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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. So Germany hasn't signed off on Poland sending the Leopard 2s. Not sure if time and more pressure on Germany is the solution. I did find it interesting one of the solutions Ukraine is advocating for: "Ukrainian officials have suggested that the U.S. send just a handful of Abrams tanks – as few as five – in order to spur Europe to act, a second person familiar with the discussions between the U.S. and Ukraine said. Despite promising full transparency over where the tanks are deployed and how they’re used, the Pentagon has not signed off on the idea."
  2. I'm not arguing with you. I understand all of that as well. It's an odd situation, which requires us to depend on Germany to export their Leopards. That was literally my whole point, and you've now spent a couple of posts "educating" me as to why it's a unique situation. I understand why it's a unique situation. I wish we weren't dependent on Germany for the Leopards. It's unfortunate.
  3. I understand the history of the Abrams and the Challenger I and II. You and I both know how much politics/lobbying is involved in both the various military branches as well as in Congress and even the executive branch that ends up being part of the procurement and maintenance process. Regardless of understanding all of that, here we are in a situation where we're dependent on the Germans to provide diesel engine tanks so that Ukraine can have the heavy armor they need. I guess maybe the K2 would be another option, but it's certainly much worse than the Leopard for a variety of reasons. Starting with they'd actually have to be manufactured, whereas the Leopards already exist. What I'm mostly expressing is that because of the series of decisions made by US and UK governments (not really much of a point in adding in UK really - what the fuck are they going to build a huge tank force for, really?) over decades, there's no real viable export option for a main battle tank between the two. It's not like I have a solution. The procurement process for the Abrams alone has been byzantine for decades. I cannot imagine a universe where there would be an appetite to manufacture a main battle tank with a different chassis designed for export with a simpler supply chain to support and maintain it. It still makes for an odd situation.
  4. That doesn't read like they're sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine. That reads like they're committed to sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine but they still don't have Germany's permission, yet. Still good to see, in that its a public affirmation of what we've been told about Poland's willingness to send them in any case, but I don't know that's it's a massive move of the needle. Having said that, I do think it feels inevitable that Germany is going to relent. It feels a little odd that the US equivalent is such a complicated piece of machinery, with such a complex supply line needed to operate and maintain them, that it's not realistic to export them to Ukraine, so we have to depend on Germany with their diesel tank engine Leopard, to supply Ukraine with what they need in this case. The Challenger 2 tank is in the same boat to an extent. UK doesn't have many of them, so the production and spare part facilities aren't going to be exactly robust, and from what I've read they have a proprietary ammunition for their main gun: "Uniquely among NATO main battle tank guns, the L30A1 is rifled, because the British Army continues to place a premium on the use of high-explosive squash head (HESH) rounds in addition to armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding-sabot rounds. The Challenger 2 is also armed with a L94A1 EX-34 7.62 mm chain gun and a 7.62 mm L37A2 (GPMG) machine gun. Fifty main armament rounds[11] and 4,200 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition are carried." But here we are.
  5. Ah. I misunderstood. No worries. I do like my Sub Pop, though.
  6. Gen X, actually. The self absorbed part is almost certainly right on, though. Can't speak much for my generation. I liked Sub Pop music, though. I felt like the music of my generation was pretty darn good, but I guess that's what most generations think.
  7. There was an article I read talking about how he and his wife backpacked across Europe as a couple after college. Dan Monson had apparently offered him the volunteer assistant job at Gonzaga if he wanted to get out of coaching when he was playing for another team. Don't know the story on that, but he impressed him somehow. Said he couldn't play for him, but he could coach. So maybe didn't impress him that much. In any case, by the time he was ready to get into coaching Monson had moved on and Few had taken over. Few told Lloyd he needed to find a way to differentiate himself. Because he loved his experience in Europe so much, he concentrated on recruiting Europe, developing different contacts and understanding the process. He apparently had a contract with Gonzaga that guaranteed him the job if he was still there when Few departed. Probably read the article off a link on this thread, actually.
  8. It's not like he was arrested for felonious assault BEFORE Texas hired him. They fired him. I don't know what more anyone could possibly expect if they're bound and determined to be on a high horse, as you say. Calipari will be the first coach ever hired at Texas in its history that has been administered severe penalties from the NCAA, up to and including two vacated Final Fours. I guess people think that's a high horse. I will be stunned if Calipari is hired by Texas. As in, I don't think there's a chance in hell. I don't know who Texas gets. I hope Del Conte gets someone good. It won't be until April after the tournament is finished, so this year will count. Unless it's someone who is not a head coach in the tournament. But I honestly don't have a strong opinion right now. I don't even have a good feel for if they are willing to pay top dollar or not. Maybe they hire Grant McCasland for a song and we're all incredibly disappointed. Including me. I honestly don't know.
  9. I'm not dropping shit. I'll probably become bitterwhiteguy2 and write novellas about what a piece of shit Calipari is if Texas hires him. But I honestly don't see that happening, so not that concerned. I don't have an opinion on Sean Miller.
  10. If there's one thing that's never going to bug me, it's someone commenting on the length of my posts. Don't care. Cal does several things very well. He's an amazing salesman. I mean, Mack Brown level, except way less genuine. He knows how to sell. He's a shark, and he's the type who feels like he has dominance over someone else when he's able to convince them to do what benefits him. Exactly like a con man. Like I already said, he's a psychopath. He loves to feel like he's getting something over on someone else. He's also as good as anyone I've seen at getting belligerent players to bond together based on an "us against the world" "we're disrespected" type of mentality. I think part of his issue at Kentucky lately is that the players aren't buying into it. It was a heck of a sale when he was at Memphis with the best talent in the country, and early at Kentucky, but lately it's gone beyond nearly impossible and crossed over the line to where players simply aren't buying his messaging any more. Since all he cares about is talent and getting the best players in, and doesn't worry about culture fit, or overall character, it's brought him problems where the team as a whole is simply not as good as the sum of its parts. But his only answer to that is to go out and get more talent. That's his only solution to anything. He creates no loyalty among his staff or players. They are all aware he's out for himself. He can't hide that. He doesn't generate trust. The most he can do is convince the people around him they're all embattled by the mysterious enemy out there, so they need to stick together to stick it to all those doubters. He's a gross human being. If he comes to Texas I'll root against him as strongly as I have anywhere else. I hope he fails miserably at everything he does.
  11. Yeah, wasn't meant as some kind of alarm. I admitted as much. Just posting my thoughts. It would be a gigantic mistake. This guy will leave in a very ugly way. Not as ugly as a domestic violence arrest, mind you, but ugly nonetheless. I still don't believe he's a real candidate. Way more likely this is being put out there by his side - the way he always does - than any legitimate interest being shown by UT.
  12. I refuse to believe the administration would actually hire Calipari, the sleaziest basketball coach in the history of the sport, IMO. He's also not a good coach. Not that it means anything, but I won't be able to follow Texas basketball with that guy as head coach. He makes me sick on every level. As far as I'm concerned he's the worst kind of scumbag. I mean, I'm having a rough enough time with Rodney Terry in charge (who is no scumbag), and I only put in the bare minimum in Shaka Smart's last 4 years, so it's not like I'm some kind of true fan who has reached the end of his rope. Honestly, Calipari is very close to being a completely amoral psychopath. Not the serial killing kind, but absolutely the kind with no conscience, who has to mimic other people so he can pretend he has any level of empathy towards others whatsoever. Might as well hire a reptile.
  13. Well, his employment at Texas. I'd say his employment is very much tied to the legal system.
  14. Well, that gets into what my criticisms are of him, which are legion. I was simply pointing out the one thing he did which I can compliment. And we can talk about the inevitability of all kinds of events in history in hindsight, but someone still had to go out and do them the one time they get credit for it. UT athletic department funding was in the dark ages for a variety of reasons. He brought it into the modern era and even started stretching the boundaries of what a college could do in terms of commercializing the athletic department to raise even more funds. And if you're reading into that a veiled critique, you'd be correct. By biggest issue with Deloss Dodd's athletic department can be boiled down to a single phrase I used to use all the time 20 years ago. Our athletic department wants the football team to win some games so they can go out and raise more money, rather than the other way around. And that was most definitely a problem from my perspective.
  15. Well, people also underestimate how fanatic Arkansas fans are when they’re good. Mostly because it’s been so long. They went through a series of abominable hires, really since Nolan Richardson melted down.
  16. There’s no way Texas outbids Arkansas for their basketball coach. They value the sport way more than Texas, and they have several big money donors funding it. I bet he can get a big pay raise out of it, though.
  17. It depends on what you value. I never considered myself a fan. But it is true he took UT out of the dark ages of funding the athletic department with the creation of the Longhorn Foundation. Whatever else I despise about his tenure - and there’s plenty - I give him credit for that.
  18. Here's this guy's report from Bakhmut for the day. He has a few colorful moments, calling Russian reinforcements "airborne smackhead alco-troops who served previously" and allowing that the alcoholic assault troops have their very own cell where they can join their comrades in the snow as the defense piles up their bodies. According to many replies to the tweet, the guy actually says 8th of December, not January, but whether that's the case or not, the video makes no sense unless it was released today. I don't know Russian, so I wouldn't know one way or another. Also, the mortar sounds going off in the distance pretty much every time he does a video are a bit surreal. Oh, and -16 celsius is 3 degrees Fahrenheit. Pretty fucking cold however you measure it.
  19. Well, regardless of high profile or not, I know of tons of instances where waivers were not granted. This year alone there were many across all sports. But one specific place where I've never heard of a waiver not being granted is when a student athlete transfers to multiple schools over the course of their college career. It would be more accurate to cite the last athlete the NCAA forced to sit out a season. For example, in women's volleyball the NCAA forced Shanel Bramscheiber to sit for 14 matches after transferring from Baylor to Wisconsin, but that was because it was determined she talked to an agent, not because of anything having to do with her transfer.
  20. Huh? What does Jeremy Bloom have to do with anything? We're in post NCAA vs Alston. I don't know if you've heard, but conferences are negotiating their own television contracts, and the NCAA isn't able to prevent schools from being shown on television more than 3 times any more as a result. That's about as germane as Jeremy Bloom to our current college landscape.
  21. I'm fully on board with this. Listening to Beard, I always felt like there was some resentment towards the Tech community for not having more appreciation for what he did there, rather than being angry/resentful of him leaving for Texas. It showed to me he has huge blinders on when it comes to how other people are going to perceive his decisions. That wasn't the only case, either. It was simply the most blatant. I'm sure the same characteristic imbued his relationships, too. Likely influenced the events which led to his termination. There had to be some sense on his part of, "I've poured my heart and soul into this job, this community, and this administration for the last year and a half. Yes, this is an unfortunate, terrible incident, but of course the people I've been associated with are going to be loyal and back me on this, just the way I would for them. It's going to be rocky, but we're going to get through it to the other side and learn some lessons from all of this." I don't know this, and it's not like I'm having personal conversations with Beard right now, but I can almost guarantee you there's a sense of betrayal on his part. That he's been stabbed in the back by a lot of people that he thought would have his back when the time came. I'm interested to see how that plays out in the future. Beard is not a reflective person. He's very deft at deflecting personal questions that would lend themselves to introspection. I would imagine that continues in the future. Nonetheless, there's going to be stuff that leaks out, I'm almost certain of it. It's going to be an ongoing conversation topic no matter how much he will want it dropped. And it's going to make a huge mark on him. This whole experience is going to be one of his biggest defining moments of his life. Even if he wins a national championship, questions about this are going to follow him even there, and he will constantly have to be making decisions about how he wants to handle it.
  22. Well, I'd go further and say the market hasn't demanded those kinds of buyout payments before, either. At the end of the day if the market is saying this is how much it's going to take these days to hire an accomplished head coach from somewhere else, then you either bite the bullet or go hire someone who isn't as accomplished. I'm just shocked the numbers have risen that high.
  23. So here's the differences. First of all, I guarantee you're wrong. I'm not going to go look for them, but the idea there's not dedicated threads to Charlie Strong or Tom Herman is...well it's just wrong, and I'll leave it at that. I certainly saw the Tom Herman one at the top of the page when he recently took the job at Florida Atlantic, and the subsequent awkward videos he made where he looks like he's now 160 lbs.. Second of all, those two were failures. I know some people pine for Tom Herman because he did better than Sarkisian, but it's a pretty small number. But even overlooking the dedicated Tom Herman thread, he gets mentioned all the time in the Steve Sarkisian whining threads. I don't get that even a little bit, but it's there. Chris Beard was in the process of hitting it out of the park on pretty much every front. He's also WAAAAAAAAY more accomplished in his profession as a basketball head coach than either one of those two. I'm also forecasting he's going to be wildly successful at this next stop. We talk about Rick Barnes on here all the time, and he has a string of 1st and 2nd round losses at Tennessee. Just wait until Chris Beard is regularly taking his next school to the Elite Eight and Final Four, and possibly winning national championships in the future. Third, it JUST FUCKING HAPPENED! He was fired in the middle of the season with a top 5 team? How often does that happen in college sports? It would be a big story on here if it happened somewhere else! I'm not telling you how to think. Move on from him. But you're being unrealistic in your expectations of the fan base. Not the Texas fan base specifically, mind you. ANY fan base.
  24. No offense, but we'll never move on from Beard talk in my lifetime. In the end it's a personal choice, but as a community? Honestly, we'll be talking about Beard after he's dead.
  25. Lol. Yeah, I heard she's a team cancer waiting to happen from someone plugged into the club scene.
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