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MagicSoccerSpray

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Posts posted by MagicSoccerSpray

  1. 20 minutes ago, locodos said:

    Ho lee shit, did you even watch the video you posted?    Laughably bad. I was pleased to learn that the US is the ONLY country that will meet it's Kyoto protocols obligations.   Dude's big talent is looking at a map and talking about it in a pedantic way.  These are mountains, you can't move an army easily over mountains, deserts don't support big populations, this is a choo choo track goods move efficiently here... oh shit this guy has it all figured out!

     

    oh here's a blurb from his wiki page...  Yup you guessed it, he wrote a book about maps and terrain features.

     

    If you want a good book about the real world effects of geography (and actual analysis) I recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel.

     

    This was just one video I could find in a couple of minutes of searching. He actually called out the Russian moves in his first book in 2011, and he is a proponent of Geography predicting Geopolitics because of history. I've read Gun, Germs, and Steel and it's great.

     

    18 minutes ago, Bevo said:

    Is geopolitical futures the same style as Stratfor? Can you get free content?

     

    Yes, and they have some videos as well. Friedman has lots of interviews and videos on YT too, though he seems to have slowed. Ian Bremmer, Michael Kofman, and Stephen Kotkin are good too imo.

     

    19 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

    When you say he nailed it, what exactly did he nail there?

    Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the presentation, but anything important had already occurred (Crimea, Donbas) and the rest of his predictions didn’t pan out. Specifically Odesa never went Russian. And it wasn’t 4 years before they did anything more radical. As we know, it was 8 years. 

    I think it’s important to have speculative theorizors, but it’s also important to recognize them as such. He likes taking data and analyzing what if scenarios. But timing and how many of his what ifs come to pass aren’t nearly as important as just having some of them come true. 

    In any case, the Kerch bridge was a Ukrainian special forces operation using a truck bomb and forward intelligence of a fuel laden rail car to create a massive explosion that damaged the bridge and the underlying support structure. Not a clandestine IS strike or unannounced long range weaponry. 

    Which is not my effort to debunk Zeihan, but merely to ask people to not necessarily take everything he says completely at face value. He doesn’t even take everything he says at face value. 

     

    He can be a little too declaratory sometimes imo but he's been ahead of the curve predicting the weakening of globalization, Russia, Chinese/American relations, and EU power. He's not Nostradamus, but he's been better than most Geopolitical analysts the past decade.

     

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  2. 27 minutes ago, Bevo said:

    What happened to Stratfor? Michael Freidman (guessing  a bit since I haven’t seen anything since the Obama administration) was the main guy, right? Where is he now?

     

    They were bought and are called RANE now. They have videos on YT and George Friedman (Austinite) runs Geopolitical Futures now.

     

    14 minutes ago, locodos said:

    The part were Zeihan's videos are worthless. 

     

    Zeihan called out exactly what the Russians would do 10 years ago. He has been nails predicting geopolitics in general, and the Russians specifically. You might not like his style (the hair needs to go imo) but you're dead wrong if you think he doesn't know what he's talking about or think he's a hack.

    This presentation was in 2014 and he nailed it:

     

     

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  3. 20 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

    The groups that were kidnapping earlier were Lebanese, Hezbollah, Iranian Supported (if you want to get into it), but their support cells were Lebanese Hezbollah/Persian/Shia

     

    You didn't see any Christian or Sunni Lebanese kidnapping Americans. I understand it was/is a complicated and messed up scene, but it was almost exclusively the Shia/Iranians that were doing that shit.

  4. 5 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

    This a bit confusing to me.  The losing contractor had a design built around the 105 mm Rifled cannon Buford  system.  The winning system uses the M1A turret fire control system.   I’d assume that it would adopt the Abram’s 120 mm cannon instead of a 105 mm barrel cannon due to all of the great ammo in our MBT that could be used in this M-10 Booker, with ammo logistics uniformity .  The twitter thread revealed a vid from The Chieftain’s Hatch - a tank blog with a review of the prototype - and said that  a new 105 mm will be used.  Weird.

    They talk about weight reduction not going with the 120 cannon - and that it will be used for destroying things like bunkers and machine gun nests and other light armored vehicles. It is NOT designed as a tank killer (it will use standard NATO 105 ammo, so maybe the brains can invent new 105 shells to pierce other MBTs).   At 42 tons the damn thing is so heavy I can’t see how much extra weight going to a cannon barrel that will allow the Booker to defend itself against other nations’ main battle tanks is not a good idea. Why I do not get a vote I guess.  

    Then, again, maybe the new focus is on survivability and that accounts for the weight.  Ukraine has taught us that tanks will be hit a lot with drones and javelin type missiles, so maybe that is the direction we are going.

    Not a “ light tank”?  Fuck that, it’s a tank.  And not so light. 

     

    Recoil

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  5. 23 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

     

    not sure who fallon blew to get in this, but he almost ruined the entire show 

    Spielberg casts a lot of his friends and favorites. That's how we got Ted Danson playing a 50 year old captain in Saving Private Ryan.

  6. 4 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

    I just listened. What the hell is that?! 
     

    Awkwafina is pretty talented. Nora from Queens is a really funny show. But yeah she’s probably should have passed on rapping in the Little Mermaid. 

    You trippin, Under the Sea was overrated! This shit is straight fire, Thanks Disney!

  7. 4 hours ago, statsman said:

    I don’t want to sidetrack the thread, so I’ll drop it after this explanation. 
     
    All dictators suck. A dictator that is just trying to enrich himself will steal from you, rough you up, maybe even kill you, but…only if it gets him more money. 
     
    A dictator trying to change the system, establish legacy, address generational grievances- that’s the guy who will start wars and get millions killed. Putin always sucked, always disregarded rights and liberties, always murdered with impunity. Now, though, he’s trying for a place in the history books and is wrecking two countries. 
     
    It’s like Cambodia in the mid ‘70s. The US backed predecessors to Pol Pot were crooks and authoritarians. Pol Pot was a Marxist crusader focused on social transformation. Who was worse?

     

    Seriously? The fucking marxist. Killing fields much?

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