Youtube comments of Tim Trewyn (@timtrewyn453).
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This is what Ukraine has needed to be able to do from the outset of the war, disrupt logistics in Russia near Ukraine. This is why they have always needed a steady supply of SRBMs like ATACMS, and that need not have involved the more politically sensitive targets near Moscow. Deeper strikes are useful, but strikes in these regions can quickly weaken the Russian military in Ukraine by denying it food, ammunition, and other supplies. The Russian infrastructure in these near regions needs to be under steady stress. Under those conditions, strategic regions, like artillery range near Kherson can be retaken with some prospect of success. For Ukraine's future security, it needs to have very credible SLBM, riverine, and amphibious forces, holding over Russia the prospect of no buffer zone around Crimea if Russia resumes the offensive on Ukraine.
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The war continues because Ukraine and its supporters believe they can improve Ukraine's negotiating position through offensive combat operations. The extent of this will largely be discovered this year, but no one can say exactly how that turns out at this time or how long it takes to get both sides to see that talks have become a better way to achieve their political objectives.
Allied weapons deliveries have limited the scope of the Russian campaign of ferreting out opposition in occupied areas. This process has included mass murders as evidenced by mass graves found in areas Ukraine recovered, e.g. Bucha. There is some argument that the current stalemate has facilitated the evacuation to safety of civilians who may have otherwise been victims of Russian occupation operations. In what here has been one of the better and more balanced of advocacies of a cease fire I have listened to, the lack of acknowledgement of how Russian forces behave in occupied areas, which do not cease in a cease-fire, is disturbing and to me further discredits the movement. The not so hidden suggestion Ms. Bennis makes is that Western populations act to weaken the ultimate Ukrainian negotiating position.
Another questionable aspect of this advocacy is to serve as a messenger for Russian nuclear threats and in the same presentation make no acknowledgment that the US, UK and Ukraine agreed in the 1990s to transfer Ukrainian held nuclear weapons to Russia. That was a huge concession to Russian security interests in exchange for Russian respect for the border. The public should understand that both the Russian and American empires face mutual nuclear annihilation, and that a Russian resort to nuclear weapons would show the global South that such weapons are now established as an active Russian tool of the 21st century. How could it be that Russia considers such an act in its long-term interest? The use of nuclear weapons by Russia is more likely to result in the up arming of NATO and long-term sanctions, a thing Russia does not want at all. In the long-run, Russia, like many other nations, needs the West and the South to offset very potent Chinese global influence. Part of Russia's goal in making nuclear threats is to stimulate just this kind of advocacy that works in Russia's interest. This war is an awful, unjust, horrible event. As much as human beings might want to stop it, there is also something to punishing the Russians for their aggression.
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There are many ways people can contribute to the defense of a city. But just sheltering oneself and needing food and water and health care is better done somewhere else. If you can dig with a shovel, prepare meals, be a lookout, print a newsletter, clear debris, haul ammo and military supplies by truck, car, horse cart, bicycle, repair utilities and public services and buildings, and construct safe spaces, then there is a job for you. If you cannot do something useful to defend the City and support the soldiers, then it is best to move out and at least be a social support to others who have had to leave.
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The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 included the nuclear demilitarization of Ukraine and the assurance of the UK and the US and Russia to support the sovereignty of Ukraine. The MIC may be for Ukraine in NATO (no citations of specific MIC NATO advocates by Sachs), but so is a portion of the Ukrainian people. It's a tell (of an uneven opposition to the MIC and/or sympathy for Russia) when the Memorandum is omitted from these discussions. If the US had assisted Ukraine in remanufacturing the Soviet nuclear warheads it had in the early 90s, maybe we would not be dealing with a war in Ukraine now. But everyone seemed to agree that Russia's security concerns needed to be accommodated. Whether or not Ukraine was in NATO, the prospect of weapons sales to Ukraine existed. Again, this is left out of the discussion, and to me, it largely discredits the discussion. But Iraq, yes, that was a bad war started on a bad basis as far as I can tell.
Mr. Sachs proposal of US baiting of the Soviets into Afghanistan may be true. The two empires were contesting each other everywhere for primacy. One way to look at that is that the Soviets/Russians, too, have a problem with the idea of restraint. They may have more wisely chosen to improve the security of their border rather than underwrite a particular government in Afghanistan. Given that much of Russia's land, like Canada's, is rather cold and remote, it still stuns me a bit when the world's largest nation by land area, yet in terms of population does not seem proportional to that land area, still feels it needs more land.
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I have been a foster parent and encountered personalities that made my skin crawl. There are people, mostly men, who have little or no conscience. I would have to supervise their visits with foster children I was responsible for. Sobering, delicate diplomatic experience for me. I encourage you to talk to a social worker sometime who deals with these situations on a working basis. It might be a little healing. My understanding is that the fundamental strategy is to keep the 12-year-old alive in the context of their nuclear family. Foster care is a backup plan when the child's life is at stake or continued impregnations and/or abuse are likely. What the system probably received from her parents was a confidential signed statement that the daughter would not be impregnated again nor sexually abused from that time forward. That may not mean much to the father other than to know if his daughter showed up pregnant or otherwise bruised again somewhere, she would be removed from their home, representing a shame difficult for him to process (see Donald Trump). Foster parent training emphasized being part of set of services to re-unite a child with birth family, based on the finding that sometimes family therapy and foster care do work. It would be of some interest to find out the course of that 12 y.o.'s life since that time. I hope she has been able to put together a good life. I think things have changed since 1975 as far as State intervention for the safety of children.
And that principle, the safety of children who cannot support or defend themselves, is, quite apart from religion, at the legal core of what might be lawful or unlawful abortion. While many conceptions fail on their own, each conception is the merger of parental DNA and the formation of a new, unique human life in its earliest stage. It's how we all got started. That's just the straightforward science of it. The State and society do have interests: economic and psychological readiness of parents, physical health of parents, especially the mother, the likely costs to society to support pregnancy or not support it, the morale of the State licensed professionals charged with carrying out abortions safely for the mother, and a positive or negative outcome as to the morale and productivity of the parents and child going forward. The State needs a demographic that supports its policies and programs. The State needs new officers and soldiers because the world and our nation in various places is often a street fight of some kind. Sometimes the State ends lives. And the more we look at it, the more our conscience can adjust to the many considerations. Because there is a spectrum in the quantity and quality of conscience in human beings, it is difficult to arrive at a social consensus as to what to do and what principles to develop and apply to each case. Courts recognize the operation of conscience when they make a finding whether the defendant shows remorse or no remorse. Religion is not directly invoked in the court. A social norm is invoked. When does human life deserve due process before being ended by a State licensed professional? After a life of processing this issue, I find the vocabulary of the discussion ("health care") wanting, on a par with my being subject as a US Army soldier who could be ordered to kill other humans, being described thereafter as having "established security." Let's not whitewash what we are doing here. For various reasons, a large body of US citizens feel that during pregnancy parents are judge and jury with a right to demand that, for their health and safety, a State licensed professional execute an emerging child chemically or physically. And, given the number of incidents, this service needs to be available annually on an industrial scale? Some of us feel like an Allied soldier walking into Auschwitz.
Tough topic. I read your anger on that specific case. I get angry at fathers like that, too. Kind regards for your telling the story.
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Per Elizabeth Baylor, medical anthropologist, University of Alabama: Ethnocentrism is a term applied to the cultural or ethnic bias—whether conscious or unconscious—in which an individual views the world from the perspective of his or her own group, establishing the in-group as archetypal and rating all other groups with reference to this ideal. This form of tunnel vision often results in: (1) an inability to adequately understand cultures that are different from one’s own and (2) value judgments that preference the in-group and assert its inherent superiority, thus linking the concept of ethnocentrism to multiple forms of chauvinism and prejudice, including nationalism, tribalism, racism, and even sexism and disability discrimination. Ethnocentrism is a concept that was coined within anthropology and formed the cornerstone of its early evolutionary theory before becoming one of the discipline’s primary social critiques. It continues to both challenge and inspire anthropologists, shifting in meaning and application with theoretical trends and across the subdisciplines. For many anthropologists in the Boasian tradition, ethnocentrism is the antithesis of anthropology, a mind-set that it actively counters through cultural relativism, education, and applied activities such as cultural brokering. Physical anthropologists have tended to define the concept more generally as preferential cooperation with a defined in-group and to interrogate its potential evolutionary origins, while the postmodern trend has been a growing suspicion of the anthropologist’s own ability to transcend cultural bias in his or her analysis and presentation of the “other,” leading to an emphasis on reflexivity and subjective diversity. Outside of the discipline, ethnocentrism is a topic of study for biologists, political scientists, communication experts, psychologists, and sociologists, particularly in the areas of politics, identity, and conflict. Marketing has seized on the term to describe consumers who prefer domestically produced goods, and the derivative ethnocentric has become a common criticism in the era of globalization for those assuming their own cultural superiority.
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Mobilizing Western air forces into eastern Europe and dropping airborne troops into key areas of Ukraine during the Chinese Olympics might have so disturbed Russian military calculations that they might have cancelled the invasion. Russia insisted they were only in exercises up to the last day, so they had a face-saving way out at that point. However, it is doubtful that many silver linings would have emerged from the conflict such as European unification, NATO expansion, Russian attrition, US sales of oil and gas to Europe after Russia's loss of the European market, deterioration of the Russian economy, revenue for the US MIC, productive use of aged US military stocks, and the demonstration of poor performance by the Russian military and good performance by Western weapons. There is some thought that Russian performance has even given the Chinese military pause in its designs on Taiwan. One wonders how many of these benefits were forecast by Western intelligence and used to support a decision that standing aside from the Russian invasion was the low risk, high benefit option for the West. This of course would need to be masked by expressions of surprise at Ukrainian performance, regardless of years of US military aid. Note the total lack of US surprise about the invasion. Note the idea that somehow Russia might be talked out of an invasion that to Russian eyes faced little opposition. Sorry Ukraine, we definitely owe you a great deal. Thankfully Putin left a lot of money in Western banks. But the lives lost are a terrible price to pay for this course of action/inaction and perception of the long-term good.
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Maybe when Russia and Belarus hold exercises on the Latvian border, Latvia, at least in computer simulation style, practices preparatory evacuation of non-combatants. Like working with EU countries and their hotels and Air B&B's, moving people out on planes, boats, buses, and trains and bringing NATO troops, intelligence agents, and supplies in. Maybe there is a lottery for government supported "vacations" just to try out some of the logistics at small scale so lessons are learned beforehand. And remember, get out of any part of a city that does not have a good bunker. Health care goes underground.
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Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Iraq was repelled from Kuwait. Still, after that, Iraq maintained the world's fourth largest military and had demonstrated aggression and expansionism. Containment of Hussein and his sons after him might have been a better strategy for Iraq's neighbors. There was a lot of selling of Iraq's internal repression at the time, kind of like Putin selling Russians on Ukrainian oppression of "Russian speakers" (lots of Ukrainians speak Russian) within Ukraine. But I think the West could actually name names and incidents of that repression, whereas I am still waiting to see an Amnesty International list of oppressed Russians in Ukraine. There was concern that Hussein's sons would be worse than Hussein himself. In America there was strong suspicion about the whole Iraq WMD accusation. Leading Americans said the American people were being duped. Oil considerations were involved, and Iraq sits on some of the world's cheapest oil to produce, i.e., most profitable. Russia today also has a matrix of considerations about Ukraine that shape its strategy, including oil and gas. The invasion of Iraq made things miserable for many Iraqi's, and then ISIS happened and it got worse. Makes one wonder if it is best for Western nations to not try to project too much of their own values and methods on Islamic cultures. Political/clerical leadership in those nations are pretty sure they have a better system. So yes, Iraq was a pretty dangerous independent country that, in an era of American exceptionalism, was a tempting place for certain American leadership to invade and reconstruct to its liking. It's hard to model what Hussein's sons would have done with the country had they stayed in power. But I lean toward it probably being better for everybody if containment of Iraq had been the policy. I do not remember many people making detailed forecasts of how bad the aftermath could end up being. We should assume the aftermath of Ukraine will also be complex and perhaps beyond our ability to helpfully forecast with various models.
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@saniksafi2411 I am an electrical engineer, so I will bring that perspective. The offensive puts the KNPP at some risk, enough that Russia thought it would be good to video an IAEA inspector on the site saying it would be bad if Ukraine tried to occupy the plant. Electrically, Ukraine does not need to attack or occupy the plant, it just needs to bring electrical transmission gear near the plant into the range of accurate artillery and/or missiles that could take and keep those facilities out of service. Enough auxiliary power can be left in place to keep the KNPP safe. The obvious item on the table would be the eventual return of the ZNPP to Ukraine. I don't think Ukraine is positioned for this yet, but they are closer than before and could make progress on the goal.
The KNPP is important for surrounding industry, some of which is important for Russia's war effort. It's not a war crime to attack electrical substations that are primarily powering war industry.
Russia commits war crimes by attacking Ukraine's civilian electrical infrastructure. Ukraine still has the moral high ground with the international community on this issue. But Ukraine setting up a credible threat to the electrical output of the KNPP and any other regional electrical infrastructure could set the stage for a specific agreement for both sides to end attacks on electrical infrastructure. Russia having seriously degraded Ukrainian infrastructure, might be tempted to take such a deal to protect its capacity for the winter. Ukraine would still be disadvantaged, but would have the opportunity to reconstruct without having repaired facilities attacked again. However, given Russia's morality, I would expect them to resume attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure in the following spring or once a short-term loss of capacity was much less of a threat to them.
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@ianLord77 I have heard this narrative over and over again, framing the situation with extreme hypotheticals. It denies any nation in Russia's "near abroad" any serious agency regarding its own security concerns, as if 140 million Russians, and especially their leaders, are significantly more important than the 160 million Europeans on or near the western Russian border. And the nation with the world's largest nuclear arsenal, Russia, can never be "not posing any kind of a threat". It was very much in Russia's interest for Ukraine not to have nuclear weapons, and that interest was accommodated. What happens when Russia or China puts troops in America's near abroad? China put its own law enforcement, not in Canada or Mexico, but right in the United States. A couple of them got caught. That doesn't mean they were the only ones keeping tabs on ethnic Chinese in the United States. Did America resort to some kind of extreme? No. It started a due process. I think it better for Russia if its own westward expansion is not realistic, and it sticks to its own domestic development, slowly re-establishes its international trade, and has some gratitude rather than hubris about being number one among nations in land area and nuclear warheads. Ukraine's threat to Russia is not in hosting NATO military bases. Its threat is that its people speak Russian, and that, coupled with thousands of exchanges between European, democratic Ukrainians and repressed Russians, could create trouble for the Kremlin. "NATO expansion" is Russia's line, because NATO gets in the way of Russian expansion.
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It does raise the question as to whether the child is mature enough to make the choice between keeping and raising the baby or giving the baby up for adoption. The difficulty of such a choice is sometimes not far from a choice to abort or carry to term. I am an adoptive parent. It's seems all a bit much for the very young, the sex included if it was consensual. If not, she deserves extravagant care from the State for failure to protect, because the State is definitely claiming the authority and responsibility to protect the fetus. I will say that if the State is going to step in like this, then it needs to step up with child care support and, I think, a free college education for this young mom and the child care support to make that education feasible. And where's the dad? Did the court garnish his wages for the next 21 years to help pay for all this? Here's an amendment for the Florida Constitution:
"Women shall receive due consideration in the law and, equal protection not withstanding in this case, from men, for pregnancy." The words may not be perfect, but the intent is to allow the unique taxation of men as a class for the funds necessary to protect and support women and their children. It might stimulate laws and enforcement and cultural changes that would reduce rape and incest and unplanned pregnancies. There will always be men who behave poorly, but more of them might be paying or serving time for their poor judgment. Boys run away, men stay and pay.
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Smile. I took a History of Science class at Wheaton College. My professor was Dr. Joseph Spradley, who wrote some of the original mathematics and physics of phased array radar, the basis of the SPY/AEGIS system on the Burkes. He loaned me a copy of his paper, which was more like a half-inch thick book. It was full of integral calculus and other summation equations. Later, when I was in engineering school taking things like machine language and Fortran and Pascal, I recalled some of his text and saw how the phased array system lends itself very well to computer processing of its "pencil beam" orientation and the return signals obtained from the "painted" target. It doesn't need a rotating antenna, which seems rather primitive in comparison. The faster the processor and the greater the number of fixed antennas in the system, the higher the resolution of its "imagery" and the harder it is to jam. And there's no jamming it when it's not pointed at the jamming source. And even then, a jamming signal would need to cope with the system's ability to alter transmitted levels of energy that essentially encode the bandwidth of plausible return signals. As we know, the speed of computer processing has multiplied many times over the years, making phased array radar more potent than ever. Can it still find the target? Anything can break, but it's great when it does work. Fun question.
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That's quite a story. There's a new party called the American Solidarity Party. It's pro-life, but in many other ways to the left of the Republican Party. Single issue pro-life voters are going to have a choice they did not have before. The ASP looks to many ethical sources, but one of them is Catholic Social Teaching, a pillar of which is the cause of the poor. It also includes addressing the conditions that leave people feeling abortion is their best choice. Until now, the Republican Party and its extreme elements have relied upon these single-issue voters to gain power and advance their agenda, which in my mind comes down to less or no income tax and less or no rules on the particular business of the Republican voter, and subsidies for that business are OK. And they want a powerful military that just protects the US. Otherwise they are "Don't Tread on Me."
The prospect is, that if the ASP understands the pro-life voter correctly, then the Republican extreme will be disempowered because they will lose this once very reliable source of voters. That might set off something bad, and then again it might require the core constituency of the Republican party, wealth, to better police its own. I don't know that ASP candidates will get anywhere other than attracting a sector of voters with their conscience oriented in a few particular ways. Elections being as close as they are, it might make a difference. It might set off a good conversation that opens up paths to reconciliation.
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@larrycera1943 Think in terms of square km acquired per day over months. The pace of Russian advances since early on has been in small areas of land, with significant reversals in Ukraine's favor north of Kiev, near Kharkiv, and Kherson. I don't know why Russia would not use more airpower, armor, and artillery and place more troops and equipment to achieve occupation of all annexed territory promptly, unless they just don't have it right now. It is true that Russia has a military industrial complex way out of proportion to its population and economy, but big as it is, it does not match the military industrial capacity of the West. Nor do I detect any broad passion in Russia to pursue this war outside of the leadership, while Ukrainians broadly understand that losing means they need to leave a great deal behind forever. Just basic statistics like population and industrial capacity favor the West, with a motivated Ukraine, being able to wear down Russia over the long run. General Milley said it would be a long war. I think he's right. I think the Pentagon knows quite a bit about long wars and how to give Russia a hard time when it invades a smaller country, e.g. Afghanistan, and that was a much more powerful Soviet Russia.
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The politicians are involved because very serious political and business interests are involved. Business looks at schools as profit centers, but of course part of the business plan is public relations messages that portray them as everybody's friend. The politicians are involved because business finances their campaigns, and because there are large blocks of voters who would like the public to fund their religious schools or some other option. There is a fundamental inequity wherever religious parents pay tuition for their religious school and also pay taxes for the public school their child does not go to. Because these parents are very invested in their child's education, and staff often has a supplemental ideological motivation to perform well for God, these religious schools often become very long lived and of good or very decent quality. They can vary in their policy as to the admission of troubled or special needs students. But the double payment by the religious taxpayer is a quietly underlying, major issue.
It is less quiet with the charter schools. These generally have a business model of presenting publicly funded new facilities with a lower paid, more transient faculty (which the generally too busy parent will not notice), and a highly paid public relations program by the administrators. In my research, these are schools that are run like a business, and without too much more thought about it, that suits a lot of parents just fine. Sometimes without mandates to serve comparable numbers of students with conduct disorder and special needs, the charters can use non-admission and the occasional expulsion of troubled students to create a more favorable environment for everybody in the school, and that can seal the deal for a lot of parents and even staff. The public schools are left with the difficult students, and their poorer performance and even violence confirms the charter parent's choice. And really, how many parents want to send their child to a school known for fights and disrespectful students taking up much of the adult staff time while the acute conforming students attend in fear? Most public schools are not so terrible, because most kids are pretty cool and public special education teachers are highly qualified, but one can start to see the practical issues that school choice, charters, and religious schools bring to the issue of publicly funded education. And public funding is in the domain of the politician.
As a taxpayer and a military veteran, I have a fundamental concern that whatever school an American child goes to, that they are becoming a good thinker with a good mind, able to sift through emotional arguments and self-interested deceits to develop a decent understanding of the truth of their situation, i.e., street smart in a world full of con men. And, sadly, I want them in good physical and mental condition if they are drafted into their nation's military. A school that does not do that has less reason to receive public support.
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From Webster's Dictionary of 1828:
1. A rising against civil or political authority; the open and active opposition of a number of persons to the execution of a law in a city or state. It is equivalent to sedition, except that sedition expresses a less extensive rising of citizens. It differs from rebellion, for the latter expresses a revolt, or an attempt to overthrow the government, to establish a different one or to place the country under another jurisdiction. It differs from mutiny, as it respects the civil or political government; whereas a mutiny is an open opposition to law in the army or navy. insurrection is however used with such latitude as to comprehend either sedition or rebellion.
Example: It is found that this city of old time hath made insurrection against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been made therein. Ezra 4:19.
It follows reasonably that the writers of the 14th Amendment defined "insurrection" in the manner above. Indeed, the last sentence indicates "insurrection" to be a slightly more general and encompassing term that includes sedition or rebellion as explained in the definition. When a piece of legislation does not define all its terms, legislative rules typically resort to a recognized dictionary definition. Or is the legislature required to establish an official state definition of every word to be used in its documents? Well yes, and that is why they adopt a recognized, publicly dictionary. It is legislative and legal negligence not to do so. And how are people to better understand each other without some reliance on a common language of well-defined words.
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Russia cannot ignore the rise of China. It will become increasingly sensible for China to manage more Russian resources. Russia may have felt it needed to acquire Ukrainian resources and population to help it slow down Chinese progress in developing eastern Russian resources. China is trying to show Russia that it has friendly intentions, but eventually things come down to who does the job better. Russia used to think it could do what only China can now do, that is, organize and optimize the Asian continent. Russia must see that China will attain this status through financial means and the energy of its population. Rather than flee China by violently invading Europe, Russia should work with China to bring about this natural political evolution peacefully. Russia should start openly discussing this future with China, rather than avoid it. China, as a rising power, I think, is only beginning to understand its future potential. Mearsheimer is right and wrong. It is convenient for Russia to focus its population on NATO, but NATO is not going to be assimilating Russia through invasion. China will peacefully take over eastern Russian resources, with NATO sanctions on Russia in essence pushing Russia into more and more business relationships with China. It is notable that while the weakening of Russia may be in China's interest, China is not pressing Russia as it could.
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While the Senator makes some good points, I think he mischaracterizes the destination of $60 billion for Ukraine. The great majority of that money goes to the US defense industry to manufacture new weaponry for US inventory, while inventory about to expire and scheduled for decommissioning is instead sent to Ukraine. It is aid to Ukraine, but it is not cash to Ukraine. It is material to Ukraine. He also mischaracterizes the motivation of his fellow Senators. Stopping Russia in Ukraine means US troops will not have to stop them in Moldova or Romania or the Baltics or Poland or Finland. Also, delaying munitions deliveries to Taiwan increases the likelihood of a Chinese invasion. Would Putin have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine had a potent air force with several hundred F-16s and the munitions and services that go with them? He would be hurting a lot more if that had been in place. Senator, we are trying to head off foreign leaders who have publicly declared their intentions.
The Senator is also incomplete in his characterization of strategy. He made no mention of sanctions and the realignment of the European economy away from Russia. Sanctions do not themselves end a war and they take time to produce effects. But effects are being felt. The Russian economy is being reorganized into a top heavy defense economy in the style of the Soviet economy. History shows how that worked for them. The strategy is to weaken Russia, discredit Russia, raise Chinese doubt as to its own strategy, solidify NATO, and improve the security of free Europe, Taiwan, and the United States global economy. That strategy is working. It's plain to see. Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has put itself into a self-defeating level of stress.
The Senator lays out no strategy for bringing the conflict to a diplomatic resolution. Russia is pressing its attack. Russia is not stopping. Russia's terms for settlement involve Ukraine surrendering land Russia does not currently occupy, Ukraine staying out of NATO and the EU, and Ukraine demilitarizing. It just tees up Ukraine for future losses. If he wants a fast, diplomatic solution, I am afraid the only way to achieve that is a significant Ukrainian capitulation, OR, a form of Western escalation that convinces Putin that he is on a steady trend of losing Ukrainian territory. The latter is perhaps too dangerous for the Senator's temperament. The Senator also, in making his case on Russian oil and gas sales, ignores Ukraine's agency to significantly damage Russia's oil and gas infrastructure, a program it has already begun, perhaps as far back as Nordstream 2.
The Senator sees expanding the "industrial base" as not helpful if we send all the munitions made to Ukraine. Who were we going to use the munitions on? And is it not an improvement in capacity if a larger industrial base can make more munitions? More munitions can bring the war to a more favorable end for Ukraine. The Senator is indirectly advocating capitulation.
In essence the Senator dismisses the superior population numbers and industrial capacity of Ukraine's friends vs. Russia and its friends. He acknowledges Russia's team, but is dismissive of Ukraine's team. He projects the same fatalism that is used in Russian propaganda. Are you ready to absorb millions of Ukrainians, Senator?
As for time for debate, the selection of specific materials to be shipped to Ukraine has been the subject of months of dialogue between the Ukrainian military and NATO defense ministers. I don't think the Senator's expertise exceeds theirs. To the extent that there are certain clauses affecting the execution of the funded programs and monitoring the integrity of those programs, proper objects of the Senate's attention, again I would think that long ago standard language and procedures were formulated and should be found in the bill. How long does it take to confirm that? Time is of the essence on the battlefield. Yes, Senator, people are dying out there. Could we expect you to be keeping up on this for their sake?
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What does NATO expansion into Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland result in? The sovereignty and territorial integrity of those nations. NATO has not invaded Russia from those nations. Kaliningrad could be seen as a great irritation to these nations, but it remains a part of Russia, though surrounded by NATO. Mearsheimer stops with NATO as the cause of the war in Ukraine. But NATO membership does not translate into an invasion of Russia. NATO prevents invasion by Russia. That's what appears to have been unacceptable to Putin. Putin might very well understand that the SMO was not going to take all of Ukraine, but it was certainly designed to consolidate the invasion of Crimea. The war map makes that quite clear. Another part of the mission of the 190,000 was to take Kyiv, displace European influence, and restore Russian influence over the Ukrainian government. Western Ukraine could come later. Another part of the mission was to take Odessa and link to Transnistria. All these missions are supported by the current deployment of Russian forces. It's a deflection to harp on Putin not intending to take all of Ukraine. Mearsheimer is right that there is a ruthless aspect to the American government. Lloyd Austin made it quite clear that the United States was ready to use Ukrainian fighting spirit to weaken Russia and thereby undermine Russia's ability to support a Chinese invasion of Taiwan down the line. And things have so far lined up closer to that trajectory. NATO countries are increasing defense budgets, Finland and Sweden are closer to NATO than ever, American weapons continue to be demonstrated as superior to Russian, and Russia has been reduced in the European oil and gas market to the benefit of American oil companies. Mearsheimer cuts off the causes too early and tilts them onto the West too easily. The war in Ukraine puts the Ukrainians between two large powers seeking to gain superior influence over Ukraine, consistent with Mearsheimer's view of power. I don't get why he tilts this against the West instead of seeing the conflict as a fight over a nation that was standing on its own (vainly) rather than joining one alliance or the other. This is a fight over which empire gains Ukraine as an ally. If one understands the sentiments of most Ukrainian people, one would see they prefer the West to Russia. What Putin should rightly fear is that Ukraine would become the kind of model that West Germany was to Eastern Europe, contributing to the demise of the Soviet Union by setting an example of the benefits of the Western system. Mearsheimer discounts Putin's nuclear arsenal deters an outright NATO military invasion.
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From Webster's Dictionary of 1828:
1. A rising against civil or political authority; the open and active opposition of a number of persons to the execution of a law in a city or state. It is equivalent to sedition, except that sedition expresses a less extensive rising of citizens. It differs from rebellion, for the latter expresses a revolt, or an attempt to overthrow the government, to establish a different one or to place the country under another jurisdiction. It differs from mutiny, as it respects the civil or political government; whereas a mutiny is an open opposition to law in the army or navy. insurrection is however used with such latitude as to comprehend either sedition or rebellion.
Example: It is found that this city of old time hath made insurrection against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been made therein. Ezra 4:19.
It follows reasonably that the writers of the 14th Amendment defined "insurrection" in the manner above. Indeed, the last sentence indicates "insurrection" to be a slightly more general and encompassing term that includes sedition or rebellion as explained in the definition. When a piece of legislation does not define all its terms, legislative rules typically resort to a recognized dictionary definition. Or is the legislature required to establish an official state definition of every word to be used in its documents? Well yes, and that is why they adopt a recognized, publicly dictionary. It is legislative and legal negligence not to do so. And how are people to better understand each other without some reliance on a common language of well-defined words.
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@EvgeniyYakushev-m2u Serbia/Kosova struck me more as an Islamic v. Orthodox migration clash. US/NATO was trying to show wealthy, influential Islamic states a sort of religious neutrality, probably fearing OPEC pressure at a time when the US did not have the degree of energy independence is does today. The rhetoric was about the general human right to live and reducing casualties. Ukraine v. Russia is not Islamic v. Orthodox. Nor is it Orthodox v. Orthodox. Per my Ukrainian friends, it is more like the Ukrainian mob v. the Russian mob. They have personally been touched by both. Let us acknowledge that all human societies, including the United States, possess deceitful and ruthless people. Be advised, when I see no humility in Russian advocacy, no acknowledgment of error or surprise, I see the same self-defeating patterns of thought that led to the end of the Soviet Union. Democratic republics are in a constant process of public grievance and adjustment, and that is in large measure what generates their power, because in such an environment the average citizen senses progress or at least attention and remains productive. I think American oligarchs see that better than Russian ones do. They allow democracy and public grievance against the government. Half the time they are the ones funding the grievances.
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@EvgeniyYakushev-m2u I don't expect Russia to admit that escalating its military operations in Ukraine was a mistake, I expect excuses, but I think it was a fundamental mistake. Why? It shows obvious disrespect for national borders recognized in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and generally in the United Nations Charter. Finland and Sweden have seen this and are in the process of becoming NATO members. This will distribute more NATO forces along the western Russian border. Disrespect for national borders by Russia has also resulted in stated intentions of European nations to increase their defense budgets. Is Russia concerned about this? As far as how it may impact Russian leadership, no, it is not concerned. As far as Russian strategic planning, Russia is likely to decide it must increase its forces in order to pursue its goals. This will only escalate the new European arms race. While on the verge of increasing gas sales to Europe through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Russia was not able to persuade most European nations that is actions in Ukraine should not matter. Europe did not react in a manner favorable to Russia, unless it has always been Russia's intention to build Nord Stream 2 but not use it for some time. In my mind, this was clear misperception of foreign interests and mismanagement of Russia's interests, at least in the short term. If Russia rationalizes all these outcomes, that indicates that long term territorial expansion is indeed the Russian strategic plan and Russia is strongly committed to that plan. As it was before, errors in self-appraisal are likely to result in Russian self-defeat. With the world's largest nuclear arsenal, Russia is not going to be defeated by outside military forces. It can only self-defeat, and the continuity of the nature of its core elite in both Soviet and Russian eras increases the likelihood of another self defeat. There was an alternate route for Russia through trade and pending improved access through the Arctic Ocean due to climate change. Russia's mistake was not taking that path, but rather, taking a path of disrespecting borders.
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Yours is a thoughtful analysis. And his ASPD victory orientation helps him skip over the internal social issues (his jurisdiction) at the root of the Russian demographic problem. Families do not thrive in a culture of fear. Ukrainians understand this. How do I know?
My wife and I live in a big house and our children have moved on. We started thinking about selling and moving into something smaller. My wife was also feeling more alone because our daughter had been killed in a car crash. So it might help if we moved to where life was busier with people to meet. Then the war started. We heard about Ukrainians fleeing their country. Our son had a Ukrainian piano teacher who had come to the US years ago. We asked her if anyone needed a place to stay. First she gruffly said, "No one is leaving!" Then later she heard of a Ukrainian mother and two sons fleeing to join the father who had left Ukraine for America a few years ago. Soon all four of them were in our cottage that was just big enough for them. We were sad about the war, but we were all happy to be together. Some of the best moments of our lives have been with this Ukranian family! What good parents they were. What smart, healthy, kind sons they had! Though we knew we were together because of war, some times I felt our gatherings for meals outside must be as good as heaven.
They would agree with you that Russia wants the people of Ukraine under its control. They know the Russians. They know the despair and fear most Russians live in. They do not want that for their children. I know two Ukrainian fathers that are torn between their children and the Ukrainian army. It is horrible what Putin is doing to people, and that without remorse. He has that kind of brain. Stalin did the Holodomor. Putin and his colleagues are horrifying people to Ukrainians. Because of their close knowledge of Russian lives, they are vehemently opposed to Putin's effort. Thousands, obviously, would rather kill and die than live under those leaders. My new friends gave me two books and referred me to a movie: 1) Anne Applebaum's "Red Famine", the story of the Holodomor; 2) Svetlana Alexievich's "Second-Hand Time", a compilation of Russian citizen testimonies on their lives; and 3) "Leviathan" a movie depicting the corruption and viciousness of Russian internal security that maintains control of the population. If you read and watch these and think half of it might be true, you will understand why the Ukrainians fight like hell and thoughtful Russians leave their country. Christopher Hitchens, notable journalist now deceased, described the Russian government as "a psychopathic dictatorship". Think of the toxic people you know, and then imagine feeling outnumbered by them and controlled by them. It's no place for a family. Ergo Russia's demographic problem. The jerk offers a pittance of money to Russian women who give birth to ten children. He wants them for war. He cannot, by his very neurophysiology, "do anything but let that happen on his watch." What needs to occur to him in his mind and the FSB's minds, does not occur to them. Life for them is power and victory. Like Vince Lombardi, the coach the Super Bowl trophy is named after once said, "Winning isn't everything. Winning is the only thing." Putin can try to put lipstick on it, but he doesn't feel much else.
We can speak our minds here, because brave people have stood up to toxic leadership, which always threatens us. What do we do with Putin? It looks like the frog in the pot strategy: nothing happens that's dramatic enough to provoke him into launching his nuclear arsenal. If we gave the Ukrainian Army everything they wanted, they would probably savage those Russians in the invasion in a few months. Putin has probably been warned that NATO will do that for the Ukrainians if Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons. You are right. Putin is stuck. Things will change when he can't make the FSB payroll, and that's a long way off because making that payroll is his real priority.
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Israel is a product of UN Resolutions and subsequent wars and seizures. It was the antisemitic culture of Europe and WWII that put Zionism into high gear, and the US and Britain were very much involved. Given these originating circumstances, Gaza today should be declared a NATO (or US, UK and EU) protectorate, and Israel should be notified that it should immediately cease air, sea, and ground operations in, near and over Gaza because NATO is moving in with troops and healthcare and food and reconstruction. US aid to Israel and Egypt should be on the table to fund this, as both of these nations have been less than helpful to the people of Gaza and their access to humanitarian aid. Enough vengeance is enough vengeance. Israel will continue to act with impunity in Gaza until it faces this kind of weighty change in facts on the ground. The protectorate will address Israel's concern with Hamas in Gaza, and allow it to focus on coming to terms with Hizballah. Israel cannot be allowed to turn Gaza into another West Bank. To the extent needed, both Israel and Egypt should sell land adjacent to Gaza as a condition of continued US aid.
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@marioceva7163 No. The world's electric generation portfolio includes a variety of sources: coal, hydro, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, and some oil. But with all its low cost of production oil resources, it would certainly make sense to me if a large part of the Russian electric generation portfolio burns oil. In my own local county, we have natural gas generation, solar panel farms, and a nuclear power plant. The only time we use oil for power is under emergency conditions, like after a bad storm. We converted the oil burning boiler type power plants to gas decades ago due to high oil prices and pollution. Now climate change motivates us to increase renewable energy's share of the portfolio, and we are doing that. So electric cars run on a mixture of resources here, but hardly any oil in our mix. We are preparing for rising sea level.
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Zachariah, do you believe in pricing based on supply and demand? If you want top teachers, like the Koch private school in West Palm Beach, FL does, then you offer top salaries. Koch has the money to hire the best talent, and by all accounts, it is a fantastic faculty and school. Been there, seen it. Unions exist to negotiate better wages and benefits and protect due process. If a teacher's union bargains for higher salaries, than that school system's HR department can attract and choose better candidates. How is racing to the bottom on teacher pay via charter schools going to improve education for students and parents? Teachers are generally altruistic, I have met a lot of them, and they are not all about pay, but pay does matter when you are raising a family and it does matter when you are looking for a position.
Unsupported thesis statements make for a bad essay and a weak argument.
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I live in Florida. I have lived in Illinois and California as well. Each has its pros and cons. Florida has beautiful weather most of the year no matter who is governor. That attracts prosperous retirees from all over the country, and that sector of the economy may only be rivaled by states such as Arizona, or, yup, California. Florida does have places of scenic beauty, but Yosemite Park in California is something I wish every American could visit. The Illinois I knew had the best schools of the three states. Chicago is a world class city with a lifetime's worth of things to see and do. The farmland is among America's best. The people and commerce I knew were strong and sophisticated. State government is probably the most corrupt of the three, but I was very close to local government, and it was as accountable as any I see in the other two states.
I don't get this claim of freedom about COVID countermeasures. People in my church died. Business associates died. There are (and were) a lot of older and vulnerable people here who really had to isolate themselves from the "freedom loving". Is "love your neighbor as yourself" still a value here? Obviously not for a lot of people. Florida's performance on protecting its people from COVID was average. Nobody likes to be told what to do most of the time, but COVID was, and to an extent remains, a subject where one should not just think of themselves, but of the very survival of those around them. That's a part of being pro-life.
I am an American, and a veteran, and I am not into too much badmouthing of other States upon which we have built a great nation. Competition and constructive criticism between States can be healthy and productive, but our safety and prosperity rely upon a union of States.
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Well done, Jake!
Totally agree on ATACMS. With a strong rule of non-engagement of targets in internationally recognized Russian territory, ATACMS deployment in March 2022 would have started the change in momentum back then. However, some of the most powerful monied interests seem to have impressed upon the President and SOD that they would rather throw Ukraine under the bus than provide Ukraine with weapons that might trigger Putin's intolerance for loss. I take this from a SOD Austin single sentence early in the war. Somebody had to hear him say that in public.
In addition to improved AD, and because some missiles and aircraft are going to get through, Europe, the US, and South Korea need to make the effort to keep Ukraine supplied with replacement components for Ukraine's electrical system, as well as a steady supply of fuel and containerized, or trailered distributed electric generating units. Like artillery, these units can be moved to various improvised connection points on streetside distribution lines. This is key to Ukrainians finding refuge within their own country and keeping parts of the Ukrainian economy active through the winter and until the large plants can be restored.
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@EvgeniyYakushev-m2u By omitting any admission of Russian errors, like crossing the Ukrainian border with Russian troops and killing people, you in essence assert Russian innocence. I propose that, based on history, crossing borders with one's own army and killing is an error. It is an error the United States and other nations have committed in history. So there, I freely admit that my country has made this foreign policy error. We've killed people we did not intend to kill. We make reparations, not that that brings anyone back from the dead. It really is not very hard to understand. History should not immobilize us in the present. Rather, because we study history, we are actively seeking to do what we can do to end this war. I can imagine that you, just like me, have little influence over the people who will eventually settle this war. But here you are on YouTube, trying to get us to look at our history that we are well aware of, yet may not interpret in the way you do. The US is not innocent. Nor is Russia. To say "Your government and the British government, which expects Ukraine to win on the battlefield . . ." is in essence to say that Ukraine should simply capitulate to Russia. The people of Ukraine, the US, Britain and others obviously disagree. But God bless you in your efforts for peace, sir.
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Russian "innocence" is a recurring theme. I don't buy it. Start with Russia's involvement with Venezuela. Look at Venezuela's immense oil resources. Look at its history of oil production. As Russian influence in Venezuela increased, Venezuelan oil production leveled off at about 1/3 of prior production. That's enough to sustain the regime there without being a serious threat to oil prices and Russian revenue. Thousands of Venezuelans have left the country, many for the United States. Looks to me like Russia did not want Venezuela putting downward pressure on oil prices.
Now note that Exxon, Chevron, and Shell, with superior oil and gas exploration and extraction technologies (see Guyana) had explored and determined Ukraine (even in old fields) had potential to produce more oil and gas for the European market. That is what set the stage for this war. Russia was going to face more competition in the oil and gas market and thus loss of revenue.
Russia had a peaceful path and a war path ahead of it. Russia could have used its wealth to focus on improving its own petroleum engineering capabilities so it could outperform the West. However, that is not an easy thing to do, because the Western system creates conditions for the continuous improvement of engineering capabilities, while the Russian way of life puts a bit of a damper on freedom and individuality. Russia does do engineering at a high level in many areas, but it is usually spying on the West for the next steps, rather than organically making new discoveries. I'm not saying it never happens, but it is a tendency.
Russia chose the war path, not the West. Was there competition for influence in Ukraine from the West? Most definitely. The challenge is to meet that competition with excellence in engineering, not war.
I think less of Russia because of its use of pretext and military force. I see the Russian people as people, albeit with a distinctive character developed by their particular history.
Oil is a curse, like it happens in John Steinbeck's "The Pearl".
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@СКИван-р8е I am an American. I have hosted two different young Ukrainian families who fled their homes just before the Russian invasion in February 2022. I thought they would be a total psychological mess. Instead I came home from work and here out on my patio they had prepared a wonderful dinner for me and my wife. My old wife and I thought we would be taking care of them after their difficult journey. They were taking care of us instead. I was humbled. They were two couples, one couple with two boys and the other couple with one boy. They were intelligent, working, empathic people. My wife is a school teacher, and she took the boys to be tested for their intelligence. All of them scored high, and so high it is best not to them how high or they would get a big head about themselves. Their parents kept them humble. As a birthday gift, they gave me two books: "Secondhand Time" by Svetlana Alexievich, Pulitzer Prize winner, and "Red Famine" by Anne Applebaum. I read them and understand why Ukraine wants to take a different course than Russia. One of the fathers told me simply, "We do not want Russian mind control". No one will ever convince me that Ukrainians as a whole are Nazis. The quiet deal in this pleasant town in Russia, is to leave politics to Moscow, and just not talk about difficult things too much. Stay quiet, enjoy the local peace. Russia can thank the American man for bringing his American military pension and social security payments to Russia. Amazing that we don't cut that off, isn't it?
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@vladrazym9955 You miss my point. A damaged electrical system can be repaired, and repaired in very innovative ways in a war when efficiency is not the primary consideration. Lighting is a simple indication that damage has been repaired. Infrared can also be used to discern that damage has been repaired. But like lights being shut off intentionally, false infrared signatures can mislead interpretation of infrared imagery. Resolution of course plays a role, but it is in Ukraine's interest to mask not only the repair of its fixed or known electrical infrastructure, but to mask its increasingly mobile distributed electric generation. GPS coordinates that might have been valid a week ago may need to be updated because a mobile prime power generating unit has been relocated to another connection point. Distributed generation is not the normal form of efficient power generation, but it is very suited to a war zone. With time and a steady influx of mobile units and an increasing number of distribution system connection points, the generating system becomes more like a missile on a truck, i.e., not so easy to find. There also becomes too many targets to hit, especially when 50% or more of incoming missiles are intercepted in a manner that the target, even if located correctly, survives. And Russia does well not to strike power plants outside of Ukraine that are connected to the Ukrainian grid. These connections need not always be high voltage transmission in a war, as high voltage transmission stations are fewer in number and an obvious target. While less efficient, again, more numerous sub-transmission and even distribution substations can be used or modified to transmit useful amounts of power. And so in the futile effort to take down the Ukrainian electric system, Russia fails to use some of its best weaponry on military targets.
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@eskosmos Eminent domain is just that. Russia is a resource wholesaler. Of course, they are interested in the resource deposits in eastern and all of Ukraine. Selling resources is what makes Russia an international player and the Siloviki leadership a privileged, wealthy class. Therefore, as soon as the FSB was able, a program of Russifying areas of Ukraine began. The CIA is not the only institution for influencing populations. I am confident the FSB considers itself superior to the CIA. An UN survey in the 1990s showed more sympathy for Russia in the east than the west, but still a majority favoring Ukrainian eminent domain. As the FSB's work to change that progressed, the changed population became part of the facade we hear in Mr. Sachs presentation. It is also true that there are Western interests that covet Ukraine's mineral wealth. President Trump just shamelessly asked for half of them for services already rendered to Ukraine. While I did not vote for Mr. Trump, I credit him with revealing the crass and heartless ambitions present in some leaders on all sides. They have no remorse about this being about money and wealth. Quite the contrary, this is what the "strong" care about. But the strong are a minority, so they appreciate spokespersons like professor Sachs who promulgate an alternative narrative for the neurotypical, "weak" majority of human beings. Psychopathy exists.
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A "religious experience" is not generated or timed by us. If it is, it is we that have generated it and should reverently doubt any divine involvement. The pursuit of truth should not offend the divine, indeed, it should invite the divine. Perhaps for most it comes at the very end of life. I had no exact idea what a religious experience would be like until it happened, unsolicited as far as i was concerned. What happened? Without material intervention, Something was added to my consciousness, and evidently to those around me who had experienced It before, who immediately thereafter entered a different character of worship. I was quite by myself in not emulating them, but I clearly had sensed Something before they did anything different. It did not seem alien. I was the alien, learning there was more to our existence than I had imagined. I wish this for everyone, but I cannot generate it, or time it, or impose it. Your life is your life. My testimony is that God is, and I understand we each have our own journey.
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Something that keeps getting left out of the transgender care discussion is the scientific consensus that a milestone of human brain development occurs around the age of 25. (Notice how Ukraine has had, for a time at least, age 25 as the qualifying age for its military.) This consensus supports the delay of transgender surgery, but not other forms of care, at least until a person is no longer a minor. Somehow minors make it to age 18 on a number of legal issues. I have heard many of the objections to this restriction, but, from my experience as a foster and adoptive parent, and the process of brain development, I think the delay is prudent. And I think any young person does well to give their own brain and body a chance to get to a place of better self-awareness and judgment. As a senior citizen, I can assure them there is probably a lot of life ahead of them, especially with relationships ending on average in 13 to 17 years. It was a notable surprise to me that it is gay male relationships, on average, that last the longest. I say good for gay men then. Finally, as someone who lost a daughter to vehicular homicide by a reckless and irresponsible 19-year-old, I remain supportive of age restrictions on when one can legally engage in the more profound decisions and privileges in life.
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@bigiron1990 The adjective "passionate" can describe hate or love or a person. That might be what user-mv's unexplained view of the "same coin" rests on. They might say "passion" could be inherent, a matter of temperament. After 37 years of marriage, I will say love can be, among other things, hard work. But that work, that engagement with another can build a very resilient trust and joyful, often humorous, unique camaraderie. Conscience, self-control, and commitment matter. Sometimes wide differences in perspective indicate there is not much conscience in someone. Sometimes that doesn't get spotted until a relationship is far down the road. A few can adjust. Many cannot. I don't think hate lasts very long in those of conscience and experience. It distills into an effort to understand, but with caution, testing another's ability to reciprocate sincerely. The psychopaths are out there.
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@ My reply was short and intended for one of the other respondents, or there is some kind of comment mixup on my part or YT's. However, read your own words, "You know nothing about reality". My, what an extreme statement. What does that say about you and your credibility with the community you are trying influence? Yes, let's use the information that is right in front of us, that is, your choice of words and what you are trying to do. "The clown" shows your capacity for contempt of other lives. You are more logically correct to use the word "perhaps", because you really don't know what I think. You ascribe all fault to Zelensky, and speak of no error on the part of Putin. You speak of Ukrainian casualties, but not Russian. Is that a form of indifference to Russian lives, or the particular Russian lives that are being lost? I "shouldn't speak out". "Iron sharpens iron", Lassel. If you are trying to persuade people to accept that Russia has acted defensively, you have not persuaded me. You are right to say Ukrainian soldiers have died. Russia is willing to kill for Ukrainian land and for what that land does for them, that is, protect itself, not from NATO, but from a nuclear armed country with over three times Russia's population, China. Simply on the basis of the size of its population, Russia shows a confidence that it will prevail in its war against Ukraine. That mindset, applied to China, could rationally generate fear of China. And I suspect that fear is behind hyperbolic proclamations of "unlimited friendship." There was a Sino-Soviet war. Russia has conquered previously Chinese lands. I am inclined to think the Russian paradigm sees how that could be a problem in the future. Russia's response might be to make amends on that issue because so much of that border is undeveloped on the Russian side. (If you are in Sweden, then you can use Google Earth to go over the Russian/Chinese border and compare development on both sides for yourself.) But I suppose such an action would result in China becoming even more powerful and more of a threat to Russia. So Russia is stuck. NATO acted on Article 5 once, not to repel a Russian invasion of Europe, but on the occasion of 9/11. NATO has acted like a defensive alliance, or a punisher of "terrorists" for decades. The Soviet Union did not succumb to NATO. Soviet patrimonialism, through corruption and incompetence, self-defeated. It appears to be on a similar course today, not so much with respect to Ukraine, but through its nostalgia and internal trends of governance.
"The thief comes to rob and kill" " said Jesus. Plain as day, that is what Russia is doing to Ukraine, and it is wrong.
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I think Putin has said that the breakup of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical "catastrophe" of the 20th Century. The US has used the word "catastrophic" I think quite intentionally to describe its planned response to any Russian use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. First of all I don't think Russia gains much if they only use one. The front is long and the UAF are distributed throughout the country. Secondly, Russia's occupation of Ukraine relies upon fixed targets: roads, railroads, and bridges. The US does not have to counter with nuclear weapons. It can accelerate Russia's withdrawal through conventional strategic bombing. Of course, this may suit Russia's attainment of its backup objective, what Mearsheimer calls the "wrecking of Ukraine". But Germany, Japan, and South Korea in business relationships with the West (and pre-war Russia) are evidence that restored nations are actually able to become quite prosperous. Ukraine will not remain "wrecked". The United States also knows that not responding to Russian use of nuclear weapons would be an unwise signal to China that the US will capitulate. Until the US has its own domestic source of advanced semi-conductor chips, it cannot afford to send such a signal. The Chinese economy has some serious issues, especially young adult unemployment. Nothing like giving them a job fighting a war. Putin's use of the cornered rat is fear mongering. If he has any sense of history, he must admit that the United States is willing to act militarily. It is the only nation that has used nuclear weapons in war. That tells him the American psyche can do that, especially since he goes all the way back to the Great Patriotic War for his own purposes.
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@euphoricr Fair question. He's just quoted (accurately?). If he wrote something himself explaining it, it does not survive. We have what other people wrote. Why not something from his own hand? Here's my two cents: God's OK with us reading and writing about God, but what God wants most with each of us, is being welcomed into our thoughts and actions, not as our own conscience, but as a distinct and separate Being, not of our invention, now and going forward. Another quote, perhaps related, "The Kingdom of God is within you." When Jesus said those words about himself, he was alive and local to the person(s) hearing it. That is not our case today. We wonder if "spirit" is real. His proposal in essence is, discern the truth about yourself, and love one another, and God will show up in your life. Worth a try?
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@andyboxish4436 But you make no logical argument to support your thesis. Patrick Zhang starts out by saying he is "not sure". Good for him in a way. For Patrick, the subject is "NATO expansion". I take Patrick as making a proposal: Americans, put yourself in Putin's shoes by imagining an unlikely scenario, Canada and or Mexico makes a defensive alliance with China. Why would they do that unless they perceived a military threat from the United States if they were to shift their trade away from the United States and toward China? Would the United States act just like Russia in such a situation? I think that would depend on the character of the Canadian and Mexican militaries. If they were obviously configured for defense, then there is hope that diplomacy can keep the situation manageable until the underlying factors that led to the trade shift can be addressed. Why create long-term enemies by attacking their defensive forces?
But we don't have to imagine recent American behavior on this subject. Cuba, an autocratic regime, lies just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. American policy has been to try to improve the relationship. Cubans keep voting with their feet (or rafts) for the American way of life. Would they do that if we were shelling their cities and killing their families? It's going to take a long time for Cuba and America to get along better, but there is no hot war between the two. So maybe Putin ought to look at America's policy Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and ponder how that might be a better course of action toward Ukraine.
The more potent scenario for Mr. Zhang to bring up perhaps is Iraq. Like Putin, Bush whipped up the American public with fears of Iraqi WMD and how Iraq was on a path to take full control of Mideast oil. And Iraq remains an utter mess, worse than under Saddam by some accounts, and the US is significantly discredited for having done what it did. However, that has not stopped foreign interest, including Mideastern interest, in selling products and services in the US market. Mr. Zhang seems to want Americans to look the other way and let Putin have his way with Ukraine and any other part of NATO until he feels better about his situation. I am not sure that Putin would ever feel satisfied with anything other than victory after victory.
Sharing YOUR insights is an interesting concept? Watching a movie is in interesting concept? I am asking you to look at art and think. A few, and myself, on this comment section are looking for rational arguments from the autocratic side. Not seeing them yet.
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Per the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the US and UK had a basis for proposing military exercises with Ukrainian forces in Fall 2021 and Winter 2021/2022. Such exercises would have upset Russian calculations for the invasion of Ukraine. One has to wonder what foresight there was as to the changes that would occur in geopolitics since the invasion that favored the choice by the US/UK and others to stand aside and let the invasion happen. Yes, there was a failure of deterrence, but there is also now a notable list of changes that are favorable to the US: European defense budgets increased, European unity improved, the addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO, the replacement of Russian oil and gas sales to Europe with more US sales, the demonstration of Western equipment to the arms market, increased sales of US military equipment, the demonstrated poor performance of Russian military equipment to the arms market, the demonstration of the relatively poor performance of a military controlled by an autocracy, the greater leaning of Ukraine toward the West, the avoidance of Russian and European criticism of the escalation of tensions the exercises would have generated, and the moral clarity provided by Russia's bald act of aggression. We owe Ukraine a great deal for choosing not to deter the invasion.
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I thought part of the idea of an officer on site was fast intervention. Of course, thousands of school resource officers are never going to have to intervene in a shooting. So inevitably they get used to doing all sorts of things and going home every night.
While Senator Cruz has received some derision for his comment about supervised single points of entry to a school and locked emergency exit doors, I think that idea is implemented in some schools. My wife is a teacher, and I have noted rules about doors being locked, and "code red" drills. What a difference stout, locked cockpit doors might have made on 9/11. So in that resource officers little cube of an office, not only should there be camera monitors, but a display of door status lights that truly indicate the locked or unlocked status of doors. The more time a shooter is on the outside of a building, the more exposed he is and the more time occupants have to get behind other locked doors and start other procedures. There are other features of a building's systems that could be added to that can thwart a shooter. It's best not to publicize them, but system vendors know what can be done.
As far as all the law enforcement on the outside of the school, for all the tools they had, they did not seem to know exactly where the shooter was. That's a problem that can be fixed by systems in the building that cops can access. One would tend to think that every Police Department has at least one officer with some SWAT training who could become the incident commander and coordinate an assault on the shooter. Dogs and preferably robots can make the first contact and do it quickly. Robots could carry flash/bangs. Robots could be pre-positioned on site. Police training seems to focus on officer safety.
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Israel is acting like the small, threatened, but militarily very capable nation that it is. The IDF could be ordered to perform more surgical assaults on Hamas, but it would lose more soldiers doing so. I suppose Netanyahu is willing to be a "war criminal" in exchange for the survival of more of his soldiers. I would have preferred Israel bolster its defenses around Gaza and make a more limited strike against Hamas. Deuteronomy 19:21 "Show no pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." That verse puts a limit on vengeance. Israel wants to stop the Hamas rocket bombardment of Israel that has been going on for years. I can understand that. The problem is they now have to thoroughly occupy Gaza for years to prevent the re-emergence of Hamas. They are going to be looking for financial help to do that. There is no good option for them. There's enough money and hate out there to prevent them from having any rest. And yes, they have brought some of it upon themselves with illegal settlement. The only way out looks like a stack of thousands of lawsuits and court settlements. And some folks will still not be satisfied with that. They might be safer, and the Palestinians better off, if Israel became the 51st State. Palestinians have allies in the US Congress after all.
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It's because experimental science cannot prove the existence of God, and, experimental science more often being regarded as the only legitimate method of finding truth, many conclude God does not exist. The trend has been to discard or seriously doubt the subjective experience of the presence of God. Aggravating the trend is the disclosure of extreme clerical misbehavior, which added weight to the argument that religion is a social manipulation in favor of a minority. More than ever, religion is seen as an opiate of the masses.
The standing proposal for the subjective, anecdotal experience remains in John 14:22-23, "22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." How would experimental science approach this? How would anyone outside the individual know if another had a genuine relationship with God, especially in the light of abused trust? Some might point to the "fruit of the Spirit", that is, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control . . . " as a form of evidence of a life transformed by the presence of God. This is too subjective for experimental science, but is it then beyond human discernment, beyond a reasonable faith?
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When I was in the USAF, we implemented a more intense checklist for each aircraft in phase inspection, a periodic (three months, typically) mandatory removal of each aircraft to the hangar to put it through the checklist. The result of this was that in-flight failures of our system were notably reduced. The checklist did put pressure on the supply system, because we were detecting early signs of failure sooner and thus changing out components more often. We increased the number of parts being ordered in advanced to they were ready as soon as the aircraft entered the hangar. When flight crews were asked about the reliability of our system, they reported it as high, with other system failures more frequently getting their attention. We had aircraft get to the next phase inspection with no failures in our system in between those inspections. Granted, a failure in our system would not cause the aircraft to crash, but its mission would be a failure, jeopardizing another crew. I was surprised to hear this video say that there were some components of the Osprey that cannot be inspected in some fashion in order to prevent catastrophic failure. To me, those components then need to have an operating hour limit to provide a margin of safety. They also need to have some form of testing prior to first installation, so there can be some confidence in the life of the component. With various forms of Non-Destructive Inspection and manufacturing quality control available, I find the idea of some components just being essentially wild cards hard to accept. The design of the aircraft obviously succeeds for thousands of flight hours. I think this is a maintenance issue. We don't want crews seeing all these alarms so often. Alarms should be rare and generate the appropriate fear.
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@marioceva7163 No. I think Russia (Putin) felt very disrespected when Ukraine invited Exxon and Shell to explore for oil and gas in Ukraine instead of Gazprom being invited. People in eastern Ukraine probably just wanted to live their lives in peace. But the development of competitive gas fields in Ukraine could not be tolerated by Gazprom (and its CEO Putin) because that would reduce revenue to Russia from Europe. Note that under Russian influence for years, Venezuela has been limited to 1/3 of its previous oil and gas output. Maduro did recently, given record market prices, open up to talks with the West about that. I'm sure Russia came back with an offer he could not refuse, like the 15 billion Russian aid offer made to Ukraine around 2014. Maduro obviously has the Venezuelan people still in country under a tight leash, with Cuban and Russian assistance of course. Russia has a full playbook based on its historical colonial experience for situations like this. Agents move in to start a separatist movement. (Really, the natives just wanted to live their lives, but oil and gas are a curse.) Next, "little green men" appear and begin guerilla operations in support of the separatist movement. Locals come under the Russian "educational" system. All casualties become the fault of the Ukrainian Nazis of course, as they are now. Russia is totally innocent. /s. But logistics require this activity hug the Russian border, and the Ukrainian army contains the Russian effort until the findings of the oil and gas exploration become more clear. Also, Donald Trump, useful idiot of Russian finance, is at this time, believe me, President of the United States, (totally evidence of the gullibility of a vast swath of the American electorate) and it makes sense to keep him in that office, leverage Hunter Biden's coincidental activities in Ukraine, and see if he can use his art of the deal to advance Russian interests. But Trump loses the 2020 election! Unbelievable. So many people acted on that unbelief and America looks like a mess and Biden just too old for the job. NATO pulls out of Afghanistan. Weakness. Time to get serious about Ukrainian oil and gas. Time to make Exxon and Shell nervous. The exercises start, but everyone is assured that no invasion is planned. But it turns out the US National Reconnaissance Office has actually developed a rather detailed understanding of Russian military exercises as seen from space, and this one starts to get "different". And Mr. Xi, the best friend Russia ever had, would like to conduct his Olympics in peace, so more time in the field boys. That hurt. But, checklist complete, on with the invasion. And where is the Russian Army today? Over the gas fields. It has nothing to do with the people, sir, and everything to do with money.
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Thanks Jake for the logical argument for postponing ATACMS. I still think there have been and will be occasions where their presence and/or use could deter or counter Russian attacks. They would need to be a part of a strike package that would burden Russian AD, improving the likelihood of success while also improving the survivability of any piloted aircraft in the strike package. While Ukrainian AD and heightened electric utility repair capability can do a lot this winter, there may be something to ATACMS presence and use that could improve winter conditions for the Ukrainians. ATACMS could also pose a threat to MIG-31 bases. Currently MIG-31s and their very long-range air-to-air missiles provide a very serious CAP, limiting UAF operations. In the months ahead this CAP could begin to enable the re-emergence of Russian air power as Ukraine draws nearer to Russian borders. MIG-31s are also very fast, presenting a challenge for UAF AD. Like the ME-262s of WWII, their vulnerability is when they are low on fuel and on RTB or are in the open at their base. Not only the aircraft but their supporting base infrastructure would be more exposed to ATACMS as part of a strike package of UAVs, decoys, ECM, and HARMs. I'm not sure how the MIG-31 threat can be dealt with without threatening MIG-31 bases long range. F-16s do not match the air-to-air missile range of the MIG-31. It really takes F-22s, maybe F35s, to sneak up on a MIG-31. The downside for the MIG-31 is that it is not stealthy and it cannot turn hard to evade a missile. Ukraine can usually know where they are. Checkout Ward Carroll's latest piece with Justin Bronk.
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Yeah, Israeli soldiers see all these young Gazan men standing, walking, looking fed, vigorously digging in rubble, carrying the fallen, and they figure Hamas is very much still in charge because the men of military age are getting fed while the moms and kids get the leftovers. Really DN and any press in Gaza needs to confine video to the vacant stares of gaunt people lying on the ground with flies on their faces. The sights don't line up with the words all the time. It just doesn't look like the brink when it comes to the actual physical capability of the people. Surely their buildings and urban scenes are dystopian, but these Gazans have not put down their arms. Be it with weapons or public relations, they are still very much at war with Israel, and DN needs to consider how it keeps giving Palestinians the idea that they should keep fighting and looking at martyrdom in this manner as an honorable death and shame on everybody else. Do they hold out because they think their narrative is going to work? The women and children are thumbs up on that campaign, a campaign that says nothing of Hamas fighters being killed, just the women and children they put at risk? Are you stoking this fight DN? There are three serious issues of justice that need to be addressed in this conflict: religious tolerance, wrongful death, and property theft. Until those issues get resolved to a lower level of occurrence, this fight just goes on and on, drawing the media like moths. Be a part of the solution DN. Start talking Islamic tolerance of other faiths and atheism.
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@austinechinedu480 China asserts it is an "Arctic Power." I am saying China is for China, and Russia cannot assume China is a friend. I think Mr. Putin understands ethnocentrism enough to know that.
Through decades of purges and systematic strengthening of its internal security forces, Russia has created a populace with a greater incidence of psychopathy. This is evident in its treatment of its neurotypical citizens through propaganda and fear, and its war crimes toward foreign peoples. (I am not saying other nations avoid this issue, but that Russia has, like North Korea, taken the notions of psychopaths to extremes.) The fear in millions of its people undermines its overall rates of creativity and productivity. Blessed with enviable amounts of natural resources, the regime nevertheless so crushes the spirit of its people, and so wastes its wealth on war, that it sets up the cycle of abandonment, apathy, and despair that will leave it underpopulated and thus far weaker than it could be. It would be natural for psychopathic forces in China to exploit that weakness. The catastrophic fall of the Soviet Union is evidence of this tendency of the Russian ruling class. Russia seems headed in a similar direction at this time.
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To everyone else a religious experience is ultimately personal, anecdotal, subjective, and unfalsifiable but certainly open to skepticism. Collecting a poll of those who have had a religious experience is unlikely to satisfy the scientific mind that has not had such an experience. Or perhaps a scientific mind finds another explanation for their religious experience, something biochemical or otherwise material. I have some empathy for such an atheist.
I have had more than one unsolicited religious experience. I still see them as rare in my life, yet they seem to connect to a more subtle and continuous influence on my conscience. I think I have a conscience quite apart from the divine, but subject to its influence. I cannot dismiss God. So there. I am a data point, but just a point.
The danger of religion is that it is often invented by an elite to serve its uber minority interests. Few things suit those elites more than a compliant and productive populace, and religion can deliver, if imperfectly. North Korea seems to have reached a new height in this form of society, from the elite's perspective. The dear leader is usually smiling or clearly in command of the situation. What is interesting is how the historical religions still seem to make their way into that society here and there.
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General Hodges and Jake, this was outstanding. Thank you. I wrote my Congressman, Brian Mast to voice my support for Ukraine. Here's what he wrote back:
Dear Mr. Trewyn,
Thank you for contacting me regarding foreign aid being sent to Ukraine. Your thoughts are important to me as I work to effectively represent you in Congress.
As a 12-year Army veteran, I have seen firsthand the global challenges and threats we are facing in the 21st century. I have also seen how the United States’ retreat from a leadership role in the international community has set the world on a dangerous course that threatens our national security and the security of our allies. As the greatest force for human dignity in the world, the United States must stand up for oppressed people.
However, there needs to be a serious debate about the United States’ involvement in Ukraine, and that conversation can’t take priority over helping Americans.
I want to see a Ukrainian victory against Vladmir Putin, but my first obligation is to you - the taxpayers of Florida’s 21st District. I believe there needs to be a clear and transparent accounting of how we are spending the tax dollars and what we are getting for our money. As such, until the Biden administration provides a clear, strategic, and objective plan for our involvement in Ukraine I will not support sending hard-earned taxpayer dollars for their war efforts.
That’s why, on Thursday, September 28, 2023, I voted against the Ukraine Security Assistance and Oversight Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 5692). I don’t believe in throwing money at a problem. I believe in being thoughtful and spending where it counts. I will continue urging strong support from our allies and the development of a comprehensive national security strategy that is founded on the idea that the world is safest when America is strongest.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me. If you’d like to receive updates about this issue and other news that’s important to our community, please sign up here. To follow along with my work on your behalf, please join me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me again. As always it is an honor to represent you in the United States Congress.
Sincerely,
Brian Mast
Member of Congress
I am tempted to write back and say that if we are "the greatest force for human dignity in the world", then we should be able to multi-task, especially with a federal work force of almost 3 million.
There's also a line from the song "We Are The World": "There's a choice we're making, we're saving our own lives."
My first reaction to his BUT was "I am not being shelled by Russian artillery! I am fine, with a good job and a good wife and a good kid and I think we should help Ukraine NOW!"
Anyway, this is what some of the thinking is in Congress.
Be proud of your efforts, gentlemen. Let us persist.
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I hope that soon the USNS Comfort hospital ship will be traveling to a point off the coast of Gaza in coordination with the US Army floating pier. I hope rented cruise ships will join the Comfort to offer respite and a measure of safety to orphans and parents with children. Apparently, Egypt and Jordan and Syria and Lebanon are in no position to receive Gazan refugees. There is concern that a Gazan who leaves the territory would not be allowed back into Gaza. That right of return should be something the US insists that Israel respect. For now, it would help to get the most vulnerable people in Gaza offshore, fed, sheltered, bathed, clothed, rested, treated for health conditions, kids back in classrooms on the ship and parents with a paid job on the ship.
The Gazan narrative leaves out things. The great majority of Gazans are going to survive this war, and there needs to be a good plan for the aftermath. Does Gaza offer anything to Israel regarding post-war security? Are Gazans organizing into new jurisdictions that are not totally controlled by Hamas? Notice in video after video that, despite mention of famine, people are walking at normal speed and do not appear gaunt. Are we seeing black markets at work with aid goods brought under control by merchants and ordinary Gazans having to find something to trade for food? Hopefully most of the food aid is well distributed at no cost to those in need, but we don't get much information about this. Those World Food Kitchen workers were important observers of the food distribution and the general health of those they come in contact with. I don't think a call for a cease-fire by itself gets a cease-fire. Both sides need to see that a better way forward is being put together. Men like this doctor could help by pledging to support a new government in Gaza. Not many seem to have anything to say about that. Is any new political party emerging in Gaza as a result of this war?
Israel is certainly losing some of the moral authority it has classically derived from the Holocaust. On the other hand, it is making a statement to Hezbollah and Iran about what awaits if they escalate the conflict. US military aid undergirds that message. The loss of life in Gaza is tragic, and I want it to stop. But there is a wider and deeper strategic tension all around Israel that could escalate into even greater numbers of casualties. It is bad, but it really could be worse. And worse needs to be deterred. Neurotypical people are easily dismayed by news of more F-16s and 2000lb bombs being sent to Israel. For non-Israeli psychopathic leaders addicted to victory, that news raises the risk that they would lose in an escalated conflict. And loss is not something they process well (See Donald Trump). It's all senseless to the neurotypical, but they are generally not the ones starting and conducting wars. To my knowledge, so far, Israel has not acted like Putin and brandished its nuclear weapons. But the tension is that bad in some minds.
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@starchild692 I have watched several videos that recount historical invasions of Russia. The last serious one was by Germany. That was before nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons fundamentally change Russia's geopolitical situation. That is why they maintain 6500 warheads, more than any other single nation. Russia would have every right to use nuclear weapons to repel an invasion of its territory. It is reasonable to conclude that no one would invade Russia today. Would they strike Russian military targets if Russia was invading them? Yes, they recently have in Belgorod.
Russian behavior in the nuclear age is not based on being invaded. I see that as fake paranoia. Russian behavior in the nuclear age has been similar to that of the United States, that is, imperial. Through invasion and annexation, Russia seeks to improve its general economic situation and the wealth of its elite. I give no credence to Russian security concerns for its own territory, because they completely discount the deterrent value of their nuclear arsenal. It is a false argument. US borders with Mexico and Canada are now reasonably settled matters, with no material changes to them in many decades. The US and Canadian border is one of the most peaceful in the world, and has every prospect of remaining so. It is similar in length to the border Russia shares with its western neighbors. While having superior population numbers and military forces, the US has not made any effort to annex any portion of Canada. How do we do that? A measure of respect, even love of neighbor. Do not project a Russian perspective on the US and its relations with its neighbors. They are clearly different than Russia's relations with its neighbors. Do we influence them? Yes. Do we dominate them? No, e.g. Cuba.
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@lg2058 Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal. (Really? Maybe? Maybe not?) That is expensive. European nations would rather not spend 2% of their GDP on defense. A review of their defense budgets, and Trump's and Obama's complaints bear witness to that. This is to say that NATO for quite some time was really trying to minimize its own defense costs in favor of social welfare. They were not ambitiously increasing their military arsenals and manpower. Quite the opposite. Russia had cause to not fear NATO too much, and even had cause to consider NATO weak and unable to stop Russia's incremental advances on its borders. Russia is going to think the way Russia is going to think. Likewise for the Europeans. Russia was making money selling to Europe. What Russia saw was not so much NATO, but that Russia's control over Ukraine's market share of European trade was being undermined, due to an emerging Ukrainian interest in Western assistance and investment. And Western investors are always looking for new opportunities. The job of Yanukovich, like Maduro, was to regulate competition against Russian export revenue, the spice of the Russian regime, by which its various agents are maintained. Ukraine's sin was its challenge to Russian exports, and thus the Russian regime. "NATO" is veneer, pretext. Money and power and a fancy with luxury are often at the core of human ambition. And yet the palace in Sochi has been demolished! Is this some sort of purification? A return to the asceticism war and victory require?
And now, with NATO defense budgets enlarged, and Western military-industrial capacity being increased, Russia's grave security concerns can only be graver than ever. And what do Russians do? They just keep fighting. Their manner of thinking seems rather . . . stuck. The US stated its goal very early on: weaken Russia. How can that be accomplished? Soviet innocence. Soviet infallibility. Soviet sense of infinite capacity. Soviets stuck in stubbornness. Soviet fall. Russian innocence. Russian infallibility . . . On your last day, will all this be glorious, or pitiful? Go ahead. Do the serious work of creative drama and rehearse your last day. Work on it as hard as you work here. Deep down, @jonson856 is trying to lead you to the truth. He is trying to save your soul.
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My dad taught for a full career. Part of it is charisma and humor, part is knowing the students, part is knowing the subject. They detect that you care. That will win over about 90 percent of the students. The ones that are or will be diagnosed as having a conduct disorder? His philosophy was to get to them before they got to him. He had something for them to prove before they had a chance to frame their own victory over him for the day. Being a coach helped him with that. My dad was assaulted in his classroom, was hospitalized, and the student went to jail. I was away in the military when it happened. My siblings were pretty sure that I would have gone to jail, too, if I had been at school that day.
My wife taught English in a juvenile detention center. One day a student started to threaten her. In a few seconds the attending guard manhandled the student out the door. The other students just sat stunned for a few more seconds. Then several other guards were in her classroom to establish control. The other students decided to maintain respect. Nobody else got hurt or put in solitary.
When you mix in kids headed for conduct disorder with neurotypical children you are just asking for chaos. There's a good chance their dad is a sociopath himself, maybe mom is. There are techniques for positively educating the "fearless" and the "strong", and they can go on to do quite well in life due to their appetite for victory. But in school they need to be together under the supervision of an alpha male who has serious backup. Such students will not be scared to go to school, they just will not want to lose in front of their peers. They will respect the force they are presented with. The neurotypical children need to know these kind of folks exist, and they need to rehearse how they are going to cope when they meet one and hopefully not a gang of them. But it is a great loss for a majority of students when these fearless students decide, with the assistance of their parents, that the classroom is now part of their domain. I think our whole approach with dealing with budding sociopathic students needs a serious new look.
Here is the decline that Putin is counting on.
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What the US might do, for all the tens of billions of dollars it has poured into Israel and Egypt, is to insist these billions are now purchasing the right of US eminent domain over Gaza and points west of Gaza, and that this land shall be an American protectorate. And this land shall have access to the sea, trade, and fishing, and its people shall have passports for international travel. When Israel and Egypt say no, we begin to sever technical defense ties, and then the billions stop when the Camp David Accords expire. And all other treaties with these nations should be reviewed. Certainly the Suez Canal gives Egypt some clout, but now the Houthi's seem to be setting the stage for collecting tolls from shipping. Meanwhile, any legal language in US treaties with Israel that can moderate Israel's conduct should be enforced by the US. Israel is no longer politically or ethically the nation those Accords were arrived at. Land is being stolen, and the United States, as a protector of wealth, should not condone such behavior in Ukraine, or Georgia, or Moldova, or in Israel. This conflict reflects poorly on the United States and the rule of law, and Israel needs to detect that its indifference to the reputation of the United States in this matter should come at a price. These nations well welcome Russia and China to replace the US, and see how they like that.
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The Russian FSB is largely intact, even with the war in Ukraine. The FSB will be ready to assist a new President Trump in a variety of ways in the United States. President Trump's businesses already benefit from Russian financing, and they will increasingly benefit as he cooperates with Putin, Xi, Orban, and others. If Americans don't organize and instead atomize, the FSB and a Trump administration will be able to begin various transitions of power in law enforcement at all levels of government. Potential opposition leaders will be subject to priority attention, in order to keep resistance to the Trump/FSB program suppressed. Some States would totally accept the program, while other States will be able to successfully organize and resist. The result is a broken country and economy, which will suit the Russians and Chinese just fine. The FSB doesn't need to take over the United States, it just needs to disunite them, and end American economic leadership and influence.
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The Senator makes many valid points about incentives and the increased likelihood of overuse of asylum. It is an argument for relocating applications to enter the U.S. to large U.S. Consulates in sending nations. Part of the solution needs to include removing incentives for trafficking.
But the majority of the Federal budget is spent on domestic issues, Senator, and the sense of the American people is not just that the border is a problem, but child care is a problem, health care and drug costs are a problem, domestic gun violence is a problem, Florida property insurance costs are a problem, etc. Our role in Ukraine is to be a consistent team member among many team members in proportion to our ability and in the context of our overall global trade and strategic situation. I know you study all this. It is inaccurate to equate the armed and violent Russian invasion of Ukraine with the economically and safety driven migration into America. On immigration, again, we should be a team member with migrant sending nations to improve the lot of people feeling it necessary to do something so profound as to leave their own home for the United States. It is a compliment by them of us in a way, but it needs to happen decently and in order.
So Senator, you did or did not provide a letter with your preferences on immigration to the Lankford committee early in their negotiating process? The United States Senate could not organize itself to do a proper job on this issue? That committee needed a statement of views and proposals from every Senator in its first week if not sooner.
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As an American citizen, age 65, I am aware of American imperialism. Human, emphasis on human, history is filled with imperialism. It does not surprise me that America and Russia are imperial powers, as a study of both histories makes plain. Abraham Lincoln, preserving the Union; Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. What is hypocritical is the proclamation of innocence by any empire. No one is innocent if they accrue any benefit from the largesse of the empire they live under. The average American citizen, as a voter and a critic, has slightly more power than the average Russian citizen to question authority and replace poor leadership. I think that's evident by the social and electoral history of the United States. But the average citizen has little influence when economic powers that be need a change in some small government. And it's one thing to make a list like the above, and quite another to look into the circumstances of each event. I am not going to advocate that Ukraine capitulate to the Russian empire because I should be ashamed of America's imperial history. The average Russian should be as much or more ashamed for this war, although I blame them less for it, as they have next to no power to alter their government. What boggles my mind is the perpetual Russian claims of innocence and infallibility. It boggles my mind because such self-deception led to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the current Russian regime is composed of a very similar mentality. To a considerable extent, the incompetence this mentality produces is on display in the military performance of the Russian empire against a smaller power it shares a land border with and supposedly enjoys superiority over in every military metric. While on the surface, Putin enjoys unmatched support in any election, deep down there appears to be a rather wide disconnect between the Russian people and the Russian government. The FSB and the world's finest corps of riot police keeps that disconnect from getting out of hand. The average US citizen reconnects with the government at least every two years by voting. So no, the list does not change my mind. Slava Ukraine.
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I doubt they have enough leadership to organize them well, and Ukraine needs to keep going after Russian field leadership and barrier troops. For the most part, Ukraine should stay on defense and attrit the Russian army, because Putin is openly revealing his offensive goals remain unachieved. Kherson, though very difficult geography, is where the offensive opportunity for Ukraine is, because it poses the greatest logistical challenge to the Russians. I hope Ukraine and its allies have been planning and building an extensive logistical strategy and infrastructure of pontoon bridges, boats, and cargo drones to join with an expanded Ukrainian air force in 2024 to retake more of Kherson Oblast, take out the Kerch bridge, and cut or at least seriously harass the land bridge routes to northern Crimea. This would pose a great logistical and political challenge to Putin, creating more opportunities for him to make strategic errors that could be exploited. It could take pressure off eastern Ukraine where Russia has its best logistical conditions.
The time is also coming for European nations to make decisions about soliciting volunteer F-16 pilots and more F-16s to augment Ukrainian pilots and aircraft. I do not see another way to assemble sufficient air power to turn this war around in Ukraine's favor. Russia and China contributed pilots to the Korean War. This should be no surprise to them. Partisan presence in Kherson offers some chances to pilots who have to eject, but imprisoned pilots are likely to become an issue. Glide bombs help keep pilots over friendly territory, but intercepting Russian aircraft, which is important to do, is only likely over Russian occupied territory. The front-line European States, Finland, even Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Moldova, and Romania, need to see this as a vital opportunity to gain air power experience against Russia, which can help maintain deterrence of Russia. These front-line states also need to consider a new alliance because Putin is successfully exploiting political opportunities in Hungary and elsewhere that slow and sometimes thwart NATO. This new alliance can be more selective about additional members. It could otherwise simply adopt NATO standards to start out with and maintain arms purchases with reliable suppliers. I support the US being a part of that alliance.
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I don't support her appointment. But there is a justice issue here. If a religious group adopts accepted standards for an accredited education, and they manage their costs in a manner that provides accessibility to all, then they are reducing the student capacity the public system is required to support, yet they, the religious school parents, are still paying public school taxes (and rightfully, those of us whose children are past school still have a compelling interest in paying for public education). This is a financial hardship on the religious school parent. On the other hand, it's very fair of the public school system to insist that it not be placed in a disadvantaged, last resort position. Choice of schools in a given locality requires, necessitates, excess capacity in both private and public systems to make choice even possible. This overcapacity is expensive. It's like two water and sewer systems side by side in same town. From a physical facility standpoint, even a transportation standpoint, it would seem more efficient to allow religious electives in public schools, akin to chapel programs on stateside military bases or chapels in publicly accessible hospitals. No, you can't open secular classes with prayer as is done at religious schools, but there is somewhere for you to pray and fellowship if you so choose. A lot of religious parents might countenance their children attending public schools if there were the kind of religious options, made available to our military and people in hospitals open to the public. This was the case in some areas of earlier America. Somehow the courts make a distinction between the standing of adults and that of minors on this issue. We don't have the billions of dollars it would take to create the excess capacity throughout the nation that would give the public the kind of choice being touted by Mrs. DeVos, "Choice" really seems to be more public relations messaging to distract from the privatizing and profit-taking agenda of an elite that has so much money it has become necessary for them to look under every possible rock for the next increase in their wealth. Mrs. DeVos does not appear ready to sell all she has, give to the poor, and follow Jesus to the Department of Education, where she then would need the salary it pays. I hope she goes away sad, pondering why she's not ready to do that.
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Approach the human condition from more than one perspective. One I think is missing in the Islam/Islamophobia discussion is the incidence of sociopathy in the overall human population. Approximately half of prison inmates convicted of violent crimes are sociopaths, that is, they generally have an amygdala with a small volume as seen on a brain scan, score above 5 on a PCL-R test, show a lack of fear and empathy, and often are very adept at manipulating the empathy and conscience of the majority of the human population. The phenomenon is not new; our science regarding it is making progress. We can scientifically establish that there are Muslims, even a majority of Muslims, who have a conscience and in and of themselves are not inclined to harm others. But we can also show that they, and the general population, are vulnerable to being manipulated by sociopaths, and enlisted into behaviors they might not otherwise commit. This can and has happened in many cultures in human history. Indeed, modern democracies, while heavily influenced by sociopathic manipulation, are nevertheless historical anomalies, giving those of conscience some political power, "if they can keep it" - B. Franklin. The norm is the remorseless but calculating ruling group, manipulating the majority to facilitate their own success. Ruthless politics can find a home in any religion. I will say that Islam, seeing itself as the successor to all religions, and as a holistic system, is uniquely well suited to creating sociopathic ruling elites and military forces. It effectively subdues the general population by exploiting the natural fear and conscience of the majority, places a mask of righteousness on it, and gives covert license to its elite, like most monarchies, oligarchies, and totalitarian states do. Is every Muslim a bad person? Of course not. But they're probably afraid of a few of the men at the mosque, and they better go to the mosque, and we should consider their words, especially public words on YouTube, to be said under duress, and they would need to lie about that duress. (Puts them and us in a bad spot with each other, which is part of the result the enforcers are looking for). Fear of criminal Islamic sociopaths is as justified as fearing any criminal sociopath, and they are not simple for the majority to pick out of a set human beings in short order, until they get caught for victimizing someone. So a general fear of them is perhaps innate in us, and I think it wrong to use "phobia" as somehow an inappropriate posture toward those we do not know. Neuroscience and psychology can help us with this issue. And for those who have "ears to hear", so can authentic spiritual insight. (See, The Sociopath Next Door, by Dr. Martha Stout, or Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert Hare).
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Scott M Why should the education field be different than anyone else? First, I am not an educator, so this is not self advocacy. I suppose it depends on the value one puts on a child's education, and one's notion of what an education can or should accomplish. And every parent is free to put their unique value on it. But if you want choice, then you have to pay for the excess system capacity that choice requires. There's no choice if no one invested in a place for a child to go somewhere else. Choice imposes a higher societal cost because you have to have more schools and teachers to choose to go to. Affluent people who send their children to elite schools obviously feel there is something vital to education, and that may be mixed with their own desire to let someone else do the child raising while they use their wealth to self-actualize. Other parents had a hard time in school themselves, for any of a number of reasons, and they could care less, both about the school and what their child gets out of it. Attendance is just compliance with the truancy statute. If there's a side benefit offered by a charter, so much the better.
What can happen at a charter is that the pay offered is only attractive to the barely qualified. It would make perfect sense for the profit-minded charter to hire new graduates of teaching colleges who didn't get the higher paying job in a better school. If education has a low value to the parent, and the charter is more convenient than any other school, then so what, that's where the child goes to school. As you say, charter teachers who are dedicated to their profession and gain experience can quit and move on to a better school. But that's a cap on the quality of the faculty at the charter (or any) school. Charters can present their star teachers to the market and not present the rest of the staff. It's a business. Some customers are savvy, some are not. You get the money however you can, and that's what it's about. Pretty soon you really don't have much of a school compared to a community supported public school that set out to build the best faculty it could. We are seeing the corruption of an institution that supported the idea that a democratic republic relies upon an informed electorate capable of critical think, and that its prosperity is connected to the expansion of knowledge individually and collectively. It can be seen as so valuable that indeed the teacher is special, and we want them to be, because it is more likely they will convey things of value to their students, and all will benefit.
As to unions, I've been on both sides of the table. Did their demands contribute to the decline of Flint, Michigan? Probably, but I seriously doubt that's the whole story. Management can lay out budgets, limits, and consequences. Unions gave concessions in exchange for job security, and still lost their jobs to cheap, foreign labor. New plants elsewhere might implement more efficiencies than the old plants can. Government did not protect them, it facilitated the relocation of manufacturing with free trade agreements. Communism had a militant influence on American labor in some places. I saw it. Other unions were full of vets and highly patriotic. But I think a better option going forward is the employee owned corporation. Owners have the upper hand in the employer-employee relationship, so if ownership is distributed among employees, so is the power to determine what portion of profit will go to improving the lives of employees. Employee owners also have better access to company information that helps them understand the company's limits and its needs for reinvestment. The main problem is it takes a well-educated group of employee owners to make it work. Teacher owned charters do happen, and they can be pretty good, but a lot of what we've seen is profit-minded ownership that leaves the teachers out of company governance.
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I don't support her appointment. But there is a justice issue here. If a religious group adopts accepted standards for an accredited education, and they manage their costs in a manner that provides accessibility to all, then they are reducing the student capacity the public system is required to support, yet they, the religious school parents, are still paying public school taxes (and rightfully, those of us whose children are past school still have a compelling interest in paying for public education). This is a financial hardship on the religious school parent. On the other hand, it's very fair of the public school system to insist that it not be placed in a disadvantaged, last resort position. Choice of schools in a given locality requires, necessitates, excess capacity in both private and public systems to make choice even possible. This overcapacity is expensive. It's like two water and sewer systems side by side in same town. From a physical facility standpoint, even a transportation standpoint, it would seem more efficient to allow religious electives in public schools, akin to chapel programs on stateside military bases or chapels in publicly accessible hospitals. No, you can't open secular classes with prayer as is done at religious schools, but there is somewhere for you to pray and fellowship if you so choose. A lot of religious parents might countenance their children attending public schools if there were the kind of religious options made available to our military and people in hospitals open to the public. This was the case in some areas of earlier America. Somehow the courts make a distinction between the standing of adults and that of minors on this issue. There are plenty of religious facilities mingled with public university buildings. We don't have the billions of dollars it would take to create the excess capacity throughout the nation that would give the public the kind of choice being touted by Mrs. DeVos, "Choice" really seems to be more public relations messaging to distract from the privatizing and profit-taking agenda of an elite that has so much money it has become necessary for them to look under every possible rock for the next increase in their wealth. Mrs. DeVos does not appear ready to sell all she has, give to the poor, and follow Jesus to the Department of Education, where she then would need the salary it pays. I hope she goes away sad, pondering why she's not ready to do that.
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@cornflower1783 Some of the metrics Russia uses to support its belief that it can assimilate Ukraine, e.g., population, are the same metrics that China can apply to Russia. Economic realism, e.g. the size of the Chinese economy vs. the Russian economy, also makes it fairly easy to see that China will have increasing leverage over Russian interests. Only Russia's nuclear arsenal gives it a form of parity with China. An application of the "correlation of forces" concept leans in China's favor in eastern Russia.
I think India has its own ideals and values, and that it makes a positive contribution toward the world being multi-polar. There are extensive ties between the West and India through immigration, Indian attendance at western universities, and the English language, but India holds its own culture and autonomy with self-respect, and I say good for them. They will deal with everyone according to their own interests as far as I can tell. Mr. Putin could have used Russian financial power to strengthen all these ties he is now trying to build. He has squandered much of that power by pitting members of the Russian Orthodox church against members of the Ukrainian orthodox church. I am not sure he gave any thought as to how that might look to Islam and Hinduism and the Chinese. A greater measure of Christian brotherhood with Ukraine would have been such a more positive way to maintain a healthy Slavic culture, and the competition between two nations would have sharpened both, "iron sharpens iron". Obviously other values are at work here.
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Do the math. Ukraine has 603,628 square km. The rate of land acquisition early in the war was rapid. Then it went negative when forces withdrew from the north. Now some say the Russian held area is 20% x 603,628 = 120,726 square km. Let's say Russia's new goal is 50% x 603,628 or 301,814 square km of Ukraine. So there are 301,814 - 120,726 = 181,088 square km left to take. Let's go with General Milley's observation that some days the Russian military will advance 1km along some part of the front. Let's say that part of the front is 20kM wide. So that's 20 square km per day on average currently. 181,088/20 = 9054 days or more than 24 years to achieve the goal. What is this, day 146 of the war? 120,726/146 = 827 square km/day. At 827 square km per day, Russia should reach its goal in 181,088/827 in 219 more days if it has not lost steam. Russia has not had days like that since the Ukrainian withdrawal from Luhansk. Why hasn't Russia put more forces into this war to keep up an 827 square km/day rate of land acquisition? Because . . . they are low on steam. Ukrainian military skill and weaponry is also slowly ramping up. This is the frog in the slowly warming pot of water technique (I'm fine . . . I'm fine . . . that don't hurt . . . I'm fine . . . ). There's never a day so full of bad news that Russian leadership thinks it needs to spasm with a tactical nuke. They are so used to glossing over small defeats. They don't seem to commit suicide. They seem to want to keep living . . . .like the frog in the pot.
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The population of Greenland, and even of Denmark, does not have the capacity to exercise jurisdiction over the entire island in the emerging future. Their towns and the economic zones of activity those towns have are the effective jurisdiction. By themselves, Greenland would have little to no capacity to repel the establishment of Russian and Chinese mining towns in Greenland, which would have their own interest in being independent from Danish and/or Greenland's jurisdiction. Greenland's security against this kind of development has been its tie to Denmark and thus to NATO and the United States. From this perspective, instead of any independence movement in Greenland seeming to be absurd, it looks more likely to be a program of Russian or even BRICS influence. Given the small population, and its familiarity with foreign subsidies, it would seem quite easy to buy politicians and votes. It's quite possible, without NATO, for Greenland's small towns to be left to themselves while capable nations divide the rest of the island. Trump's interest in the island, if for no other reason, is to signal to all competitors that the United States is on the island and at its table. While the islanders deserve to have their homes and commerce and reasonable prospects for autonomous development respected, the islanders claim to all its land is a bit of geographic hubris.
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@christophertodd1980 When you say "getting rid" do you mean there is a list of names of Russian Nazis in Russian prisons or are they just dead? How many, ballpark? What is the official Russian definition of Nazi? Is Navalny considered a Nazi? We have Websters and other dictionaries. I am not acquainted with the standard Russian dictionary. I have access to Russian/English speakers so go ahead and cite the Russian law or Russian dictionary. And historically, early in the Great Patriotic War, Russia did have a problem with invading Nazis, so "never" is a bit hyperbolic. I acknowledge that Russia did prevail in the end. And as far as NATO and the US, I will resort to the typical Russian retort: Russia interferes a lot in other nation's affairs, so nobody is innocent here, and I am not saying they are. The essence of my post is that this is a fight to the death of an army based on each side's closely held narratives. They would rather die (or have someone else die) than give up their perceptions. This will stop when the boys in the field are dead or they have killed their commanders and are taking their guns home with them. That's what Russia needs to be concerned about, their own army becoming so frustrated it turns on the military leadership and the FSB and the police that conscripted them. In Russia, they have a lot of gun control for a reason. And that's a difference between the US and Russia. In the US, the cops do not go too far because the population is armed. Very armed. Nothing comes close. Russia has had serious gun control but throwing men into a war for a leader's ego could change that.
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Look at Russian influence on Venezuela. Not so long ago, Venezuela, with the Western Hemisphere's largest oil reserves, was producing about 3 million bbl of oil per day. Now, under Russian influence, they only produce about 1 million bbl per day, enough to keep the Maduro regime in power. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have fled the country due to its economy under Russian stewardship. The Russian plan includes having significant influence on the price of key commodities, like oil, natural gas, and rare earths. Check out the location of Ukraine's resources, and one begins to see that Russian conduct has a lot to do with controlling those resources, not just a country's politics. After all, what is political control for?
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Is everyone in a divided society, with at least 16 types of personality (Myers-Briggs) always looking for meaning? Animals, which we also are, pursue food, manage their energy use, and reproduce, motivated by hunger and innate desire. By natural selection, animals with a will to survive, survive. Yes, some personalities want meaning, but others, such as those with ASPD, pursue victory, operating in a paradigm of winners and losers, predators and prey. The good life is about winning, not meaning, or "Winning isn't everything, winning is the only thing" -- Vince Lombardi, Green Bay Packers. Vince probably didn't totally believe that, but some certainly act as if it is true.
It takes about one minute to put oneself at ease by considering the Stoic's epitaph, "I was not. I was. I am not. I do not care." Before we were born, we did not suffer, nor were we aware of anything. In life, we are aware and suffer. After our death, it stands to reason that, as it was before we were born, there is no awareness or suffering after we die. If you die with your affairs incomplete, you bear no consequences for that. Who do you know that keeps buying time with lawsuits to avoid consequences? The ethical implications concern the living wealthy, and thus they find religion useful, as long as it is not too critical of their wealth, though they are sometimes willing to bear and barter with that opposition if they still perceive advantage in doing so. There is no search for meaning in this mentality.
Jesus is a character in a set of stories. The character confronts the religious cons of his time. The character is killed in large measure for blowing their game. They were losing their following and the money they were bringing in. The story is self-aware of what this video is talking about. The character also puts any true and living God on the spot with a standing proposal: if an individual establishes an ethic of humility, truth seeking, work, justice, and care for those around them, then God promises to show up in that individual's experience in some perceptible way and empower that ethic. Is that such a bad way to live our days? I suppose it is if you see life through the lens of personal victory. But, crass as it may seem, if you haven't died, had your lights go out, and then recovered a statistically valid number of times, wouldn't it just be prudent risk management to leave open the possibility that spirit exists? But, by all means, yes, please avoid the con men.
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@Taskandpurpose I'm an electrical engineer, USAF vet, USAR vet, member Florida Sheriffs Association. I see building and maintaining stability includes sufficient electrical power to operate water and wastewater plants, police facilities and their communications, public radio and TV, medical clinics, refrigeration of food and medication, street lights and traffic signals, and air conditioning of important interior functions like local government, hospitals, banks, and schools. UN troops need to secure the people and transportation systems and routes that accomplish these functions. Once schools can be guarded and operate, they further stabilize communities by providing a school nurse, the usually good character of teachers and staff, breakfast, lunch, and a take home supper for students and their families. UN troops need to keep the students and teachers safe. Adults are free to find and conduct work during the day, knowing their children and grandchildren are relatively safe. After school programs for children can enhance parent work income. All of it relies on the integrity of the soldiers, but that should be reinforced by their contact with the people that maintain these systems. When soldiers see these stabilizing functions helping to bring order, they should feel good about their purpose and naturally defend these functions. The community in turn should join associations that support the soldiers, pooling funds to get them body armor (amazingly, this has to be done in poor counties in the State of Florida) strengthening the bond. I am optimistic about these Kenyan soldiers. There is no playing the race or colonial victim card with them personally. Of course, one sees the card playing when they are insulted by being considered foreign puppets. Haitian civilians in police associations and PTAs should do what they can to invest in these soldiers in a direct bond that can last beyond their deployment.
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Having members of the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches killing each other is a serious affront to Christendom, and a very poor example to those outside of Christendom. The war is exposing Christianity, once again, as an imperial, manipulative tool rather than a heartfelt, personal faith. The Russian regime, in its behavior, seems quite indifferent to this imagery. A Christian has faith in their continued existence. Russian leadership clearly acts as if its days on earth are all it has, ergo "existential" rationales for its behavior. Soviet atheism never really went away, it just saw it was better off letting its subjects be Christians if they want to, but well regulated, of course.
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No. I think the US national security establishment understands psychopaths. Not that long ago they went up against the world's fourth strongest military, Iraq, out of concern for that bully leader's trends, and changed that regime. But he did not have nukes. I think Western behavior has more to do with the prevailing American (and perhaps other) interests deciding that Ukraine is not worth the risk of nuclear escalation and has made that known to the White House. See Lloyd Austin's press conference early in the war after 2/24/22. He gets uncharacteristically animated about avoiding nuclear conflict. "It shall not happen" seems to have come down from multiple places on high. Ms. Berlin seems to think the President has the last say on these matters. He is definitely a player because he is the manager, but not the owner, of the federal government. He is not the only player in such decisions. I think that more logically explains the very calibrated delivery of military aid and calibrated tests of what the Russian regime will do in reaction to a specific act of war or set of circumstances. We now know it may be less risky to take out the Kerch Bridge in an isolated, surgical operation, but do that in coordination with broad combined arms assaults across the line and especially the land bridge and Russia might decide it can take the steam out of that with dozens of tactical nuclear detonations in Ukraine. A Russian nuclear spasm in Ukraine is possible. The bully paradigm really does not apply. The psychopathic paradigm must be considered. Putin cannot look weak to the rest of his regime. He has also proven he is willing demolish Ukrainian cities. And what catastrophic consequence were we going to mete out after taking down the Kerch bridge? Take out the relatively unused port of Sevastopol? Become Ukraine's air force? How does Ukraine move on from that point? Russia has to be left thinking it can adjust and persevere in the long run without resorting to supplementing its bombardment capabilities with tactical nuclear weapons. It might be willing to make a withdrawal from the Kherson Oblast in pieces without resorting to nuclear weapons, but only if it believes it will recover Kherson and reestablish the fresh water supply to Crimea. Russia is now on a war footing for the long run, and Ukraine will need to be in NATO and under its nuclear umbrella to retain what it has and what it might recover. The real test of Western resolve will be the strength of the NATO fortification of the remnant of Ukraine, which Russia will vehemently oppose. I don't see how Putin saves face if he just lets Russian forces in Ukraine collapse. He will do what he can do. This ends like Korea, a very tense armistice. Stopped in Ukraine and by NATO on the west, Putin will probably head for the Stans. Now there's a country that will be very difficult to help without starting immediately to provide them military aid. Like the Soviets, Putin's psychopathic paradigm will run the Russian economy into another collapse. Western oligarchs take note that our system seems more sustainable for wealth.
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@andrzejs9788 This is the kind of self-soothing that leads to self-defeat, and because it might help the Ukrainians win, I do not care too much if Russian advocates and their sympathizers cling to this kind of thinking. "As in for every Russian killed Ukraine loses 5-10 men." That would require a superiority of training that Russia has not demonstrated. It is more likely that human losses are fairly even, but we people on YouTube really don't know. If Russian losses are so much lower and everything about them is so much superior, it does not make sense that Russia would need to mobilize any more than it has. My Ukrainian friends have shared with me the memory of the Holodomor. They sense a fundamental Russian leadership hostility toward Ukrainians and an imperial design upon their land that does not include their notions of liberty. They know their system is corrupt. They also know their system is not as corrupt or ruthless as Russian leadership. Many of them would rather die than live under Russian jurisdiction. Thousands of them have already proved that belief. You can think that their thinking so is delusional. They think Russians are delusional. The delusional are at war with the delusional.
Maybe "pitchforks" were the Javelin missiles that gave Russian tanks a hard time from Day 1, but Ukraine will continue to receive and incorporate Western weapons that essentially match or exceed the Russian weapons that are getting to Ukraine. "Advancing Ukrainians are basically pulverized with long range fire (artillery, missiles)." Ukrainians waiting in defensive positions were getting pulverized. Advancing Ukrainians are moving targets not so easily targeted. Russian fixed targets are more frequently being hit, not by pitchforks, but by HIMARS. Ukraine is getting coached and trained by the best in NATO. The CJCS' opinion is that this is a long war, started in 2014, and both sides have shown much willingness to go on with it. It could very well go on until Mr. Putin retires in some fashion, because his team has made their commitment, as evidenced by their resort to nuclear saber rattling.
Russia had a good thing going with oil and gas sales all over the world. The money was pouring in. But it's never enough. Always a gleam in the eye. This may be akin to the 30 years' war, the delusional v. the delusional until exhaustion. China will need to move in and "help." Russia is opposing the wrong empire. Xi is smiling in your face.
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There was a sector of Hamas that was building up for and itching for a fight with Israel and thought they could bring others to their side with October 7th. They got the fight. They got just a little help. They shut down most Red Sea transit. And its rather strange that it coincides with Russia assaulting Ukraine. True, the Israelis are no longer the people we Americans once knew. Some of them even say they are not themselves. People on both sides are seeing red (a figure of speech describing rage). I just wish there was a place for those who want out of Gaza, but I suspect the same determination that led to October 7th leads them to stay. As an American, what I see in the Middle East is religious intolerance, property theft, a lack of peaceful recourse, and a tendency to blame someone else instead of taking responsibility. America could establish a protectorate in Gaza and try to stop the war. Both Hamas and Israel would probably attack the American soldiers sent to Gaza, so the Pentagon does not bring up the possibility. America has seen how Islam calls us infidels. Why expect any help from infidels? So, I more and more see two adversaries that think they understand God killing each other into martyrdom, and I wonder if any of them are starting to doubt their faith as a result. Next time you call shame on America, how about starting out with an apology, and disassociating yourself from October 7th and the hate that went into it?
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@hamidramezani7083 Hamas had poor intelligence on Israel's strategic thinking and Israel's treaties with the United States when they launched their attack of Israel on October 7th. Hamas would like to direct everyone's attention to anyone but themselves for the disaster they initiated. Yes, blaming someone else is very human. Yes, Israel could have chosen proportional retaliation, but they were well aware of Hamas's and Hezbollah's ultimate intentions that have been building up for years. And so they went beyond the Torah's "Show no pity. Life for life . . . " They made their objectives almost as ultimate as the intentions of Hamas and Hezbollah. What this portends, unfortunately for both sides, is that the next fight might be even worse. Such is the depth of religious intolerance, property theft (by Israel), and rage in the region. The responsibility for acting with conscience lies mostly with the people in the region. Unfortunately, human conscience is being overridden by religious dogma and ethnocentrism.
What the US might do, but is very hesitant to do, is establish a protectorate in Gaza to displace the IDF there and attempt to reach a cease fire with Hamas so UN assistance can resume in earnest. The US is hesitant to do that because of the generally hostile character of US-Hamas relations. A significant and perhaps more appropriate military to establish such a protectorate would be from Egypt or Türkiye, but they are not stepping forward either. Israel might accept the US in Gaza, it would be harder for them to accept Egypt or Turkiye.
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From Webster's Dictionary of 1828:
1. A rising against civil or political authority; the open and active opposition of a number of persons to the execution of a law in a city or state. It is equivalent to sedition, except that sedition expresses a less extensive rising of citizens. It differs from rebellion, for the latter expresses a revolt, or an attempt to overthrow the government, to establish a different one or to place the country under another jurisdiction. It differs from mutiny, as it respects the civil or political government; whereas a mutiny is an open opposition to law in the army or navy. insurrection is however used with such latitude as to comprehend either sedition or rebellion.
Example: It is found that this city of old time hath made insurrection against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been made therein. Ezra 4:19.
It follows reasonably that the writers of the 14th Amendment defined "insurrection" in the manner above. Indeed, the last sentence indicates "insurrection" to be a slightly more general and encompassing term that includes sedition or rebellion as explained in the definition. When a piece of legislation does not define all its terms, legislative rules typically resort to a recognized dictionary definition. Or is the legislature required to establish an official state definition of every word to be used in its documents? Well yes, and that is why they adopt a recognized, publicly dictionary. It is legislative and legal negligence not to do so. And how are people to better understand each other without some reliance on a common language of well-defined words.
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@spiritfiremsp Yes. I looked up that RAND study. Note RANDs recent comment on how that study is being used today. Russia might have taken a clue from all sorts of RAND studies and not gotten into overextending itself. Russia really needed to focus on making life better for its young people, and not just handing out ~$16,000 for having ten kids. (Did they ask ANY women how that might go over?) Instead, some have left the country, some have died in combat (out of proportion to alleged persecution of 14,000, in Donbas), others dread impending military service and war. Russian internet posters rattle the saber of "general mobilization" of the Russian population. This is a formula for increased despair among the Russian young. But that is part of the blind spot of Russian leadership, they can see logically within their paradigm, but they lack feeling when it comes to consequences for others.
Why do I think Russia went to war in Ukraine?
1) Russian elite like vacationing in Crimea and don't want to be subject to Ukrainian courts for any mishaps there or otherwise against Ukrainian citizens. This is something I am advised Ukrainian elites are careful to do to avoid prosecutions by other jurisdictions;
2) The industrial and geological resources of the Donbas;
3) Access to annexed territories' population for military conscription and general labor, thus reducing risks for the Russian population of greater Moscow;
4) Retention of the Sevastopol naval base;
5) Prevention of development and sale to Europe of Ukrainian oil and gas; generally increase the price of oil and gas;
6) The containment of Ukrainian nationalist and cultural influence on ethnic Ukrainians in Russia and ideological influence upon Russians in general;
7) Establishment of an unarmed and unaligned buffer state that can gradually be annexed or otherwise controlled as geopolitical conditions change in favor of such;
8) Consumption and disclosure of US/NATO armaments in collaboration with Chinese intelligence and their ambitions toward Taiwan in exchange for Chinese support.
Feel free to add yours.
I agree Russia will not agree to the 1994 borders. Ukraine may try to re-establish them. Both sides may reach temporary exhaustion somewhere in the middle.
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The United States is a signatory to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. While this does not absolutely commit the United States to go to war to defend Ukraine like NATO's Article 5, it certainly put Russia on notice that the US and the UK might assist Ukraine with its security. Indeed, the context of the first Trump impeachment could have been something of a heads up for Putin. A Democratic Congress with a Democratic President might turn up the assistance to Ukraine. He might have felt he was running out of time to annex more territory.
As for figuring out Putin, his true beliefs and intensions are shown, not by his statements so much as by the way he acts. He believes in Russian expansion, and he obviously has not yet achieved his intentions. Russian expansion has provoked a NATO reaction and expansion that is not in Putin's favor. We are headed for a European version of the Korean DMZ. And every nation on Russia's border has to think about deterring Russia.
And, of course, while US uniformed service members are not in Ukraine in any serious numbers, US contractors are definitely in on the deal.
The DN folks have noticed the US does so many bad things, and they tell us again and again how we need to see that and how we need to understand the other side. That's good. But it does seem that it is something of a difficult adjustment for them when the other side is acting as badly, if not worse than the US.
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@jackthorton10 I am not siding with Birisu Andrei due to his hubris. Your question is important by itself for the American people. My two cents.
Afghanistan either needed to become another South Korea (essentially a permanent presence) or a short vengeance mission focused on key persons like bin Laden. What seems to happen is that, while the various hunts are on, all sorts of military-industrial and contractor interests lobby for an expansion of the mission to turn a more focused set of objectives into a profit center. This is not to dismiss all elements of good will and altruism toward the Afghan people. It's not to dismiss the forces' interests as they see more problems the longer they stay and how the industrial sector can help with that. But the process stumbles into years and thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Enough of the American public, mixed with a variety of foreign interests, created an opportunity for Trump to gain politically by cutting a deal to leave. Biden was stuck with finishing the deal. Trump, if re-elected, would have had to push the date out if he took advice on how it needed to be done to secure his political gain. Whatever the President, the mission had become a money pit, with some of the money funding the enemy. The place took a dive into even deeper poverty when the money was shut off, Pakistan and others collecting rents also noting reduced revenue. I would have preferred the short vengeance mission. For many, me included, the demise of bin Laden closed the 9/11 chapter. Instead we heard admirable but expensive humanitarian appeals to stay in what is probably the most logistically difficult nation for the US armed forces to operate in. The responsible thing that could have been done from almost the beginning was to fund a robust staff and programs to issue SIVs to the deserving Afghans and reduce the mob of people and tragedy at egress. We should have been out within a year after May 2011. The young Obama, a guy I generally liked, was no match for the interests involved.
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@EvgeniyYakushev-m2u Trump is like Putin. Ceding land looks weak. And neither Trump nor Putin wants to look weak. That is their common psychology. They don't like losing. If you are looking for an indicator of American feelings on Ukraine, look at the votes in the US Congress for military aid to Ukraine and declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Americans are very divided about their domestic issues. They are very unified on supporting Ukraine, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. It's a very simple, street fight kind of mentality. Russia is a big bully picking on little Ukraine. America might look like a bully to you. But to most Americans, Russia in Ukraine looks like a bully. You can start citing the past like most other Russian advocates. Americans are mostly living in the moment now. They are not immobilized by their colonial past.
You are a sophisticated man to speak Russian and English and have access to YouTube. Here you are in a position to cite media sources that you believe to be the most accurate. Please do so. As an American I have access to media sources such as Democracy Now, Mother Jones, PBS, Fox News, OAN, DW, France24, RT, Chinese state media, and a vast array of publications and YouTube Channels. How is it not a free market of information? Are some Americans brain washed? Yes, they are. They get hooked on emotional techniques used by media to sell advertising or carry out the agenda of some oligarch or government. All I can say is keep exploring this market of news, and use the good mind that God gave you to discern the truth. I can respect you for that effort.
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@EvgeniyYakushev-m2u Jimmy Carter. 1976 to 1980. I should know, that's when I was in the USAF. All that happened was an attempt to get hostages out of Iran, or it was kept pretty secret. Then the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, so the CIA gets another place to give the Soviets a hard time. Yeah, it was the Cold War with direct involvements and proxies. The great American catastrophe was and is Iraq/Syria. Russia's army is in that neighborhood too.
Reagan did not have anything Ukraine or Afghanistan scale going on during his term. Took Grenada pretty fast from the Cubans. Funded the Contras to give Nicaragua a hard time. Daniel Ortega is still there.
Look, I have Ukrainian guests. They speak Russian. The mob boss/Orthodox/strong v. weak method is in both Ukraine and Russia. Brothers, right? They had personal experience with it as businesspeople. My guests are here to get away from all of that. So far, they like America. Not perfect, but they like it. My guests tell me that what really gets Russian leadership concerned is the prospect of Russian-speakers in Ukraine developing a Western mentality and sharing that with Russian family and friends. I said I thought Russian leadership did not want Western development of Ukrainian oil and gas. They said maybe a little bit of that, but mostly it is ideological. Ideas are something to debate, like we do here, not send an army to kill people over. Our army is mostly home or with friends. There are some small fights here and there. Like I said, the mess in Iraq/Syria.
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@ks-qu4kj Putin is a psychopath. There are thoughts that don't come easy to him, like thoughts of losing, and a compulsive need to win and be great. He is a somewhat like Donald Trump, although more intelligent I would say. He sees adjacent territory as available to add power to the Russian regime in the long run, even if that entails a huge setback in the short run. This is a long running characteristic of Russian leadership and contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. The result was not a long-term increase in power, but a reduction in power. Psychopathic leadership demoralizes a population. The Russian nation, given its land area and agricultural capability, ought to have a population greater in number than the United States, but instead it is less than half the US population and far less than the population of the "West" it so often calls attention to. A similar comparison can be made between North and South Korea. Russia's underperforming demographics are a result of the success of the development of perhaps the world's most potent system of internal security. Those in that institution enjoy the finer things in life, while the rest generally underproduce due to despair and the alcoholism that often goes with that despair. That system sent millions in Ukraine and others all over the Soviet Union to their death in the camps or their disability if they survived the camps. As psychopaths, the leaders have no empathy for those they have treated unreasonably. To them, other people are a means to the leaders' perceived ends, because they truly believe that they know what is best for the country. They are always "right." That's what Gorbachev said about Putin, "He is always right." Surely you do not think he meant that literally.
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I've signed off on monthly payments for nuclear power. It had a wholesale price of about 9 cents per kWh. Add 1 cent for transmission and 4 cents for distribution and administration and you were at 14 cents per kWh. That was in the 90s. It is not cheap. Wind and solar are cheaper now. Hydro, where you can do it, was the cheapest. Coal was at 6 cents per kWh out of the plant. Today its more expensive than gas, solar, or wind generated power. That's as much a reason for utilities not building new coal plants as renewable incentives. New power plants are natural gas fired or renewable. A nuclear plant has a low risk of failure, but a high cost for failure if it happens. See Chernobyl. If you think we need to do more nuclear, then good luck convincing the rate payers their electric bills need to go up 15 to 25%. What the US should do is keep rebuilding its existing nuclear generating sites if they can be updated safely. Burning oil to generate power is up over 15 cents per kWH. Utilities avoid oil as much as possible as a fuel source. What utilities do want to do is operate their coal plants for their designed life in order to pay off their construction debt and fulfill long-term coal contracts.
My understanding of the US warning of a Russian invasion is that that call was based on analysis of the scope and equipment involved in the exercises close to the border. If a possible invasion is not on your checklist, there is no reason to conduct exercises of the scale conducted so close to an international boundary. You conduct them on more interior bases. Russia is certainly sensitive to NATO force levels near its western border. They should not be surprised by comparable concerns. I think Stone's proposal that somehow the US tricked the Russian Army into invading Ukraine is wrong. There is a school of geopolitics in Russia that finds the assimilation of Ukraine a vital Russian strategic interest, no matter how 40 million Ukrainians might feel otherwise. The sense of importance of that interest explains Russian persistence in the conflict. If Russia just wanted to end conflict in Donbas, they would have focused on it in the first place. Stone goes on to back up the idea that Putin is essentially negligent in due diligence with his own government. Maybe not such a smart guy.
And it does not surprise me much that Ukrainians would use the kind of state mechanisms of population control that the Russians use. They were in the same Soviet Union. Hey, I know Ukrainians that prefer being in the US to pre-war Ukraine.
Stone was right on when mentioning the contrast between the American and Russian defense budget. We do not get a good ROI on American defense.
Interviewer asked very good questions.
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We do not know Putin's intentions. We do not know if Russian perceptions are those of desperation or will to power or what percentages of both. What we see is that Putin annexes small regions of adjacent nations. It would be reasonable to assume there is an underlying and less spoken issue for his doing so. Russian public statements are so often mendacious it is reasonable to assume the world is always being tested by Russian pretext in search of opportunity. The actions of Russia indicate they want jurisdiction over particular and additional lands, no matter how badly they have damaged them.
Looking at the geography and economy and climate change aspects of Asia and Russia, what Russia really needs to be concerned about in the long run is China. Russia and Mearsheimer seem to quietly put great stock in the simple difference in population between Russia and Ukraine. The difference in population between China and Russia is considerably more acute, and the difference in relative economic power amplifies it. The Chinese, more than ever, have cause to downrate Russian conventional military capability. The densely populated areas of China are subject to sea level rise impacts. Those people will need a place to go. The land areas north of China, while not a paradise, would be mor habitable in a warmer world.
Rather than Japan, the analogy here is Afghanistan, a nation the Soviet Union considered within its sphere of influence and Islam a long-term existential threat to Russia. The Soviets were worn down by a motivated native population supported by the West. They pulled out. The Russians can pull out of Ukraine, and Ukraine is aligned, preferably for Russia perhaps, not with the Islamic empire but with the American empire. While potent at a distance, the US is unlikely to establish anything like an offensive capability against Russia in Ukraine. This is demonstrated by the limited deployments of US troops and other forces to Estonia, Romania, etc.
It would be American oil and gas interests that would want to break up Russia into smaller parts. The revenue from sales to Europe is obviously lucrative.
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Trump is often vague and general, letting people fill in the rest with what they feel, but nevertheless led to whatever issues Trump leads them to. It obviously creates attachments between himself and other people. Truth is often detailed and takes time learning prerequisite information. Then it takes time and energy to gather a sufficient understanding. Trump is wealthy because his thinking and speech are oriented toward working with others for a profit. If the thinking and speech happens to be true, fine, if it happens to be false but makes a profit, then that is fine, too. Based on his actions, to him, winning is everything, losing is unthinkable. To my fellow Americans who experience both achievement and loss, I say leave Trump alone with his issues, and don't be his co-dependent. I am inclined to think only God can help him.
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In response to AOC, an unenforceable law against recreational (outside of marriage I presume) sex would be bad for the law, because it diminishes respect for the law and law enforcement and results in bigger black markets controlled by criminals. On the other hand, billions of taxpayer dollars and significant emotional costs have been spent mitigating STDs, some of which, such as HIV/AIDS, were fatal for years. And COVID shows us that new, fatal viruses can still emerge. It is in the public interest to support social norms (not laws, see smoking) that encourage all of us to avoid such tragedies. I haven't heard anybody say that getting an STD or an abortion is recreational, but they are clear potential, and not hypothetical, consequences of recreational sex. So before people just say "Get out of my way!", as they drunkenly walk to their car to drive home, maybe they need to have encountered a lot of publicly sponsored messaging that somebody else and/or themselves might get hurt by their insistence. Those of conscience just might pause, and that can reduce pain and suffering and cost. Marriage contains the prospect of safe, trusting, and abundant recreational sex. Without any consideration of Christianity, societies that somehow tempered their losses and raised their capacities through marriage and moderation in sexual behavior developed advantages over their rivals. See marriage in the Roman empire, officiated by a "pronuba", before Christianity.
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Consider the Stoics epitaph: I was not, I was, I am not, I do not care. Stoicism has been around for a good portion of written human history.
Before I was conceived, I had no death anxiety that I can remember. I cannot remember anything from that time, no pain, no fear. If death returns me to that state, then I will not be in pain nor fear. I will not be at all. This is a basis for not dreading death. People may dread the moments before death, because that can be a time of pain and fear of loss of those close to you. It is a truly humane thing to be helpful to someone in that time.
Consider that many have given their lives for a better life for the rest of us.
When someone holds religion out to you, do you see a con man? Do you see someone building a survival for themselves that gets them out of the kind of labor the rest of us have to face day after day? I think I have run into that a lot, someone who may have started out sincere but then doubts yet must go on in their manner of survival. Or someone with no conscience who is not troubled by using religion to make a nice place for themselves in the world.
The proposal of Christianity is stunning: "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me, and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and We will come and make Our home with him." Make Our home with him? That is something that perhaps each person can test, some possible Being to argue with and challenge to become authentic in one's life. "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false." One can have that argument quite apart from an institution that asks for your money.
I have never died before, so I cannot speak from experience. I encourage anyone to discern the con man in religion. I encourage everyone to test the proposal of Christianity. You can get a Bible for free. Be skeptical with it. But also be open to the possible Being. Start the argument. See what happens.
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It's wealth distributed upwardly that has a hard time getting a share of the best investments. Of course, the housing market should correct if demand goes down, but what we see is an investment community that can afford to sit on empty buildings. They would rather leave a building empty and in good condition and look for a buyer for the whole thing, than drop rents and get the building occupied. It's a sign of an oligarchy that cannot figure out how to better activate its wealth. What they for sure are not doing is pushing Congress to raise the minimum wage or support unions. Foreign money has also been coming into Florida, buying properties that are being converted from family ownership to corporate ownership.
It's also codes intended to make buildings safer and more efficient, but the codes also make the buildings more expensive. Here again an oligarchy is going to oppose a local government trying to incentivize affordable housing next to high rent buildings and condominiums. The incumbent interests want to keep their property at a high sale price. That's their nest egg or fortune on the line. They are going to show up when the planning commission posts a potential high rise with 400sf to 600sf studio apartments.
On top of that now enter climate change, the forbidden words in Florida State government. The Governor can try to get people to put their heads in the sand, but the insurance companies have money on the line, and they are watching the costs of claims and the ramifications of sea level rise and more and stronger hurricanes. This is new, and only the best buildings are ready for it. The right roof is a big factor. Strapped down, metal covered hip roofs keep a lid on the premiums. My property insurance went down from $12,000 per year to $7500 with added tie down straps and a new cover. Remember all the blue tarps after Frances and Jeane? The insurance companies do not want to go back to that. The buildings and infrastructure of Florida going forward need to be rugged and designed for quick recovery from wind and flood. Personally, I think the future of Florida lies in abandoning the lowest elevations and moving that dirt to make higher new elevations for new construction. The result will be a Florida with thousands of high rent Keys. There will be new codes for constructing islands and buildings that can continue to climb upward as necessary.
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@ronaldgreene5733 I find the Russian regime more belligerent than the Ukrainian. While Ukraine gave up any ability to end the world with nuclear weapons in the interest of peace, Russia of course, along with the US, insists on retaining that capability. I can respect that the Russian people as a whole share human characteristics with the people of other nations, good and bad. But I take Putin's longevity in office as a negative, along with his imprisonment of serious political opponents. I also think border states such as Finland and Sweden are well aware of the KGB/FSB/Russian foreign policy style of reasoning and have determined that Russian leadership has gone round the bend, and that they need Western help keeping their houses intact. I have read Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago." I don't sense any magic level of innocence in the Russian culture.
Nor do I sense innocence in American foreign policy. I have read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". I listen to and read Noam Chomsky and others, so I am aware debt traps set by corporate interests along the lines you describe and other American misbehaviors. This is why I see crime and corruption as part of the human condition that no nation has conquered. The interesting thing about America is that I believe I have better access to dissenting voices than people in Russia do.
I appreciate your attempt to elevate the YouTube conversation. We are out here poking consciences. The challenge is to understand logic and present sound and valid arguments. The tragedy is that large sectors of humanity have no interest in making such arguments. From within your own world view, do average souls such as ourselves have any material influence on what human leadership is doing? Do think that I, as an American, may actually have more agency than a citizen of any other nation?
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Who can and would you vote for? I'm in the American Solidarity Party, and most Americans might find us rather pacifist in an Amish or Mennonite fashion. And when you simplify things, are you sure you are not being manipulated by public relations efforts that know that's how you think? Look closely at the young men doing things in Gaza in the DN videos. Do they look like concentration camp survivors found by Allied troops in 1945? No, they can walk, run, and carry dead human beings. They, young men of military age, are alive and getting food and water. What Israel is doing is what it did in 1948. It's terrorizing the Palestinian population to generate deterrence of future October 7th's. It is intentionally disproportionate. If it thinks it sees one Hamas fighter with his family, then it blows them all up. It's wrong. American diplomats are working for a cease-fire. That's right. Oversimplifying this to just a matter of voting neglects the obligation to frequently petition the government, to support third-party aid agencies, and to join with others in various supportive actions. So I write and talk and support.
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I don't think the fall of Saigon hangs too heavily on the legacy of President Gerald Ford. The new class of aircraft carriers is named after him. It does hang heavily over the US as a nation. The exodus from Vietnam occurred over considerable months, as will the exodus from Afghanistan. The most important metric of the withdrawal is each and every human life that really needed or needs to get out of Afghanistan. On that metric, the result so far is significant, but incomplete. It is neither a 100% success or failure. But the process has not ended, and the Taliban seem to know they need outside help now that American dollars to Pakistan and Afghanistan have diminished. American defense dollars will be shifting to the Pacific, where it remains to be seen if our friends can retain autonomy from China. In this sense the withdrawal from Afghanistan is a strategic success: it no longer drains military resources that can now be deployed to the Pacific. Also, strategically, unlike the coming confrontation with China, operations in Afghanistan never seriously risked nuclear confrontation. Instead, combined with the development of homeland security, jihadis did not carry out dramatic strikes against the United States, although there were shootings on CONUS military bases related to the tension between the West and Islam. The mission to Afghanistan did not end that tension. What may lie ahead is a Chinese effort to somehow harness that tension as China seeks to expand its empire.
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@albback8176 A Russian leader that calls the breakup of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th Century" probably has an agenda to restore the former Union. Like the American Civil War, it's in large measure about maintaining and increasing the power of a particular regime. The Budapest Memorandum was the first concession to Russian fear, nuclear weapons in Ukrainian custody were transferred to Russia. (Yes I know the whole command code thing. The US could have fixed that, but that would have created a fearful situation.) In time, Russia would discard all respect for the balance of that Memorandum. Russian fear, perhaps a legacy of Ghangis Khan, is a serious disability, as evidenced by its demographics. On the whole, however, Russian fear has worked for the regime, at least in its own mind. And so the decline of Russia and its assimilation by China continues. China is for China. Sad Russia. The West might have been a friend in Christendom. The regime seems atheist at heart. The faith for social manipulation.
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Perhaps Putin thinks North Korean artillery shells and various forms of Chinese aid give him an advantage at this point. He is seeing the West really is not ramping up artillery shell production quickly enough to tilt the battle, and the F16 deployment is delayed. If the West did start to produce more shells and get a significant upgrade in Ukrainian air power in place, then Putin is facing the loss of ground. I think he sees he needs to be intense now to get to a stopping point before the West is able to tilt the battle more against him. I don't think he is counting on Trump, because a Trump victory is less likely now than it was in 2020. Why? 1) COVID took out a slice of old Trump voters who opted out of vaccines and masks; 2) Republican baby boomers are moving to Florida, a State that already is Republican, and they are thus making it easier for Democrats to carry States like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They do not get a proportional increase in electoral votes because of this migration. 3) Independent voters have more knowledge of Trump than they did in 2016 and 2020. Stories of Trump's mistreatment of people, his impeachments, and his indictments and criminal convictions, while not decisive for his base, are decisive for many independents. If Russian intelligence is any good when it comes to assessing American politics, they know banking on a Trump victory is a poor bet. Trump's opposition if fearmongering a possible Trump victory to get out the vote.
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@voya8480 I think you are right about Russian wheat. For humanitarian purposes, Russian wheat will be allowed to go to its usual markets. It's the oil and gas to Europe. In the long run, Europe was going with more renewable energy due to climate change. In the short run, European revenue to Russia for oil and gas is down. It's not all the way down, and it will not go all the way down. But less money for Russia means adjustments in Russia that would not be liked if revenues stayed the same or were going up. Those adjustments do not help Russia stay in this conflict. The West is just a bigger group of people with stronger economies than Russia. Like it or not, Ukraine has shown the world that it has a sense of national identity that it will fight Russia for. The Ukrainian soldier believes he is fighting invaders. His morale is higher than the Russian soldier's is. And morale matters. I don't think that high morale means Ukraine would invade Russia for any purpose other than to destroy military and logistical targets that threaten Ukraine. They have already done some of that. That forces Russia to increase protection of those targets. But at some point the Ukrainian soldier wants to go home, too. For Ukraine, the war probably ends when it considers all the Russian trespassers have left Ukraine. Maybe Russia can make that just too difficult for Ukraine in a fairly small geographic region. But if the West equips Ukraine with technological advantages that the Russian military cannot successfully counter, then the Russian military will have to leave. What Russia might do is keep the state of conflict going so it can prevent Ukrainian development of the oil and gas reserves that it recovered by ejecting the Russian military. Long range missile strikes from within Russia would force Ukraine to try to build an Iron Dome over new oil and gas facilities. That probably would just be too much trouble, and Russia would be protecting its market share for oil and gas from Ukrainian production. Russia does this in other places in a different way like Venezuela that used to produce 3 million barrels a day of oil, but now produces less than 1 million per day. Russia wants to keep oil prices high. OPEC countries want the same. But California, the most populated state in the US, had its first 100% renewable energy hour on its electric grid. They did not need to burn natural gas to meet peak load. That means more American and Canadian gas available for LNG shipment to Europe. That is the trend going forward. Climate change does not favor Russian oil and gas going forward, but more of Russian land may become useful for growing wheat which the world will need. Russia's ports will have less days closed due to ice. Spending money on this conflict is reducing Russia's ability to adjust to climate change. Countries that adjust successfully to climate change provide a good future for their people. Those that do not, not so good for their people. Bring your boys home, sir. There is important work for them to do.
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He made errors in his youth. He was clever. He was elected. As far as equipping his military before the war, he had in part to deal with Donald Trump. His ideology, however authoritarian, was too liberal for Putin. When war came, he stayed. He is exposing himself to death almost every day. He lets Poroshenko talk to the foreign press often. Oh, so like many successful actors, he has become a producer and amassed $15 million with an M, not billion with a B, like so many of his adversaries. So, like any smart investor who lives next to Russia, he has some foreign bank accounts. I don't begrudge him his modest estate. You have to watch Servant of the People. It's humane, and I think he is, too.
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Trump is not overtly speaking to the classic core constituency of the Republican Party, which, given the legislation it passes demonstrates a platform of limited social services, maximum defense, tax cuts, and a public relations strategy to minimize Democratic use of the national credit so Republicans can maximize the use of public credit for their agenda. Republicans are not opposed to the government borrowing money, they are opposed to Democrats borrowing money. I've noted less empathy for the sick until Republicans themselves get cancer or some other life-threatening malady. Then empathy becomes a thing. Trump has no felt empathy, but he can read what a lot of people want to hear, and he delivers enough to win votes. He's a dangerous demagogue. I would encourage spiritual, pro-life Republicans to consider the American Solidarity Party, although its social services agenda may be very hard indeed to swallow.
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I propose the underlying cause is Russia's fear of a rising China. Russia had the confidence to assault Ukraine because it had a larger military, economy, and population than Ukraine. China's military, economy, and population are probably now superior to Russia's, lacking only parity in nuclear warheads, which is being addressed. Were it not for Russia's nuclear arsenal, China would probably now be negotiating with Russia for the return of Chinese lands seized by Russia in the past. Russia invaded Ukraine for resources, mineral and human, to better match rising Chinese power. From a power perspective, the same concerns would prompt Russia to seize additional European territory. This is the true existential threat Russia faces. Unfortunately, Russian leadership thinks it is necessary for Russia to dominate European leadership, rather than seeking a more cooperative relationship in which a stable future with China and the West could be structured.
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@inozz4c Fair points you make. Mearsheimer makes some good points, but I think he makes some bad ones, too, or just neglects to consider other important factors. True, one can only say so much in an hour.
Russia has more land area than any other nation, and with a relatively small population. I grant that much of this land is not arable. Climate change may increase the amount of arable land in Russia, or perhaps just slide it north. Climate change may not be good for Ukrainian agriculture. I think this is a very important forecast for Russia to understand and talk to the world about, because much of the world relies on Russia for wheat, fertilizer, and other food. Russia has been demonstrating forecasting of climate change impacts with respect to planning military facilities for Arctic operations. This is to say that I don't think Russia needs Ukraine for Russia itself to be a flourishing country. If Russia simply held its 1994 borders, NATO membership might grow, but that does not mean that NATO would take land within those borders from Russia. If Russia simply held its 1994 borders, it would not be experiencing any sanctions at all, and likely would have continued to increase its wealth, even perhaps to the point that wealth inequality within the country might be better addressed. Historians often point to the classical routes of invasions from the West as a rationale for Russian geopolitics. I say Russia's 6500 nuclear warheads have dramatically made the notion of any existing Western European nation invading Russia patently absurd, rendering the historical geopolitical environment invalid. Nuclear weapons change geopolitics. Western European behavior has been to concentrate government budgets much more on social well being than defense. The US has been criticizing Western Europe on this subject for a long time, suffering in many domestic issue while Western Europe has the funds to better address those same issues, such as national health care.
The perspective that "Biden" can stop the war implies that the US is the only significant player Russia faces in this conflict. The United States does not conduct the level of trade with Russia that Germany did. Russia may be gaining land full of destroyed buildings in Ukraine, but it is losing hard currency from Germany every day. Russia has proved it can miscalculate. It may be miscalculating the German people as much as the Ukrainians. The general consensus among the knowledgeable is that all governments are oppressive, but Russia is among the worst when it comes to forcing its citizens to mind their words very carefully. This sets up a spiral of poor morale, an unusual level of alcoholism, and self-defeat, and this has been made evident by the poor performance of a large, well equipped Russian military that should have won this war by now even in the face of the very gradual arming of Ukraine by the West. I have no doubt the FSB and other internal security agencies of Russia are ready to impose Russian jurisdiction on the totality of Ukraine, because they are the primary beneficiaries of the Russian system. They set up a system that talented middle class people seek to escape, forcing security services to focus on people try to leave the country. Bad as people may thing the US is, we have a problem with many people trying to get into our country. What seems to be at the root of Russian leadership dysfunction is a predominance of psychopathic values within it. These values explain the otherwise seemingly senseless need for periodic victories over its international neighbors, e.g. Donald Trump touting to his followers "We are going to win so much, you are going to get sick of winning." Yes, psychopathy is everywhere. The average citizen in the US has minimal power, but they do have a vote and they have an absurd number of guns. Russian leadership very much seems to lack the checks and balances that would improve the lot of average people.
And there it is, much of my case for why it should be Russia that ends the war now and starts reforming its government and rebuilding what trade it can with the West. But I am not holding my breath.
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The GOP would quickly enact projects in Greenland and import enough GOP voters to turn it into a red state. The natives could soon find themselves in the minority. I am thinking mining companies, construction companies, and some US military personnel declaring domicile in the State of Greenland. Alaska is perhaps the best model of what might happen politically. It has the US' lowest population density at 1.3 persons per square mile. That would put a future settled Greenland at about a population 1 million maximum, but probably not even half that. Greenland would thus have one House Representative and two Senators just like Alaska, and in Alaska, they are all Republicans in those offices today. They may be moderate Republicans, but Republicans, nevertheless. There is some possibility that native influence might moderate the red immigrants if the latter do not come in sufficient numbers. Robotics would be very tempting in Greenland mining and construction operations, thinning the human labor pool. But the Alaskan model remains relevant.
This can also be a part of an overall global turf deal with Russia and China. Trump seems to have a North American vision here that skips over Mexico and Central America until one gets to the northern border of his idea of a new US Panama Canal Zone. He sees water barriers as still effective political boundaries. China and Russia have built influence in the Americas, and they can put those cards on the table to make a deal with Trump. The grand vision for Russia appears to be the assimilation of Europe and the Mediterranean. China and Russia would be left to divide the rest of Africa and the Middle East. The Subcontinent and South America get to be their own thing. Australia and the Pacific Islands are assimilated by China. There would be the five poles of the multi-polar world. Trump believes in climate change. His vision assumes increasing habitability in Greenland and Canada. If he thinks Russia will eventually assimilate Denmark, but acknowledge the American interest in Greenland, his legacy gets Greenland for free. He just needs to stake the US claim and maintain the military presence to secure it.
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Bunk. There is a great deal of alternative press in the US, e.g., Ralph Nader and Public Citizen, Bernie Sanders and Our Revolution, Mother Jones, Democracy Now, The AlterNet, The Nation Magazine, the ACLU, SPLC, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and . . . YouTube. Yes, you, hopefully speaking freely on YouTube and not having your message taken down. Could you say "war" in Russia a few months ago? Never stopped here on YouTube, no prison sentence.
Whatever the legitimate grievances east of the Dnieper, they belonged in the courts of the Ukrainian jurisdiction, under UN observation if necessary. And whatever their quantity, this war is excessively out of proportion to that problem. This is a war for territory. This is a war to offset the gradual assimilation of eastern Russia by a rising China.
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I remember in engineering college the emphasis on modeling systems on paper and, if possible, in computer simulation before you build them, because it is cheaper to find a problem and fix it then. More powerful computers and software can and have improved modeling. If you rush the modeling process, then you are just asking for trouble later on. Of course, prototypes are also very valuable for rooting out things the modeling process may have missed but rushing that as well compounds the potential problems down the road. It happens again and again with automobile recalls.
And although I am not an aeronautical engineer, I do somewhat wonder about the fix of adding another AOA sensor as enough to rule out the problem. If an AOA has a obscure vulnerability, both AOAs might fail when presented with that vulnerability. If you have a computer controlling the envelope, then why wouldn't airspeed and altimeter indications, even pilot vitals of some kind like asking the crew to reply with a word, show the program that continuing to pitch the nose is going to take the plane into the ground? It seems to me that the software still is not thorough in modeling and coping with near envelope scenarios. I mean, once MCAS starts a stall correction, should it not have a time parameter that is the outer boundary of how long a stall takes to be corrected and give control back to the pilot if MCAS cannot correct the stall? There just seems to be all kinds of parameters available to be checked and indicate to the program and pilots that some parameter has become untrustworthy and nullify its input. It sounds like this AOA addition is still a safety feature quick fix instead of a thorough modeling of the aircraft envelope and writing the software accordingly. I can imagine this is a huge task requiring many more lines of code and the computer processing power to cope with that (a testament to the value of a pilot), but public confidence in air travel should be the foundation of the business. As we can see, it not always is for those in leadership.
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@ahmedshinwari I don't know any Afghan army personnel, so I don't know the different reasons they may be in the Army. But out of curiosity, which of the following tribes do most of your ancestors come from: Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimaq, Turkmen, Baloch, Pashai, Nuristani, Gujjar, Arab, Brahui, Qizilbash, Pamiri, Kyrgyz, Sadat, or another?
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Admirable of DN and this physician to present this story. He's an honorable man to have gone there to help. He told us what he saw, and I believe him.
But DN doesn't tell both sides here. They frame the story at the beginning as Israel's attack on Gaza, rather than Israel's attack on Hamas. DN can state both perspectives, but they don't. Hamas, to the best of my knowledge, has no defined military bases on the surface for Israel to attack. Hamas is using human shields in urban warfare, knowing full well that civilian casualties will occur and leveraging those casualties in a public relations campaign to seek the unilateral disarmament of Israel, which of course would serve Hamas interests. Disarmament talks in the region need to involve Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah as well as Israel. However, this conflict, and both sides blaming the other for not accepting an internationally brokered cease-fire agreement, reveals deep hate and remorselessness on both sides. When a peacemaking effort like this fails, the international community faces the prospect of international armed intervention. I doubt any military in the world is eager to engage in the urban security operations that would be needed to quell the fighting. You have to admire Kenya for sending troops to try to calm things down in Haiti. Egypt and Jordan have significant militaries, but so far have stayed out of this aspect of ending the violence. It looks like outside forces are needed in Gaza to establish safe zones for civilians and keep Hamas fighters and the IDF out of those safe zones. They need to fight out their hate somewhere else. The United States is uniquely situated for such a mission, but I am confident the Pentagon sees it as a potential disaster for US armed forces. Hamas would attack American troops, and the IDF isn't past unintended, accidental friendly fire. The US would have to use Gazans as human shields as well. It is conceivable, however, that the US could set up medical and humanitarian airlifts of people to safer places. In-country medical treatment could also be improved.
Lots of people are calling this genocide. The definition of genocide makes it pretty easy to declare. Certainly depriving a doctor willing to enter Gaza to render aid the supplies he brought with him is detestable and yes, genocidal conduct, even if he used them to treat Hamas fighters. I would point out that in many ways, the IDF is superior to the Ukrainian and Russian militaries. Those two militaries inflict hundreds of casualties per day on each other. If the IDF was out to kill Gazans en masse, they have the capacity to do that. They are not killing civilians on the scale that they could. Repeatedly, spokespersons for Gazans make no mention of Hamas fighter casualties when they report numbers. This is a plain deception, and discredits Hamas and those reporting casualties. Together with the refusal to grudgingly accept the internationally brokered cease fire, this conduct reduces sympathy for the humanity involved on both sides. It smacks of outside forces having their interests advanced by continuing the conflict.
P.S. The U.S., with its carrier and other aircraft in the region, can supplement the defense of Israel to the extent that supplies of JP-8 military fuel to Israel could be reduced. Israel does not have sufficient refining capacity to make its own JP-8. Such action could temper Israeli air strikes on Hamas without seriously diminishing the defense of Israel. The US could keep JP-8 nearby for the prompt resupply of Israel should it come under attack by Hezbollah and/or Iran. So there is also this way for the US to restrain Israel.
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In part, Putin based, and continues to base, his sense of inevitable victory over Ukraine on Russia having 3.5 times Ukraine's population. If that is such a valid metric for him, he must be deeply concerned about the threat of a rising China. In spite of his awkward use of history, he probably knows that the Russian empire has in the past taken land and people from the Chinese empire. While I don't think his concern is fear, I think his desire for victory forces him to constantly calculate. The Russian perception of the Chinese threat is severe enough, that he must divert that concern to NATO. A calculation has been made that there can be no negative portrayal of China, a calculation China would like all other nations to abide by as well. To face and balance this new power, Putin needs to acquire more power for Russia. It is easier for him to go westward, ergo Ukraine, Belarus more easily being brought back under Russian supervision.
It wasn't just the West that humiliated China in the 19th Century. Russia was a part of that humiliation. Putin's resorts to history expose him to these facts. Open hostilities occurred between the two empires as recently as 1969. Yet hyperbolic terms are used to describe the "friendship" between the two nations.
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@stephen-wahl Why exclude the various foreign empires, Spanish, French, British, Russian, Danish, German, Belgian, Japanese, Persian, Ottoman, Greek, Chinese, etc. that have sought their interests outside their border?
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I pin Sullivanism not so much on Jake. He's the errand boy, the front man. I think he actually plays his role pretty well. A sector of the Western powers that be (wealth) want all the days of life they can get to enjoy what they have. When they call, Jake or his staff have to pick up the phone. For this sector, Ukraine was always expendable, nice markets and resources to have access to, but not necessary, not worth any plausible risk of nuclear escalation. They have significant power to alter the status of Western politicians, so they usually get their way. Based on an early statement (February 2022) of Lloyd Austin, they do approve of the weakening of one of their rivals, i.e., the Russian oligarchy. But only the slightest risk of escalation can be tolerated, a large margin of safety is essential. And they can claim their strategy has protected the West at large, but for the most part at Ukraine's expense. It is good to see Ukraine exercises agency nevertheless. Ukraine is defying not only the Russian oligarchy, but the Western sector that is protecting itself. For little me, just another average suffering Joe, I am fine with the West responding to Russian threats of nuclear weapons with one word, "Ready."
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C'mon, Jake. Joe Biden's job, given to him by American powers that be, was to absolutely minimize any risk of nuclear war, and, that done, weaken Russia, at Ukraine's expense if necessary. It was a dark policy, but it has largely worked. Russia continues to be weakened, and the American powers that be continue to be.
C'mon, Jake. There are not enough Republicans in Congress in favor of aid to Ukraine, but, coupled with willing Democrats, there are enough votes in Congress to continue aid to Ukraine. Trump can probably sign off on that as long as Congress has something for him in the deal.
C'mon, Jake. The Trumps howl hyperbole until they get a sweet deal from whoever they are howling at. That's the SOP around here for the next 4 years.
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When it comes to occupied territories, financial settlements with the specific people or estates that suffered or will suffer loss might be the more practical way to go. Somebody who took out a mortgage or paid for a house in occupied territory is relying on the State of Israel to defend their title to the property. Eminent domain might compel them to leave, but they should get fair market value for their house. And Palestinians have to be sorted out as to just who or which estates have a right to obtain title or financial compensation. It just doesn't start out as a free, new house for some Palestinian family. There may well be a set of Palestinians with no specific property rights at all because they have no link to property rights in developed, occupied territory. It really needs to get very specific. All we hear are broad claims of Palestinian rights. Who actually has standing? If this is going toward a legal, court-based settlement, which is good, then all principles of law should apply. "Taking" is very much involved here. The UN demarcations in Resolution 181 looked impractical to contemporaries. History has proved them correct.
Governments have purchased land, e.g., Alaska, Gadsden, Louisiana. Given the billions of dollars the US has provided to Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, perhaps the exchange of tracts of land to provide a larger and more contiguous Palestine is the way to go. Gaza could be bigger than it is, extending more into adjacent Israel and Egypt. It is waterfront property. All states could get at least a corridor to the Red Sea. The Houthis seem to be establishing the idea that Egypt isn't the only nation on the Red Sea that should be collecting revenue for use of this global shipping route. Freedom of the seas is a government subsidy.
There are interests that benefit from the chaos, e.g. Iran. This area is seen by many in the region as a part of the Islamic empire. Their vision is that the region be entirely under Islamic jurisdiction. But one might note how Americans are called upon to accept migrants, while the Arab position in Palestine has been to violently oppose Jewish immigration. Perhaps a future erosion of Islamic and Jewish dogmatism similar to increasing atheism in the West will moderate attitudes about diversity in the region.
I think Palestinians need homes they can finally settle down in and build a decent future. The US has paid dearly for leverage here. A large percentage of Americans are ready to pull out and leave things to whatever violent fate may ensue. They just want out and to keep US money in the US (and much of the aid money goes straight to US defense contractors). Naturally, Israel, Egypt, and Jordan would like to see money and/or weapons keep coming in. They may not be excited about looking to China, Russia, and Iran for that aid, but if the US pulls out, then there they will go. The US should not just pull the rug out from under Israel, but Israel needs to see that it has attracted too much attention to itself and needs to adjust. I don't know that Israel is going to recognize this UN claim of a type of eminent domain, but they need to reconsider their long-term vision that someday enough Palestinians will accept their circumstances.
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The great threat to the peaceful protester is the likes of the Minneapolis masked "Umbrella Man", someone who seeks to discredit a peaceful protest by damaging property and inciting violence. I did not hear the Governor announce any enhanced sentencing for those found guilty of such acts. I am also concerned that localities that make even modest adjustments to broaden public safety capabilities outside of police budgets could also be subjected to "Umbrella Man" type subversions designed to instigate State intervention. I did not hear of enhanced sentencing for those found guilty of that crime. And then there is the practical issue that enforcement is inevitably selective and incomplete, giving insurgents of any stripe, left or right, up or down, a continuing reasonable probability of successfully discrediting a peaceful protest and getting away with it. In light of subversives amongst us, left or right, law enforcement's attempt at reassuring us that we retain the right to peaceably assemble for redress of grievances rings a bit more hollow with this legislation. The sane Floridian will restrict their objections to the virtual world and the written opinion page, which already seems able to amplify dissent without itself being violent, though some may be incited. Those who want to physically, peacefully protest, need to include the capacity to detect, track, and assist law enforcement with detaining subversives, or risk having their cause discredited and themselves subjected to escalation of violence by the government response. Hand held video capability has very much changed things, and it needs to continue to be harnessed to preserve rights and ferret out insurgents.
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Russia has to consider China's interest in the Arctic of the future as well as China's economic and expanding military power. China's capacity to develop and manage resources is likely to increase its influence in eastern Russia. China is likely to carry out this expansion of influence very incrementally, yet purposefully because of its own needs and interests. A highly sanctioned Russia will have little choice but to accept some of this expansion of Chinese power in exchange for Chinese purchases of Russian resources. Look at the advantages that China seeks for itself in terms of technology transfer as an example. I propose this is a factor in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, because Ukraine for a very long time will be too far a reach for China compared to Moscow. Russia may assess that overall, seizing land for power makes more sense near western Russia than eastern. Nuclear arsenal metrics aside, Russian hubris in its actions is clear, but Russian leadership perspective is based on successive victories in the expansion of its power, not international cooperation in a context of climate change. Russia has a vain concept of its capacity, and it also seems to a vain concept of China's capacity or willingness to buttress Russian capacity. Reality is facing Russia with a dilemma. It is not acquiring the power Putin thought it would acquire by invading Ukraine to offset the rise of Chinese power. The West is doing what it can to present Putin with a very grim, long-term future. But Putin, like Trump, has trouble processing loss. He seems to always be chasing some silver lining he sees. I don't know that public discussion on how this sorts out for China might get Putin's attention in time to consider how his losses in Ukraine could accelerate Russia's loss of power to China, but it might be worth a try.
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I don't know that Trump rally attendees represent the bulk of Republican voters. There is a segment that conscientiously objects to abortion above all other political issues. They see it as an American holocaust. They may be disturbed by other Republicans' behavior, but they are essentially single-issue voters, Catholics and evangelicals. There is a new political party, the American Solidarity Party, that opposes abortion but otherwise is green on the environment, pro social justice, and distributist economically. It remains to be seen how many of these conscientious objectors to abortion will leave the Republican party because they no longer wish to empower what that party has become. I do think it notable that in Wisconsin in 2020, of the 20,000 vote margin between Biden and Trump, 4,000 votes were for Brian Carroll, the American Solidarity Party candidate for President in that state. If this new party succeeds, it likely will disempower the Republican Party that heavily relies on the pro-life vote. It will also attract pro-life Democrats. If that occurs, I don't know that these folks will have the limelight they have been enjoying.
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As far as the history of Ukraine, Ms. Benjamin did not mention the Holodomor. That's like discussing the history of Israel without mentioning the Holocaust. My Ukrainian friends have mentioned the Holodomor to me as an historical event that is still a part of Ukrainian consciousness. By the way, my Ukrainian friends speak Russian because, well, their families not so long ago had no choice. As far as the history of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, Ms. Benjamin did not mention the 1994 Budapest Memorandum (yes, something got codified) in which the parties, including the UK, agreed that hundreds of former Soviet nuclear weapons possessed by Ukraine would be turned over to Russia in exchange for Russian recognition and respect for the Ukrainian border. This was a huge concession to and recognition of Russian security interests that Russia enjoys to this day. Ukraine is not enjoying much at all in exchange. (Note the US MIC would have been very happy to be paid by the US government to make those weapons usable by Ukraine, but that did not happen). The US and UK pledged in writing to support the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia therefore was provided with written notice of just what might be happening today if Russia did not respect Ukrainian borders. As far as the history of Russia and its neighbors, are those neighbors granted any agency to make foreign policy decisions? James Baker had no authority to speak for any of them. Just what are these neighbors supposed to do when faced with 6500 Russian nuclear warheads, and a large Russian army backed by a population of 145 million? If they want to maintain sovereignty, then the logical choice is to form or join a defense alliance. NATO was an experienced alliance at hand. Nations apply for NATO membership, they do not get expanded into by the US, although certainly the US and Russia exert influence on these nations. That's three points I have made. I find this talk a bit too sympathetic to Russian interests, which are just as imperial as US interests and European interests in Ukraine, which have a lot to do with oil and gas discoveries in Ukraine that might have provided competitive options for European purchases. I guess that's out the window for some time. Was Putin's plan to stimulate US oil and gas exports at a time of scarcity and high prices and profits? Many who have followed this war have predicted that Russia would initiate a PR campaign for negotiation if Russia started losing more Ukrainian territory. Here is that campaign. I'll let the English-speaking Russian elite buy Ms. Benjamin's book.
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But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Ukraine is half dead.
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@Alwayscatlike And why would someone stay in teaching when they can make twice or more the money in the trades? You don't need a degree to do the trades. OK, some people, like my wife, actually like teaching kids, and will even substitute teach for minimum wage sometimes. But why dodge the administrator salary Deborah? Hey, why not take a business degree and make six figures heading up a charter school? Staff turnover? Hey, just enough salary to fill the slots with people too scared to question if a kid really earned that diploma. Charters are about the people who stay in the business long term. Teachers are secondary and expendable. If my kid said he wanted to be a business man, I would tell them to go to a charter school and study the principal, how they talk, how they behave, because that's where the money is. Follow the money.
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@albion4044 As long as we observe the YouTube TOS, it's game on with the rhetoric, sir. Putin knows the Soviet floor fell out from his feet when he was in East Germany. How in the world could something like that happen? Because the Stasi and the KGB lacked conscience and a personal understanding of how their governance was toxic to human morale. Self-defeating. Because enough people in East Germany could see there was a better life to be had, and so the day came when they took down the wall. I am pressing you to introspect, sir. I am so used to confessing American sins. And when we confess our sins, we can repent and discuss and make amends and improve our society a little bit. But boy, it's like Russian leaders are absolutely sinless, totally innocent, like Donald Trump, never admit they did something wrong. What is that a sign of, sir? Orthodoxy? NATO is a defensive alliance against a psychopathic dictatorship. Deep down, Putin knows that. Biden to Putin: "I don't think you have a soul." Putin to Biden: "Now we understand each other." Putin tells himself he is stronger than Biden. Putin invades Ukraine, distributing his army over the majority of Ukrainian oil and gas deposits, the core of the Russian economy. Any concern about climate change? Not much.
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"NATO enlargement", as asserted by Russian leadership, is pretext for Russia reserving the right to incrementally annex neighboring territory in service to that leadership's psychological need for recurring victory and the nostalgic restoration of the Soviet empire. This is how Russia has observably behaved. Russia's small neighbors are vitally interested in stable borders. Russia does have a practical interest in expanding its power and population to contain an increasingly powerful Chinese empire. Russia is so afraid of that future it does not dare speak of China as an opponent. What Russia needed to be doing is building a more practical and peaceful cooperation with the West to be successful in that containment. Instead, Russian leadership's psychological tendencies have trumped its true strategic interests.
Professor Sachs also needs to reconsider his perspective on the utility of the Sevastopol naval base for the Russian Navy. Even the limited Ukrainian use of naval and aerial drones and land-based anti-ship missiles has revealed the vulnerability of large, non-stealth surface combatant ships. Russia had deployed amphibious capabilities in preparation for the seizure of Odessa. They failed, even though they had Sevastopol and even though they were not simultaneously being fired upon at all by NATO naval capabilities. Ukraine essentially has no conventional surface combatant fleet. Yet, Russia does not dominate the Black Sea, and going forward, it is unlikely that any of the nations that have Black Sea coast, will dominate the Black Sea by relying on surface combatants. Russian nuclear attack submarines have more than adequate range to assert Russian interests in the Black Sea and beyond, and they do not need Sevastopol. Russian thinking about Crimea is archaic in the naval sense. It is forward thinking in the sense that it has stolen Crimean offshore energy resources from Ukraine. See YouTube video "Russia's Catastrophic Oil & Gas Problem".
Professor Sachs buys into the Russian ethnicity narrative. However, the Russian government has jurisdiction over dozens of various ethnicities within the internationally recognized borders of the Russian Federation. By Russia's own example, it should not be considered unusual that Ukrainian jurisdiction might encompass ethnic Russians. This narrative is again, pretext. Russia deported non-Russian ethnicities from Crimea and Ukraine and is still doing so to create this fact on the ground that they use to persuade folks like Professor Sachs that Russia is just trying to defuse ethnic tensions. Russia has done utterly the opposite by alienating the Ukrainian people, the great majority of whom still survive.
The timing of this piece coincides with Russia's deteriorating situation. Far from miscalculating, the US administration stated that sanctions and other economic actions would take time to have their effects. Putin's misfortune is that the Fed is raising interest rates, calming the world economy and inflation, and the price of Russia's premier export, oil, is getting below $70/bbl. Export earnings have fueled Russian influence all over the world, and that influence wanes when the money gets tight. Putin wants to go into a negotiation in which he hangs onto all the land currently under the Russian army's control, in which Ukraine doesn't get a defense treaty with anyone, in which all of his seized assets are returned, in which all trade is resumed, in which Ukraine's ability to acquire foreign weaponry is curtailed, and that the burden of reconstruction of Ukraine falls entirely on the West and Ukraine. This would, of course, set up Ukraine for further Russian encroachment by a refinanced and re-invigorated Russian military. In exchange Putin offers not to start WWIII and to temporarily tone down his ongoing insurgency in regions near his recent annexations because, well, he has lost a large number of his insurgents. Professor Sachs steers well clear of Putin's actual demands because they are absurd under the circumstances of the fight. Russian leadership can and should be taken to the point where they see that they have an opportunity to return to economic growth, but otherwise leave the internationally recognized jurisdiction of Ukraine completely and accept that, based on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, US and UK military support of Ukraine will be much more robust going forward. So robust, in fact, that another invasion or even insurgency is deterred. The bickering can be over the disposition of seized Russian assets. Professor Sachs suggests that the sanctions and asset seizures have been a miscalculation. So I suppose the Russians have no problem with those assets rebuilding Ukraine in exchange for their military losses coming to an end. I think even the Russians are starting to disagree with Professor Sachs. They need the price of oil to go up, and they need their money back. All they need to do is stop shooting and go home.
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We don't know the truth about Putin's rationality. A published set of authentic brain scans might help. And we are not going to get that, are we? Rational thought starts with Socrates: I know that I know nothing. Humility. Not hubris. Imagine if Russian military planning had started with that realization. I don't see humility in Putin. Nor do I see neurotypical remorse in Putin. (Is conscience disdained as weak, something to manipulate?) I watched a video of Gorbachev say of Putin, "He is always right." Fortunately for Gorbachev he must have been taken literally. As far as I know the man died in peace. What a breath of fresh air they were, Gorby and Raisa holding hands. "Thank God!" we exclaimed, "They are not all grouchy!"
Given the results of Russia's military planning to date, why should Russia think it will figure out a successful plan for "the long-term endurance war"? Was it really that hard to discern that European nations had bet on US military support? It had gone on so long, the average American knew about it and felt taken advantage of by socialist European countries and voted Trump into office to shake that up. The political dependence was obvious to the average American, but not to Vladimir Putin? And somehow the plan was not to put a bullet in Zelensky's head, but just rough him up Russian-style until he signs to vacate the Budapest Memorandum and agree to all of Russia's new terms? And is it rational to underestimate? Isn't it rational to overestimate risks and over plan for them to be more assured of victory?
This war is not some kind of Western success. In the face of climate change, this war is a tragedy for the planet and the human species. History is not repeating. We are on a linear, self-destructive course. For thousands of families, this war is a trauma, a source of great grief, unfelt by Mr. Putin. As an engineer, I watched a Russian engineer describe his work. I respected his demonstrated competence, and his responsible manner. Here was a man that had learned to work with the real world that does not respect lies. I will credit Russian leadership for allowing some of its citizens to develop into engineers. Of course, they do this to increase national power. But what I was seeing, was a Russian citizen of integrity, and I wish his country was run by men like him. Because if it was, this would be a better world.
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@jackwolfski The tragedy here is that Russia had a plentiful stream of market price oil and gas revenue from Europe and elsewhere, undiscounted, to fund its own robust adjustment to climate change. With more land area under its jurisdiction than any other nation, but with a population a fraction of that of China or India, it forfeits much of that revenue stream to acquire more land and people, Ukraine. What a terrible price for the world to pay for Russia's nostalgia, narcissism, and human will to power. There is very little that can be done about past US errors other than financial settlements with families of the dead and trying not to repeat the same errors. In the present, it is Russia forfeiting a brighter future for the world and itself, and killing thousands on its way to whatever waypoint it achieves in its ultimate plan for Ukraine. No neighbor of Russia is obliged to passively await assimilation. Russia's brandishing of "devastating effects" to compel it's adversaries to make concessions is practically a confession of depravity. The United States has hesitated to rhetorically reciprocate, stepping back from its own depravity. We might give the US credit for that.
By international law, Russian warships and aircraft can sail or fly right up to the 12 mile territorial water boundary of the United States. And they do that, with supporting airfields and ports of call available in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and elsewhere. Tactically this has been providing Russian missiles quick access into our airspace for decades, and we have reciprocated with similar missions. To me, this kind of Russian border sensitivity argument seems more a rhetorical device to groom neighbors and the world for Russian assimilation of those neighbors, i.e. recovery from the "geopolitical disaster of the 20th century". Russia's power is already way out of its proportion of the human population. Perhaps in that sense it is similar to the US. China and India are upping their weight militarily. The Monroe Doctrine has effectively been dissolved over time by the relationships major powers have established with Central and South American nations. The publicly espoused American doctrine has shifted to sovereignty of nations and territorial integrity. America's practical doctrine is also acquisition of wealth, but without assimilation of territory, using financial instruments instead. (See "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".) Russia likes spheres of influence. Does Ukraine get a vote? A sphere of influence doctrine says no they do not, they are Nazis and too close to the innocent (narcissists). Thus the fight, and tragic consequences for the world. I can't change the past, but right now, in the present, I will not be rhetorically immobilized by the past. Awareness of like capabilities need not step into false equivalencies. I can root for Ukraine and its supporters and criticize Russia.
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Christopher Hitchens described the Russian government as a "psychopathic dictatorship." A study of psychopathy expands one's perspective on that regime. We can empathize with most of the Russian people, but the Russian regime generally has no empathy for anyone. It is psychopathic. For them, winning isn't everything. Winning is the only thing. And the regime is very hard to topple as long as its gunmen and their handlers are paid something and are essentially the only ones armed. A real fear for the regime now is not the loss of common soldiers, but the less frequent loss of those upper ranks tasked with managing and sometimes executing common soldiers, and the far less frequent loss of skilled FSB operatives tasked with reforming occupied territories. A long-term attrition of such key personnel, and the need to backfill losses of these key personnel, will weaken the regime. The regime indeed may have entered Ukraine because its oil and gas prosperity had funded an expansion of the cadre of gunmen and handlers. Perhaps from an FSB perspective, the regime was ready to expand its control over more land and people, and it is likely for the moment that its attrition is not a significant consideration. While crass in many respects, over the decades Russian internal security organizations have refined the business of controlling the population to a high degree, and they have access to the internal security laboratories of the likes of China, North Korea, and Cuba from which to draw additional techniques. The regime's concern with Ukraine being able to threaten Russian territory has to do with the ability to strike command and control, and I mean control not just of military operations but internal security operations. This function is well secured in most of Russian territory, but in Ukraine or near it, internal security force protection is less assured. Weaken regime control of its forces in and near Ukraine and large numbers of Russian troops in Ukraine may very well surrender for the sake of their lives and families.
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No. My daughter and her spouse chose each other. The Purity Ball was mom's idea. Mom had had a great experience at her debutante ball and thought her daughter should have something along that line, black-tie, gown, flowers, etc. Ok, mom. We got there and did a dance lesson to pass some time and change the subject from sex to learning how to dance. Dinner with strangers turns into the usual get to know each other and be light-hearted, because yes indeed this is rather unique. On the ride home I told her a wedding ring is an important cultural signal and that she should treat her ball ring like the piece of jewelry it was and do whatever with it, but not wear it on her wedding finger. I was already bonded to mom and we symbolized that with our rings and she, daughter, should not be confusing her suitors with some kind of dad thing.
I will say this for my fellow guests at the ball. My wife and I are white. Our daughter was adopted from Latin America and so she was brown. Out in public I would get some bad looks if we were running errands together. People at the ball of course got a clue when we came in as father and daughter. Everybody was kind and we even felt rather respected and admired. That was pleasantly different. Was it the fear of God, realizing we, if our faith turned out to be true, had a long future together so we might as well get started adjusting to diversity?
Maybe it's a bit like going to a dance studio for the first time with a partner or not. Most studios get you rotating among partners for brief moments (one minute usually) of practice. Usually, the class is short on men so women are taking the men's part sometimes dancing with other women. "This is different." Mixed feelings, but everybody is pretty polite about it, and they are there to have fun and exercise.
I don't like Mike Johnson because he is callously spending the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. I've been an American airman and a soldier, and I am ashamed of what he is doing. That's why I think he indeed is creepy. I don't cringe because my daughter and I made mom happy.
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Deuteronomy 19:21 -- "Show no pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." That authorizes precise vengeance. That also puts a limit on vengeance for the greater good. This is a Jewish concept of justice. When the response to October 7th started to become perceived as disproportionate, I think many, including myself, joined that perception. We agree Israel has a right of self-defense and a right of vengeance, but fear the unknowns created by excessive vengeance. If Israel's response had been more calibrated, then I think Israel would have retained more moral authority. I can understand Israeli rage, but again, the Torah seems to put a limit on that. I see no guarantee that the displacement of Hamas will in the long run pacify Gaza. (Face it. Given all the tunnels to Egypt found, a remnant of Hamas has already escaped. The useful martyrs remain for the final sacrifice.) The Gazans are not Germans or Japanese likely to tilt to peace once the war mongers among them have been dealt with. Perhaps Gaza becomes the "Kaliningrad" of Jordan, the closest thing to a Palestinian state. Not that Jordan or Israel are excited about the prospects of that. I don't see much alternative to an iron-fisted occupation to bring an end to Gaza's role as a rocket launch facility. And the locals will be seething about this for decades. There's no common faith to point to here. There's no proven, robust island culture to choose a better direction. I would be happy to be proven wrong.
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The danger of what Senator Rubio touches upon is that the inertia in American leadership's adjustment to the flow of intelligence could significantly contribute to a Chinese calculation to take Taiwan by force. Russia, likewise, can see that the US may not be agile enough to successfully intervene to rescue a border state. The Russians have already proved this under the watch of earlier administrations. e.g. Ukraine. Missing from the Senator's speech is any mention of human intelligence awareness of the state of Afghan government forces. One remembers quotes of numbers and equipment provided, but no mention of much awareness of specific Afghan military leadership actions or fighting spirit as it was evolving in real time. That we have so many SIV's is an indication that even after 20 years of involvement, foreign language skill within the Departments of State and Defense is wanting. We did not know what was happening because we lacked an ability to listen and understand. A few voices did predict a re-enactment of rapid changes in Afghan soldier perspective that had been seen before, e.g. Carter Malkasian. It seems his input was "averaged" into the analysis, if considered at all. And such round units of time "end of the year." Doesn't sound like much of a forward looking model of the battlespace was being used anymore. Whoever contributed to Taliban strategic planning, seems to have taken the change of administration into account. The GW Bush administration was still getting up to speed when 9/11 happened. We'll see how military leadership gets questioned about all this. I do very much appreciate that there seemed to be little, if any, partisanship in the Senator's remarks. He used his time well to focus the American people on the capability of its leadership to deal with a very difficult situation. Unique situations also lie ahead of us. This is not something a President resigns over, and VP Harris is not ready to assume that office. Changes in the Cabinet could be on the table.
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I"ve visited Central America. It's fine for some people. I could also see why some could want to get out. I've made a friend from Honduras who has come to America, legally. They speak both English and Spanish and have a productive job. They have two daughters that are doing very well. They say most people they know come here to build a better life for their family. So I think Senator Rubio is right, there are mostly good migrants, but there is also a lot of bad ones. We catch the bad ones and send them back, where they become gang members, which just incentivizes poor people who can't afford to live in a gated and barbed wire protected community to get away from them even more. If you want to call this an invasion, then you have to admit that we are in a fight, in a war with every migrant sending nation. We could say those nations would like us to bear the cost of maintaining their criminals in our prisons. This is an argument for the United States to, forcibly if need be, establish very large consulates, in effect, military bases, in the migrant sending nations. Its a consulate with a prison, but also with training areas to prepare native born forces to put pressure on the migrant sending nation's government to work on making their country a better place to live. This could all cost a lot of money. I've also been to our southern border. It's a very longer border that takes a lot of effort to monitor, much less close. This could all cost a lot of money.
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@bobroberts7924 We? I live in a relatively small American town like the people in this video. People mind their own business and mostly stay out of trouble. Looking at the video, I noted everyone was pretty ethnically similar. That's easy. That's what they seem to want. My town, though small, has people from many different countries, including Ukraine, Haiti, Central America, Brazil, Argentina, even Russia. They come here to try to have a peaceful life. They find out it is pretty hard, but most stay for now. Russia's real challenge comes from China, from which Russia has taken land in the past. Go on Google Earth and fly along the Russian - Chinese border. You will generally see a high level of development on the Chinese side, and a very rural landscape on the Russian side. I think China, over time, will negotiate, probably with some amount of payment that Russia needs, to get that land back and expand its development. Russia had a good developing trade with Europe, and built-up hundreds of billons of dollars in financial reserves. And all they knew what to do with that is undermine democratic government and expand their jurisdiction through war. What a tragedy for everyone, when we all need to be investing in adjustments to climate change. Oh well, climate change probably means milder winters for the residents in this video. Good for them.
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Putin keeps going because the Siloviki, the core enforcer and beneficiary of his regime, is still largely intact. He can sell enough oil, for now, to keep them intact and supportive. The deaths and other casualties have for the most part been non-Siloviki, i.e., they matter very little to both Putin and the Siloviki. Putin can base his hope on Trump's behavior in Afghanistan, that Trump's inclination is to cut costs by ending American influence operations overseas. Trump's public relations activities have effectively minimized any popular notion that he was "weak" in dealing as he did with the Taliban. Trump could see the American people were mostly indifferent or weary of the US operation in Afghanistan. His supporters have sufficiently convinced the American public that Biden was responsible for anything bad about Afghanistan. But Trump can probably see that a similar public relations campaign to cover "weakness" on Ukraine will not be as easy, and I think that explains his new tentative approach and the end of claims he will have the war over in a day. That was campaign talk that got him elected. Trump's values will steer him toward doing what benefits him, Russian financing for his sons' development projects, and his idea of America, a place where he's the boss. I look to Trump to influence legislators away from foreign affairs and onto the perpetual cultivation of working-class grievances in a manner that in effect serves their employers. Putin is counting on it in the long run.
Mr. Barros really didn't touch on how this war is also wearing down Ukraine, another trend that contributes to Putin's persistence. The most recent Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory is politically smart in that it shows Trump that Ukraine might have the fight to keep going for months, but unlike Russia, Ukraine has seen the loss of significant numbers of its finest citizens who have stepped forward to defend their way of life. It's Ukraine's turn to see foreign troops come to its assistance to tilt the battle against Putin and help him realize it's time to compromise rather than hold out for everything he wants. The other vital measure the West must take is significantly hampering any further Russian shipping of its oil. Ukraine's shutting down natural gas transit is a pretty strong whiff of how such a strategy could accelerate negotiations toward a better settlement for Ukraine. France has stepped forward somewhat, and I suspect it is working with the front-line states on a plan to put Putin into local retreats that don't allow Putin to continue his current bargaining position. France needs to do this while Ukraine is enjoying the recent delivery of American weaponry. Putin is counting on European hesitancy to result in the depletion of that weaponry coupled with Trump's withdrawal to America first. Europe needs to act in the next few months because circumstances will probably be optimal sooner rather than later.
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@premitive1 It is a conclusion that even Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has appeared to confirm, saying in 2008—after the Trump Organization was prospering again—that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”
“And this is what he (Eric Trump) said. He said, ‘Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’ I said, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.’” -- The Hill
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@legaleeblonde4310 Everybody is biased. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Only God can be objective, anyone else who claims objectivity is a "know it all." That doesn't mean I stop debating.
Why was there no uproar when thousands of Ukrainians entered the United States? I hosted a Ukrainian family that came over the southern border. Nice people. Good parents. Well behaved kids. Visited our church more than once. I have a friend from Honduras, hardworking in a profitable business. Smart. Do we have to weed out the spies and criminals? Yes, that's been an ongoing task for decades.
Why were there, twice, recently and long ago, Spanish speaking young men putting a new roof on my house, a process plainly visible to aerial surveillance, but no official came by to deport them and fine, much less prosecute, the citizen contractor who hired them? Tell me Republican businessmen do not like cheap labor. We have had that southern border for over a century to work on. Ukraine didn't start fighting for its life until 2014. Time is of the essence for Ukraine. We have decades ahead of us to scale up control of our borders. Take a look at the history of staffing of the Border Patrol. Looks like it plateaued. I hear they have a recruiting problem. Know anything about that?
Yes, both Republicans and Democrats have been in a race to see which party could use up America's credit for its own policies since Reagan cut taxes and raised defense spending at the same time. There was that blip when Gingrich and Clinton balanced the budget, but then W fixed that with another tax cut and more defense spending. You are right and wrong, because the only way out of a looming debt crisis is Ronnie Reagan's way out, grow the economy. Part of how you do that is grow the population with energetic young people from abroad. They made quick work of my roof. I say the crisis at the border is manufactured for political purposes, and the purpose of politics these days is who gets the government's borrowed money.
Dig for better premises for your short arguments if you want to be persuasive. Or just be a venting YouTube commenter. It's a free country.
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Russian social engineering has a way of manufacturing self-determination.
The conduct of the US and UK is explained by the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Ukraine. As you probably know that Memorandum recognized the tension that would be created by nuclear arsenals in both Russia and Ukraine and deferred to the benefit of Russia. In exchange, Russia recognized the sovereignty of Ukraine.
You fail to mention the underlying motivations of the Russian leadership. Russia should be very concerned about the rise of the economic and military power of China. This concern expresses itself in hyperbolic assertions of friendship between the two nations. Neither Russian nor Chinese leadership is naive. They are imperial powers with their own agendas. The US/NATO is a convenient common enemy.
Russia needs to improve its imperial power through the acquisition of Ukrainian territory and population. Therefore it has set aside the Budapest Memorandum. From an imperial perspective, Russian behavior is understandable. Russian pretexts are seen as just that. The pretexts are very necessary because openly voicing concerns about China would be worse. But the contest between the two empires is obvious to any strategic observer.
The West, with its own I would dare say more progressive imperial methods, would like to invest in and trade with Ukraine, and not necessarily to the point of leaving Russia out of trade with Ukraine. After all, Russia has had trade relationships with EU nations. But Russia needs a more exclusive control of Ukraine to advance its acquisition of power. For what it has done to Ukraine, Russia can only establish Ukraine's compliance through a highly oppressive occupation. That does not optimize productivity.
All this avoids the agency of the Ukrainian people themselves, which has been demonstrated by 10 years of sacrifice for the sake of their autonomy.
Neutrality without alliance would be absurd for Ukraine. The neutrality of Ukraine would preserve Russia's opportunity for further annexations. The compromise would be an alliance of nations bordering Russia with other willing partners less susceptible to being turned like Hungary and Türkiye. Such an alliance could sustain deterrence of further Russian encroachment, while technically and in terms of total deterrent power be "non-NATO". It is likely the US would be a willing partner. A key aspect of NATO are the nuclear forces of France, the UK, and the US. Russia needs to consider that if it opposes nuclear armed powers in the alliance, then an incentive for indigenous nuclear arsenals would be created. Germany would be fully capable, especially in alliance with technically capable nations such as Sweden and Finland.
The Korean War and its eventual armistice does not perfectly model the war in Ukraine, but it does illustrate an outcome in which the warfighting abilities of both sides reach a nadir at which a significant reduction of hostilities finally makes sense to both sides. There were potential nuclear war aspects to that conflict as well. It is possible that nuclear brinkmanship could bring about a settlement, although Russia has tried this early and often and only seems willing to go just so far with it.
Russia under Putin has lost the possibility of a modern economic and military alliance that might have effectively addressed Russia's unadmitted security concerns about China. Putin has rejected the Western imperial model in favor of his own. I propose his model is not entirely successful.
The world becomes more aware of the techniques of Russian propaganda the more it is subjected to Russian propaganda.
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@donalexey My understanding is that Crimeans, like other island peoples, develop a loyalty to their island culture and would prefer autonomy from the adjacent mainland powers. In many cases, such as Taiwan, they can only obtain a measure of this autonomy by aligning with a larger power. In Japan's case, the island nation is actually powerful enough to secure its sovereignty. Crimea is not well situated for this kind of autonomy. It does not have a large population and the adjacent powers can too easily build bridges to it and control it. The powers move in and manufacture the consent of the islanders. This same geographic vulnerability preceded Catherine's acquisition of Crimea in the 18th Century. The Ottomans and Tatars had a long run of control of the island. Looking at a map it is easy to see that Russia will always be in a strong position to control Crimea. That does not mean Crimeans, in their heart of hearts, prefer the steady stream of enforcers from Moscow. Provincial identities are common. Here in Florida, a sense of community arises out of common responses to the geography and to such events as hurricanes which bring out community spirit in recovery. The rest of the United States may have their differences with who Floridians elect to office, but Washington does not send enforcers to dismiss locally elected officials (our Governor Desantis has dismissed certain elected district attorneys, shame on him and I am free to say that) and hand pick new state legislators and then intimidate residents into expressing favorable opinions. Crimeans' charge that they were "neglected by Kyiv" is rather odd in the light of the foregoing explanation of island culture. They should be happy to be neglected by a federal power because that only increases their autonomy and freedom! I would think part of Crimea's appeal to tourists would be to get away from the negative aspects of Moscow or St. Pete for awhile. In Florida, we have the informal "Conch Republic" in the Florida Keys. It's not so much defiant as it is a celebration of getting away from the usual authorities for a break. As long as positive federal services provided align with taxes paid, the relationship between the federal and the provincial can be sustained. But that is more of an American perspective. Russian administration is funded more by resource sales than by taxes. Crimeans probably do not feel overtaxed. Russia is in Crimea for what now appear to be archaic naval reasons and to deny Ukraine resources it might have used in competition with Russia in the European market, i.e. offshore oil and gas. And Russian tourists should perhaps ask if they would prefer Crimean or Russian jurisdiction when they are on vacation. (Why would Russians tour in Turkiye so much? Is there a plan to annex Turkiye so Russian tourists will be more comfortable there?) The grievance that is likely to develop in Crimea is the same as that underlying the comments of these Russian residents, that is, they have no say when it comes to their sons and husbands and neighbors being conscripted into the Russian imperial project. They want the right of quiet enjoyment. They are not getting it with Russia's war on Ukraine.
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@woodchuck003 I think yours is the most comprehensive response to a post I have ever seen on YouTube. Good points. And they raise issues:
"So you believe the poor should give more money to people who are economically better off." It depends on the product or service the poor are demanding. "Give" is the wrong word. "Trade" is the right word. A car dealer typically makes above $44,000 a year. The car buyer may resent that, but they still want the car. The car dealer might discount a little, but they are not going to bend their price to set their own income at $44,000. Or are you saying they are obliged to do so as a sort of solidarity with their fellow human beings? Would a better ethical system set the compensation of all occupations at the same amount, regardless of hours worked and the knowledge, skill, risk, and ability required? There's a whiff in that of the kind of disincentives that led to the stagnation and failure of the Soviet economy, not that it ever was egalitarian. I propose that occupations merit different compensation for various reasons: time and difficulty to learn the occupation, hazards of the occupation (e.g., electrical linemen >$100,000/year, don't need a G.E.D., but some of them die every year), impact on public safety, and emotional intelligence. Good teaching requires significant emotional intelligence, and every student feels and knows that.
If the median income is $44,000, what is the median hours worked per year by such employees? Does anybody even know what that is? Some teachers make $44,000 a year on salary. How many hours did they work for that? Are there 40 hour / week jobs that make $44,000/year. Probably. Who has more free time during the year? Count the salaried teacher's extra hours and it might be more or less. Have you ever helped a teacher spouse grade papers till bedtime? I have. My line to her is "I quit your job." That's "I" personally, not "I would if I were you", and the time I put in helping her make sure kids get a good education. She's special ed. So this springs out of personal observation for me, and I know, and you are right, that some of my points are rather trite or low value, but they are personally experienced. I make much more money than my teacher wife, but in many ways her job, especially the emotional intelligence needed to lead each unique student well, is more difficult than mine.
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@roshanchachane142 No. The US decided opposing the Russia, China, and mostly Pakistan-backed Taliban was taking away resources from the defense of the Pacific Rim, support of NATO and Ukraine, and its need to pay for military modernization programs. There was also a sense that the Afghan conflict had gone far past a proportional NATO response to 9/11, and that anti-terrorism cannot mean stationing troops in every possible anti-American sanctuary country. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a strategic choice and, yes, also a whim of Trump's America First ideology. It did reveal that the Afghan military was too intertwined with NATO to stand on its own, but not intertwined enough for the US to know how fast it, the Afghan military, would retire from the field. The notion that the Taliban by themselves ejected NATO from Afghanistan is what Russia, China, and Pakistan want the world to believe. Kind of like saying the Afghan mujahedeen ejected the Soviet Union by themselves.
The "ragtag group of Talibanis" and their backers apparently did not have a plan to replace American and NATO economic support of Afghanistan. Is anyone going to hold hearings about that? Taliban posers need to go back to school and the farm and figure out how to expand and improve their irrigation under drought conditions, and provide safe access to their mineral resources, or they are going to be very stuck in poverty. They didn't seem to have any kind of a plan for climate change. They predominantly had a will to power to establish their idea of a religiously pure society.
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I like your thought process on behalf of the Russian people and the world situation in general, but I tend to believe the general's statements are based on considerable analysis of Russian leadership psychology. Putin is being presented with evidence of a weakened situation for himself, and the prospect of cutting his losses to rebuild his strength is being dangled in front of him. He is being told, "The longer you fight, the weaker you get, and we have hardly worked up a sweat." This is also a message to China with respect to Taiwan. Putin wants the flow of arms to stop so he can go back to winning. He should be starting to get the idea that the US is not going to blink on this because, if we do, China and others will get us to blink. Putin wants to see how much of the real estate he has recently seized can be kept, and, using nuclear saber rattling, see if he can get more, like all the way to the border of Moldova and Romania. He wants Odessa for its industrial capacities. I fear he's just going to get stuck in his own brain's tendencies and yell absurd orders at his army as they are reduced, like Hitler did. Delicate situation. Good comment. Gave it a like.
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You are right about empathy. Study psychopaths. They are often our leaders. No empathy, just calculation. Hard work and paying taxes are for little people.
With respect to Ukraine, see YouTube video "Russia's Catastrophic Oil and Gas Problem." The war in Ukraine is about money and Russia using its power to get more. Russia tries to dress that up in all sorts of ways which always to me fall short of a just rationale for killing people and turning cities into rubble. I would apply the same principle to China v. Taiwan. It's about the amazing amount of money 20 million Taiwanese can generate compared to the mainland. China tries to dress up a rationale for invading in all sorts of ways. China wants Taiwanese industry and its best people under its control. It wants the money that goes with that. The miscalculation is that they really do not understand how to set up a lawful society in which people can flourish at that level. (I am not saying the Chinese people on the mainland have not made progress, they have. Good for them.) That is limited, republican, elected government. How is it that the United States, a country of a mere 330 million people, can rival the economy of the world's most populous nation, China? How do we do that? Slavery in the past? Some. Academic, religious, and entrepreneurial freedom? More. The challenge is to get psychopathic leaders to look at this rather than themselves. They are always right, even when they are wrong, a self-defeating ideology that shipwrecks on the rocks of truth.
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@robkidd5214 The United States lost face in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union took it as a win. Barack Obama regrets Libya, another loss of face. When your policy is wrong, you deserve a loss of face. Saving face is existential for a psychopath, e.g. Donald Trump. But who has the courage and insanity to start WWIII, to so profoundly change the course of humanity, or even end it? This time, in present Ukraine, it is Russia's turn to lose face, because its policy is based on misbeliefs and is wrong. It's wrong because in the face of climate change Russia does not need Ukraine or anybody else's land. Oil and gas must recede as energy sources or humanity faces catastrophe. Russia has more than enough land and resources for 140 million people. Russian leadership is wrong about Russia's future. They did this to themselves, just as the US has been wrong in the past by conducting bad policy. Admitting wrong is part of becoming a mature human being. A world of 8 billion people needs to be led by mature human beings. The rest of us need to work very hard to bring that about. And right now, rubbing Russian leaderships' face in their error is exactly what the world needs to do to survive the real future it faces. Russian aggression is a threat to human survival. They need to STOP the war and start moving toward a better future for Russia.
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@robkidd5214 People who simply cannot lose face, e.g. Donald Trump, just keep telling themselves and everyone else that they won. Don't suggest that the proud and immature have no coping strategies. Russia, the world's largest nation by land area, with 6500 nuclear warheads, is not in a corner. That is their immature diplomatic narrative. Ukraine is in a corner, and is in a fight for its existence. The golden bridge to peace is the relatively undamaged Russian infrastructure compared to that of Ukraine. Jesus said, "The thief comes to rob and kill." That description fits the Russian army in Ukraine. What did Jesus teach the thieves he drove from the temple? Why didn't they just use their superior numbers to forcefully put him in his place? Did Jesus humiliate the thieves in the temple? Why did he keep teaching, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."? Ever find repentance a bit humiliating? The path of righteousness in this war is for the Russian Army to STOP, and return to Russia . . . while it still can. What will Putin tell Jesus after he starts a nuclear war? I suspect Putin finds Jesus useful, and believes that his own death is the end of his consciousness. Putin acts like he will not face God and consequences for his conduct after death, because he does not believe in life after death. Lots of people agree with him, don't they?
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@vrapnyc In the United States, the governing authority, unlike Caesar in the Roman Empire, is the Constitution of the United States. I don't know that Paul ever had the opportunity to vote for his political leaders, though, through the Greeks, democracy was known as an option. The church's existence in his time was seemingly precarious, and Paul perceived and proposed, in the verse you cite, essentially that the church, though able to assemble hundreds of people in a single gathering and beginning to demonstrate a strong level of organization and cooperation, was not a direct threat to the Roman Empire. I think "The Chosen" video series rightly includes a Roman intelligence officer in the cast of characters in order to portray a mixture of Roman curiosity and concern with the Christian way. The legitimacy of any official of the United States, is based upon We the People, who elect Congress, which has the power to impeach and remove officials. Is the verse telling us that God is at work in who people donate to and vote for? Does this mean that those who did not vote for the winner are sinners on this issue, having voted against the apparent will of God? I am in the American Solidarity Party because my conscience is most at rest in its platform and statement of principles. These principles, in the most general presentation, are pro-life, social justice, environmental justice, and peace. I voted for Peter Sonski for President. Would Paul advise me I sinned in doing so? Or would he say that my proper course of action going forward is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States?
Mr. Trump has framed his shooting survival as an endorsement from God. I think there is another way to frame that experience in John 5:14, "Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”
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@c431inf I might agree if we had a stand-alone economy. I can't think of a country that does. I'm old enough to have watched Ronald Reagan cut taxes, raise the defense budget and increase the national debt to put the Soviets (Putin's heritage) under enough stress to eventually lead to its breakup. We enjoyed a peace dividend after that, and Gingrich and Clinton actually balanced the federal budget. Don't believe me. Look it up for yourself. When kitchen table folks got nervous about what Reagan was doing, he pointed out the way to deal with government debt was to grow the economy. It worked.
We indeed face an economic death spiral, but going turtle as you suggest will not grow the economy and reduce the debt/GDP ratio. It will accelerate the economic death spiral. So will kicking American citizen contractor's cheap labor out of the country, like it or not. We are an international trading nation with a lot of formally or informally indentured labor, like pretty much every other major power. The Houthi's attacks way over in the Red Sea are raising shipping prices and thus our consumer prices. Should we pull the US Navy out of the Red Sea and tell the Egyptians and the Saudi's that our price inflation is their fault? I encourage you to study international trade and its security requirements. I encourage you to think about what Putin will do if he acquires additional power by taking Ukraine. Don't project your isolationism onto him. He thinks big. He's an imperialist who wants a bigger piece of the pie, and if he gets it, there is less for our economy, because he will not hesitate to shut other countries out of trading with Ukraine unless tribute is paid in some form. Watch the series "The Americans". They are here among us, talking on YouTube and planting their ideas in your brain.
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@c431inf Calling it bs is not persuasive, and Ukraine is not asking you to enlist in their army. Are you effectively saying you are OK with whatever happens to the Ukrainian people and sending them one 155mm artillery shell scheduled for disposal is too much?. Maybe there is a more modest level of aid you could support.
I've hosted two Ukrainian families in my home. They want to be a part of Europe. Russia acts like a mafia in their country. They do not want to live under Russian mind control (their words). Russian jurisdiction is so bad they would rather fight, kill, and die than live under it. America is imperial also. We lend public money to foreign countries so they can buy American corporation stuff. That's part of why we have the general prosperity we do. Yet I read Noam Chomsky, Noami Klein, Mearsheimer, Sachs, and other critics of American behavior. I watch their speeches and Amy Goodman's Democracy Now. And after taking in all that self-criticism, I still think Ukraine vs. Russia is a just war and Ukrainians make good friends in business and socially.
In the beginning, America sold cotton and tobacco to Europe and bought European manufactured goods and slaves from Africa. We have achieved oil and gas independence today, and that's good, but we have never been a standalone economy. We are interested in finding lithium everywhere to support more electrical batteries in a hybrid energy economy. The US Navy is classically fighting inflation in shipping costs in the Red Sea. Has America done stupid stuff? Yes. Is it always stupid? No.
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Australia, population 26 million. Land Area 3 million square miles. Taiwan, population 24 million. Land Area 12,500 square miles. Taiwan, lots of people used to living in a small space. Move wealth, technology, and people of Taiwan to Australia. Plenty of room. The new Australia becomes the world leader of solid state electronics, with a population of 50 million people. A new, very powerful Australia, better able to deter any further Chinese aggression. What if every month, half a million Taiwanese were in Australia for vacation? It would be a start on the evacuation. Nobody has to die in a war. Or does ethnocentrism make this idea impossible?
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Many interesting ideas. Check out the American Solidarity Party.
The writers of the American Constitution appear to have understood a number of things:
1. The morale of "The People" does matter when it comes to maintaining productivity and a military.
2. The morale of the elite minority must be guarded from the selfishness and generally, relatively poor judgment of "The People".
3. The system must favor the elite, because the elite lead the nation to greater power through invention and implementation, raising the general standard of living.
4. But the elite tend to monarchy and autocracy, which by their nature crush the morale of "The People". See North Korea, Russia, etc.
5. Therefore, a large majority of "The People", that is, their opinion gathering the approval of 3/4 of the State legislatures, can alter the system. Ultimately they can check and balance the system peacefully if they organize to do so. The American system is designed to strike a balance between the morale of the elite and the morale of "The People" and veer away from civil war.
It has always been the underlying tension in human society. The elite face the dilemma of being in the numerical minority, and thus dependent on the cooperation and morale of the masses. While not the nation of the world's largest population, the American nation has more billionaires by far than any other nation. America, by design, is the friend of ambition and achievement. When coupled with a fair deal for the people, the result is the world's most powerful nation. Every day, thousands line up to join the project. I don't think that's all bad as long as they come to be ambitious Americans.
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The United States cannot prevent killings within its own boundaries just because we have a large economy and security forces. In 2022 there were over 21,000 murders in the United States. There were over 42,000 traffic deaths in that same year. Thousands more died before their time in other acts of negligence, accidents, and medical conditions. Israelis and Gazans have their own justice project to carry out, and I don't know of anyone who is impressed with how they are doing at that. Maybe in some year in the 20th Century, before large numbers of immigrants arrived in Judea, there were good property records of who owned what. Do those still exist? Can we use UN records and other records to build the best possible picture of ownership? Have any courts gone back to that and settled via replacement land of the same value or cash? The wars changed the practical "eminent domain", although international law may not recognize any of that. The UN set up a set of eminent domains, but the situation went unstable very quickly. If somehow we settled all individual property issues, would we still have a conflict?
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@GreatPolishWingedHussars Thank you for expanding on what Russia considers provocations and for essentially describing more of your paradigm or perspective on international relations in Europe. I would like to present you with some other perspectives.
"But the Russians in Donbas and Crimea are no longer colonists, they are locals."
People in America, and in the Americas, are quite mobile. They try to go where they can have a better life, perhaps finding a new job in a different part of the country. Albert Einstein emigrated from Germany to America. Ethnocentric white Americans sometimes move long distances to certain communities or States like Idaho so they live in a place where they feel more comfortable. This kind of mobility and the many reasons for it is not strange to Americans.
Recently, thousands of Russians who disagreed with government policy left Russia. So why wouldn't some people in Luhansk or Donetsk move to Russia if Ukrainian policy does not suit them? I understand some people might have a very hard time moving, but then perhaps it is best if they adjust to Ukraine, just like people in Russia need to adjust to Russia, or leave if they just disagree too much with Russian policy, like Einstein did from Germany. Emigrating is more peaceful than war. Einstein had a pretty good life in America. Millions of people want to get in here with us. We are at 334 million and rising, even with all our difficulties.
How does Russia, with a larger population than any neighbor except China, and with 6500 nuclear warheads, get so easily "provoked"? On the surface, that appears as if Russia never thoroughly developed a strategic perspective based on its nuclear arsenal. On the surface, Russia holds to geopolitical concepts of its security architecture as if, for convenience, its arsenal does not exist, i.e. Putin's statements strongly imply that nothing less than the re-establishment of the western border of the Warsaw Pact or exclusive "sphere of influence" will secure Russia, and maybe not even then. I think Russia has thoroughly considered the opportunities created by its nuclear arsenal, and it is using that power to confidently annex manageable areas of territory on its periphery, like America did in its first two centuries, when it enjoyed military superiority over the native tribes who had lived here for thousands of years. Americans recognize imperialism when we see it, because we have practiced it. "Provocation" is a sort of diplomatic dress up of the human imperial impulse. In the case of Russia and Ukraine, the neighbors have decided to take up the cause of the underdog, the natives, against the imperial power.
I think American military statements about a "long war" are a signal to Russia that America is prepared to arm Ukraine, whatever is left of it, for a long time, just like it armed the mujahadeen. They are not saying that because the MIC told them to. What they are saying is a sort of diplomatic dress up of a strategy to exhaust both sides and reach a settlement as soon as possible. A genuine concern for human beings sometimes occurs in America, and I am not being sarcastic. That is a part of what attracts people to this country. Ukraine is getting tired of losing soldiers. That's humane, isn't it? Russia can only keep a lid on the forces that led to the withdrawal from Afghanistan for just so long, same as America. Those are forces that have ended wars. American policy seems designed to bring the sides to a convergence without undue escalation. Putin is going to feel he has won. His successor will face a more powerful NATO. I am prepared to hear that successor say that is a provocation, because Russian leadership looks stuck in its paradigm. Gorbachev was proof to them that the paradigm cannot be changed. The fate of Russia's imperialism is to forever chafe against its containment by allied neighbors. It's like the Russian journalists said, Russia is going the way of the North Korean model.
Both America and Russia have a MIC with their respective interests. I can imagine the full range of human perspectives in each, from love of country to love of just self and profit. Do you know that Americans are presented Eisenhower's statement you quoted very often? We are aware. It's a part of almost every student's education to see and hear it. I have no clue about any Russian leader warning the Russian people about the Russian MIC. Maybe you can help with that?
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@GreatPolishWingedHussars Ethnic Ukrainians in Russia must accept Russian jurisdiction. Ethnic Russians in Ukraine must accept Ukrainian jurisdiction. Do Ukrainians in Russia have a right to form majority enclaves in Russia near the Ukrainian border and hold referendums on changing jurisdiction? Russia would say that is ridiculous, no? Either ethnic group should have a reasonable opportunity to migrate if they disagree too much with the jurisdiction they are under, but jurisdictional borders should be respected by both sides. If Russia acts one-sidedly with its neighbors, it should expect, and indeed observes, that small bordering nations will form alliances with nuclear powers to offset Russian power. The reference to the Cuban missile crisis rhymes with but does not match the current situation. I am not aware of the US proposing to move missiles with nuclear warheads into Ukraine. Given the Russian military's persistent position in Ukraine, it is very doubtful to me that Russia ever perceived any serious military threat to Russian territory from Ukraine. Cases have been made that Russia in concerned with a cultural and ideological threat from Ukraine.
Soviet and Russian aircraft and naval vessels routinely pass near the 12 mile territorial limit of the United States. The US tracks them or escorts them. The term is "professionally". The US does not threaten nuclear war because Bear bombers are flying off the coast. It sends up an F-16 or two. The US does have a history of conflict with the Spanish Empire in the Americas, Mexico being the case on the border. The US Border Patrol and the Mexican Army communicate about issues. It cannot be called a friendly border, neither are the two nations at war. But there is tension over various trafficking and illegal immigration. The border between the US and Canada is peaceful. The US has not invaded Canada for its resources.
As I mentioned before, the armed forces of the United States have no shortage of projects for the US MIC. Few companies actually make the ammunition primarily needed by Ukraine. The great majority of MIC companies make parts for simple and sophisticated systems, or just maintaining existing military bases, depots and shipyards. I think most US MIC companies would actually argue they have better things to do to counter the expanding economic and military power of China. It's not all about Russia. It's not even mostly about Russia. And I think that is why the level of aid to Ukraine is calibrated to bring about exhaustion and convergence on a settlement.
The obvious geopolitical reason for the war is for Russia to increase its control of the European oil and gas market, especially the German market, ergo the Nordstrom pipelines. The Donbas is rich in natural gas, for which Europe has traditionally had a large appetite and a desire to have sources beside the North Sea. Crimea provides access to oil and gas in the Black Sea. Russia is second only to Saudi Arabia in oil production, and 1/3 of the Russian government budget is obtained through the sale of oil and gas. Any independent development of Ukrainian oil and gas was a threat, yes indeed, a provocation, to Russia's oil and gas market share. (Russia, which has oil development ability, has limited Venezuelan production to well below the 3 million bbls per day that country can produce and needs to produce for its own revenue, but that, too, would infringe on Russia's market share and prices.) This is the underlying reason for the war, not the US MIC. The US war in Iraq was, for all its reasons bad or worse, about having reliable access, not necessarily control, to some of the world's best oil resources found in that country. It was about taking the power of an oil embargo away from Saddam Hussein and his sons. The US presence in the Persian Gulf is about the oil. The war in Ukraine rhymes with all that history.
The most lucrative markets for oil and gas are also the markets that have the capacity to transition from being fossil fuel economies to nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro based resources generating electricity for as much replacement of fossil fuel applications as possible. The US is generally energy independent, although its buyers purchase Russian fossil fuels because Russia offers attractive pricing. The trend here is a steady increase in wind, solar, and geothermal power generation, and various forms of energy storage. Geothermal plant construction and drilling has also revealed deep underground lithium resources in the US. I think Russia understands all this, and they are seeking to maximize their fossil fuel revenue while they can. I don't hear much about Russia introducing electric cars or programs to reduce CO2 emissions. It is really no strategic concern to Mr. Putin and probably not a concern to his next two successors. China and India will buy what Europe and the Americas will not. So this makes much more sense to me as a reason for the war in Ukraine. Why? Because other empires, including the US, have waged war for oil and gas. And it's all bad behavior.
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As an American, and an employer of legals and mostly citizens, I feel we should not upset the economy. It is how we survive, and we are taking that too much for granted in this immigration matter. We should just garnish the wages of illegals enough to force them (and their employers) to face their decision with tougher consequences in view, i.e. less pay for a time. Some will come anyway because of a mix of ignorance, but also sometimes desperation for their family. I housed two Ukrainian families for a time because they preferred not to be blown up by a drone or cruise missile. I have a dear friend from Honduras who testifies to the validity of fears of gang threats and family well-being in that country and those nearby. There may be ways to vet out pure opportunists, but we should show respect to anyone seeking work. Once someone chooses the illegal route, their path to citizenship should be more expensive and take more time than the path of a legal immigrant. That is just fair, and I think they should be able to accept those consequences for the sake of their family. The garnishment needs to very calibrated, or it will stimulate black market effects or fewer people choosing the legal route, but that is where ICE comes in, and the revenue from garnishments can help pay for that enforcement and even portions of the border wall. (There, that's how we get "Mexico", i.e. foreigners to pay for the wall.) Another measure is to continue the development of "regional centers" in and near sending nations to inform candidates for immigration of US law and in some sense to be sanctuary cities outside of the United States. Here at these regional centers, candidates can obtain a better measure of immediate safety and be more thoroughly vetted before being safely transited to a secured job and housing in the United States. While perhaps being seen as a new colonialism, these regional centers may become themselves the destination of choice for those seeking a better life in their own country. Again, garnishments can help financially support these efforts, which I believe are more efficient than law enforcement overtime and C-17 air shows. Finally, on the subject of white supremacy, I do think the new Treasury Secretary and the National Chamber of Commerce will soon be quietly advising the President that we have a very limited supply of unemployed white people to backfill all these deportees' jobs, and that US economic optics could start to tilt south. As a showman, he understands it can be made to look like things are getting done without overdoing it.
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The higher the price of oil and gas, the faster the alternatives such as efficiency, storage, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, and even nuclear energy will be developed. I drive by solar farms that were not there two years ago. It is happening, and more than ever, it is market driven. And when rising tides and other effects of climate change affect more and more people, the progress will accelerate as they come to believe what the scientists have been telling them.
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@skhotzim_bacon "My tax dollars." In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
Just tell yourself your tax dollars are going to the programs you support and move on.
The conflict will not come to an end when those resources stop. How many Ukrainians are you ready to accept into your country? I have some in my home. They know Russians. They don't want Russian "mind control" (their words). They are hardworking, nice people. I would be fine with millions of them coming to my country, the US. Hope you're OK with that. You can learn about regular Russian people by watching 1420 on YouTube.
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@skhotzim_bacon Ah, you've added a variable besides manpower, industrial advantage. I dispute that Russian industry has more capacity than the industrial nations supporting Ukraine. I will use your manpower argument. Population of Ukraine, approximately 45 million. Population of Russia, 145 million. The combined population of nations supporting Ukraine is over 1.1 billion, composed of the United States (335 million), Great Britain (63 million) Canada (35 million), Norway (5 million), Finland (5 million), Sweden (10 million), Latvia (2 million), Estonia (1 million), Lithuania (3 million), Poland (38 million), Romania (19 million), Germany (83 million), France (68 million), Denmark (6 million), The Netherlands (17 million), Belgium (11 million), Spain (47 million), Italy (59 million), Greece (10 million), Turkiye (sometimes, like Bayraktar drones) (85 million), Japan (124 million), South Korea (51 million), Australia (25 million) . . . I'll stop there.
I find it unlikely that the industrial capacity of Russia and available to it from North Korea, China, and Iran, exceeds the industrial capacity of Ukraine and its supporters. Russia is leveraging its nuclear arsenal to influence these supporters to calibrate their aid to Ukraine. Calibrated aid is resulting in net recovery of Ukrainian territory at a pace that does not induce Russia into "insensate nuclear spasm" (Herman Kahn's ladder of escalation). China is not lending full support to Russia because it is too interlinked to European and other Western markets for its prosperity. It is also focused on preparations for its own military goals. I will concede that North Korea can provide very significant quantities of artillery ammunition to Russia, but that is somewhat offset by the capacity and arsenal of South Korea available to Ukraine.
Far from Russia having some plain and overwhelming advantage, the two sides are generally balanced in industrial capacity being applied to the war. This seems borne out by the current pace of the war. In terms of GDP of the two sides (including China), the West clearly has the advantage. It seems rational for the West to continue to provide force multiplying technologies to Ukraine that can improve the pace of recovering its jurisdiction.
The conquistadors rebut the argument that a simple manpower variable determines military outcomes. Force multiplying technology was relevant then and is still relevant now.
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@kaleido6551 The calibrated delivery of Western arms to Ukraine, rather than a full speed delivery, could be taken as an invitation to talks. But it is understandable that Russia will not set down its terms for a settlement until it has achieved its military goals. When it arrives at those goals, I expect Russia to ratchet up the nuclear threat and demand a cease fire. The response? Seems the West will not empower Ukraine to change facts on the ground, (although they talk this way to bolster Ukraine) but Russian forces in the field may be more exposed than usual at that goal achieving moment. They might dig in and just shell on. Ukraine might pick a favored spot to counter-attack with new long range artillery. Russia will further ratchet up the nuclear threat and make the Ukrainian counter-offensive as expensive for Ukraine as it can. That might bring things to a pause. I expect Russia will make some kind of demand for demilitarization of Ukraine as well. That will be a non-starter. The more Russia pounds Ukraine, the more NATO is going to strengthen its own defenses and strengthen Ukraine. Poland, what's left of Ukraine, the Baltics and somewhat Finland will be aided to create starker quality of life contrasts with Kaliningrad, Belarus, and even Russia itself. Russia will go very North Korean in the face of that kind of social, economic, and cultural influence campaign. The world oil and gas economy will shift and the transformation to renewable generation and use of electricity instead of fossil fuels will continue. China and India will probably continue as key Russian oil and gas customers. They will be less concerned about climate change and will make whatever adjustments to higher sea levels they have to. India will be pressured by both Russia and China to not drift toward the West. Germany will help develop the gas fields that remain under Ukrainian jurisdiction. The new borders may remind of the Berlin Wall and the Korean DMZ. Russian may have avoided full mobilization because the domestic economic damage may seriously weaken it, and it is ready to phase the conquest of Ukraine over a longer period of time. It will attempt to lull NATO over several years, tempting members with cheap oil and gas. Putin dies a victor before the next Ukrainian adventure.
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Russian strengths: industrial capacity, science and engineering, natural resources, literacy. Russian weaknesses: low empathy, alcoholism, low morale, corruption, fear.
Ukrainian strengths: friendships, love, health, vision, freedom to think and assemble. Ukrainian weaknesses: alcoholism, damaged infrastructure, trauma, grief.
These combine to make the Ukrainian military a conventional match for the Russian military, as evidenced by the generally static nature of the front and occasional recoveries of territory. I very deliberately point to these subjective matters, because predictions by numbers on paper have been disproven by this war.
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@the1onlynoob Well written, and I agree that Russia has the wherewithal to rebuild the portions of Ukraine it might retain. However, Russian missile strikes on the balance of Ukraine may eventually be reciprocated by Ukraine against infrastructure in annexed territory, nullifying some of the reconstruction. That might lead to a temporary agreement by both sides to stop doing that. You point out the West has its limits, and it does. Does Russia have limits? Have years of oil and gas sales given Russian thinkers a sense of almost infinite capacity? Given the changes in the world economy, does Russia need to update its forecasts for its economy? Sadly, I think the mentalities on both sides will never lead to peace in much of Ukraine. Russia will keep fighting and bombing as long as oil and gas revenues permit. Remember that low prices contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union. Adjustments to climate change, like renewable energy charging lithium batteries in all manner of equipment, do not work in favor of nations heavily invested in oil and gas exports. The West sees this Russian vulnerability and takes Russian inferences of infinite capacity as somewhat desperate. The result is both sides keep thinking they are going to win, because winning is very addictive, and the fighting goes on, and both Russian and Ukrainian demographics suffer the most. Both sides say, "We will see."
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@TheOne-ve7hs In the case of Venezuela, if it can pay, that country can get almost anything it needs from Russia or China, and it does have agriculture and commercial fishing. But Russia, having considerable oil production skills, has only modest interest in helping Venezuela repair its oil industry, because any Venezuelan petroleum export capability would put downward pressure on the price of oil and thus downward pressure on Russian oil revenue. And neither Russia nor China are in much of a position to be charitable. Looking forward, US and Russian oil producers see many forces acting to reduce demand for their product. It makes perfect sense for them not to restore a Venezuelan petroleum export capability. Venezuela needs to find new ways to make a living.
As in many countries, in Venezuela the classic pride of the accomplished stoked populism in the masses. And insolent populism chased Venezuelan skill right out of the country, leading to a significant loss of expertise and maintenance of the infrastructure and economy. Somehow the populists cannot get enough people interested in learning petroleum engineering and all the related engineering it takes to be a reasonably self-sufficient oil exporting nation. Perhaps it is another lesson in human limits of tolerance for income inequality.
In the US, the people can and do have a lively public debate on social justice and make enough progress on it to keep its constitution. In other countries, one needs to be careful what one thinks.
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None of this killing had to happen. And here you are on your computer soothing yourself as your soldiers go on killing and dying. Where is Russian Orthodoxy? There seems to be no fear of God. This is something Putin chose to do, as if bemused at "God". And now, given his nature, he cannot stop, because he cannot, must not be seen as a loser, while thousands lose their lives. And so come the proclamations of modest success, of Russian innocence and victimhood. No acknowledgment of imperfection or mistakes. No confession of sin. No repentance. No humility. In their own minds, they have done nothing wrong . . . no wonder people leave if they can. No wonder they have to give out awards to mothers for bearing large numbers of children. The leadership's philosophy is "victory after victory" as it crushes the human spirit. None of this killing had to happen, but Russia says again and again, it is the smaller, weaker nation's fault. Sick.
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Florida has done well on COVID compared to most other States because we have the highest average age of persons and the wisdom that goes with that. Vulnerable elders and the acutely compliant understand there will always be incorrigible people who will refuse to do the right thing, be it wash their hands, stay home when sick, wear a mask inside assembly spaces, observe social distance, or get a vaccination if their doctor says it is safe to do so. Of course don't get the shot if your doctor tells you not to get it.
But this speech is an indication that the eradication of polio and small pox and tuberculosis has been so thorough in the United States that no one has any memory of what a blessing the polio and small pox and tuberculosis vaccines were and are. I had an aunt who spent her life in a wheelchair after getting polio. The guy who helped me start my business died of COVID. Now we have a culture of politicians and their supporters who do not understand public health nor really care. We, of all nations, with an abundance of vaccines and economic power, had a chance to snuff out or very significantly suppress COVID and get this disruption over with and our lives in a better place. Others seem to have found a new cause for disrupting the nation and dragging this ordeal out for political gain. If you can, get the shot, keep up on the other virus countermeasures, and let's get this over with.
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Trump was handed a chance to be a strong man on Ukraine in this debate, accuse Biden and Jake Sullivan et al of being weak, and say he would increase arms shipments and other aid to Ukraine, even NATO air support, to quickly bring the war to an end. Instead, he said nothing about his methods. He would likely do exactly what Putin wants, stop aid to Ukraine and pull the US out of NATO. Russia for years has provided credit to Trump's business because his sons have said so. The rest of NATO and Ukraine would probably stay in the war to do the best they could, seeing that the Russian military has been degraded. Sweden already having seen the weak level of F-16 support, has started setting conditions for Ukraine to have their Gripen fighter, which is probably the best plane for the job after the F-35. It would be free of US restrictions on use of the F-16. Trump and Putin would see an expanded European nuclear arsenal and all the heightened tension that would go with that. Avoiding that tension is part of why the US promoted NATO in the first place. Poland, Ukraine, Finland and others would need to seriously consider nuclear arsenals of their own if the US nuclear umbrella is withdrawn. He doesn't look very far down the road his policies would take him. He just expressed an impatient wish to end things.
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Much of the cream of Ukrainian men with a warrior ethos has fought and died honorably. They still have a good army, and they may not have peaked yet as a good army, but the overall fighting spirit may have peaked. The strategic error, in retrospect, was training and equipping the Ukrainian army to conduct a potent insurgency in a sort of Mujahadeen manner, rather than training and equipping it with significant air power, air defense, armor, and artillery before February 2022. Obviously those preparations take years. Now they are happening, but they are restrained by a mandate from the Western elite -- there shall be no tangling with Putin that could plausibly lead to the use of nuclear weapons. Go back to SECDEF Austin's comment about weakening Russia early in 2022. He alludes to this mandate from the elite. American policy is to weaken Russia to the point of achievable negotiation. While American policy includes the survival of some kind of Ukraine, it does not include Ukraine's definition of victory when it comes to territorial recovery. That's the disconnect between Ukraine and the United States. The calibrated nature of American aid is quite intentional.
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Would the Proud Boys be willing to offer AOC a security services agreement? I know they're a bit tied up right now, but still, it could blow some minds if they offered.
Next topic, I am ethnocentric, and so are you. It's a finding of anthropology applying to all peoples. We're all more comfortable with the way we were brought up. Some of us are better at adjusting to other cultures than others. It often has to do with how financially and otherwise secure we are. But sometimes you might call multi-cultural tolerance a spiritual gift, a result of an inner transformation of the mind. God shows no partiality.
But that's not where everyone is at. This piece just kind of glosses over the Antebellum South, the Civil War, the Klan, Woodrow Wilson, the segregated military and professional sports until the late forties, redlined zoning, and the list goes on but not in this lady's book. Some people do not want to adjust to other cultures. They want others to adjust to them. And I am saying that is an innate characteristic of human beings, a finding of anthropology, and that it takes a deliberate effort to adjust to a multi-cultural environment for the long run. It's easy to have a honeymoon with a new culture. Then you see things about it you don't like. Then you choose to adjust to it or not. Then you choose to accept it to some degree or not.
Totalitarianism is when elections are considered pointless and abandoned. I don't think that is the way the American left is going. I think that is where the American right is going, but is defensively projecting their own sentiment onto the left. When AOC loses, will she say she really won, whatever the election officials say?
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I think what is being missed here is that the West is not providing the Russian public much cause to become militant and thus help Putin succeed in his program. Even Russian military targets can involve the death of family members and the ripple effects that go with that. On the flip side, Putin has to take care not to provoke the European and American public with obvious violence in their own countries that could rally a response on a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 scale. No doubt he has elements in his own regime that are not impressed with that kind of restraint. The Russian public could become militant this winter if Ukraine were to unleash what it has become more capable of doing, that is, a strong strike on the Russian electric grid at the coldest possible time. This could create the kind of death and calamity, essentially a large-scale apartment bombing, that Putin likes to think will fill the ranks with energy and dramatically advance his program and legacy. The Western program is the slow and steady weakening of the Russian military, and, to the extent possible, the FSB. It also is to put Russia in a position of being little help in a Chinese seizure of Taiwan. Jake is right to propose to European governments that the time to show Russia that this can go on and on to Russia's detriment is near. If Trump is of no assistance (and Trump and his MAGA world would be very pleased to see Europe fend for itself) then Europe will be facing a decisive moment. If the process of weakening Russia is reversed, they stand to lose their prime opportunity to salvage Ukraine and its great people and resources for Europe unless they act to continue the steady decline of the Russian regime. I don't think the answer on the next American administration is obtained quickly. It is very much in Russia's interest to destabilize the United States through covertly contracting American useful idiots. Russia was doing that in Ukraine and has done it in other European nations like Hungary and Georgia. Americans may very well experience something far more chaotic than the short disruption of January 6th if Trump does not win. If Trump does win, the Russians will be able to be more subtle and systematic in turning enough Americans toward Russian interests. The Russian military may be under a lot of stress, but I'm afraid the FSB is quite intact and ready to do the job.
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In the mind of the extremist, the jihad against the United States will never end as long as there is a United States, and for that matter, anyone who does not submit to them. Now the Taliban might argue with other extremists that they have done their share for a time and deserve a chance to bring Afghanistan up to, say, a more Pakistani or Iranian standard of living. First off there is all this equipment left behind to be sold on the black arms market. Not of all it is in Taliban control yet, and some of it will still get shot at them. But the Taliban arsenal and treasury is looking up. Who knows, they may find out there is just so much of Afghanistan that they can administer well. The Afghan Army strategy might very well be to retreat to a defensible position the Taliban would find too expensive to assault. The Taliban are getting spread out and there is less American money bleeding into their system to help them. The Afghan Army is shedding its dead weight and assessing its true believers, its primary ethnicity, and what they can accomplish. It might be more than zero.
Strategically the neighborhood, Iran, Russia, the northern Xistans, China, Pakistan, and India, are left wondering what in terms of resources they can get out of Afghanistan vs. what they have to put in. The United States gets to turn its money faucet way down, and it needs to to bring its budget deficits under control, and free up experienced forces to deter China in the Pacific. This is a strategic adjustment that is considering what is ahead of us.
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@ValFlr You are entitled to your narrative. Enjoy the free press. I have Ukrainian friends. They speak Russian. There is more to it than what you say. Has not Putin also said Ukraine is not a real nation? People in countries have grievances against their government. That is, as many autocracies are fond to claim, an internal affair not to be aggravated by foreign agents. There are mitigations of internal affairs short of being annexed by a neighbor. The Russian killing of Ukrainians is now out of all proportion to the allegation of 13,000 casualties inflicted by who knows. Feel what you will, I find the narrative a pretext for the continuing imperial conduct of Russia. Indeed, in the Budapest Memorandum, Russia offered to respect the Ukrainian borders. Russia has chosen acquisition over reputation.
You are wrong on the matter of Ukrainian custody of Soviet nuclear weapons. The United States had and maintains the capability to rework nuclear weapons into new devices that would have been accessible and useful to Ukraine. The US and Ukraine chose a more peaceful and considerate route. Once again, Russia chooses acquisition over reputation.
The matter of the Russian language is not valid because my Russian speaking Ukrainian friends have no interest in being brought under Russian jurisdiction. I have listened to many Russians who speak English. However, the fact that they do does not justify English-speaking nations coming to their rescue from a regime more repressive than you paint Ukraine. I'll cite the Gulag and the Holodomor, and the undue killing of Ukrainian civilians in the current war as my premises.
The original polls of Ukrainian sentiment on jurisdiction showed Crimea to have the largest minority percentage in favor of Russian jurisdiction. But it was a minority. The most aggrieved Ukrainians have had ample time to migrate to their perception of a better life under Russian jurisdiction. I think they will be given another chance to make the move. Their costs of relocation could be a matter of negotiation. Note the latest Armenian migration.
I doubt we persuade each other, sir. Russian culpability for hundreds of thousands of deaths is too clear. Russia should cease fire and retreat to its internationally recognized border.
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Anything left of Ukraine is likely to become more militarized if it is not a part of NATO, and Russia should consider that. European NATO countries have generally underspent on defense because they have NATO. I thought Russia wanted Ukraine less militarized. Given Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a Ukrainian arms buildup is just common sense going forward. Left out of the commentary here has been Ukrainian public opinion. I'm not aware a majority of the Ukrainian people were ready to take the deal in April 2022, but Ukrainian agency is often underrated. My Ukrainian friend told me, "We don't want Russian mind control." Boris Johnson represented a struggling British economy and here comes Zelensky, not joyfully announcing he has a deal with Putin, but representing a people ready to fight for their country (and obviously a lot of them have). It's a Russian rhetorical twist (which they are experts at, obviously) to characterize that exchange as British imperialism rather than a courageous statement of support for justice amidst stress. Zelensky did not want the deal, but he knew he needed Western support going forward and he had to ask for it and get it or he would need to take that deal, bad as it was. And why would Ukraine have any confidence in an impotent UN security guarantee or even a US security guarantee given the fickleness of the American voters as a whole, Trump or no Trump? The nations Ukraine would sensibly turn to for alliance would be such as Poland, the Baltics, and Finland. They all have a large stake in this fight. And fortunately for Ukraine, the nations to the west also show some support and would probably be open to forming a new alliance that has agency without dependence on the US or other European nations who have swung to the Russian side.
The forfeiture of decent values here is appalling. The submission to Russian depravity is appalling. It should cost Russia something in any deal. If territorial concessions are needed to end the war, Russia should not be at all surprised that it will face a more united and militarized set of nations on its border and even a more united and militarized Europe that is SUPERIOR to Russia in the practical (non-nuclear) metrics Russia leans on to assert Ukrainian defense is futile. The US may lift its sanctions, but Europe is unlikely to return to the level of economic empowerment of Russia it was making before. Europe is going to continue to move away from fossil fuels, not only to mitigate climate change, but to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas. That Russia is shifting its business plan to market minerals it has seized by murderous force in Ukraine all the more reveals its depravity. Russia will have to look elsewhere to build the strength it needs to deter China from reclaiming historically Chinese lands.
Russia knows if Europe leans into this conflict more than it has then it knows its prospects are not good. Small victories on the battlefield are no substitute for a healthy economy, decent morale in the population, and friendly relations with a wide range of trading partners. The loss of Russia's client in Syria, the collapse of Cuban electrical service, and the unwillingness of China (the unlimited friend) to assist Russia in a quick occupation of the entirety of Ukraine shed doubt on the notion that Russia is winning strategically. What the narrative reveals is the Russian leadership's need to believe it is winning, something the West has used to weaken Russia strategically. The Soviets had a similar narrative of innocence, infallibility, and infinite resources. It was a paradigm that led to self-defeat. Putin is behaving like a Soviet in that sense.
Would Professor Sachs say he is thoroughly aware of how Russia influences people, and that he has immunized himself?
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Not so. My county, St. Lucie, Florida has a Housing Authority that is always working on it, because the homeless come and go and vary in background and social skills. Some homeless people could take up your whole day, day after day. Others just need some stability and a job and affordable circumstances. As far as Israel, point out how they have drifted from the Torah when it comes to vengeance. Deuteronomy 19:21. "Show no pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot". Harsh as that verse may seem, it recognizes that the greater good requires a limit on vengeance. Yes, Israel has gone beyond the teaching of Torah in Gaza. The history of their prophets includes protests against excessiveness.
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As an American and an electrical engineer, I support Ukraine in its war against Russia. I have Ukrainian guests in my home. But on the subject of Ukraine's electrical system, I must point out that this is not a new tactic on Russia's part. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, which was wrong on Iraq's part, the following happened: More than 90 percent of Iraq’s electrical capacity was bombed out of service in the first hours of the “Gulf war”[17]. This comprised the country’s 11 major electrical power stations and 119 substations[18]. Existing generating capacity of 9,000 MW in December 1990 was reduced to only 340 MW by March 1991[19]. The United States apparently had designed a special weapon specifically to shut down Iraq’s electric power[20]. US Air Force officers acknowledged that targeting Iraq’s infrastructure (including the electrical power system) was related to an effort “to accelerate the effect of the sanctions”, that is to “degrade the will” of the civilian population and encourage it to overthrow Saddam Hussein[21]. Col. John A. Warden III, the deputy director of strategy, doctrine and plans for the U.S. Air Force, explained the rationale for targeting Iraq’s electricity system to Barton Gellman of the Washington Post: Saddam Hussein cannot restore his own electricity. He needs help. If there are political objectives that the UN coalition has, it can say, “Saddam, when you agree to do these things, we will allow people to come in and fix your electricity.” It gives us long-term leverage[22]. (emphasis added)
Military analysts contacted by Gellman estimated that it would take about a year to repair destroyed transformers or switching yards – with Western assistance – but that repairing main generator halls bombed by the United States would take five years[23].
Pentagon officials, contacted by Gellman, declined to offer written explanations on the specific military relevance of 28 electrical targets. A planning officer contacted by Gellman said
People say, “You didn’t recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage”. Well, what were we trying to do with[the] sanctions - help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effects of the sanctions[24].
Lt. Gen. Charles A. Horner, who had overall command of the air campaign, tried to downplay the injurious intent of destroying the electrical infrastructure by explaining to Gellman that the “side benefit”[of destroying the infrastructure] was ”the psychological effect on ordinary Iraqi citizens of having their lights go out.”[25].
So what Russia is doing is not new. I don't like it. I hope Ukraine's allies are rapidly providing replacement parts and even linemen and substation technicians to help restore power. I hope we have been providing diesel fuel and containerized, distribution voltage rated, diesel standby generators to Ukraine all this time to rapidly restore partial power to key surviving infrastructure and complicate Russia's targeting of electrical service. If we are going to call this a war crime, then I hope we have done what we could do for the Iraqi people to restore their infrastructure. We should be looking to seized Russian assets to help Ukraine.
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Russia Chat Room.
T: Vlad, Vlad, what do you need from me to get to peace? I just want peace.
P: Donald, you know how much I respect you. Wait until you come to the Victory Day parade as our honored guest. Wait until you see and experience the accommodations we have prepared for you (smile). There are so many people who want to meet you at the many events we have planned for you, again, as our honored guest. We'll talk then.
T: Vlad that sounds fantastic!
P: And Donald, you are doing a fantastic job. You are going to stand out in history. Da svidania for now my great friend.
T: God bless you, sir. I believe you, sir.
Excerpt from J.R. Smith's "Trump's Narcissistic Submission to Putin", Blackwellian Publishing, 2063. Fiction.
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My professor of Western history at U of SC - Shaw AFB was from Egypt. He gave very good lectures, and we liked him. I figured he was a part of the diplomatic good will efforts between the US and Saudi Arabia at the time, together fending off the Soviet atheists. He let us know he was also a mullah, or Islamic teacher, and he spent part of a class session going over the basics of Islam, which was fine, because the West has been interacting with Islam for centuries. We felt quite free to ask questions, and he was forthcoming in answering them. Friendly guy. However, we students, who almost all were members of the USAF and had taken an oath to defend the US Constitution, got very quiet when the professor said that one of the basics of Islam is that there is no separation of Islam (or church) and the state. I saw that as a fundamental incompatibility between the US and Islam. Being something of missionary myself, I could easily imagine the duty of any earnest Muslim to be the transition of all governments in the world to Islamic Republics, culminating in a world caliphate. In their minds this is the will of Allah, God, and Islam could be explained to people until it could be essentially imposed on them.
I am not of the view that having a Muslim upbringing is an immediate disqualification for immigration to the United States. We are the beneficiaries of excellent physicians and other professionals who have had such an upbringing. They strike me as quite moderate in their views and prefer life in the US but do speak of looking forward to visiting family back in the home country. But I do have to wonder why sending nations are not more introspective about why some of their best people choose to leave. There is a thing known as the Protestant work ethic, that I think even atheists have to acknowledge has something to do with generating prosperous societies that attract people from all over the world. So, I think it best for the world, that these societies reasonably preserve their distinctions and their prosperity while holding out to anyone who will listen, the values that bring about that prosperity for application in what are now sending nations.
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@djordjelezajic8435 Russia has a large corps of diplomats and spies all over the world. Russia has been involved in Cuba, Africa, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, and Vietnam. It is a world oil market player, and therefore has the money to develop interests anywhere it sees fit. Russia is not an isolationist country, it is an empire, and acts like an empire, not a victim. The difference between Russian leadership and Western leadership is the difference between psychopathy and empathy, although the West certainly has its psychopaths. Psychopathic leadership is smart with a "strength" and victory paradigm but is less emotionally intelligent because the empathic area of the psychopathic brain is less active than neurotypical brains. It has, as you infer, a craving for respect and understanding that is rarely, if ever, satisfied. This leads to choices that demoralize the generally larger, neurotypical "weak" population under their control. There is less productivity and more corruption. "They pretended to pay us. We pretended to work." Dissent is imprisoned rather than redirected into improvement, unless military equipment manufacturing is involved, and even then, one must walk on eggshells. Vodka eases the pain, but shortens lives. My Ukrainian friends gave me a couple of books to help understand the situation a bit better, Svetlana Alexievich's "Second-Hand Time" and Anne Applebaum's "Red Famine". These books are available in Western public libraries. I suspect they are not available in Russian public libraries. After reading them, I better understood my Ukrainian friends disinterest in what they termed "Russian mind control". And some of us see what Russia is trying to do in social media posts. They try to create a sense of fatalism in the outside world, just as they create it in their own populations. It may create the thrill of victory for a few, but it is self-defeating, e.g., the Soviet Union. I am not de-mobilized, obviously.
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@theallseeingeye9388 The fact that Germany is in NATO did not prevent Germany from purchasing Russian oil and gas for billions of euros every year. Let that sink in. Why would Ukraine in NATO necessarily mean that Russia would not have had access to Ukrainian markets? The obvious reason for Russian opposition to NATO is that NATO limits Russian control of markets and resources in adjacent nations. That is, they cannot over time be brought under a greater degree of Russian influence, control, or ultimately jurisdiction. The security of any small nation bordering Russia without being in a sufficient security alliance is, demonstrably via the war in Ukraine, precarious, whatever has been said on paper. It is a chronic feature of comments in support of Russia that they evade Russian responsibility for anything. Neurotypical human beings see this to varying degrees as a failure of the Russian psyche. To quote the text held dear by the Russian Orthodox Church, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Christians are, or should be, honest about their mistakes. America has made plenty of mistakes (U-2, Bay of Pigs, Zaire, My Lai, derivatives, OIF, too many years in Afghanistan, etc.). But the success of our economy, our space and military technology, and our culture indicates that we sometimes learn from our mistakes. The Russian psyche seems so terrified of the shame of error that they do anything to evade dealing honestly with error and honestly with other nations. That is a nation that is very uncomfortable to live next to, a nation led by the "perfect" wielding nuclear weapons and a clear willingness to callously spend the lives of its lesser residents. Any sane person is going to seek help protecting themselves from such a mentality. And Russians can keep proving that point by continuing to assert Russian innocence, Russian infallibility, Russian expansion, and Russian infinite capability. The Western ideal is the conversation, and here we are on YouTube.
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Islam is an imperial and autocratic religion. Any challenge to the ideology of the empire, such as Judaism, Christianity, atheism, etc., is a threat to the empire. Judaism, older than Islam, has survived for thousands of years and remains a potent ideology. It hopefully raises different and better leadership than other cultures, and thus creates a happier and more successful life for its citizens. Rather than persecute Judaism, it might be better for the world to study it and emulate its best aspects.
It is disappointing to see Israeli leadership become more autocratic, the fundamental metric being we in the US see transfers of power in our own nation while the same person from Israel shows up to speak to Congress. On the other hand, the multi-party nature of Israeli politics better represents the spectrum of political thought. And on that note, I invite pro-life US citizens to examine the American Solidarity Party.
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@jacquesstrapp3219 It's the government working on this problem with the criminal justice perspective. There are three basic types of people: 1) acute conformists, they have already gotten vaccinated; 2) deterrable offenders, they are getting vaccinated to keep their job; and 3) incorrigible offenders, they will never get vaccinated. In the end, if 70% to 80% of the population gets vaccinated, that gets us to herd immunity, that is, a case load the health care system can treat sustainably. Like the flu, people will die of COVID every year from now on, mostly the elderly. That will put upward pressure on health care costs. The government, like law enforcement officers, understands people in this basic framework. They are not surprised.
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I see many valid comments about A-10 vulnerability to AD. I would never expect A-10s to be used by themselves in Ukraine until the relevant AD in the area had been reduced to mostly MANPADS for a window of time. The enemy is not always on his toes and ready with a MANPAD in the right place. It is a given that advancing infantry can achieve an objective but will experience casualties as they do. A-10s in Ukraine would get shot down, but some of them would deliver heavier missiles and bombs than 100lb 155mm shells. They would be used as part of package to create a breakthrough, and for that, if they can contribute meaningfully to that breakthrough, losing a squadron of them in the process is still worthwhile. Think of the Army Air Force casualties in WWII. It's sad. It could have been done better, but there was a sense that the sacrifice was worth it. One such mission with A-10s in Ukraine would face the Russians with the task of either suffering another breakthrough or trying to hunt down dispersed A-10s. The Russians would have fewer missiles for residential apartment buildings and other civilian targets. That, too, has value. These jets are headed for Davis-Monthan, probably until they are totally scrapped or put in a museum. If there is nothing else available in the short run for Ukraine, then I think there is an argument for having the A-10 go down fighting. Remember VT-8, Battle of Midway. Ukraine has already experienced this measure of loss. They have weakened the Russian defense. They need to get through it.
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There are a lot of major problems going on within Russia right now. I don't recall Putin listing US economic collapse as a war objective. I recall pretext about Nazis, demilitarizing Ukraine, NATO "expansion" (liberty from Russia), and rescuing supposedly oppressed Russian speakers in the Donbas. Whatever its particular set of problems, the US and the West's population and their economies outweigh that of Russia, yet Russia presents itself as essentially infinitely resourced and infinitely capable. That is delusion and hubris. What Russia has, next to China, is the world's most potent system for domestic control, which gives the leadership of the regime an outsized sense of power. At the same time, that domestic control does not create a large mass of motivated soldiers. The regime obviously sees the common soldier as expendable. This lack of empathy and undue sense of power has led Russian leadership to a large-scale confrontation with its own limits, right up to waving its nuclear cards. Limits and loss are something very uncomfortable for the regime's psyche. In the West, loss more often leads to evaluation, correction, and returning to compete again. What Russia does is look at the speck that is in someone else's eye, and not at the plank that is in it's own. It is a form of avoidance behavior. "Everything is going according to plan and will be fine." Delusion and hubris. The US government, in consultation with the people of the US, and of course its special interests, are in a continuous and often contentious dialogue of self-improvement. In Russia, people have to be very careful about complaining about the government's plans. The Russian regime is driving people out of their country and essentially committing the genocide of tens of thousands of Russian speakers, be they Russian or Ukrainian Russian speakers, for the sake of the leadership's vanity. Millions of foreigners are trying to get INTO the US. Why? Usually, to make more money, because it is here to be made. The Russian population is far less than it should be because of the practices of the Soviet and Russian regimes, and the trend does not look good for Russia at all. But no worries, China, with its own problems, yet with its huge population and economy, will help manage things in the Russia of the future. That's something even Putin is scared to talk about.
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@starchild692 Soviet concern with American nuclear missiles in Turkey was as valid as American concern with nuclear missiles in Cuba.
The American justification for the invasion of Iraq was flawed. Iraq did not have WMD. Many Americans see the errors of that war. Hussein was a threat to his neighbors, having the world's fourth largest military at that time, but that threat, similar in some ways to the Russian threat to its smaller neighbors, could have been countered by alliances of neighbors rather than an American invasion. The American invasion of Iraq was wrong, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is wrong.
There are certainly arrogant forces in the American business community that prod the government to use the military to advance their interests, but there are also moderating forces that restrain that arrogance. The US does not invade Cuba or Nicaragua or Venezuela just because it has potential interests and could invade any of those countries. America does restrain itself.
"yet you fail to see the russians security concern in the Ukrainan scenario which is hundredfolds of that of Cuba." C'mon, that's hyperbole. It was a win-win when Ukraine relinquished its share of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. Nukes in Ukraine would have been even worse than nukes in Turkey, and all parties saw that and came to an agreement. And the 1994 Budapest Memorandum by Russia, the US, Britain, and Ukraine was intended to secure Ukraine's borders and Russia's security. The US and Britain did train Ukraine's military, but pulled their advisors out when Russia invaded. That pull out was an attempt to de-escalate the situation, but has been largely ignored by Russia.
Russia has only made its security worse by invading Ukraine. All adjacent nations that value their independence will enlarge their armed forces and invite American forces to establish permanent bases. Economic sanctions will remain in place as long as Russia postpones a settlement agreement in an attempt to increase its gains in Ukraine. Rather than take responsibility for its disrespect of its neighbors, Russia projects its own arrogance onto the US and its neighbors, who did not invade Russia. Russia's "security concerns", especially in light of Ukraine's relinquishment of nuclear weapons and Russia's primacy in having the world's largest nuclear arsenal, are exaggerated to advance its own economic and imperial agenda. America, too, is an empire. I do not deny that. There are numerous domestic justice issues with First Nations and African Americans whose ancestors were slaves. We work on these things. Progress is slow, but perhaps Barack Obama was evidence that there is good will in America, not just arrogance.
One must understand how Anti-Social Personality Disorder impacts Russian leadership and its narratives. One aspect of that is blaming everyone else for one's problems, rather than facing one's own responsibility for one's problems. That is called "projection." And Russian leadership does a lot of projection. That is, in part, why the system of government they have set up is self-defeating. But, of course, they blame everyone else.
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We are seeing larger warheads and cluster warheads having an impact, e.g. dry dock in Sevastopol. 155mm shells weigh about 100lbs. While certainly not pleasant, personnel in a trench line can survive bombardment by this class of ammunition. The 500lb, 1000lb, and 2000lb munitions that can be delivered by F16s, often in the form of stand-off glide bombs with inertial guidance, are another matter. Russia is issuing warnings about F16s because they see a genuine threat. It makes sense to me that Ukraine is not going to push on infantry assaults now if it is just a few months away from the capability to package SEAD and heavy munition air strikes on Russian defenses. The mud is irrelevant, in fact it suppresses any Russian counterattack. Ukraine can rotate and rest its troops while its larger air force pounds Russian defenses. Will F-16s get shot down? Yes. But F-35s will continue to cycle into NATO and NATO F-16s can then cycle into Ukraine. 155mm should be saved for what it is appropriate for.
If the southern Russian defense has 200,000 personnel, and if that army collapses when half of those personnel become casualties that cannot return to the fight, then it still takes 400 days for Ukraine to attrit that 100,000 at an average of 250 casualties per day. And it is somewhat doubtful that Ukraine achieves that average. Russia will probably get better with time at minimizing defensive casualties, even with 1000lb bombs falling on them. If they are not being assaulted by infantry, then they just stay spread out over the defensive lines while their air force and air defense learns how to take out F16s.
Taking out Russian rail and road links to its forces in Ukraine is essential. If Russia can maintain its logistics, then it can maintain its bombardment of Ukrainian positions and infrastructure and it will be the UAF that collapses. Ukraine does not have to establish air superiority to drive out Russian forces. It does need the air power to SEAD and open windows of opportunity to strike targets with heavy bombs anywhere in or near Ukraine. Those targets need to include the Russian rail system near as well as within Ukraine, or Russia will probably be able to sustain its occupation.
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And is this what China wants to show the world: self-fulfilling paranoia? In large measure, China is an export economy. Now the CCP is engaging in bad customer service and bad manners by using words like "smash" and "fire" toward people who buy their products! They are showing their true colors. The CCP is all heady with what the rest of the world has helped it accomplish, thinking they did it all by themselves. People are starting to look for other places to shop. Yes, capitalism is addicted to cheap labor, so it eagerly went to China. Raising Chinese wages will just lead to capital looking for cheap labor somewhere else, and it already is. This leaves the CCP contemplating the conquest of its markets in order to secure them for itself, a criminal syndicate economy. The world sees it, and seeks to contain it, and that drives the CCP crazy because of the way the CCP thinks. What did North Korea do in the face of Western power? It built a nuclear arsenal right under the CCPs nose. Every island and small nation is pondering the North Korean example. China does not control North Korea? Ok, how about the United States does not control Taiwan, or South Korea, or Japan, or India, or Vietnam, or the Philippines, or Australia, or Indonesia, etc. How surrounded will China feel then? The CCP is self-defeating. They have shown their hand, and the world will have to wait for a better generation to come to leadership. There was a Western effort to build trust, and it now has been answered with "smash" and "fire". The sooner the CCP reforms itself, the better it will be for the Chinese people and their neighbors.
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That's a bargaining position. Remember the Soviet Union deferred on infrastructure development to focus on matching or exceeding the West in military power. That was fine as long as oil prices were good. Look up the history of oil prices in the 80s. They dropped and the Soviet Union was ended. For a time the world enjoyed the end of the cold war and economies improved. The American budget finally ran a surplus. The Chinese and Russian economies improved. Then the US wasted power on Iraq and Afghanistan. Then China and Russia decided to be imperial again, and the world is again at an increasing level of war. Russia needs to consider that as climate change becomes more apparent to more people, the sale of oil and gas will have to go down just to save this planet's ecosphere. Russia's long-term planning appears to be about restoring a large military. It's the same mistake the Soviets made. This tendency seems to be a part of Russian leadership DNA. It is obsessed with winning the next thing.
Ukraine is going to try to get Crimea back, and it might be able to do it. It is also in Ukraine's interest to shorten its border with Russia in eastern Ukraine because it will be easier to defend from Russia in the future. That might be what Russia wins in this conflict: large amounts of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts and a stable border with Ukraine. That border is likely to look like the DMZ between North and South Korea. There probably will not be "NATO" forces in Ukraine. Per the Budapest Memorandum, there probably will be rotations of British and American forces in Ukraine. Polish and other forces from selected European countries are likely to rotate in and out as well. Ukraine will not be defendable without them. No other options . . . maybe. That's part of a bargaining position for Ukraine.
The parties need to look at the Budapest Memorandum. If Russia is not going to respect Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, then, in order to prevent the next Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine (like North Korea) will need to have nuclear weapons. The Budapest Memorandum was a great deal in the service of reducing Russian paranoia. Ukraine did not later build a nuclear arsenal, but Russia busted the deal with its disrespect of the Ukrainian border. The only excuse for ending that respect would have been Ukraine building a nuclear arsenal. Now Russia, because of its disrespect, deserves to face a Ukrainian nuclear arsenal. That's a bargaining position. I'll bet you don't like it. I don't like yours either. Have some more moderate ideas?
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I support raising the gun purchase age to 21 based on recent history. And honestly, does the gun community think 18 to 20 year-olds are absolutely necessary to fend off some looming government takeover? I also support systematic programs of installing effective doors, windows, locks, and lock monitoring systems in schools. Do you check your doors and locks when you leave your home or turn in for the night? Effective aircraft cockpit walls, doors, locks and the doors being locked during flight would have made a significant difference in the outcome of the 9/11 attacks. Note how the hijackers used them to keep passengers out of the cockpit. When was the last time a large commercial aircraft was violently taken over by a passenger? We keep our doors locked at our office while we work. We assess who is knocking at the door. Building occupants often realize that simple, routine measures can buy valuable time in a crisis. Locked doors can eventually be defeated, but they buy time to carry out countermeasures.
Soon, systems of cameras and artificial intelligence software will be able to very diligently scan for armed persons and provide school resource officers with much improved situational awareness. Cameras in classrooms could remain dormant in non-emergency conditions. They would need to be tested periodically, which is a perfectly sensible thing to have on an SROs checklist of duties. There are a lot of security measures beyond the occasionally successful good guy with a gun that are presently employed in buildings. School children deserve the best of these measures.
Scalia said a person is not obliged to militia "service". That can be interpreted however, to mean that a person could be obliged to meet militia qualifications prior to obtaining arms. That vetting process would seem entirely within the scope of duties of a well-regulated militia. Do note at the time of composing the Constitution that leading men had very definite ideas about who should not have a weapon. The Second Amendment needs just one word added, even though we already practice, per Scalia in Heller, infringement. That word would modify "not be infringed" to "not be unduly infringed." The standards of what is "due" would come from weapons rules established by well-regulated militias.
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@dede4004 So your husband has a PhD in education. So he knows that Donald Trump probably had Conduct Disorder as a child and graduated into full blown ASPD as an adult. And so, knowing that, your husband is recommending to us all that we always elect a sociopath for President? I prefer a President with a conscience, thank you. In a free country I get to vote for that, although I voted for Brian Carroll, American Solidarity Party.
And what, exactly, is Common Core in your mind? Jeb Bush advocated for it. I thought the most developed part of it was what math kids needed to know, wherever they live, because money exists in most places in the United States. Math is also a way to learn the basics of logic, which is a part of common sense. A = A. If A = B and B = C, then A = C. Not all conclusions are self-evident. False premises do not produce valid or sound arguments.
"Still, it's the math component that has drawn the most criticism. In order to help students develop problem solving skills useful in many areas of life, the Core's focus on "conceptual" math requires students to understand the reasoning behind the correct answers to math problems. It's a major shift, and many parents are finding it near impossible to help their children do their homework." -- Harvard Ed. Magazine. What does this mean? It means many parents are unable to express to their children how to reason, which means many parents do not themselves possess common sense. Which to me, explains why so many people would vote for a sociopath for President. Makes sense.
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Are there aviation systems that can't be "bench" tested or wind tunnel tested? You have to build test aircraft and test fly them, right? Still, something like EMALS, in my mind, needed to proven, in a less expensive way, that its tempo, MTBF, and time and conditions of repair would match or exceed a steam catapult system before it was ever designed into a complete aircraft carrier. Even if the test setup cost half of a carrier, I think that would have been worth it. They don't have unlimited space in the ship to modify EMALS until it works as good as steam. They don't get specific about the problem, but it sounds related to the effects of multiple launches. The Navy keeps showing us one or two cat shots as if to say, "see, it works". But a deployment needs the cats to work almost all of the time, or be repairable in reasonable time. Some say one cat fail takes at least two or even all the cats down. I hope that's not true.
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@JaneSoole Sociopaths, or those who deem it necessary to act like sociopaths, are addicted to victory. Example: Donald Trump, after 61 court cases and 60 deciding against him, still asserts he won the 2020 election. It seems the sociopathic brain cannot fully process loss, and lives on a sequence of victories over others. Putin, of course, goes beyond this into building himself a grand place in the history of Russia and the world. His Russia will be more glorious than ever. He would never say it, but his paradigm informs him that China is his greatest threat, so he must go west and consolidate all the power he can to conserve as much of Russia's gains as he can. Meanwhile, Xi is smiling in Putin's face, old buddy, old pal.
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@bobbyschannel349 Do other political forces within a country have no agency? It's all the US and the CIA? Never the Soviet Union and the KGB?
Look who is in charge in Iran now. Do you think maybe the mullahs had a problem with an elected leader who was not a mullah? It's a bit more complicated. But yes, America is an empire that intervenes, and often badly. Maybe South Korea is the best merit badge we have. And now Russia intervenes in Ukraine. The difference is this is the present issue we can do something about. And isn't the populist thing to do is help the underdog, Ukraine?
Yes, the American people were duped about Iraq and the US should not have invaded but worked with neighbors to contain Hussein after Kuwait. The cure for oppressed Iraqi's should have been emigration. Same cure for any oppressed Russian nationalists in Ukraine, i.e., move to Russia, plenty of room and they need more people.
Yes, Chile was a tragedy. The proper role for the United States would have been to help Allende build bridges to his opponents, especially the military, and use the CIA and US State Department in Chile to counter the KGB and Cuba. The tragedy was not in a vacuum. Paranoia in the US and USSR at the time was more believable than the paranoia we see today. Nixon felt about as besieged by the USSR in Vietnam and elsewhere as Putin feels today. Both could have done better.
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@bobbyschannel349
I think Cuba (Bay of Pigs) taught the United States that its control of its neighbors is limited. I am not sure why Mexico would not want to trade with the US and China, maintaining respectful relations with both. Alliances are made when a threat is perceived. There was war between the US and Mexico, but today the level of cooperation is pretty high, though drug and other trafficking syndicates are in a war with both Mexico and the US. I lived out in Beaumont (on the 10) for ten years, and worked for the City of Colton, very much a multi-cultural municipality, but my experience there was very positive. While you see Mexican nationalism displayed in Southern California, I think there is an acknowledgement that something about the American system is a bit better. I think the whole world would condemn the US if it did to Mexico what Russia is doing to Ukraine because Mexico and China built a joint military base to secure influence over a new Chinese canal through Nicaragua. I would expect the US to use trade sanctions, but not military intervention, because the trade sanctions would probably be more than enough to have any Chinese military presence in Mexico diminished to embassy attaché presence. I just don't see the comparison as valid.
Anthropology has established than ethnocentrism is part of the human condition. Ethnic minorities, because of their situation, develop adaptive strategies to survive. Ethnic majorities generally do not have to, and thus they lack experience in multi-cultural settings. I have Ukrainians sheltering in my home, and I have noted their lack of multi-cultural experience, and I have explained that to them, and I find they are willing to learn to adjust. I have had the benefit of many multi-cultural experiences and even attended classes in it, and a three month long immersive experience in which I was in the minority and subordinated by the other culture. This does not make me a professional diplomat between races, but it gives me understanding of human behavior, that ethnocentrism is not uniquely white, and that one can learn multi-cultural skills as minorities have to. The treatment of blacks in Ukraine was wrong, but the context was that of inexperienced, non-cosmopolitan Ukrainians, and, probably, a few genuine racists in power in the situation. Apologies were made.
If a third world country trades its goods for Russian wheat or oil, it is understandable for it to be quiet on the subject of Ukraine. But yes, its ok to point out Ukrainian ethnocentrism. If they want to be a part of Europe, then they need to make adjustments to multi-culturalism.
I encourage you to be critical of all narratives. It is best when we speak from personal experience. It is hard work to make sound, logical arguments, and I see your effort to do so, and appreciate it. Part of understanding what is going on is to understand Anti-Social Personality Disorder, or psychopathy or sociopathy. I am not at all saying that is your condition, as there is evidence of conscience in your choice of words. I am proposing you increase your understanding of it to add to your perspective on Russian leadership and their narratives. Why should a nation with more nuclear warheads than any other, Russia, have "security concerns" due to small non-nuclear nations on its border? Russia does not act afraid. It acts opportunistically and imperially. It is an empire as is the United States. NATO, or the Chinese or North Korean model, is the only hope for the greatest measure of self-determination for a small nation on the border of Russia.
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@bobbyschannel349 We've gone into Cuba diplomatically. Obama did that. We could try militarily, but we do not. And if that is why we do things then we should be in Venezuela, but we are not. Probably because there are no known oil reserves, How can this be? Calculation? A bit of ethics? Energy independence? A few people in government who are not psychopaths? Or could it be that we have seen autocratic regimes change after three or four generations as the leadership clique diffuses into corruption and incompetence. That creates an opportunity for influence, but with no guaranty of a democratic outcome.
You know, I get the parable, "Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye but you do not see the plank in your own." We were out of Afghanistan. We were focused on cleaning up our own mess, climate change, disinformation, racism, the pandemic, homeless veterans, and on and on with our serious domestic issues. Then Russia acts imperiously in the present. It is good of you to keep us mindful of the past, but I don't think that means it is always ethical to abstain from present conflict, but to bring our history with us as we seek a better solution. Kind regards.
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Tucker, Putin and his security services comprise a mature autocratic (that's the nice word) power organization that amasses wealth for its elite and promises its underlings continued financial and other personal progress in exchange for their ruthless preservation of the organization. By necessity, such an organization cannot include prosperity for the bulk of the population it controls. To obtain maximum productivity from the population to serve its own interests, the organization must shield the controlled population from the outside world and intimidate it into complete compliance. The system goes back to Stalin, even Lenin, and it self-defeated. Putin has rejuvenated it and again set it on the path to self-defeat. Like you, I do have ethical issues with Ukraine being a tool to weaken this organization. On the other hand, the organization is a plague on a planet that truly has more important tasks before it than satisfying the egos of the Russian autocracy. Neurotypical people did not sign up for this madness, but it is starting to seem like the day is coming for a pivotal moment in history as far as this organization is concerned. China has been building a similar, and larger, organization. It is watching everything we do about this.
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Saying Russia cannot lose the war because it has more people and "resources" is a view from 40,000 feet. There are other factors. As far as people go, there is demographics, fighting spirit, fitness, training, leadership, organization, and training. As far as resources go, with Western aid, Ukraine can match Russian resources, because the resources of Ukraine's supporters exceed that of the Russians. The result is a rough parity of combat effectiveness. By Hersh's view, Russia should have full control of the Black Sea and be forcing Ukraine's surrender. That is not the case, and the additional considerations explain the case.
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Jake, as you know, the Congress and the SCOTUS is supposed to be the check and balance on this Trump stuff, but when they don't do their job, the Constitution sets up the States to be the backup plan. The very large States (think California in "informal" alliance with Oregon and Washington, maybe Nevada) have the clout to do things like hire up FBI agents that need a new job. Indeed, if the best federal civil servants are being let go, then large States have an opportunity to hire this good talent. States can step up in many areas of life and provide good governance and attract like-minded people. If Trump keeps breaking rules, maybe States can ignore rules that keep them from exercising "federal" powers, acting in ways that strengthen their State economies while Trump-compliant States lose economically. The development of such a movement should prompt the new Secretary of the Treasury to have a quiet chat with the President about the full faith and credit of the United States starting to look less secure to lending markets that fund the national debt and annual budget deficits. States ultimately are the mechanism for groups of people to distance themselves or even spin off from a decadent federal government. Maybe it's just a genetic, evolutionary tendency in human beings to want an autocratic monarch. Perhaps people who see the advantages of greater freedom need to gather together in a smaller space to preserve the Constitution. America would no longer be a superpower, but the US Constitution would still be effective for the millions of people willing to defend it. Perhaps this is the one part of Putin and Xi's plan that is on schedule. This can sound like hyperbole, just like Trump, but I am saying the mere movement toward greater State autonomy (think Texas) should alert forward looking, exposed financial markets with considerable political power. Your interest in financial markets can really come to bear here.
As a veteran, I like to think we have an awesome military, but I suspect it has not improved its ability to govern another nation since Iraq or Afghanistan. I hardly think a loyalist Trump administration would have any more success.
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@captain34ca The imperial impulse is human and not confined to any particular nation. Does not an objective study of human history reveal this? The subject is Russia and its neighbors. I must agree with Toby. Russia cannot be surprised that its neighbors are increasingly defensive. Or is it a defect of Russian leadership thinking, that it thinks itself infallible, and that if anything goes wrong, someone else, certainly not itself, but "America the other" is to blame? That would be a characteristic of what Christopher Hitchens called "a psychopathic dictatorship", that is, what he called the present Russian regime. The psychopathic mind has difficulty processing loss, e.g., Donald Trump. Someone no less than Mikhail Gorbachev said of Putin, "He is always right." And the weakness of the regime seems its sense of having some obligation to publicly agree with that. It was a rather clever thing for Gorbachev to say, and he did not seem to suffer any serious consequences for saying it. And so what I am trying to get across here is that if the Russian regime continues on its present path, its belief in its infallibility and that all its misfortune is someone else's fault, then it will eventually fail and lose, as the Soviet Union did. It will lose because, as a victory centered psychopathic dictatorship, it crushes, indeed kills or chases away, the very people it needs to succeed, by doing what Toby has described. It will fail and lose because it will not, psychologically cannot, self-correct as it needs to. It was not enough to let some facade of Russian Orthodoxy, and other suppressed institutions like journalism, to resurface to renew the Russian culture, those institutions need to be left as truly free as possible for the West to see and economically re-engage with a new and better Russia.
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@billbeeb1803 I do too, Bill. Earlier, this year, my wife told our daughter not to drive on a particularly dangerous undivided highway, even though its posted speed limit of 35 MPH was also posted as being "strictly enforced". She did what she pleased anyway. A 19 year old man, doing as he pleased, and who later tested DUI, drove his 4 door F150 over the double yellow line at over 70 MPH straight on into our daughter's car. She was dead within an hour, leaving behind a one year daughter of her own. He's in jail. I suppose that is dramatic, Bill, but it is true. Love your kids while you can.
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@billbeeb1803 He said ""Parents should be making those decisions." It's the last thing he says and where I feel he is wrong. And he talks about data, but neither he nor anyone has time in the context of a press conference to quote it sufficiently to support their propositions. This is why you don't bet your child's health on what the Governor says, because he is an attorney by profession, a busy man with a wide set of responsibilities, and we should not defer to him over a child's pediatrician as to that child's medical history and their vulnerability to a serious reaction to COVID. I've seen enough people who refused vaccination, contracted COVID, had their survival instinct overcome their reticence to go to the hospital, and admit it would have been prudent to get vaccinated. As a parent, I want to know if my child has a low risk of long-term consequences if they catch COVID at school, because they probably are going to catch it while not being vaccinated. If you think that is over sensitive, perhaps it has to do with my experience as a foster parent, when I was taking care of children of parents with a criminal background. Not a good situation in which to commit a serious parenting error.
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@billbeeb1803 A parent does have jurisdiction over what their kids do on their own property and when in their direct custody. A man's home is his castle. Neighbors who both have kids who are friends who play together can come to an agreement on shared rules, or they cannot, but there needs to be at least a one-time conversation. They are public property, subject to the jurisdiction of a combination of the elected school board and the State and the Nation per the laws. Schools can have dress codes to enforce decency and the common good, in this case, public health. School districts might consider setting up mask free school spaces for teachers and students who are OK with that. I am concerned for them, but clearly some want that choice accommodated, and we should do that when we reasonably can. But likewise, schools can also set up school spaces with strict public health rules for those who can agree with that. The Governor should restrain himself and let parents and local districts work this out. That approach is called subsidiarity, a principle of Catholic Social Teaching, something the Governor, as a Catholic, should take seriously. He draws undue attention to himself on this matter.
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Putin is not Gorbachev. Nor is Joe Biden the sole strategist of US and NATO action with respect to Ukraine. Funny how Fox seems to expect the President to act like a dictator, rather than a team leader and international team member. It is a horrible thing that Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are bearing the brunt of Putin's mental disorder. Unfortunately, the man has influence over 6500 nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them. Putin's brain, like Trump's, cannot deal rationally with loss. You can't tell Putin or Trump they have lost and expect them to accept it and be a good sport. You cannot frame this conflict as win-lose to someone like Putin and expect an early end to the conflict without Ukrainian capitulation of too much. What seems to be happening is Putin's ability, through his military, to achieve his desired ends is being diminished, and thus . . . his ultimate victory is being postponed. He simply cannot accept the idea of defeat. His disordered brain cannot process that. He may be content with an increment of success for the time being, and start preparing for the next victory. He needs to live out his days with felt hope for his legacy, but unable to establish it in the short term, and die before it is achieved by hurting thousands of more people who do not deserve that fate. Of all networks, you would think Fox would understand sociopaths and how one with nuclear weapons must be coped with. What an irresponsible editorial, sir.
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