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bad_fmr posted:Yeah It appears you can literally buy "BTO-22 NATO barbed wire" from a hardware store. So some specific standard with the naming attatched and not just military nomenclature. It has civilian usage. I'm not sure if it was that specific type but in the lower end apartments in Dallas you'd sometimes see concertina wire strung atop a cinderblock wall around the apartments (including the one I lived in). It added a nice favela-punk atmosphere to living directly next to the giant HVAC machine blowing 8 months of the year. I'm in south texas and there's been mumbling from the people owning microranches about stringing it up places to deter migrants that are cutting holes in traditional barbed wire (which i still the standard for encircling land still) on their way through. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Feb 28, 2023 |
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Feb 28, 2023 20:53
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A.o.D. posted:I tend to regard the discourse around "Actually Japan surrendered because of Russia" as a solid bit of revisionism. The Russians did not have the means to conduct an opposed beach landing in the Pacific ocean, and didn't have the logistics to sustain an army even if they did. Japan's proposed terms didn't indicate that they were seriously looking for an end to hostilities with the Soviet Union, either. What territory the Russians did take was essentially an unopposed land grab after de facto hostilities had ended. Unless you think that the military that had completely annihilated Japan's Navy, Air Forces, and that was already occupying Japanese home territory wasn't a factor in the decision to surrender, I don't see much logic that supports that Stalin was the cause of Japanese surrender. Wasn't part of it trying to end the war before Stalin linked up with Mao and the Soviet Union would pull China into its political orbit? I'm not sure how much the "Okay after this, we're at war with the commies, plan around that." was on the western allies' mind in '45.
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Mar 11, 2023 02:21
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A.o.D. posted:part of the reason why I develop an eye twitch every time I see black/red iconography. Depending on what subtype of black/red one is, it might have little to do with anything that happened in the infighting of the revolution. Syndicalism didn't have as much representation in that conflict, or was suborned into the other factions. Additionally, "Anarchists and Marxists are doomed to try to destroy one another forever and ever, never forget the betrayal!" is a great way for leftists never to never do anything productive. Like, okay 100 years ago (and then 90 years ago in the spanish civil war) MLs did some vile poo poo; since then capitalism has since pokevolved several times and is about to kill my near-homeless, disabled self right now. I'll take my chances with the dudes in red as long as they're not obvious fed plants (Red Guards Austin, etc). The fact of the matter is, at least in my opinion, 20th century leftism as a whole failed and capitalism took a 30 year victory lap that is killing the planet. I don't think the specific form of leftism that can/will topple capitalism exists yet (hopefully it is in the process of forming with the new wave of unionization and zoomers and millenials being absolutely exhausted with the economy trying to murder them), but i think it will be informed by, but not a direct continuation of, any specific form of 20th century leftist factions. At some point holding onto those old grudges has got to go, otherwise it turns into the political equivalent of boomers arguing about some Super Bowl referee call from decades ago. Gaius Marius posted:They can do a Lord of War sequel now. The stone head from zardoz but its vomiting out drones and armored vehicles as well. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Mar 13, 2023 |
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Mar 13, 2023 02:44
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orange juche posted:Problem is is this absolutely will start tit for tat poo poo where you're going to have Ukrainian soldiers and Russian soldiers killing each other any time there's an attempt at surrender, can really rapidly turn into a situation where neither side takes POWs anymore. Isn't escalating the situation to where russian conscripts can't even surrender because they'll be killed by both Ukraine and the blocking battalions behind them the russian governments goal? (and also to get them killed in general because this war is being used as an ethnic cleansing for assorted minority populations)
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Apr 12, 2023 01:31
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https://twitter.com/urban_meadows/status/1660787151783489536?s=20 Dude remembers what its like to have the imagination of a 12 year old (I say that in a completely positive manner)
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May 23, 2023 08:48
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Der Kyhe posted:And even with them it is a question mark how deep the rot is on their nuclear arsenal with the economic crisis of 90's and deep deep corruption afterwards, but for a very obvious reason no-one wants to find out the answer to that. Yeah, I don't think gambling on "absolutely, 100% of their nukes do not work/will not launch/will not detonate, and any attempted world ending will fail" is a good idea.
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May 23, 2023 19:48
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Some would say encountering a lobsterman in a cruise ship bathroom is a pretty rough way to start a relationship, said people do not understand the importance of strapping on a drill and wrasslin'.
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May 25, 2023 04:37
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His go-to defense that's worked thus far is he's just that rich and literally the only thing that can push back against that level of rich is maybe the MIC. See also sassing the MIC being the only thing that got Trump's  field to flicker for even a second.
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Jul 30, 2023 19:57
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I dunno, unless the CIA uses a bespoke tourist submarine I feel capital has captured things to such an extent that spies just get reminded who they work for. The question is does that still hold when said turbo rich are idiot manbabies who cannot maintain kayfaybe. I feel the Floyd uprising of 2020 might have not happened without Trump using twitter to insult and annoy everyone, everywhere, everyday, all the time, and now that Musk is using twitter to insult and annoy everyone, everywhere, everyday, all the time, who knows what's possible. Also, much like Trump, Elon is immune to having his loved one's threatened by spooky state security because I'm not sure either of them have loved ones. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jul 30, 2023 |
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Jul 30, 2023 20:08
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Mederlock posted:A lot of these outfits are clustered in cities where the police are bought off completely, and they'll often run a totally legitimate business during the day as cover, and then have a separate crew come in at night when it's US daytime and do their scamming. They have enough informants in the police so that even if the police show up, they'll have had enough warning time to delete everything incriminating and make it look totally clean. You have to remember some of these offices are pulling 20 million a year in profits, and their employees are paid handsomely. Until the local government's start cracking down on these operations, this is a problem that isn't going to go away. I remember being called with a scam alleging they were calling from some private office when you could hear the giant boiler room operation and dozens of voices making noises in the background. quote:Not sure how this is really relevant to war in Ukraine tho. From a cybersecurity point wasn't russia a lot less potent in its nation-level cyberattacks because a lot of known exploits had previously been used and then patched in ransomware attacks? I mean there's a LOT of ways the russian government has shown its inability to meaningfully hurt the west, and a lot of its ability to do so was predicated around being permitted to turn the internet to poo poo. I realize the derail has passed but Vincent Van Goatse posted:I think he's saying that four years of Trump resulted in the demonstrations after Floyd's murder being much more widespread and vigorous than if the same situation had happened during a sane presidential administration. That. Dugin and his philosophy of "make everything worse and more insane, especially the internet, to make understanding basic truths impossible, boost all possible opinions (including centrism) in the most insane and enraging way possible, and then jack the fascism up to 11" nearly caused the U.S. and a lot of other places to self destruct. The russian government understood early the power of using the internet to create mass weaponized mental illness and get all the crazies marching in the same direction and spewing the same insanity at the same time. Trump's people referred to it as "flood the zone": you're doing so many absurd and enraging things at once that it becomes impossible to deal with any of them. The russians didn't start the fire but they absolutely tried to pour as much gunpowder and gasoline fumes and car batteries onto it as possible. If Putin and crew had just kept doing what they had been doing the U.S. and other places would continue to rot away, but he decided to have an adventure and welp. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Aug 1, 2023 |
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Aug 1, 2023 01:21
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glynnenstein posted:It sucks to read this stuff, but it's important to stay in touch with realism. Unfortunately I think Putin can win this* unless a sea change happens. While all those russian vehicles and ships and officers exploding is good, it seems they've adapted to just using unending meat waves carrying only small arms, reproducible artillery shells, and disposable drones en masse unending. I worry that he's successfully turned this war into who can sustain human misery for the longest, and in that respect, russia has a huge edge over western support. *defined here as force stalemate until western suppliers give up and then slowly push back Ukr forces with endless suicide waves that they seem to be able to sustain indefinitely. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Nov 18, 2023 |
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Nov 18, 2023 06:51
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Nice piece of fish posted:Sure, with a properly defeatist attitude there's no end to the wars you can lose or allies you can abandon. I think Putin's goal here is proving that the west and america will abandon anyone relying on its help as soon as its convenient, allowing Putin and whatever assholes after him to start bullying neighbors again. A huge part of the russian war effort in syria and elsewhere is "there is no hope, there is no rescue, there is only suffering and then your death", and with a mutilated Ukraine, despite it still existing, he can point to the price and futility of resistance. Even if russia destroys its military on this they've proven to be exceptionally good at just buying off assorted plutocrats and neo-liberal politicians. Its difficult to mount a real resistance from a threat that one's leaders really, really want to take the money from. That's what a Putin victory would mean here, Kiev is off the table as is most of Ukraine, but showing the U.S. is feckless and assorted european leaders to be corrupt and willing to abandon anything in exchange for petrodollars allows russian intelligence to continue to shape the future of the world. Lovely Joe Stalin posted:We already have it. They're called nuclear weapons. Its hard to use those to prevent weaponized corruption efforts coring out one's sovereignty and putting a chud government sympathetic to russia in power. Nukes stop tanks from crossing the border but not polonium ninjas or anonymous bank transfers to offshore accounts. Its not a question of "can russia be stopped" its "do those who tend to rise to power have any reason to place their nation's betterment over their own personal comfort and advancements?" and there's a lot of cyprian laundered cash on hand to make that a moral peril. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Nov 18, 2023 |
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Nov 18, 2023 13:54
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Yeah, it leads to the dangers of just assuming the pro Ukr side is so obviously superior it cannot fail. Discounting even a struggling enemy is a good way to make unforced errors while fighting that enemy.
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Nov 19, 2023 08:59
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Lead out in cuffs posted:To be fair, the initial invasion towards Kyiv was hilariously incompetent in ways that are quite well documented. At this point I think the greater risk is allowing first impressions to be only perceptions. Despite having all their high end toys and logistical lines blown up repeatedly they've managed to tar pit the ukranian counterassault with endless meat waves+drones. Putin has survived the internal chaos the bungled start of the war caused and is now putting russia on a total war footing after cleaning house of anything and anyone that could get in his way. Its fighting a war with sticks and stones on the counter-offensive, and while it seems absurd its straining ukranian resources just to keep up with it. Its a hell of a thing to wipe out 10s of thousands of the enemy and they show no sign of slowing down assaults. The leadership of the country nextdoor with 10 to 100 times your everything just decided to spill its guts trying to kill you. The prospect is terrifying but the alternative to resisting russia to the very end is one's civilian population being systematically exterminated one way or another. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 20:28
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DTurtle posted:I know that this is (probably) hyperbole, but I do want to point out that Russia does not have even close to ten, much less a hundred times anything Ukraine has. I'm very certain Russia has 100 times the amount of population they consider undesirable and expendable than ukraine does, considering I don't think ukraine has any that it can afford to throw away. This war is also a form of ethnic cleansing as the russian government sends assorted non-rus minorities to die by the truckload. Even when those waves get mowed down putin is 'winning' in the sense he's exporting his internal ethnic cleansing. GD_American posted:Putin doesn't need to outlast Ukraine. He just needs to outlast the US election cycle. This, sadly. I'm in texas so my presidential vote doesn't matter, but its so gross when one realizes the 'mistakes' your fellow citizens did weren't mistakes, they were on-purposes and they wanna do it again. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 09:39
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mllaneza posted:Participate in Get Out The Vote drives. 2024 is going to require those everywhere that was red or purple in 2020. You might not get the electoral college win, but turning some local seats blue would be big for 2028. Oh yeah, I'm still gonna do it, saunter up and check the D and try to get people to vote for local dems that aren't pure poison, but good god almighty, I wish all the "purple texas" predictions for the last 10+ years were actually happening faster. I guess we gotta wait for the crop of silents and boomers to go. To clarify, my position is not "we're doomed" but rather "good LORD that hill we gotta climb is high and long" I guess at the very least as the texas GOP has to cheat more and more to win we can force some kind of 'crack ping'.
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Nov 20, 2023 21:21
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Is that the thing ISO-9000 pokevolved into?
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Nov 21, 2023 16:58
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Fearless posted:MBA brain is a blight on all things. It corrupts and lessens all that it touches and the extent to which MBA programs have convinced people that their graduates seemingly have a right to carve out niches for themselves as professional middlemen will be the doom of us all. I found out after the fact that a lot of companies like hiring mid to high functioning autistic people because they're very easy to bully and trick into doing more work for free and are terrible at face to face negotiations with dead eyed lizards in suits who demand they make eye contact as a form of "basic respect". Upon finding out the specific vulnerabilities of other humans, all the management caste can think of was how this makes them easy prey to exploit and devour. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Nov 22, 2023 |
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Nov 22, 2023 11:42
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Tuna-Fish posted:
We live in the Ewok Christmas Special of timelines.
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Dec 5, 2023 01:24
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PurpleXVI posted:Considering I've seen the same reports from Russians... that they are feeling outnumbered and outgunned in the same region, I wonder which is true. They both are, in the sense that something being sandblasted and the individual sand particles are both being utterly hosed up but the guy holding the sand blaster is just turning up the power.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:36
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So far he's been able to absorb even a coup against him. I'm not sure if waiting for Putin to lose internally is on any sort of timetable that favors ukraine. "Aaaaany day now, russians are going to get sick of his poo poo and...do something. I guess"
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Dec 8, 2023 09:00
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Kraftwerk posted:So what is it then? Why is everyone pulling the plug on this and letting Ukraine get absorbed by Putin? I thought the MIC was supposed to be this all powerful lobby group that wants to benefit and profit from this. Where are their lobbyists? Why am I hearing crickets. Unfortunately, as Purple mentioned, I'm worried that russia putting ukraine's head on a pike right outside its borders will allow the MIC to sell a lot more to a lot more nations because apparently multiple thousands of casualties a month are sustainable for the indeterminate future. Of the many terrible things about all this, and the one that depresses me most, is that Russian military success in tar-pitting or even reversing Ukrainian gains means the same "as part of strategic doctrine, torture and inflict as much cleansing and disruption onto the population that you can until the enemy collapses" tactics from syria and gaza have yet another example of being successfully deployed just before the nations of the world start thinking of how they're going to respond to climate change political upheaval. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Dec 11, 2023 |
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Dec 11, 2023 06:02
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Dick Bastardly posted:Plug that bad boy up to the internet and let me have a crack at it broke: unsecured wireless security cameras anyone can view bespoke: unsecured sentry turrets
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Jan 6, 2024 11:46
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tiaz posted:It would also be very funny if Russia lost to Russian winter. Russian winter is a defensive ally only. once russian military forces leave the borders their record becomes extremely mixed historically. '43-'45 was a bit of an outlier Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jan 13, 2024 |
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Jan 13, 2024 04:02
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psydude posted:The Russians are claiming that the Ukrainians didn't do it and that the aircraft responsible for coordinating Russian air defenses was shot down by Russian air defenses. Its possibly some "We're so amazing the only ones that can hurt us is US!"
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Jan 16, 2024 12:39
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I vaugely remember one of the reasons the soviet union's planned economy fell apart was there was not enough slack in the system causing inventory flow shortages. Then apparently capitalism decided to just do it because if you sell off all the lights in the building and leave with your severance package before it gets dark, you win.
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Jan 20, 2024 13:41
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Jasper Tin Neck posted:Nah, the Soviet Union was just poo poo at allocating resources to useful ends. I don't know, given the state of the world, I'd assume more major disruptions and upgrading to a chest freezer in addition to the fridge, in the metaphor, because global supply chains can get disrupted easily. At what point of general chaos is it better to rely on multiple redundancies rather than efficiency? You'd want warehoused goods in stock because all of a sudden ships are no longer coming for the next week/month/months, or whatever.
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Jan 20, 2024 14:57
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nm off topic
Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jan 21, 2024 |
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Jan 21, 2024 19:58
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Yeah that was taking the thread even further off topic, my bad.
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Jan 21, 2024 20:55
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PurpleXVI posted:
Drones are fairly low mass, wouldn't recoil knock their aim off even more? A grenade launcher seems like the perfect weapon for such a thing though
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Jan 21, 2024 21:25
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now attach a second one and have it spin.
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Jan 22, 2024 14:14
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Yeah, Russia is shifting to total war footing and I guess that means throw junk AND standard manufactured units at the front both at the same time.
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Jan 24, 2024 18:32
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Jimmy Smuts posted:From what I've been reading and seeing, this type of thinking might be ingrained into the culture. For example, I keep seeing accounts of Russian wives of deployed soldiers not really giving a poo poo about much other than money, land, and material items, even when their husband is a POW communicating with them via their Ukrainian captors. The marriage in both cases lasts for only a month but for different reasons.
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Feb 11, 2024 07:15
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Kazinsal posted:This pretty much happened in WWII. USS Buckley rammed U-66, and a fight with mostly improvised weapons between the two deck crews broke out. Buckley's deck gunners resorted to throwing three-inch shell casings at the Germans when they tried to board.  Uh, wow. Were there any other boarding actions in WWII where both ships where still active and not just taking over a surrendered vessel?
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Mar 19, 2024 03:25
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Fearless posted:I think after the past six years, most folks are just leery about saying he won't. The poo poo thing about authoritarians is that this plays right into his hand-- a big part of coming to power is in convincing people of their inevitability because they are strong but in reality at this stage they have only the power the electorate can be fooled into granting them. A big part of that was all the people in 2015 asserting with complete certainty he could never win. Politics that are left of attila the hun have taken a savage beating across most of the planet in the past decade with coordinated pushback barely starting.
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Apr 17, 2024 00:04
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Gordy the politeness C-7 gunner.
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Apr 18, 2024 13:50
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GD_American posted:I detest this poo poo. It's the same as Ted Cruz making Acapulco jokes. These assholes learn the opposite lesson of what they're supposed to. Public shame for lovely behavior is supposed to curb lovely behavior, but because these people are so loving terrible they lean into it. You can't shame a reactionary, especially when they're about (perceived) strength vs weakness, not moral vs immoral. Upper middle class reactionary shitheads are giggling whenever other people get pissed at chud politicians inflicting and/or getting off on others suffering. Public outrage from Owned Libs is a sign they're winning, to their base. If the public tried to shame you and failed, it proves you're stronger than the public. You need to call them pathetic weaklings, not evil (they're both but lean into the former).
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Apr 18, 2024 23:49
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When it comes to our current chaotic lunatic world, the russians didn't start the fire but they threw as much fuel and car batteries and radioactive waste as they could on it. Duginism is basically 'flooding the zone' with so much incoherent crazy bullshit that it becomes impossible to respond to any of it. Like so much of its history, the russian government didn't invent this terrible thing but they found a way to make it so much worse.
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Apr 23, 2024 07:24
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Jasper Tin Neck posted:Looks like the Russians have been able to expand the breach at Avdiivka into a larger breakthrough. It's progressing at a walking pace, but it could turn bad if they can take highway T-0504. Is there some daylight visible here? What I heard was russia will have trouble exploiting any breach to turn it into a full on breakthrough due to lack of armored vehicle support that could do such a thing. I'm trying to find reasons/hope that the outcome of all this won't be another year or two of degrading the ukranian forces until there is a general collapse of the front line or something similarly dire.
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May 5, 2024 17:48
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Yes, (one of) the most frustrating parts of this is "Well, we could stop this, but, you know, eh  "
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May 5, 2024 18:11
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