Posts by bluemason3

Kojo, soccer? Is that the thing with the ball? 😬

Carl Lee27 said:Poland has already stopped bringing in coal from Russia since April, and they’re on track to cut off gas and oil imports by the end of the year too. It looks like we’re seeing the first wave of those major markets where Russian energy held a massive share finally walking away from the table

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/statu...Mj5Gv7CDg&s=19

It’s no secret that Americans in Poland aren't exactly fond of Russians.😁

The most effective way for Russia to manufacture an enemy seems to be spending a few years under their thumb.😬

Brenda Murphy3 said:Puppet? 😁

The policy being run here by the US government and Plenković regarding Russia—it’s backed by the massive majority of people in this country. So they're basically just following the will of the people, right? 😁.

And Stern is just talking nonsense. We are part of the EU and NATO, and we want to stay part of the EU and NATO. That's how we act. I don't see any issue with that.
If you and other idiots feel that strongly about it—go ahead, start your own political party, run in the elections, and give it a shot...🤣

Only a total lackey would even spout what Stern is saying.

Actually, I should probably ask you the same questions I asked Alessio... but somehow you guys always vanish the second anyone asks you anything real...😁

Stern has pretty much always leaned toward pro-Russia views. He built most of his career there, working as a consultant for various interests and even serving as an executive in Moscow.

I'm not really sure who's playing vassal to whom here. 😁

I'm looking for a recommendation for a private full-body MRI with solid diagnosticians. It's just a preventive checkup for an elderly person. In terms of convenience, my preference would be San Francisco > the rest of the Gulf Coast and Istria > NYC.

Thnx

It’s because achieving that requires actual competition and the kind of meritocracy you only find in an open market.

Oligarchic oil capitalism doesn't care about progress. Why bother when you can just kiss the right leaders' feet, grab a seat at a state-owned firm, and spend your days lounging by a pool on a yacht without ever having to innovate?

Honestly, South Korea probably wouldn't have turned out any differently if they had oil. Japan is a different story entirely—given their history with occupation, they might have managed to pivot toward democracy even if they had plenty of energy resources. SK was a brutal dictatorship, too, but they didn't have any choice but to grow through tech and industry.

Russia went from a communist dictatorship straight into a petro-monarchy. I'm oversimplifying, but they skipped the serious development phase because the educated class basically fled, leaving them stuck.

coastalbison6 said:I don't buy it. That's guerrilla warfare gear—effective at ranges from 20m up to 1200m with high precision and various warheads.

Isn't its main purpose actually breaching standard residential walls?

coastalbison6 said:The Ukrainians picked up 2,650 Matador-RGW 90s from Germany, and they’ve already arrived.

On top of that, here's what else just showed up from Germany:

German rockets and machine guns arrived in Ukraine; more weapons from Germany have arrived in the war zone of Ukraine

More weaponry from Germany has reached the war zone in Ukraine. As the news agency DPA learned from Ukrainian government circles, the shipment includes 1,500 Strela type air defense missiles and 100 MG3 machine guns. They also sent over eight million rounds of ammunition for small arms.

According to reports, besides the weapons, additional aid supplies for the Ukrainian armed forces have arrived from Germany. This includes 350,000 food packs, along with 50 vehicles for medical transport and material for medical supply.

Pretty good stuff. Keep it coming...

Does this suggest they're gearing up for offensives against cities seized by Russia?🤔

casualtiger2 said:Did they actually get any decent anti-aircraft defense set up? And is it even possible to properly secure the western side near Lviv?
How mobile—and how vulnerable—are those systems if something bigger and more serious starts heading toward Kyiv?

Getting heavy-duty anti-aircraft systems operational takes time—you have to train crews and integrate them into the existing network. I’ve heard a year is a more realistic timeframe for that kind of rollout.

I'm not sure we can just "adhoc" anything more advanced than MANPADS. Those short-range tools don't require the same level of specialized training or complex system integration that the military is already used to. That's why there's talk about pulling S-300s from other countries; since Ukraine is already using them, it isn't nearly as complicated as introducing entirely new tech to the field.

Nathan Evans78 said:That’s a possibility, though on the flip side, I’m scratching my head over why the Sultan's central bank isn't making similar moves.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TRY=X/

The Sultan basically bans any sensible economic policy or standard responses to certain situations. He sets these questionable economic guidelines himself despite not being an economist, and he fires state economists if they disagree with him. A lot of this is driven by either actual or purely populist reliance on religious views regarding financial dealings.

In America, it wouldn't be a question of what the central bank can do, but rather what the Sultan allows it to do. It’s hardly a fair comparison to normal central banks and governments.

Lisa Jackson7 said:The CIA, sure, but they’ve got plenty of help from the people who were supposed to be tracking where all that money was flowing outside of Russia—money the CIA decided was "useful."

Russian-style kleptocracy is infiltrating America

Yeah, there were plenty of "accessories to the crime" in the West, and I think you know exactly where I stand on them. What we're seeing right now is a massive opportunity to finally purge and reform Western institutions, and I'm not going to sit around crying if we miss it (just like you won't cry over that missed chance you think existed to integrate and reform Russia.)

I know, you brought that up before, and it ties right into what I'm getting at... it's not about dwelling on a past we can't change, it's about the future opening up once Putin is gone.
Look, I'm not trying to distract from the tragedy in Ukraine, but I am warning you: the whole point of these sanctions needs to be stopping Putin AND making sure he's politically wiped out.
Honestly, you might be the only one who actually gets what I'm saying here...

But that assumes the West is some kind of ultimate geostrategic puppet master capable of micromanaging global processes—as if sanctions can be calibrated with surgical precision to achieve very specific outcomes.

The only predictable outcome is a weakened economy. You can't just use sanctions to surgically remove Vladimir Putin from power. It might happen, it might not, or it could even backfire and strengthen him. Reality is full of unpredictable, chaotic elements, especially when a country lacks a strong internal presence capable of influencing its own domestic affairs.

We’re essentially looking in the rearview mirror here. It’s easy to sit back now and claim that denuclearizing Ukraine was a mistake. But back then, there was a very real chance of seeing a Belarus 2.0 situation—or something even messier—given the political chaos and those questionable questions about their ability to actually control their own military assets.
I’m not exactly thrilled by the idea that Pakistan, India, or let alone South Korea have them either. Honestly, I can't imagine anyone during the collapse of the USSR being particularly happy about the prospect of nuclear weapons existing anywhere. If they had to be somewhere, it probably made more sense for them to be within the Russian Federation, given they hold most of the resources.

Lisa Jackson7 said:"Quote:"

Look, you can track where that stolen money actually goes—the funding sources, the energy trade flows—and just cut them off. No matter how much it hurts.

It’s all similar to limited sanctions. Neither an integration policy (China, Russia) nor a blockade strategy (Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, etc.) guaranteed to deliver the intended results. They might work, they might not, and they could easily make things worse...

Nobody has a crystal ball here. These aren't simple, predictable systems that we can just map out for a reason.

Lisa Jackson7 said:Look, we aren't talking about some unilateral takeover of Ukraine or Russia—we're talking about cooperation, obviously, with partners who actually want to work together.

Back in '91 and '92, Boris Yeltsin and Yegor Gaidar begged Western governments, financial institutions, and their experts to step in and help—properly, of course.

I think I was being plenty specific... the whole thing is massive and extremely well-documented.

Plus, Gaidar actually warned and pleaded with the USA and Europe to look into how the CIA was letting shell companies be used to stash massive amounts of wealth looted from Russia—wealth used to build corrupt networks of high-level politicians and businessmen.

The response he got? Basically, "that's just standard capital flight, it happens, and unfortunately we can't (read: won't) do anything about it." ☕

Putin had great practical training and was practically a darling of the West whenever it suited them.

Western advisors tended to give pretty much the same advice and formal blueprints to all former Soviet states. Ultimately, implementation falls on the locals; outsiders can't do that for them.

The main economic hurdle was pivoting from a planned economy to a market one, which meant privatizing state assets. A few countries handled this well, while many others—including ours—did it through corruption. Russia likely saw the worst kind of oligarchization. The state coffers ended up empty because real value wasn't captured and a functional, driving market economy never took root. But that is strictly the responsibility of the Russian authorities; just as no outsider is responsible for our own "circle of elites" philosophy. Foreign players can offer advice, but they don't call the shots or execute the plans.
Given the general economic and democratic illiteracy of the public during the early transition years, the blame rests almost entirely on those in power at the time.

Another interesting point comes from an interview I heard recently with a Westerner who was involved in those processes. He mentioned how scientific institutions would simultaneously ask for help while feeling resentful about it, simply because they were used to being powers rather than beggars. They hated having to ask outsiders for anything. In fact, many institutional actors—not just the CIA—were probably relieved when Putin arrived with his illusion of neo-Soviet relevance.

The West could have worked more on international relations to perhaps soften the slide toward despotism. Apparently, Reagan was more inclined toward plans to integrate Russia into the West, whereas from Bush senior onward, that policy was abandoned—partly for pragmatic reasons (both Bushes) and partly due to ideological friction with the undemocratic shifts under Putin (like Obama trying for a "reset"). Clinton, though, seemed to be on good terms with Yeltsin. 🤔

But it's easy to be a general after the war is over, and honestly, it doesn't matter anymore.

The West isn't omnipotent. Even in "banana republics" closer to home, they succeed sometimes and fail others. With a power like Russia, it's hard to achieve much without an active partner on the other side. Gorbachev and Yeltsin were somewhat that, but Yeltsin eventually built a corrupt oligarchic economy. In reality, Yeltsin's biggest mistake was combining corruption and low energy prices with a shaky democracy. That created the perfect environment for Putin, who is just as corrupt but benefited from high energy prices and built a dictatorial security apparatus that traded chaos for a certain type of order. I'm not sure if the West truly had the power to change that.🤔

Comparing this situation to post-WWII Japan or Germany just doesn't work. Those countries were completely leveled and occupied. In those cases, any local resistance or defiance against the West was basically wiped out. Direct oversight prevented the kind of systemic corruption you see in Russia, and honestly, they probably started with much lower corruption levels anyway—though I'd need to look into that.
I’m not entirely convinced that corruption won't wreck the reconstruction of Ukraine, too. They’re practically begging for Western intervention, let alone dealing with a Russia that has nothing left to lose.

It’s easy for the fighters to handle, but the real question is how the fans react. If they can pull off a decent PPV, especially with the issues involving the Russians and the trend of moving events to the Middle East... we might actually see some big fights during the regular season instead of just the outliers. 🙂

Maybe Europe has finally learned its lesson about the risks of playing nice with dictatorships 🕺

Xi’s playbook isn't all that different from Putin's; he just got lucky enough to inherit a powerhouse economy instead of dealing with the chaos Yeltsin left behind, which gives him much deeper pockets. But this habit of aggressive posturing and constant escalation—combined with heavy-handed propaganda and financial maneuvering—is already starting to take its toll. Europe really ought to follow Australia's lead and start curbing Chinese influence (though, to be fair, it's not quite on the same scale as what happened in Australia, so there's less need for a total overhaul)

Nathan Evans78 said:It’s honestly pretty fascinating how much of a free pass India seems to have when it comes to working with the Russians. I suppose the folks running the numbers in the West are starting to realize that it wouldn't be a smart move to end up with an extra 1.5 billion people standing on the opposite side of the fence from us. ☕

As for oil, things don't seem to be cooling down anytime soon. It might not be that wild speculative spike we saw the other day, but it’s still enough to drain thousands of dollars out of Americans' pockets this year.

India is stuck in a tough spot since their military relies so heavily on Russian hardware. Plus, they're in a simmering standoff with both China and Pakistan, so they can't afford massive disruptions or a sudden overnight pivot, even if they are trying to diversify slightly. On the flip side, the West actually wants a decent competitor to challenge Chinese hegemony in Asia.

China is a different beast entirely. They have plenty of domestic manufacturing and act as a much more formidable partner to Russia. They're playing their own game.

Maria Moore said:"The President of the USA announced an additional $800 million in security assistance for Ukraine. This brings the total aid announced just last week to one billion dollars."
"The military aid package will include anti-tank projectiles and more defensive weaponry already provided by the US, including Javelin anti-armor missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles."
"The new package also includes 9,000 anti-tank systems. These are high-precision shoulder-fired missiles that Ukrainian forces have used with massive success to take out attacking tanks and armored vehicles. It will also include 7,000 small arms—machine guns, rifles, and grenade launchers—to equip the Ukrainians, including the brave men and women defending their cities and rural areas," said Biden.

True, though various journalists citing administration sources have suggested they aren't announcing everything just to avoid tipping our hand to Russian tactics.

By the way, if it turns out that drone was actually Russian and just got diverted, does that mean Ukraine has electronic warfare tech capable of jamming them?

The US has tightened up how much they share with the public regarding weapon shipments, so the real question is just how much more we'll actually find out about what's being sent over there.

wiredseal7 said:Which "regimes" have we actually seen sanctions topple so far? Hardly this one—especially since they're just leaning harder into totalitarianism now. Sanctions mostly just push them further into a corner. They aren't exactly feeling any pressure from the West to stop the repression.

And if we're being honest, those planes weren't stolen—they were sanctioned. 🙂
I don't get why people are whining about the planes when "we" essentially seized hundreds of billions in assets—not just state property, but private holdings belonging to Russian citizens, even folks in the EU or Israel. In some cases, it even touches their grown children's interests.
I doubt they'd be foolish enough to hand back the planes after getting hit that hard.

Was that sanctioned property actually seized, or is it just frozen? 🤔

Nathan Evans78 said:Look, I have no way of knowing through a screen if you’re actually your country's "average citizen." For all I know, you could be the kid of some corrupt white-collar criminal or someone living off taxpayer money while treating the government treasury like their own personal piggy bank. People like that usually love to shout about how great their homeland is, often while sitting comfortably in their basement. 🤣

It’s not the best in the galaxy, but our negative view of America stems from comparing ourselves to the West or the European Union, rather than China or something actually worse.

In terms of quality of life, we're pretty much among the most developed parts of the world—though personally, it took me traveling through some third-world countries for a few years to actually realize that.

Humans are evolutionarily hardwired to notice the negatives more than the positives; it was probably more useful for survival back then. That’s why it feels like we’re living on the fringes of civilization, when in the grand scheme of things, we’re doing quite well.

As for tomorrow, nobody knows. It’s not wise to project current trends too far into the future. Extrapolating what might happen based on what has happened works okay for short-term forecasts, but long-term predictions are mostly useless.

With most cycles like this, you eventually hit stagnation. The graph flattens out; nothing moves in one direction forever. When that plateau happens is the million-dollar question. If we could actually predict it, investment funds would be paying us tycoon-level salaries instead of us typing away on a forum. 😬