gearhog

Germany pissed off the Brits today by revealing British soldiers are, in fact, already on the ground in Ukraine and helping the Ukr army launch long-range cruise missiles against Russia. https://news.yahoo.com/british-soldiers-ukraine-helping-fire-195700593.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANthDvD7fFcnt40QA9svzNDCwc4UHmwd50vlnHruuR61ggiElu8UYv40vyJHe-WP6rwtK8swSSWMnl9GPVOHxyXSFKTx5mECVDXDTUOtSLlfa3RgPcJE6Q_ckCq9nebLncS1z3SHQo1flxAO-D2coNTlDb3fZdbbUfFh1QC6hFM6

Financial Times article from today details some leaked Russian nuclear doctrine, including the thresholds required for nukes to be used. https://www.ft.com/content/f18e6e1f-5c3d-4554-aee5-50a730b306b7

Tornado at Wright Pat fucked some shit up.

That's abrupt. Did the pilot shortage disappear overnight or do they plan on getting pilots buy some other means?

There's still an important distinction to be made. One committed a deliberate act to end his life, the other had no reasonable expectation to have her life ended while committing no acts of violence against herself or anyone else. If you're making the case consumption of unhealthy information leads to death, I guess you can do some logical gymnastics to reach that conclusion. But, only on one side do we see the completely irrational conclusion that self-destruction is a reasonable way to achieve a political goal. That's what makes wokeism dumb, and different.

False equivalence. Ashley Babbitt didn't commit suicide. Or homocide.

This one is fascinating to me. This is young likely middle glass white kid in the military. He's not Jewish, Muslim, or Palestinian. I'd say the probability he's been to Israel, Palestine, or immersed in the culture of any ME country is slim to none. The chances of him having a close relationship with anyone who has is also slim to none. Palestinians engaged in direct conflict with Israeli, and who should have the most reason to engage in extreme forms of protest aren't doing such things to themselves. His mind was hijacked by an idea that came only from second/third hand information on a screen he held in his hand. That information, which had no direct effect on his day-to-day life, consumed and compelled him to destroy himself to one of the most grotesque ways possible. Now imagine being able to create and distribute that type of information. Wokeness is deadly. It's a parasitc infection. We may cheer when a woke moron offs himself, but it's important to remember that the idea that caused it is propagated onto others. It's how leftism lives on even though its hosts do not. It's an old video, but one I think of quite a bit.

Russia's response: Moscow, Feb 27 (EFE).- Russia on Tuesday warned of a direct conflict with NATO if the military alliance deployed its troops in Ukraine, as suggested by French President Emmanuel Macron a day ago. “The very fact of discussing the possibility of sending certain contingents to Ukraine from NATO countries is a very important new element,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in response to Macron’s remarks. “In that case, we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability (of a direct conflict with NATO),” he said in reply to questions about a direct Russia-NATO conflict if the Atlantic Alliance sent its troops to fight in Ukraine. Peskov said NATO member countries must “assess” whether the conflict with Russia “corresponds to their interests and the interests of their people.” Macron said on Monday that defeating Russia in Ukraine was “indispensable to security and stability in Europe,” amid urgent pleas for more weapons from Kyiv. https://efe.com/en/latest-news/2024-02-27/russia-warns-of-direct-conflict-if-nato-deploys-ground-troops-in-ukraine/ In other news, Ukraine officially cancels national elections. It might sound counter-intuitive, but it's actually a necessary step in preserving itself as a beacon of freedom and democracy and protecting it's citizens from tyranny.

This is a veteran suicide, right? Does it get an asterisk?

I just saw that Russia pulled a ridiculous George W Bush publicity stunt with Putin supposedly flying one of their newest bombers. Of course, there is no way of knowing if this was a simulator or CGI. I think it would be entirely appropriate if we countered by having Biden fly a B-1 into DCA. https://apnews.com/article/russia-putin-election-bomber-flight-navalny-facfaaacba57bfce3d61d810a426ec0d

I watch this video periodically to keep things in perspective. Mindblowing.

The official numbers have been released. For the first time, Zalensky discloses that Ukraine has suffered 31,000 troop losses since the beginning of the conflict. He also revealed that Russia has suffered over 180,000 deaths and close to half a million in casualties. At this disparity, the war should be over soon. Remember, the tax deadline is Monday, April 15th. https://x.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1761802069575336026?s=20

Just getting caught up on all this Alexei Navalny stuff. Horrible. I'm infuriated that a country like Russia would allow the persecution, imprisonment, and death while in captivity, of political dissidents. God forbid we ever go down that path.

Let's not overthink this. Russia bad. We need to keep funding the war machine.

It's only cool when we do it. 😄 In 1962, it looks like there were only about 25 satellites in orbit. Today, there's about 7000-8000, mostly in LEO. It's a near exponential increase. Somewhere near half a million objects 1cm or bigger. Some believe we're approaching a number where loss of control and/or collision of a few satellites could create an uncontrollable cascading effect that would make orbiting the earth near impossible forever. That would suck.

Russia is going to nuke our satellites. We must nuke them first. Russia is trying to develop a nuclear space weapon that would destroy satellites by creating a massive energy wave when detonated, potentially crippling a vast swath of the commercial and government satellites that the world below depends on to talk on cell phones, pay bills, and surf the internet, according to three sources familiar with US intelligence about the weapon. These sources gave CNN a more detailed understanding of what Russia is working on – and the threat it could pose – than the US government has previously disclosed. Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, set off a frenzy in Washington on Wednesday when he issued a statement saying his panel “had information concerning a serious national security threat.” By Friday, President Joe Biden had publicly confirmed that Turner was referring to a new Russian nuclear anti-satellite capability — but officials have steadfastly refused to discuss it further, citing the highly classified nature of the intelligence. https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/16/politics/russia-nuclear-space-weapon-intelligence/index.html

Some of my best music memories in the AF involved drinking: Got stuck in Maputo, Mozmbique once. Too dangerous to go downtown, so we stayed at the Hilton on the beach playing poker in the bar with about 10lbs of their local currency coins ($5). Someone broke out into "Sweet Caroline" and both crews +support drunkenly joined in. Ice storm in St. John's NF over New Year's. Spent a lot of time in O'Reilly's Irish Pub and another down the street. Crews learned all the audience callbacks for "Big Strong Man" and the performers loved playing it for us. Also, "Whiskey in the jar" (Irish version) and a few other drinking songs. Knowing Jimmy Buffett when his music comes on during a TDY/Deployment should be mandatory. Listening to Suicidal Tendencies via patch cord over IRQ/AFG was always fun.

I was trying to think of some kinda-believable/kinda-ridiculous critiques for his responses that some pro-war fanatic might come up with, and I got nothin. gave up. It was just too good. I thought the "Dad" analogy was especially good.

Don't you believe this is a matter of national security? Putin is clearly a danger to US foreign interests. The Tucker interview has given him more credibility and legitimacy than he could have hoped for otherwise. What classified info could have given him a greater PR victory? Tucker even suggested in the interview that the US government was not working for the interests the American people. Creating this sort of doubt undermines the framework by which your freedom of speech is protected. It's self-destruction. A crisis of trust, and it's being exacerbated. It's no wonder Putin appeared to have zero sense of urgency about anything. We think we're waging a war of attrition, and he thinks he's watching a slow-motion implosion of the West. At what point do you attempt to stop the spiral that erodes support for our government? "We'll just elect a better government." - Then the other side declares the election was rigged, and we descend further into the spiral. The path you're advocating for is a short one to what some might call treason, sedition, and providing aid and comfort to the enemy, which is what Tucker did. If we don't reign this in, those ultimately lead to revolution. The public wants stability, not chaos. Keeping Putin out of media is a small price to pay for our national security and preservation of the US, which in turn guarantees your inalienable rights.

Agreed. When Putin was recalling names, dates, and details of complex international relationships over hundreds of years, Tucker was bewildered. Putin was likely fabricating most of it, and Tucker wasn't equipped to challenge him. This is the right answer. Putin is playing 4-D chess and Tucker is playing checkers. The US likely has the greatest intelligence service that has ever existed. Enormous amounts of resources have been required to gather and assess the capabilities and intent of Russia. Bottom line: they're evil. The average American doesn't have access to that type of information to make that assessment, so why should we be exposed to propaganda that we aren't equipped to challenge? Trust the science, as they say. CNN reporter Peter Arnett once interviewed Osama Bin Laden, and look what happened. CBS's Dan Rather interviewed Saddaam Hussein and look what happened. ABC's Charlie Rose and NBC's Megyn Kelly earlier interviewed Putin and look where we are. When all of these interviews were aired on US primetime mainstream media outlets, tens of millions of people watched. This interview is now almost 200 Million Views. Why haven't we learned allowing reporters to interview our enemies only leads to further conflict? As you said, it only gives them legitimacy. Saddaam and Putin attained their leadership status through sham democratic elections. Acknowledging them as leaders grants legitimacy not only to them, but the corrupt systems that put them in power. Ridiculous, isn't it? I can't believe the number of people I'm seeing who are now saying this.

Let's give credit where due: Biden convinced Mexican President CC to allow aid to flow into Southern Gaza and convinced Israeli President BB to allow aid into Northern Gaza. https://x.com/DYShor/status/1755771553747194351?s=20