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statsman

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Everything posted by statsman

  1. Ok. So, the war they’re in is not the war we’re prepared to supply. That’s our problem, given the public support we’ve expressed. Putin is betting we won’t be in this for the long haul, and he could be right. We need to take action now to get our budget on a wartime footing. Russia’s is.
  2. We would never send US troops into conflict with the ammo restrictions Ukraine has. Ukraine can’t produce ammo. They are wholly dependent on US and NATO. The proposed US defense budget for next year is 3% higher than this year. Given 6% inflation, that represents a cut. This war will be won this year, or not at all. Politics will get I. The way. The US, in my opinion, should dramatically increase defense spending right now, with a big part of the increase being armament production, if it wants Ukraine to win.
  3. The WSJ had a summary and stays on where we are. This should be the shareable link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-russia-gird-for-a-decisive-spring-campaign-after-a-bloody-winter-a3beef16?st=il1x0masdzd1q2q&reflink=share_mobilewebshare tldr: Ukraine and Russia both need ammo. Whoever gets it first will have a great advantage.
  4. That universe where he wins one in OKC is a universe where they trade Westbrook instead of Harden. One where the GM realizes how fundamentally the game was changing.
  5. My mistake. I thought he was still playing the 36 mpg that he played in Brooklyn, which I think makes him, at age 34, more injury prone. I see Phoenix had him at 33 mpg. KD loves to play, lives to play. At his age, with his injury history, he needs to manage load, even if he doesn’t want to.
  6. I can imagine a Ukrainian victory where NATO-trained troops, combined with arms from the west and U.S. intelligence allow Ukraine to start a counteroffensive attack, move dramatically, use ATACMS and the lime to cut Russian supply trains and encircle them, delivering an absolute victory. I can imagine a Ukrainian defeat where poor Ukrainian leadership and lack of ammunition (firearms, mortars, etc.) lead to a long quagmire and then US domestic politics leads to us looking for a diplomatic exit path. I hope the odds on the latter are low, real low. That said, the US public has a short attention span and doesn’t like to back losers. No CR, but I can name precious few US politicians from either party that aren’t front runners. (We’re only backing Ukraine as much as we are because they looked like winners early on). That would be a big problem. The POTUSA went to Kyev and said we were backing them for as long as it takes. They have a paved stone with his name on it. I was proud of him for doing it, not for how it looked, but for the commitment that it meant. My feeling is that the way you win a close fight is by putting all you can into it, because the other side is doing the same. Russia is pouring men into what they, themselves, are calling a meat grinder, but if they can pull something out of this that they can call a “win”, they’ll consider it worth it. And it will be a long while before anyone takes the US seriously again. That’s why I think the US should be spending a hell of a lot more on defense, enough to go onto a wartime footing in ammo production. Anything less, using reserves and hoping they’re not needed for a new shooting war, is just trying to thread a needle to a happy outcome. It’s a strategy based on hope.
  7. It’s in the news. Iran is trading weapons with Russia for nuke help. Iran is making nice with Saudi. Saudi had been palling with Israel, because they had a common foe. Now, they don’t. I don’t see any way to view the latest news without alarm.
  8. It looks like Iran has said, “fuck it, we’re joining the nuclear club”. Israel was always to be the backstop (because, with the sheer quantity of missiles Iran throws at Israel every year, Israel can’t bear them being nuclear) to keep them from doing it, and with the Saudis hostile to Iran, nobody would have cared if Israel had bombed the shit out of their nuke facilities. Not so easy now.
  9. I have a question about the Iranian drones- Are they remote-piloted through some link? Or do they run missions on a pre-programmed instruction for course and weapons drop? Or some combination?
  10. He plays too many minutes. He needs to load manage.
  11. KD gets a mention here, for some kindness- https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/nba/2023/3/8/23629542/greg-oden-butler-nba-ohio-state Oden is a fan.
  12. Their website says one or the other for renewal. Bear with me, I may be all wrong, but I suspect there is a chance that the new requirements rollout may not have been well managed.
  13. Here is the shareable link to a WSJ story on how Epstein made his fortune- https://www.wsj.com/articles/jeffrey-epstein-burrowed-into-the-lives-of-the-rich-and-made-a-fortune-11564092553?st=2tlfwdjg9jqe5sg&reflink=share_mobilewebshare His “charm” does a lot of lifting in this story. Does no one else think of being charming to mega-rich, to get favors and money? A lot of very wealthy people, who did eight and nine figure favors for him, state that if they “knew he was like that”, they never would have had anything to do with him. Convenient
  14. Luckily, her passport hadn’t expired yet. Have you checked yours?
  15. OU thought they would be in high cotton when they were on track for joining the PAC- getting to recruit Texas AND California. Even Texas was excited about the prospect of pulling a few recruits from there. Trojan Steve, how did y’all feel about that part of the proposed additions, at the time?
  16. The fact of life for B12 schools is that Texas is the only member state that produces a surplus of FBS players. Every B12 school recruits Texas. (We’ll see if and how UCF and Cincinnati change that dynamic). Similarly, the fact of life for the PAC is that California is the only member state that produces a surplus of FBS players (Washington is probably around net-even, or close to it). Every PAC team recruits California. UA and ASU have to make an existential decision for their program- more money in B12, but recruiting gets totally refocused (and, brother, there is a lot of competition for players in Texas). USC and UCLA must be feeling good about future California recruiting dynamics, post-realignment. Sure, the B10 schools will come in and recruit, too, but the LA schools probably feel good about their offers in comparison.
  17. Is there some kind of hack? My wife’s DL expires in 2 1/2 weeks, and online DPS registration doesn’t let her hit the renewal button (only the new DL button is lit up), and she can’t get any other kind of DPS appointment until June. Any work around? Thanks
  18. It is amazing how many people are surprised that Mexican-Americans don’t have an innate feeling of kinship and empathy with immigrants from Central and South America. It’s like expecting 19th century immigrants from Ireland and Italy to have a kinship because they were all Catholic.
  19. Thanks, but a better measure is gate receipts, due to price elasticity.
  20. I have thought, too, that there are a lot of parallels to Lawrence Phillips.
  21. In the night, an enemy soldier watching the slow roll of the gunship fire toward his position, the fiery tracers lighting up the sky only representing a portion of the fire, has to know he’s fucked. I wish that for the Russians.
  22. I know- you have to have to have a battlefield free of them. I just want to see Puff the Magic Dragon (I know that was an AC-141) raining fire on the Russians. Dad said that after the gunships we’re done in Vietnam, the field looked like the moon.
  23. Damn, I wish we could give Ukraine an AC-130 for Bakhmut.
  24. Honestly, I didn’t even remember the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. I imagine I was distracted by the US economic crisis and the presidential election. It was a rehearsal for 2014 Ukraine. Georgia is small, I guess, bordered by Russia and Turkey, and nobody really wanted to respond. The west blew it there and has been paying the piper since. Oddly, this might be the best time for Georgia to push back.
  25. In Stoops’ memoir, “No Excuses”, he has a lot of excuses for why he kept Mixon on the team.
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