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Ukraine War


BehoId, The Underminer!

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12 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

As the father to 1/4 Latvian children, George Keenan can suck a dick.

 

 

7 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

That’s ghengis khan esque.  You’re the father of a quarter of Latvian children?  Niiiiice.  

That dude fucks. 

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59 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Everyone is a hero in their own eyes, but was the Cold War really that successful for the US? At the fall of the USSR, it seemed like we kicked the Soviets ass. Out spent them. Whatever.  Or perhaps this was only 40+ year conflict with a result that was destined to happen on its own. 

 

I think the current decline of the U.S. started not long after the fall of the Soviet Union.  We allowed ourselves to be caught and passed in every type of education by the majority of other industrialized nations, and now we're reaping the fruits.  I tend to believe that we needed that adversary to drive us to be first in everything -- space, medical research, economy, productivity, etc.  We had to be #1 so that they wouldn't.

Once that was gone, we got fat, lazy, and stupid in a hurry.

We won the Cold War by outspending the Soviets, but I wonder if we killed ourselves, too, by working ourseves to death.  The Cold War generations, the Boomers and Gen X, have worked our everloving asses off because it was trained into us that 50-hour and 60-hour work weeks were a badge of honor, and it's made us miserable and unhealthy by many measures.  The next two generations have of course rebelled against that mentality and overswung the pendulum the other direction to complete worthlessness.

It's as if when we killed the Soviet Union, we also took a poison pill that would take another 50 years to kill us.  Mutually assured destruction after all.

Edited by TexArcher
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14 minutes ago, 6th Street said:

Look at this fucking cuck. He should go volunteer to go down there himself and fight if he feels so strongly about sending troops.

 

 

 

 

Everything this guy does is for the benefit of his book.  He was on TV on March of 2020 screaming about the end of the world as he was shorting certain equities.  Covered them and made a billion and then went long.  Assume with this he's long GD/LM/NOC

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1 hour ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

That’s ghengis khan esque.  You’re the father of a quarter of Latvian children?  Niiiiice.  

No no no, you misunderstand. He is father to a 1/4th of a Latvian child. I think it's like Twins with Arnold and DeVito. 

Edited by Dahobbs
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16 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

The notion that Germany is finally going to "up the ante" on defense spending is remarkable.

I am fairly certain that every American president for a while now has expended some effort on getting our NATO allies to at least "do their part."  But I think that would have required applying pressure not to NATO itself, but to the individual leaders of the individual countries themselves, which can be a tall order.

Trump was vocal about it, but I think it's a mistake to believe it wasn't an issue with most or all American presidents over the last 40-50 years.  He certainly lacked the respect of European leaders necessary to make it happen.  And that video of him barking at NATO leaders about it is a fart in the wind. And, withdrawal from NATO was no solution at all.

That said, this is a windfall of circumstances for Biden for which he is not due full credit.  Nevertheless, his "normalisation" of relations with Europe in general and quiet, steadfast leadership helped make this happen.

I have also changed my view of the UN a bit in the wake of this.  First, we have to acknowledge that no one, not even the US, is going to adhere to an international organization with any real teeth.  That is, one that can force the US or any other sovereign nation to do anything.  So, yes, the UN is powerless in that sense and to believe that it could or should be made more powerful is foolish.

As has been said, the UN is basically a world discussion platform.  And that has value in and of itself. It's a forum where Russia at least has to defend itself, to go on record with its ridiculous justifications.  And to accomplish that, yes, you have to let the bad actors in, including China, Russia, and whatever other shitheels there are.  And, you have to let those fuckers chair the Human Rights Council, etc. 

I have had my doubts about the UN before, and the criticism of it is mostly fair if a result of failure to understand its fundamental purpose, which is not as "world cop."   Maybe our "financial" participation could use some fine-tuning, but I think thoughts of withdrawal from it are foolishness.

We have people who do not understand what is socialism, communism, or fascism.  They will never understand the purpose of the UN.  They are not seeking information but rather seeking a platform to share their uneducated views.  We collectively fucked up here but giving them a platform and celebrity.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/world/europe/switzerland-russian-assets-freeze.html

 

Quote

GENEVA — Switzerland, a favorite destination for Russian oligarchs and their money, announced on Monday that it would freeze Russian financial assets in the country, setting aside a deeply rooted tradition of neutrality to join the European Union and a growing number of nations seeking to penalize Russia for the invasion of Ukraine.

 

After a meeting with the Swiss Federal Council, Switzerland’s president, Ignazio Cassis, said that the country would immediately freeze the assets of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail V. Mishustin and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, as well as all 367 individuals sanctioned last week by the European Union.

 

Switzerland said it was departing from its usual policy of neutrality because of “the unprecedented military attack by Russia on a sovereign European state,” but expressed a willingness to help mediate in the conflict. It also joined European neighbors in closing its airspace to Russian aircraft, except for humanitarian or diplomatic purposes. But said it would evaluate whether to join in subsequent E.U. sanctions on a case-by-case basis.

 

Mr. Lavrov, who was scheduled to be in Geneva on Tuesday to address the United Nations Human Rights Council, will no longer make the trip because of the flight ban, Russia’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva said on Twitter.

 

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1 hour ago, 6th Street said:

Look at this fucking cuck. He should go volunteer to go down there himself and fight if he feels so strongly about sending troops.

Can there be anything more persuasive than a masterful strategist suggesting we commit everything we have on the first day and leave no action in reserve?

I believe Clauswitz and Sun Tzu were in total agreement that a bull rush with everything you have at a time chosen by your enemy is the best strategy evah!

Clearly the best way to avoid nuclear war is to send American forces to attack the army of the only other country with a massive nuclear arsenal. Oh, attack them with other guys because you're an armchair Navy Seal.

A last thing, let's get out of the habit of accusing every enemy leader as a madman. Putin is not mad. He's a pragmatist with big, bloody dreams. He seems to be a pragmatist who has made a disastrous miscalculation. Ukraine is not knuckling under and the economic sanctions are devastating (for once).

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2 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can there be anything more persuasive than a masterful strategist suggesting we commit everything we have on the first day and leave no action in reserve?

I believe Clauswitz and Sun Tzu were in total agreement that a bull rush with everything you have at a time chosen by your enemy is the best strategy evah!

Clearly the best way to avoid nuclear war is to send American forces to attack the army of the only other country with a massive nuclear arsenal. Oh, attack them with other guys because you're an armchair Navy Seal.

A last thing, let's get out of the habit of accusing every enemy leader as a madman. Putin is not mad. He's a pragmatist with big, bloody dreams. He seems to be a pragmatist who has made a disastrous miscalculation. Ukraine is not knuckling under and the economic sanctions are devastating (for once).

 

Did you fall asleep on the Enter key or is the site borked?

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8 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Did you fall asleep on the Enter key or is the site borked?

 

5 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

@immamac about 4 posts up is seriously fucked up 

I think it's fixed now. Not sure why it happened. Let me know if it's still a problem, and I'll delete it altogether much to the chagrin of all mankind.

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1 hour ago, TexArcher said:

I think the current decline of the U.S. started not long after the fall of the Soviet Union.  We allowed ourselves to be caught and passed in every type of education by the majority of other industrialized nations, and now we're reaping the fruits.  I tend to believe that we needed that adversary to drive us to be first in everything -- space, medical research, economy, productivity, etc.  We had to be #1 so that they wouldn't.

Once that was gone, we got fat, lazy, and stupid in a hurry.

We won the Cold War by outspending the Soviets, but I wonder if we killed ourselves, too, by working ourseves to death.  The Cold War generations, the Boomers and Gen X, have worked our everloving asses off because it was trained into us that 50-hour and 60-hour work weeks were a badge of honor, and it's made us miserable and unhealthy by many measures.  The next two generations have of course rebelled against that mentality and overswung the pendulum the other direction to complete worthlessness.

It's as if when we killed the Soviet Union, we also took a poison pill that would take another 50 years to kill us.  Mutually assured destruction after all.

We have problems here in the US but the idea that we have been "passed by the majority of industrialized countries in every type of education" is ludicrous.

Every year, the Times of London posts their best universities in the world list and every year, this happens:

  • 7 out of the top 10 are in the US
  • More than half of the top 20 are in the US, It's usually around 14 or 15
  • More than half of the top 100 are in the US

And people work hard here, cause America. They also work hard in the countries that are moving forward, like India and China.

Non-humble brag, I used to work in Sweden. They used to talk a lot of shit with me about work and I would give it right back to them and it was great fun.

Swede to me: "What month do you take off each summer?"
Me back: "We don't. We like to buy your companies during the month you take off." 

Swede to me: "Your cars suck." (this was pre Tesla)
Me back: "Well, I guess our car is working pretty well on Mars." 

Europeans are funny. They would rag on and on about the US to me, then go out and go buy KFC for lunch. Not joking. Or they would trash Amazon and say it was a horrible company, then go use it, lol. 

BONUS, the two most racist things I ever witnessed in marketing happened in Spain and Amsterdam. 

P.S. Now we make as good a car, if not better than any European country. Also that little thing about the iPhone. 

And despite the fact that according to the media narrative that we are all Nazi racist murderers, the US is one of the most successfully integrated countries in the world. Don't believe me? Go travel. 

Fight me. 

 

Edited by TreatyOak
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21 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

We have problems here in the US but the idea that we have been "passed by the majority of industrialized countries in every type of education" is ludicrous.

Perhaps I should have specified K-12 education.  We have indeed been passed by many of the industrialized nations in the standardized test rankings across every subject.  There is no question that we valued education more in the 1980s than we do in the 2020s.

Our universities are still world class, true enough.

And if y'all think my hyopthesis about the end of the Cold War being the beginning of the decline of America is wrong, that's cool.  But what's your alternative hypothesis?  I'm not trying to be argumentative about that; I genuinely want to know.  Why is this country declining in stature, and what, if anything, can we do about it?

 

 

Edited by TexArcher
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5 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Perhaps I should have specified K-12 education.  We have indeed been passed by many of the industrialized nations in the standardized test rankings across every subject.  There is no question that we valued education more in the 1980s than we do in the 2020s.

 

I blame the abandonment of SRA reading and math tests.

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2 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Perhaps I should have specified K-12 education.  We have indeed been passed by many of the industrialized nations in the standardized test rankings across every subject.  There is no question that we valued education more in the 1980s than we do in the 2020s.

 

 

I will agree that we have been passed by many countries in K-12 but we make up for it at the university level. See above post.

As far as valuing education, as I am witnessing the ongoing education of my daughters and their friends, I'm not sure I agree with you. I think it's much harder than when I was in school in the 80's but I am really stupid, so that's a thing. 

I still want to fight you, if only I get to bum-rush you when you're not looking. And I get a bat and you don't.    

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1 hour ago, 6th Street said:

Look at this fucking cuck. He should go volunteer to go down there himself and fight if he feels so strongly about sending troops.

 

 

 

 

Somebody is a little insecure today.

Edited by pacman
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49 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Can there be anything more persuasive than a masterful strategist suggesting we commit everything we have on the first day and leave no action in reserve?

I believe Clauswitz and Sun Tzu were in total agreement that a bull rush with everything you have at a time chosen by your enemy is the best strategy evah!

 

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41 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Perhaps I should have specified K-12 education.  We have indeed been passed by many of the industrialized nations in the standardized test rankings across every subject.  There is no question that we valued education more in the 1980s than we do in the 2020s.

Our universities are still world class, true enough.

And if y'all think my hyopthesis about the end of the Cold War being the beginning of the decline of America is wrong, that's cool.  But what's your alternative hypothesis?  I'm not trying to be argumentative about that; I genuinely want to know.  Why is this country declining in stature, and what, if anything, can we do about it?

 

 

 

Well as an educator I can tell you that we don't compare apples to apples. In most European countries, by 8th grade the non college students are placed in vocational schools and not counted in the comparison.  Where as everyone in the US is counted toward these numbers.  I am not saying that we don't have problems in our education system but those world comparison numbers will always be skewed by this.

Edited by CoachTex
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59 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

 

 

Europeans are funny. They would rag on and on about the US to me, then go out and go buy KFC for lunch. Not joking. Or they would trash Amazon and say it was a horrible company, then go use it, lol. 

 

 

 

me sitting between you and your Swedish co-workers:

st,small,507x507-pad,600x600,f8f8f8.jpg

 

 

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14 minutes ago, CoachTex said:

 

Well as an educator I can tell you that we don't compare apples to apples. In most European countries, by 8th grade the non college students are placed in vocational schools and not counted in the comparison.  Where as everyone in the US is counted toward these numbers.  I am not saying that we don't have problems in our education system but those world comparison numbers will always be skewed by this.

Yeah, I have seen a number of studies that indicate that US primary education is really not that far behind the rest of the world, particularly when the type of student is accounted for (economically disadvantaged, ESL, etc.).

And, what our educated (and uneducated) do in terms of innovation continues to basically lead the world.

Nevertheless, I think there is merit to the fundamental idea of the post that not having a "common enemy" has caused us some problems.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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1 hour ago, RomaVicta said:

 

A last thing, let's get out of the habit of accusing every enemy leader as a madman. Putin is not mad. He's a pragmatist with big, bloody dreams. He seems to be a pragmatist who has made a disastrous miscalculation. Ukraine is not knuckling under and the economic sanctions are devastating (for once).



You don't know this. He might be mad. He might not be mad but in mental decline. He's already five years past the average life expectancy of Russian men.  We don't know.  Or perhaps at one time he was a pragmatist but years of living like an isolated, rich oligarch have clouded his thinking. We don't know. Or perhaps  he's got cancer and been told that he's got a year left and therefore gives no shits and that's what's animating him. Again, we don't know.  

 

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devastating sanctions continue unabated 

https://www.euronews.com/2022/02/27/ukraine-war-vladimir-putin-suspended-as-honorary-president-of-the-international-judo-feder

Ukraine war: Vladimir Putin suspended as honorary president of the International Judo Federation

773x435_cmsv2_de3b15c7-6db2-5c72-976a-c5

 

 

Edited by Make em eat Taco Bell
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20 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, I have seen a number of studies that indicate that US primary education is really not that far behind the rest of the world, particularly when the type of student is accounted for (economically disadvantaged, ESL, etc.).

And, what our educated (and uneducated) do in terms of innovation continues to basically lead the world.

Nevertheless, I think there is merit to the fundamental idea of the post that not having a "common enemy" has caused us some problems.

Correct.  As far as innovation goes, we are light years ahead of everyone. Now China can reverse engineer like a mother fucker but very little innovation. 

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