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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. The tournament format hits me so badly from a fan perspective. March Madness is so fun, but while my team is involved it's full of the colors of the rainbow. Everything is sparkly and shiny. Then when my team loses it's still a great event, but washed in a lot of grays. This team has been so fun to watch this year in different ways. It's going to hit me harder than most of them. Maybe it doesn't have to happen this year? I do know how fulfilling that volleyball championship was in December. Men's basketball would be that times a thousand, and I love our volleyball team.
  2. I'm so happy that didn't happen to my team...yet.
  3. You compared the two. I said they're not a good comparison. You get easily irritated at times, and I happen to be one of the people who easily irritates you. I guess at some point it might matter to me, but I doubt it.
  4. Bennett at Virginia and Calipari at Kentucky are two completely different animals. Bennett catches plenty of flack for his tournament performance, but his job is in no jeopardy whatsoever. Calipari better produce some big time results at some point, or that lifetime contract is going to have a short shelf life on it. And if anyone wants to consider what that title did for Mack Brown, just think how everyone would think of him and his career - including us - if he hadn't won it. It helps to ease a lot of frustrations and shortcomings throughout his tenure.
  5. I didn't know what timeline we were going for. The point is wealthy people face consequences. They just don't face them as often, and it takes a whole lot more to ever bring them down. That's no different today than it's been previously. And as was alluded to previously, it helps a lot if they've fucked over some other wealthy, powerful people. I just think you're wanting a fantasy that has never existed. It's better now than it has been in some ways. It's worse now than it has been in some ways. And the biggest point I'm trying to make in this whole conversation, is that to focus on Beard and Miller as some kind of exemplar for the state of our society in general is missing a considerable amount of context.
  6. Wait, we're including Milken? But we're going to pass right over Madoff, Stanford, or Bankman-Fied? Or Epstein? Al Franken wasn't a a front runner for his party, but he was a powerful Senator who was forced to resign. Tom Delay had to step down. I'd even include Tom Craddick in the state house of representatives, who was kicked out of the speaker of the house position for being a complete and utter dick. I just think we can cherry pick all we want. The fact is the rich and powerful get away with more than the poor. To think that's not going to happen, or to think it didn't happen at some point in some kind of imaginary past, is kidding ourselves. You know when it didn't happen? When the French royalty lost their heads. Or the Tsar and their court were executed. Or all the Cubans had to flee to Florida. So if you're really up in arms about it all, start organizing for a blood bath. Because history shows that's what it takes. Not to mention the idea we're talking about Nixon, Hart, Milken and Genghis Khan in one breath, and then...Beard and Miller? That screams to me a strange equivalence. I'm not saying the sentiment is completely wrong. I'm saying coming to that conclusion based on those two men feels similar to me when I hear the cries of wokeness being the downfall of Silicon Valley Bank.
  7. Bill Self is going to have another heart attack watching from his hospital bed.
  8. As opposed to the historic America where that happened all the time? Or the rest of civilization? You want to know when rich powerful people face real consequences? I mean, lasting, life altering consequences? When there's a revolution or the country is conquered. So if you're embittered by the state of affairs so much you're wanting to pull the guillotines out, or you're wanting to see the proletariat break their chains and win the world that was promised to them, have at it. That's certainly the way we're headed, although it's unclear which side is going to be the Hutus, and which side is going to be the Tutsis. But to come to that conclusion based on Miller and Beard is an overdramatization, IMO. Plenty of people have been getting away with what they did and worse since the dawn of man, and certainly since the Constitution was ratified.
  9. Rob Lee citing a new WSJ article about the artillery shell shortage. The article is claiming Ukraine is going through 90,000 shells per month, which is way lower than the 250,000 shells per month they're requesting, and way way way lower than the 360,000 shells per month that would be their ideal. It's not part of the article, but the Estonian PM is trying to push the EU to give Ukraine 1 million shells immediately while also increasing production.
  10. Especially when it's apparent it wasn't a purposeful maneuver.
  11. Well, that part wasn't good. But they'll still try the fuel dumping thing again, so yeah.
  12. https://membrana-cdn.media/uin/desktop/ukrinform-ext2-8780-20230308-desktop.mp4?r=27490
  13. They were able to erase the intel gathered. Maybe fried the electronics? Dunno. But I wouldn't call a recovery useless. They'll still be able to learn something about it and pass it on to the Chinese and Iran, among others. That's okay. That's one of the risks of deploying it. Comes with the territory.
  14. It could be true. I read the same thing. But it was from Russian Telegram channels. I didn't see any photos or video to back the claims up. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, though. It's about 45 to 75 miles southwest of Crimea, depending on whether you trust the BBC or the NY Times more. In any case, it's in a place pretty accessible to Russian warships.
  15. When you say that's the only thing that makes sense, I don't agree with you. Even if they don't recover it there's still benefits to the operation. First of all, it's an unmanned drone. Way different consequences to bringing it down, even in international waters, than an E-3 surveillance plane with around 17 to 22 crew on board. Second, right now the US sends these surveillance planes in the area without repercussion. This sends a statement there can be repercussions, we can take these planes down without firing a shot, and we will. It's obvious to me watching the video they intended to take it down by dumping fuel on it, not by crashing into it. While it's a step beyond what they've done before, both the Russians and the Chinese have engaged in extremely dangerous intercept flights in the past. Including the recent past. China just came within 20 feet of a US plane in the South China Sea a couple of weeks ago. It's been going on for a while now. That said, I don't recall any circumstances where they were attempting to dump fuel on another aircraft, so this raises the stakes. I don't have a clear idea what the US is going to do in retaliation, especially considering everything they've done in concert with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but they're going to have to do something otherwise this will continue.
  16. Hard to argue that wasn't the right way to go. Very inyourface surly style.
  17. Yeah, I don’t know your full story, but I do know no one talks to sailors about the consequences of not making it through the training cycle of the rating you pick at MEPS. Doesn’t matter if it’s BUDS, EOD, Nuke, crypto, what have you. Once you’re out of that track, there’s no telling where you’re going to go. Doesn’t mean you end up a boatswain mate swabbing decks - but it doesn’t mean you won’t, either. Of course, a lot of what I know is outdated, but the military is still the military. Those billets aren’t going to fill themselves.
  18. I was hoping for something a little more cavalier. “What’s that Chris Beard guy up to nowadays, anyway” had the kind of jocular tone I was hoping for.
  19. I think you’re going a bit off the deep end. First of all, I’d argue throughout its history rich and powerful people in this country have gotten away with a lot of really awful things. Even things worse than being an accessory to murder and domestic violence. I’d also say that right still triumphs wrong. But certainly not every time. There are huge benefits to breaking rules. It’s up to everyone else to make sure there are consequences, too None of that is to make you feel better necessarily. It’s certainly not to be dismissive of how you’re feeling. But I do feel like you’re drawing some pretty extreme conclusions from Miller and Beard. I’m not challenging you to find examples which make your conclusion even more powerfully, mind you. We know they’re out there. I’d just say that all is not lost, and there’s always different perspectives that aren’t necessarily our own.
  20. Nope. People with political connections invited me because of shared interests. I'm not quite sure how exactly someone would force me to do something. We'll see how it goes. I've gone to plenty of lectures from people I disagreed with. I just don't usually attend lectures from people I actively despise.
  21. So apparently I'm now going to a lecture from Ted Cruz on April 12 as part of a private club's Distinguished Speaker Series. I consider myself not a fan in the slightest, but the circumstances aren't going to allow me to get too hostile. I'm sure I'll bring up something about Ukraine. I don't think I've ever dreaded attending a lecture from a Senator more than this one, and I've been to dozens of them.
  22. From what I can find, the penalties appear to be limited to financial. I'm NOT an expert, and really know nothing about the sector. But some quick google searching shows the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is the key investigative/enforcement arm. I did find that ZTE was fined $430.4 million for violating sanctions back in 2017. Haas Automation is a big company with revenue over $1 billion, but they're not as big as ZTE. Bittrex was fined $24 million not too long ago for not preventing access to sanctioned areas to their products, which isn't nearly as flagrant or deliberate as what Haas is being accused of. Suffice to say the financial penalty will be significant. Not sure what will happen beyond that. Maybe someone else can add something that actually knows what they're talking about?
  23. In that same meeting he said that over 150 Leopard 2 tanks have been pledged. I'm sure most of them are 2A4s, but those are still formidable tanks. The Swedes do a number of custom alterations to their Leopard 2s which should be useful in Ukraine. Also, the German defense minister announced over 100 Leopard 1 tanks have been promised as well. That's not including the metric shit ton of Tawdry's the Poles have sent to the UAF. And don't forget, the British upped their ante from 14 Challenger tanks to 28. Then sometime in 2029 those 31 Abrams will get there.
  24. I tried to convince my godson to go EOD. He was a high level freestyle competitor in high school and AAU and a black belt in jujitsu. His Mom basically bribed him with a new car and a big monthly stipend not to do it. Scared her baby was going to die in war. Which, fair point. Although an EOD rating wasn't going to be in the same kind of path of danger as other military occupations over the last 10 years. At the time I had an in with a Navy recruiter. The big problem with SEALs is that they use it in part to get a ton of guys in knowing the numbers say they won't make it through training, then they can fill Navy needs with them in just about any way they want to. While EXTREMELY rigorous, EOD training simply doesn't have the significant dropout rate of BUDS, so you're a lot less likely to end up as a striker. It's highly prestigious, and a great community.
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