Posts by Nancy Gomez26

analogbear5 said:Both sides end up desperate for a hit of copium whenever things stall on the battlefield—falling for disinformation, tripping over bad translations, and all that. But this stuff above? It’s a whole new level of crazy.

Based on everything we've seen so far, this isn't exactly a shocker.

James Phillips92 said:To Poles, both Russians and Germans are essentially the same—both have spent history killing them and carving up their country.

Precisely. But if they were permitted to preserve Auschwitz as a monument to history—a grim reminder of those horrors—they really should have been allowed to leave those other monuments behind as well.

I find the destruction of monuments to be fundamentally misguided. These structures serve as markers of specific eras; they ought to remain standing to remind us—and the generations following in our footsteps—of those times, regardless of how we view them now.

rustywalker82 said:Honestly, that one sentence pretty much sums up why these mindless sanctions keep failing.
The whole point of sanctions should be simple: make sure the aggressor makes less money. If you don't know how to pull that off, go find someone who does or just step aside before you mess things up even more.

When politics starts driving the bus instead of economic objectives, those actual goals inevitably get pushed to the backseat. The Russians understand they have very little leverage over the West; they are economically weaker and essentially in a subordinate position. Their only real lever is energy supply, and that is a card they can only play once. It is certain this will hit the economies of their customers (the European Union), but eventually, there comes a day when people want to return to those same markets. Then we will see what kind of price will satisfy the same consumers who are currently being blackmailed under the guise of "supply security." This is a dance for two. The only question is who is going to step on whose toes—and when.

electricsurfer47 said:And what about firewood? Just buy a wood-burning stove. Makes life a lot more peaceful.

Wood requires storage space. You have to haul logs from the shed to the stove every single day, manage a chimney connection, deal with cleaning out the unit, and find a place for the ash. It's a relatively simple task if you live in a detached house, but if you're in an apartment building, it presents significant logistical hurdles.

Andrew Booth29 said:I’m looking around my apartment right now and—well, there isn't exactly a chimney, is there? Not that it matters much since I'm hooked up to the city heating system anyway. That stuff won't skyrocket in price quite like everything else. Honestly, the cold doesn't bother me that much; I'll just set the thermostat to 60 degrees and wrap myself in a thick blanket. It's actually healthier that way. 😬

Who cares? I've been through much worse than this. Not a single grain of wheat for the enemy! 🧐

Being on a central heating grid and having a thermostat at home... that's an interesting, and frankly quite rare, combination here in the States.

rustywalker82 said:Words just don't cut it sometimes. Honestly, you can talk until you're blue in the face, but it doesn't change a thing.
I’ve been saying this from day one: if you slap these stupid sanctions on instead of actually being smart about them, Russia is just going to end up making the same amount of money—if not more—off their energy exports. It’s basic math. Now, even with deliveries down to just 20%, they’re pulling in the same kind of cash they used to make when they were shipping 100%. The big players behind this didn't account for the fact that there isn't a hard price cap on the gas we're importing. They basically handed them a win.
Those amateurs were all talking big, claiming Vladimir Putin would slash supplies if we actually slapped those price caps on him. Well, look at us now. He’s cutting back precisely because there aren't any limits in place, and suddenly everyone's acting like nothing happened. It's like watching someone predict a storm, only to stand there in the rain acting surprised when it pours. Honestly, just shake it off and let's get back to work. We're still out here sticking to these NS2 sanctions that don't even make sense. Onward to the next win, I guess. 😁

Unless this whole thing is just one big political game—you know, like those brainless sanctions where they’re basically shooting themselves in the foot just to prep for more pressure on Ukraine to force some kind of political compromise—then I don't know what else to call it.

If consumers dislike the price of gas, they always have the option to simply not buy it. The issue isn't the immediate dollar amount on the bill; the issue is the price you will inevitably pay in the future if you tolerate aggression from the Russian Federation. Could the sanctions against Russia have been drafted differently? Likely. Can the Russians turn off the tap whenever they feel like it? Always, regardless of any agreement. Russia uses gas as one of its primary tools for geopolitical leverage; the Baltic states, Poland, and even Ukraine realized this long ago through public appeals. Currently, the nation most in trouble is the one that refused to diversify its supply routes because doing so seemed like a poor investment at the time. If they had financed something other than Nord Stream 2—perhaps a pipeline toward a different supplier—it would have made far more sense for both diversification and securing better pricing across the board. They operated under the naive assumption, much like Putin himself, that the situation could be viewed strictly through a rational, economic lens. They thought he only cared about the bottom line. In reality, his primary objectives have nothing to do with economics. You cannot negotiate with him on purely economic terms; you have to position yourself strategically.

electricsurfer47 said:And then, give it a few years, and the Russians will be moving again. Eventually, Ukraine will reclaim everything they lost and push those occupiers back so they stop stealing more territory at Ukraine's expense.

sent with my iPhone 9t Pro using Tapatalk

It appears the only way to truly discourage Russian aggression is to force a complete withdrawal from Ukraine right now. To prevent future incursions, they would need to be heavily armed and integrated into a serious military alliance.

Greenlighting Nord Stream 2 would essentially be an admission of surrender to Russian pressure. The pipeline was stalled by certification issues driven purely by politics; given how much the political climate is deteriorating, reopening it would look like folding under Moscow's thumb. From a technical standpoint, there’s plenty of capacity available in Nord Stream 1 if anyone actually had the stomach to use it. But we've learned the hard way that Russia only shows a shred of good faith when they are clearly losing ground. Sanctions against the Russian Federation will eventually hit home—it just requires patience. Sure, in the short term, sanctions cause friction on both sides, but looking at the long game, Russia is in a far more precarious position. On the other hand, the Russians always act as if they have all the time in the world; they never seem to be in any rush. The current setup ensures that, eventually, time itself becomes their enemy.

casualcrane20 said:Under capitalism, elections might be multi-party, but they aren't exactly free.

And in what way, according to you, would elections in a place like America fail to be free?

James Phillips92 said:Nah, James Bond is Black.

Jane Bond. Riding a Mini Cooper instead of an Aston Martin. An Aston Martin would be far too conspicuous on the street. In this installment, Moneypenny is male.
It would be intriguing to determine if such a person even exists, or if they truly traveled from Moscow on the night of the assassination. I suppose journalists will dig into it. Is there any digital footprint left behind on social media?

Donna Wells2 said:unnamed

That kind of psychosis was constantly being forced upon us back in the failed America... there was always some shadowy figure, an internal or external enemy, supposedly out to destroy this "perfect state" that eventually collapsed like a house of cards.
Failed ideas, failed states... yet they remain incredibly efficient at killing and oppressing their own people. And Russia has basically earned a PhD in that particular field.

Exactly. With fewer and fewer foreign "customers" left to justify imposing order, these repressive regimes will inevitably turn their sights inward, desperately searching for new targets to keep the machine running.

hollowdriver13 said:Sadly, sometimes that wake-up call never even happens. Instead, the paranoia and the obsession with "outside enemies" just keep snowballing year after year while the nation continues to sink. It's hard to move forward when nobody has the guts to collectively admit that, in this specific situation, they're actually the bad guys.

A reality check will come eventually. When it does, the hangover will be much harder to swallow—it’ll be far more painful because the gap between their delusions and the truth will have grown too wide to bridge easily.

driftingfox66 said:Even when Moscow went under, it was pretty obvious that Russians would rather claim everyone is collectively brain-dead than admit Ukrainians actually pulled off something impressive.

They just kept hitting airbases, ammo dumps, and bridges, and now they’ve moved on to this assassination attempt. Typical.

From a purely logical standpoint, this narrative only functions if you view Ukrainians as some sort of 'sub-species.' It becomes much easier to tell themselves that we—the supposedly superior class—simply tripped over our own feet, rather than admitting we were outmaneuvered by an 'inferior' opponent in direct combat. To acknowledge the latter would imply the impossible: that we aren't actually better than them. Worst of all, once you commit to such blatant falsehoods, you eventually begin to believe your own delusions. Putin is leading his people down a one-way street into total darkness. When the day of reckoning finally arrives, the hangover will be brutal.

Regarding the bomb planted under the car... did they happen to stumble upon some copy of 'Mein Kampf' nearby?

Dennis Price said:It’s pretty hard to watch, too—honestly. Why didn't the President just go himself?
Biden, what actually went down? Dugin was clearly the target, but who was really pulling the strings?

Maybe we’ll get some clarity once the next target goes up in smoke. I have a feeling this wasn't the Ukrainians. Why waste the element of surprise on a relatively obscure target (I'm referring to Alexander Dugin's father)?

Jessica Peterson2 said:I haven't.
I tend to stick to a certain standard of mental hygiene: I wash my hands after using the restroom, I don't watch Russian television, and I certainly don't spend my time reading propaganda from the Russian Federation or any other similar "world."
Because of that, I was never really a good fit for that old "Russian Federation" thread (which has since been shut down).
I suppose I'm just primitive... as much as one can be. 🤷

Well, that was blunt.
👍

analogbear5 said:Don't buy it. You'll help lower the demand and drive the price down for everyone else.

Price is really just whatever people are willing to cough up.

Plus, that whole "buy American" thing is basically just a clever marketing gimmick—you pay a premium for local goods because you're essentially paying for a little slice of national pride along with it.

It’s a particularly effective trick when you think you're supporting local industry, only to find the fine print stating it was manufactured for an American distributor located halfway across the globe.

brightheron64 said:Permanently?

I mean, everything from the most trivial "good neighbor" disputes to primitive drug cartels and full-blown geopolitical clashes... people end up killing one another over money all the time. In some small town nearby, a neighbor once shot his neighbor just because they were fighting over a property line—literally just a few feet of dirt here and there. I’ve even heard of close relatives tearing each other apart until death over a tiny strip of land barely larger than a backyard plot...

For instance, the USA could tell the Taliban in Afghanistan, "We aren't handing over your funds, we're keeping your deposit"... and then what could they possibly do in response? Appeal to the world by pointing out mass starvation or dying children...?

In a higher sphere, where the balance of power shifts differently, who knows... 🤔
The outcomes could even turn quite dark and twisted...

Those people who killed each other over a fence line haven't actually resolved anything. For cases like that, there are courts and surveyors; that is the only thing that matters at the end of the day.
Once the Taliban deposited their cash into someone else's bank, it ceased to be their money. It became the bank's money. Now they have to beg for it back, fully prepared for the possibility that they will never see a cent of it again.

Jessica Peterson2 said:So, have you Europeans decided to hit us poor Russians with even more pathetic sanctions today?

I fail to see what else there is to be done regarding that matter... do you have any suggestions?