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statsman

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Everything posted by statsman

  1. Is this the class you build when you think you may have a tough year, so you build it early, get everyone rating it high (because you have so many committed) and use as an argument for keeping the HC if things go south during the season?
  2. Two years ago, Ukrainian soldiers who retook Motyzhyn found the bodies of its mayor and her family in a shallow grave. These days the front line is hundreds of miles away, but the village is adapting for a long war. https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukrainian-village-scarred-by-murder-of-mayor-and-her-family-prepares-for-long-war-a3ebd750?st=lea0ywzj98c3cjr&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  3. I think he’s also pretty good at managing employees, making it clear what their tasks are, how he expects them to complete them, and that they’re not done until the task is completed successfully.
  4. Well, hell. Sounds like you’ve got me all figured out.
  5. I’m not sure why GW Hayduke and Brickhorn gave me the double bird. Not that it bothers me that much; I just didn’t understand what I posted that they disagreed with. Do they just dislike anyone commenting that way about the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I have pondered Truman’s decision and can understand why he made it- still, I don’t see any way around noting that our country dropped atom bombs on civilian population centers, and that is a horrific thing to do. We did it, and we should own it, in my opinion. Do they feel I am using that rhetoric- responding to monstrosity with monstrosity-as an apologetic for Israel in Gaza? I didn’t mean it that way. After 3.5 years of fighting Imperial Japan, after hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of civilians killed by the Japanese, after Okinawa, there were no non-monstrous options to end the war (the above referenced comment about accepting a surrender is interesting, but not compelling, given the just completed Okinawa experience. Recent research has revealed that Imperial Japan’s last strategy was to convince the U.S. that the final battles would involve the last Japanese subjects fighting to the death. Plus, there is the whole element of Russia jumping in after Berlin fell; they were not interested in a peace negotiation; they wanted to grab as much of China as they could). The U.S. Pacific War was uniquely horrific, worse even than the German-Russian fighting. Israel is in a different situation. Yes, Hamas are monsters, but, no, Israel is not reduced to only monstrous options for responding. More is expected of them.
  6. https://www.wsj.com/articles/history-goes-to-war-in-the-holy-land-israel-leading-historian-palestine-hamas-66384695?st=5eehhnnsxswgj2a&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink
  7. Strikes in Syria and Lebanon this week mark an escalation in Israel’s undeclared conflict with Iranhttps://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/syria-says-israeli-strikes-near-aleppo-kill-wound-dozens-27a66ace?st=5uvte29bd796anh&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  8. I hate being so cynical, but an answer I heard to the question of “what’s in it for the U.S., bearing the lion’s share of NATO funding?” Was “Because, after two horrific world wars started on that continent, the last thing we need is for those assholes to start building up their militaries and start trying to be bullies in international affairs again”. But, maybe there is something to it.
  9. I don’t know who that is. I was talking about the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese, both believing they had some kind of genetic superiority.
  10. Was it LB Jake Hammer? Such a great name for a LB. 15 years ago, a friend and I were wondering whatever happened to him. It turns out that “Jake Hammer” is also a great name for another profession. If you google it, DO NOT hit the “Feeling lucky” button.
  11. WRT mock drafts, and projections, on Klatt’s podcast, Klatt said, “if a player is being projected in the same round by everyone, for example- the third round, he will go higher in the actual draft. If he is being projected all over the place, he’ll go low”.
  12. I was recently reminded that ISIS-K, the guys behind the Russia attack, were also the ones that blew up at the Kabul airport, in 2021, killing a dozen Marines and over a hundred Afghans (we responded by killing an Afghan who worked for the U.S., and his family, by mistake).
  13. Israeli society is divided over how to prioritize the country’s two main war aims—destroying Hamas and freeing 130 hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7 last year—and many say the goals are irreconcilable https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-set-out-to-destroy-hamas-and-free-hostagesbut-worries-it-cant-do-both-f6b6fc9d?st=7x4l01krsdbf6xz&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  14. Russia has gone into overdrive advancing a narrative that pins the blame on Ukraine for last week’s attack on concertgoers in Moscow https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-doubles-down-on-bid-to-link-concert-massacre-to-ukraine-and-the-west-b44f8e2b?st=38q7rk3irugu7gx&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  15. So, to recap- Goines creates a pretense to charge in, falsely. He has heroin in his vehicle, ready to plant. The police bust in, shoot the Tuttles and each other, killing the Tuttles and injuring Goines enough that he couldn’t plant the heroin. Goines retires with his pension and dodges criminal charges. Way, to go, Houston, way to go.
  16. Yeah. I would argue that whoever a society or people gets it into their heads that they are innately superior to another, really shitty things happen. That’s why I think we Americans should embrace an identity as the mongrels and castoffs of the world.
  17. No intent to derail thread; I hope this adds perspective on making horrible decisions (when the question itself is horrible and all the options are horrible). Imperial Japan had a bio weapon research unit in China, Unit 731. They killed 200-300k, but they were almost entirely Chinese populations, so the west took little notice. They were working on a plan to spread pestilence to California. Their operation shut down immediately upon the post Nagasaki surrender. The army leaders went to the pens where human test subjects were kept, popped a cap into each of them, and abandoned the base. Unit 731 did not factor into the atom bomb decision, but I can be persuaded that almost anything that expedited its end was worthwhile.
  18. I have a line I use in discussions about the U.S. using nukes to end the war in the pacific. “We were at war with monsters (Imperial Japan could match Hamas, atrocity for atrocity), and in order to defeat them, we did monstrous things”.
  19. I think that’s in the future.
  20. There is a little more to this. During the Holocaust, the western nations had opportunities to help, by taking in refugee Jews. Some individuals helped, bending rules and skirting regulations, to help some escape. They had to break rules, because western governments were more concerned about keeping another war from breaking out, and dealing with domestic issues. For example, see the ship that FDR sent away from Miami, full of German Jews trying to find sanctuary in America, pre-war. After the war, there were survivors of the camps. Some tried to return home, and reclaim property. Many were killed, notably in Poland. It turns out that murderous anti-Semitism was not purely a German feature. This played a big part in the creation of modern Israel. The western nations were trying to settle down, and really didn’t want the agitation of dealing with “them” (check out contemporary news accounts of Jewish post war refugees in the NYT archives; they are jarring in their anti-Semitism). When the Zionist proposed the Levant, the western powers couldn’t believe their luck. “Never again” to the Gentile world means “we’ll never stand aside and watch a genocide again”, which clearly, is bullshit (ask the Rohingyas and Uighers, among others). The world absolutely will stand aside and watch. “Never again” to Jews means “we’ll never count on Gentiles to save us or even do simply the right thing again. We’ll take care of our protection ourselves” and they mean it. So, here we are. There is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel could do more to help. Hamas is actively trying to keep aid from civilians, because this disaster is their best chance of survival as an organization. And if Hamas does survive as an organization? They will be seen as the victors, and the leaders of the Palestinian people. Goodbye, Fatah and Palestinian Authority. A couple of things that could be discussed more: Iran is bankrolling Hamas’ military ventures. Their hands are far more involved in this than Qatar’s. Oh, for a coherent Iran policy. I don’t know if Israel has an end game strategy for Hamas, but it will have to involve killing a lot of Hamas militants and leaders. They “declared war” on Hamas, but any ending that looks like a conventional war ending (surrender, detentions of leaders, occupation) isn’t a real ending at all, but merely a stay in the conflict. We know from experience with Guantanamo releases that nobody gets reformed and rehabilitated in ME conflicts. So, part of me wonders if Israel has thought this ending through, and part of me fears that it has and we might see it.
  21. As the WSJ's Gershkovich reaches a grim anniversary in a Russian jail, an inside look at the secret prison swaps between Putin and Washington. https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/russia-u-s-prisoner-swaps-gershkovich-whelan-be4576f8?st=1h56b1x8non1xhv&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  22. The future of Unwra, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, is in the air as Arab countries fail to fill the funding gap left by the U.S.https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/arab-nations-balk-at-funding-u-n-aid-agency-vital-to-palestinians-5f79a5e9?st=l91wr88i2nbgp23&reflink=share_mobilewebshare Shitty situation. Gazan civilians need humanitarian aid. UNRWA is hobbled by lack of funding, due to ties to Hamas. Israel is prioritizing security over getting the aid there (fear of weapons smuggling, fear of aid getting to Hamas). Hamas is the enemy of the aid getting to the civilian populace (humanitarian suffering increases international pressure on Israel to cease fire). In short-Israel is ambivalent about Gazan suffering (at best, alleviating it is very much a lesser priority) and Hamas wants the suffering to worsen in the near term, in support of getting a cease fire. Shitty situation.
  23. This may or may not add perspective- My dad was a career, 26 years enlisted man in the U.S. Army. He was proud of serving and proud of his country. He went to Vietnam in 1969, a 32 years old SFC, with a wife and three kids back home. He had a tough duty, running a sniper school in the Mekong Delta, and getting plenty of duty in the field, as well (and sometimes the CIA would pick him up because they got info and needed him for a “shoot”). He told me recently that in his tour over there, about halfway through, he and his peers realized that we (the U.S.) weren’t fighting to win, and thus, weren’t going to win. He says that his attitude and approach changed with that revelation, and he became much less willing to take on risks to further the mission. He said, “No one wanted to be the last one to die for a mistake” (the ‘mistake’ being the war). Ukraine is on track to lose this war, at best losing the areas Russia claims, at worst losing more. It didn’t have to be that way, but that’s where it’s heading because Russia is on a wartime production footing and Ukraine can’t match it. The west could match it, but “we” hoped instead to support Ukraine the cheap and easy way, giving them a bunch of old and not very functional (talking about the French here) ordnance. I posted on this thread a year and a half ago, that we could give Ukraine all we have to spare, or we could give them what they need to win. We chose the former. More people are going to suggest that Ukraine negotiate a new border. Once that starts, the western politicians will jump on that opportunity to stop worrying about paying for guns instead of butter, and it really will be all over for Ukraine.
  24. You’re recommending they handle her medical situation the same way as King Charles’, and that went fine for him. Why wouldn’t/couldn’t they do the same for her?
  25. I think a big part of their problem is that their soldiers get sent to the front, and rarely get rotated out. There is corruption; men can bribe their way out of the draft, or bribe their way to better assignments. Now that they are being driven backwards, and rationing bullets and shells, being a Ukrainian soldier looks like a pretty awful option.
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