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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. And all the federales say They could have had him any day They only let him hang around Out of kindness, I suppose
  2. The history of OPEC is replete with members producing far beyond their quota. Now you have someone who has to ship their oil through undocumented means to avoid sanctions. It's still important that Russia makes this announcement as opposed to just telling the Saudis to fuck off. There is some small market signal value, at least in the short term. But it's laughable to think Russia is going to abide by this. The Saudis know this, too. They weren't born yesterday. The thing is, if the Saudis want to really fuck over Russia they can simply turn on the spigots and send the price of oil crashing, so there are consequences to poor behavior. I just don't know if Russia is in a position to be all that considerate of their future self. They need every bit of currency they can bring in right now. And it's not likely the Saudis are going to send the price of oil crashing except as some kind of last resort. Bottom line is I don't believe this for one second except in the sense of being diplomatic. What the Saudis really need to crack down on to whatever extent they can - which seems to me very little - is the reselling of Russian oil by places like India for profit taking. I don't think it's realistic for anyone to stop countries from buying cheap Russian crude for their own consumption, especially when it's all done under the table. But when it's laundered and then resold into the market, it basically sends a signal to Russia to keep pumping out as much as possible, because someone is going to buy it, even at tremendously discounted prices.
  3. They're also difficult for air defenses to intercept. The issue is they're not very accurate on ground based targets. But if the intent is to sow general fear and unrest, and you don't care all that much about what target is actually hit, they're an expensive partial solution to the problem of Ukraine air defenses. It's a horrible use of them, though. As you're alluding, it's certainly a sign of weakness in capabilities. But yes, there's also issues with any kind of ammo production keeping up with consumption on both sides. Plenty of posts on this thread citing Russian serial numbers of missiles used indicating they're fresh off the production lines. Basically as soon as they're produced they're rushed off to the battlefield and used pretty much immediately.
  4. Where’s the it’s happening .gif?
  5. And yet the 300+ year Ptolemaic rule of Egypt, and his lineage was ended. But you’re right. Being queen of Mauritania makes it a sterling success. Good point.
  6. Generally positions just going radio silent is way worse on nerves as the imagination conjures all kinds of scenarios than information getting out, even if it’s screams and panic. Obviouusly if you have control of a switch and you can just shut off all Russian communications, you pull it. I like the way you guys think, though, both @RDCanecutter suggesting keeping signals on to spread fear, and your’s of faking the comms. Certainly anything that can be successfully faked on comms would be a huge asset, but if it can be successfully done I’d suggest there are way better uses for it than simply sending signals of screams and panic. Doesn’t change how fun the idea sounds, though.
  7. They were simply stopped at a new front line. Here’s hoping to many more such stoppages by the Russian defense.
  8. Hannibal invading Rome still led to the destruction of Carthage. Cleopatra siding with Marc Antony still ended with the massacre of her family and the ending of 300+ years of Ptolemaic rule of Egypt. The War of 1812 wa actually meant as an example of what seems like a blunder at the time, even when viewed historically, but the civilization/culture went on to great success and so it’s questionable how big of a blunder it ended up being compared to other historic blunders. Not sure what point is being made regarding the lend lease act and the timing of the two attacks by Japan and Germany, although certainly you and I see things the same way. Again, both the attacks by Germany and Japan are examples for me of blunders, but given that their civilization wasn’t destroyed, and is even thriving today, lowers their historical epicness below blunders that resulted in the destruction of cultures/civilizations. The Ottoman Empire joining Germany resulted in its destruction regardless of the reasons why they sided with Germany. Look, you and I both know all of these historical events have earned entire wings at libraries, which I then encapsulated as a sentence. My big point is that decisions which are made that lead to the entire destruction of a civilization/culture deserve a different place on the heirarchy of geopolitical blunders than ones that do not, regardless of how stupid the decision actually is. Invading Ukraine has turned out to be a really stupid decision. It seemed like a stupid decision from the outset, even when Putin was simply massing 190,000 troops on the border, but subsequent events have made it look waaaaaay stupider still. My main point - which was inferred but not explicitly stated - is that if it ends with the further breakup of the Russian Federation into much smaller fiefdoms, and/or much of the current Federation is absorbed by other countries - namely China - this goes way up the list of historical geopolitical fuckuos. On the other hand, if this leads to Putin being replaced and a Deng type leader emerging that somehow combines a hybrid state run capitalistic economy which unleashes Russian economic potential - or whatever other scenario someone wants to paint that leads to Russia experiencing some kind of resurgence of success - then it may end up not being a blunder at all in historical terms. That’s what I meant by you can’t judge these things in real time.
  9. It would seem to me that Ukraine would be wise to hit at one spot with a smallish crew, test defenses, pull Russian forces there, give the Russians confidence regarding their ability to successfully defend, then make their major push elsewhere. But that's armchair, Heart of Iron style back seat driving for you. I just have the opinion that Ukraine has the capability of being a lot more flexible with their forces, especially with the new Western armored vehicles, than Russia does with their inept command and control. And as we all know, the biggest advantage for the attacker is the ability to choose time and place for the attack. Once that all in commitment has been made, you can't get that advantage back. I really appreciate you posting this, @KYHorn. This does feel like the beginnings of what everyone has been waiting for.
  10. That's good to hear. Well, let's hope we host the supers, then. Although I'm still not going to root for A&M. It'll simply be a nice bonus if they happen to win, along with a favorable Director's Cup standing.
  11. That's true, but you and I both know that's not why Texas has refused to dog pile all these years after regionals. And there's still an injury risk after super regionals as well.
  12. The greatest of all time didn't say no. He was cock blocked.
  13. Probably best I stay away from expressing my thoughts on the general approach towards football hires. I'll just say the only time since Darrell Royal I felt like the university actually went after the best candidate available was the Mack Brown hire. Regardless of whether Brown succeeded or not, I would have been willing to defend that hire until the day I died. Slam dunk. The rest of them - all of them - have issues. I have no idea why the philosophy can't be to go out and get the best candidate every time, but something or someone is always getting in the way of that. But I'll refrain from a case by case analysis, especially on the baseball board. Which is not to say Sarkisian won't be successful. That's not my point. In any case, if there was any program other than football that should be able to go out there and money whip practically whatever coach they want to come be the head coach at UT, it would seem to me baseball would be it. Which is why that whole process under Perrin was so frustrating. But that's okay. I like Pierce. I think he's going to bring us hardware eventually. He's shown me he's ruthless enough that sentimentality isn't going to get in the way. That's a good sign. Could be this year is the year. I do know I'm excited the team has made it to Super Regionals. Oh, and no dog pile. That may be my favorite tradition in all of UT sports.
  14. I don't know that I personally get lost in it. I find this stuff fascinating. One of my biggest things is there's no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to coaching hires. There are exceptions. Augie Garrido when he was hired is about as close to a sure thing as you're ever going to get. Very unusual for a multiple national championship winning coach to leave the program he built. But I think of hires like Pete Carroll at USC, or Jim Tressel at Ohio State, who were similar cluster fuck type hiring situations. Sometimes it just works out. In my opinion it's too easy to get caught up in the talk of if they haven't won the whole thing then they're underachievers. I get that's the bar at Texas. And it should be. But there are plenty of coaches who weren't winning titles then suddenly they won a bunch of them. Heck, Jerritt Elliott had that reputation in volleyball, but after last season I don't hear much of a peep about it. Even got into the Hall of Fame recently. At the same time, I think all of us would like to see Pierce host a few more regionals and super regionals. There's a satisfaction in winning as the underdog, but it's not really the dynamic we aspire to as Texas fans. As Dodds famously said, "We are the Joneses."
  15. To me the key thing I'd point to as Exhibit A of how much Pierce wants to win is that he got rid of his long time assistant - something that had to be personally painful to do - because he recognized he needed a different level of a staff to win a national championship. I think we've seen some signs that the addition of Woody Williams is paying some dividends. I don't know the answer, but how many head coaches are there in college baseball with more NCAA tournament wins than Pierce since he's been at Texas? It can't be many. Is it even one? Obviously post season wins without a ring is a hollow stat, but I feel good about where we are as a program. And I had significant questions about the hire at the time, given that he seemed to be our 5th choice (or so) in that cluster fuck of a hiring process.
  16. Should have taken a balloon and then no one would have paid any attention.
  17. LeBarron Johnson’s performance yesterday was so good, they should name a campus library after him.
  18. I know the tweet talking about this interview was already posted, but I wanted to directly post the interview with retired General David Patraeus regarding the upcoming offensive among other things. It's a fantastic interview, IMO, and well worth a read. Also, it's much more aligned with my rah rah Ukraine sensibilities than the post I just made on Ukraine corruption. I will say from my perspective I do not agree with the assessment of so many negative nancies out there poo-pooing Ukraine's chances in this offensive. I wish there were more of them to lower expectations. I just keep seeing experts talking about, "It''s unrealistic to think Ukraine can force Russian troops back beyond the Russian border, claiming all their recognized territory pre 2014. That's too much to expect. But we do think Ukraine needs to reach the Sea of Azov to cut off the land bridge to Crimea and south of the Dnipro River." I just want to see a breach of the Russian defensive lines, and a concentrated effort to exploit it. Anything beyond that is gravy to me at the moment. Just something to show supporters (I don't need it, but others who actually have influence who do) this isn't necessarily going to be a war of attrition from here on out, and Ukraine is fully capable of conducting counter offensive operations. Anyway, here's the interview:
  19. So my apologies for getting off the rah rah train for the moment. Believe me, I'm 100% Team Ukraine. But we talk about the endemic corruption in Ukraine society, without understanding a lot of what that means. Here is a sobering 38 minute interview from Kyiv Independent with their journalist, Oleg Sukhov, who covers corruption in Ukraine society. Let's get some things straight. He's not exactly documenting what he's talking about. It's an interview. Everything he's saying could be lies. He could have his own agenda in some way. But I will say he's extremely convincing as someone who seems very earnest about his concerns regardling longstanding corruption in Ukrainian society, how ubiquitous and intractable it is, and how extremely poorly Ukraine has been at fighting it, including - even especially - right now. In a too long/didn't read summary, the gist of the issue is that the bodies being appointed to reform the judicial system by naming judges with integrity and corruption fighting credentials are being run themselves by corrupt judges - members of what Sukhov terms the judicial mafia. Anyway, have a listen. It's sobering. Until listening to this I was under the illusion things were getting better. And maybe they are. Dunno. But he's very convincing that things are not in fact getting better. The good news is that he hasn't been thrown out of a window, so he can keep doing what he's doing.
  20. Also, you guys were talking about Athen’s mistakes against Sparta. How about Thebes deciding to revolt against Macedon after the assasination of Philip II, with 20 year old whipper snapper Alexander way off in the Balkans campaigning? Alexander force marched in 3 weeks, turned the city to rubble, massacred the men and boys (other than some priests), and sold all the women and girls into slavery. Afterwards the other rebellious Greek city states, including Athens, decided they didn’t feel so rebellious after all. “We good, Alex. We good.” Also, a special mention to Smyrna. After WWI the Greeks were trying to reestablish their historic presence in Anatolia, with Allied support. Then the Allies withdrew their support and Kemal kicked all the Greeks out by force, including the massacre of the Greeks at Smyrna.
  21. But asking the question, "So I’ll ask again, is this the biggest geopolitical blunder in the history of mankind?" kind of lends itself to epic answers. I don't consider many blunders being discussed - Germany attacking Russia, Japan's surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Napoleon invading Russia, or the Russian navy's sound defeat at the hands of the Japanese - as the same kind of epochal in nature, because in the end their civilization and culture remained intact. I do like 956 Worldwide's citation of Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. That was a gigantic miscalculation in modern times. I'd also add US support for Khomeini over the Shah, which I've cited on this thread previously. But in terms of something so unnecessary, you and I are on the same page. You made your original response as I was typing, but it's not like I disagree with anything you're saying here or in your previous post. The bottom line for me is that Putin got religion. He became a true believer in his own role in history. I think he still sees himself as the savior of Russia, the savior of Europe, and savior of his racial identity. He doesn't believe Ukraine has a right to exist. He's never thought they should exist. They are meant to be good Russians, and to paraphrase the infamous US officer quote during the Vietnam War, if they have to destroy Ukrainians once and for all to save them, so be it. It's led to an amazing number of miscalculations, in part because he's set up a system where no one dares mention to the emperor he might not be wearing a full set of clothes. Unfortunately they're still very dangerous, even as inept of a fighting force as they've proven themselves to be. I'm concerned about the expectations for this counter offensive. If Ukraine achieves any kind of breakthrough against the Russian fortifications I'm going to be giddy, whereas most talking heads I've watched seem to be continuously talking about Ukraine reaching the sea. I mean, maybe that's what happens. I hope so. It just seems a shame to have that as the expectation. But I do feel like we're about to find out what Ukraine has in store for the Russians.
  22. Well, I believe it's hard to measure those kinds of things in real time. Off the top of my head I'd say blunders that result in the end of civilizations or ruling classes probably rank higher. For example, Hannibal invading Rome - while brilliant, and I do think could've resulted in an ultimate victory had he been supported by his capital better - ended up with the complete annihilation of Carthage as a civilization. Cleopatra siding with Marc Antony ended with the massacre of her family and the ending of Ptolemaic rule and the Hellenistic domination of Egypt. The leaders of the Khwarazmian Empire probably should've traded with Genghis Khan rather than attack his caravans and behead his ambassadors. The Fourth Crusade sacking Constantinople didn't really do the Christian West a whole lot of favors in the long run. Charles XII invading Russia probably wasn't the best idea in retrospect. The Ottoman Empire siding with the Axis powers. Germany invading Russia and Japan attacking Pearl Harbor weren't great decisions at the time, but Germany is in great shape in many ways as a country/society, as is Japan. The War of 1812 didn't look like such a hot idea when Washington D.C. was being burnt to the ground and the British Navy was making plans to do the same thing to Baltimore (thanks Fort McHenry!). Probably the decisions that led to the breakup of the Soviet Union - such as the invasion of Afghanistan - rank higher in some senses than this right now, simply because the Soviet Union was more powerful and a greater existential threat even beyond their possession of nuclear weapons. But a lot of these - maybe all of them - are foreshadowing dire circumstances which would have come into play eventually anyway. There are a lot more that are more obscure that I'm leaving out. Lots of civilizations have come and gone in existential competition with neighbors, many of them after starting a war they thought they could win, or at least had to start on their own terms because it was "them or us." But as of this moment, it sure seems like one of the great all time geopolitical blunders. Certainly within modern times. They had a nice lucrative trade going on with Europe. The countries there were loathe to do anything to piss Russia off for fear of the consequences. They had possession of Crimea, and no real consequences for taking it, and no one was going to do anything to force them to give it back. The country that would seem to benefit from this the most is China, since they have ambitions to lead the world in their vision of a new world order, and Russia's setbacks take them away as a potential rival to the West, while also drawing so much condemnation and enmity that they're forced to become vassals to the Chinese in many respects.
  23. Your emotional scars from the 1991 Cotton Bowl might not be as severe as mine.
  24. Here's the article: https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/06/01/ukraine-now-probably-has-as-many-tanks-as-russia/ Quite a bit of guess work and assumptions going on, but the point is still the same. Massive advantages Russia had in equipment at the start of the war are no longer massive advantages.
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