians are doing so.
  24. The Russians don’t even need to invest in information warfare anymore because Putin can just incept things into Trump’s brain and get him to start flailing around insanely.
×
×
  • Create New...