AFU infantry are rarely leaving their foxholes as they rely instead on aerial attack—kamikaze drones from the sky—to hunt down clusters of Russia’s forces, as they make their advance toward Pokrovsk. The WSJ spoke w/ an AFU battalion commander, Munin, who stated that Ukraine produces 20,000 drones each month and that his troops launch 60 per day. A year ago, Munin said, his group was launching 15 FPV drones a day. This current strategy has slowed the Russian Forces but has not stemmed their ability to acquire territory and take up new fortifications.
Sometimes jammers down Ukraine’s drones. On rainy or foggy days, most drones can’t fly—and the Russians maximize their gains @ that point. Once foliage returns to the trellises in Spring, it will be harder for the drones to spot Russia’s troops.
Against a backdrop of drone warfare, the WSJ regurgitates the blue & yellow propaganda about casualties: 7 Russian casualties for every 1 Ukrainian casualty. Still, they emphasize that AFU reinforcements around Pokrovsk lack the quality of troops early in the war: “One brigade commander said 30 men of the earlier quality would be more effective than 100 of the men he now has.”
Speaking of which, the WaPo reported that “As Ukraine faces a desperate shortage of troops at the front line, there has been a wave of bombings against recruitment centers meant to replenish the ranks.
”Ukraine’s SBU has accused Russia of intensifying efforts to send saboteurs to attack these recruitment centers: “The SBU said this week they had identified 497 individuals who had committed arson against military vehicles or had planned to bomb recruitment centers and the Ukrainian railway. Though law enforcement officials have pointed to Russia as being the main coordinator of these attacks, some incidents have occurred without Moscow’s direct involvement.”
The WaPo acknowledges that “the Russian efforts are mining a growing strain of dissatisfaction in Ukrainian society which has grown weary of the war.” A military volunteer told the WaPo that Russia “is increasingly looking for ways to destroy us from within.”
Were you thinking of "wiping out" grunt drone controllers at the front, perhaps via Opfors drone control frequency seeking versions of HARM missiles?
Or targeting the top end of drone control chain of command via "extreme human resources" teams handing out "field expedient notices of termination" in Kiev, London and Langley?
To be honest, I hadn’t got that far! Just using simple uninformed logic. Don’t waste your time stamping on hundreds of individual ants; pour some boiling water into the nest. I understand that it may be easier said than done. But I do have high regard for Russian ingenuity.
more and more i believe it is jews doing it all. yep, i know, i don't want to be 'anti-semitic' or even 'anti-not-really-truly-semites'. don't really want to be 'anti-a faith' because people should be able to believe what they like.
But it's hard to maintain that latter stance in the face of islam beheadings, jewish genocides based on religion really, aren't they?
How do the Jews get away with it? Everything, utterly everything, is based on their religion yet they constantly claim it's the religious freaks are the problem not us ordinary jews. But they are all one. Is the point. They seem to be like a nest of destroyer ants. They keep building and multiplying underground and when they get the opportunity the warrior destroyer ants come and start destroying. For that's their religions imperative.
And upon confrontation the 'others' say 'it's not us, it's them'. That's like me punching you in the head and saying don't blame me, blame my fist.
It seems absolutely the last word in crazy conspiracy theories but for christs sake just look at what we're seeing: a genocidal leader of the jews and the leader of the usa right up his ass like a dildo. and the two of them laughing over the pager joke. before the whole world.
Where is 'non-jewish' america in all that?
nowhere.
So they still haven't answered the question for me: which is the submissive in this incestuous homosexual relationship?
And isn't anyone, anywhere in the world going to do anything about it?
Thanks, Arthur. It's what I'm doing: asking, not telling Today they attack people for asking as though they're telling something the attackers don't want to hear for one reason or another.
Surely we can ask? Might as well shoot yourself if you can't even ask - what is thinking without asking and what is life without thinking... ? zombie, that's what.
Ah, that's the point, isn't it? To stop people hearing the answers, the most efficient way is to prevent anyone asking the questions! "A stitch in time saves nine".
I think that's right. If he doesn't want to consider the question, doesn't want to hear any information, doesn't want to think about it, doesn't want to hear what you have to say, he'll attempt to stop you asking the questions.
Happens at home doesn't it? Some issues you simply cannot raise with the wife. It's a commonplace; a common human trait I think.
The non Jewish American in all this is paying for it through his taxes, and Zelensky is just falling for the money, he would even sell his wife, children, mother and father, so why not a whole generation of 18-24 year old, boys and girls, even 10, 12 and 14 year old and Trump salivating from the rare earths
Yep, I haven't heard anyone say it yet, to my surprise, but I'm expecting a major outcry from the citizens if they try sending their children to war. Yep, I know it is 'traditional' in the western world for 18 yr olds to get conscripted. But that's nearly 100 years ago now. It is a different world where i live. 18 year olds often look like mere babies, still playing with their toys (read 'smartphones') and ignorant of hard work, opposition, difficulty, danger, antagonism, unfairness....
Even in Ukraine I think such a dynamic may have been in operation and the value of 18 yr olds risen in the popular mind.
I feel everything has changed. The 'value' of children and the 'status' and 'power' of women, their mothers, too. If the mothers of Kiev Ukraine once say this is enough then I feel that will be enough. How many times did you see videos of women in the street attacking those press gangers?
Wouldn't that be great if the mothers of the world rescued us from the total disaster the fathers have brought upon us?
I think everybody is so sick and tired of this over-sold war both; In Ukraine and the West. Plus, whoever bought into the motto "if Ukraine does it, it must be good," they still buy whatever goes at the face value. On a larger scale, nobody cares, and it was up to Ukrainians to not fall for BS sold to them, or at least have the brains to stop by now. But they can't.
I think you're right. And it worries me. Everyone is so sick of everything that for instance genocide in gaza and no one does anything. The whole problem perhaps is that the people are so sick of it that they just turn away. And hope it will fix itself.
After all, most of us feel nothing, we don't get hurt do we?
That 350 million Americans, the main causes of it all inasmuch as it is their government doing it, they just enjoy increased wealth from increased MIC prosperity.
We feel no pain where i am, that we know of, that we can sheet home to there.
To Ukraine, or Israel or Syria or Africa or Yemen or wherever.
So I guess we maybe feel it is not hurting us and it is not going to hurt us. So if a few hundred thousand people suffer and die then that's just too bad but what can we do about it. Shrug.
But with every passing week their impunity grows and they get more emboldened, these lunatic 'leaders'. Look at Trump now: he'll take Greenland and Canada and Panama and Gaza and crack jokes with his genocidal mate Netanyahu while exchanging gold plated pagers, get it? wink, wink...
And strengthen their hold on the satrapies, the servile lap dogs that are our masters.
So what?
So at any moment they may require any thing of our masters, that they inflict upon us. Any thing. Things we wouldn't dream of. Things of nightmare and excess.
Could you imagine being under house arrest while your grandmother chokes to death in a hospital where she is denied efficacious treatment, subjected to inappropriate and harmful protocols, forcibly injected with a potion that makes things worse: and is denied any human contact during that time?
Can you imagine your government doing anything like that to you? To your nation?
Well I can.
And so I am aghast at what they might do next at the bequest of the lunatic americans.
They slowly boil us like the proverbial frogs, turning temperature a notch again and again with every horror they expose us to, to make us "immune" and accept. There is only that much a human psyche can take re.: the exposure to cruelty, then it just shuts off. I don't know wth I expected better of Trump, but he seems just as tune deaf and a savage brute like the rest of the gang.
Once I had these high thoughts of mothers (woman in general). More equality and more woman in leading positions would results in less War or no War at all. Christ, it is there sons going out and being maimed…
But once Thatcher (Malvinas), Albright (Iraq), Hillary (Libya), Nuland (Ukraine) and Leyen, Kallas, Baerbock showed their real demonic faces I quit the idea.
Lots of research validates educating and empowering women. Not sure what those people are Mikey cited, Psychos for sure.
It really is crucial to review how we got here, for those just coming to their senses; The Maidan on 2014, the relentless NATO encroachment since early 1990's, despite empty promises not to.
The constant "unprovoked" invasion refrain that continues to this day. Minsk 1 & 2. Nordstream.
Perhaps the most appalling feature is the Stephan Banderites legacy. All this lecturing on Anti-Semitism, the Democratic Woke credentials of the leaders of the Maidan, collapses in the face of Banderas reality. Their grandpa's terrified the Nazi SS back in the day, how?
Well if you don't know, that's a problem! A close relative lectured me on the evil Putin. Yet they knew nothing written above. Had they ever read any speech of Putin's? No.
So that makes them stupid? No just utterly uniformed. I told them to look up building #7. Ya gotta start somewhere! But for God's sake use a search engine, not a propaganda engine!
You must distinguish carefully between average women and the tiny fraction who seek power - and the still smaller fraction who get it. Just as academic and professional examination generally select the few who excel, politics selects those who are the hardest, most merciless and selfish. Indeed, Western "liberal democracy" turns out to be a highly efficient machine for excluding ordinary decent people with any ideals, and choosing only hard core psychopaths.
The point is that in Ukraine they are mothers of the potential divisions that will be all Ukraine has. For each soldiers one mother (putting aside brothers). So that's how many divisions they 'have'.
And the government wants to wrest them from them.
And they show strong signs of not wanting to let go.
What would be very powerful at just this time would be strongly authentic counting of the dead, wounded, deserted, captured and missing. With a final set of figures the main one of which would be what chance of seeing your boy again if he goes off to war.
If Russia had a fraction of the propaganda and media intelligence acumen that it is often accused of having it would be right on top of this but it is not; rather it is virtually silent on it.
It does publish daily figures on TG and doubtless they would be much challenged if the kind of figures i'm talking about were put together and published.
But if they had the courage and the wit to do that then it's my opinion it would bigger in impact than the biggest bombs they can throw.
If they had a propaganda service that could simply put this question to the Kiev Ukrainians it too would be immensely powerful to my mind, powerful enough to stop the war overnight virtually; this question:
'What does it profit you to fight to the last man?'
For isn't that the most insane thing of all? This 'proud', 'defiant' claim of Kiev Ukraine? That they will fight to the last man?
For what? What will be left that counts as a victory?
When there are no people? ( well, no men ).
It is clear what will be left and what will consider itself 'victorious' and what will enjoy 'the fruits of victory': the american MIC and the Kiev regime.
If that question were subtly introduced to the minds of the people of Kiev Ukraine, particularly those mothers who hold the future divisions that will die to the last man, together with its corollary: who profits - then I think we could see great changes for the better.
But sadly I see no attempt whatever on the part of Russia to engage in that kind of exercise.
Lavrov, Putin, Zakharova, they all speak well, at a loftier level and to a much smaller audience.
Throughout all these conflicts this is most evident: the people simply don't signify to anyone at all.
A combination of factors, none of them obviously decisive in itself. High intelligence - in many but not all cases. A culture shaped by centuries of hostility to Gentiles and perceived or actual persecution. An extremely high level of organisation and coordination. Above all, I think the key lies in the Jewish belief that they are the only true human beings, with souls created by God. According to the Torah and many rabbis throughout history, Gentiles have no proper human souls and are therefore subhuman. It makes sense for the true humans to stick together and support one another through thick and thin.
Ironic that such Jewish beliefs exactly mirror those of the NSDAP - unless, of course, the case is the other way round, Maybe the NSDAP just adopted traditional Jewish methods going back to Old Testament times; tried to employ them; succeeded at first, but lacked the conviction.
I had to think a bit to figure out what I was referring to when I said 'how do the Jews get away with it?' With what? And I think I meant with not being blamed for what Israel is doing.
And they are not. It is everywhere spoken of as what Israel is doing, not as what 'Jews' are doing.
Though of course, the usual mob are blaming the Jews, just as they always do.
And not blaming 'Jews' seems fair enough. For millions of Jews are aghast at what is going on.
Max Blumenthal might be an example if I've got him right. It wouldn't be right to blame Max for this horror. He's horrified by it.
But there's a little semantic confusion here I think.
My fault.
I said why aren't 'the Jews' blamed. I didn't really mean that.
I meant why isn't their creed blamed for it.
Why isn't the Jewish faith, the Jewish mantra, the Jewish holy book, the whole Jewish religion and religious structure: why isn't it blamed for it?
And it's a dumb question from me as usual. The masses of the world cannot blame the Jewish religion for they know little of it. Virtually nothing. And they are not in the habit of blaming 'creeds', 'doctrines', 'schools of thought', 'mental disciplines', they are in the habit of blaming people.
And the masses of the world are too intelligent to blame the Jewish people world wide for what the Israeli lunatics are doing.
So they blame Israel and because they like to blame people rather than insubstantialities, as i say, they blame Israelis.
I think that's it.
There is no blaming of creeds. Or very little. Is there?
It was tried and repudiated back in the time of ISIS.
The innate horrors at the centre of Islam were brought to light and presented as a good reason to hate Islam ( meaning, colloqially, of course: Muslims, the people )
But world wide thousands, millions, came to the defence of Islam and pointed to peaceful Islamic countries and so on.
The creed was held not to matter because it was not adhered to.
It was pointed out that the old Testament of the Christian bible, the Christian creed, also contains these horrors central to it and that was thrust in the face of the christians - you want to condemn the Islamic creed, then how about yours?
So the whole question of blaming creeds was shelved.
But it should not be.
Nobody seems to find it strange or illogical or unreasonable to blame a non sectarian creed such as 'socialism', or 'communism' and don't forget they have their critics everywhere too: 'capitalism'.
They are simply creeds, too and they don't contain the horrors in them that religious creeds do yet they are reviled to such an extent that there always somewhere in the world where you can go to jail or even worse simply for espousing them.
But that's what I'm asking, was asking: why doesn't the creed get blamed? For it is the problem, to my mind.
And I think I know the answer, as I've said: the masses are not sophisticated enough to blame creeds, they want human sacrifice if I may dramatise a little
And the politicians who lead the masses and who might well be expected to be totally familiar with creeds and their power and possibilites, being that's the substance of politics? Well I think that in actuality they're less sophisticated than the masses in this direction. They are mere fawning, toadying, grasping, deceitful egomaniacal evil blights on the face of the earth. And the more shame us that we leave them there.
It’s ironic, as I think you suggest, that Islam - on the face of it a murderous, barbaric, unacceptable religion - is practised by so many millions of good, decent people worldwide, as well as a fair number of murderous barbarians. While Christianity, on the face of it perhaps the most positive, moral, kindly religion - leaving out the Old Testament of course, which is basically Bronze Age Judaism - has been responsible for about as many callous, cynical murders as Islam.
One aspect of Zionism that is insufficiently noticed is the huge amount of clever, systematically dishonest deception it uses. Of course, believing that Gentiles are no better than farm animals, Zionists think it quite moral to lie to them or even kill them. But if you think about the implications of a blanket licence to lie about everything to nearly everyone in the world… while being protected by some of the most powerful people in the media and politics - it explains a very great deal.
The key, as I said, lies in methodical cooperation and coordination, consistently maintained over time. Centuries, even. Hardly anyone else uses such effective techniques.
We're talking slightly at cross purposes here I think. You're addressing the question of how come they are so successful, I feel. So coherent, integrated and survivalist. And its as you say. It's within the creed.
I was simply talking about how come they don't get blamed. And what I last posted was pointing out I meant 'it' rather than 'they'.
True. It happens easily in an informal forum like Substack. But there is some overlap. I would say the main reason they don’t get blamed is because they are so successful. Substack apart - and I have misgivings about how long we will be allowed to frolic here - the means of communication are firmly in, let’s say Zionist hands. Well, Jewish hands actually, most of which seem to be Zionist. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb has pointed out, a small minority - say 10% - can control opinion of the majority if they are energetic and coordinated.
Not just the mainstream media, but hitherto useful Web tools such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are censored. A day or two I wrote here on Substack that many US politicians had publicly boasted that they were more loyal to Israel than to the USA; but when challenged to cite evidence, search engines yielded little or nothing. One has to fall back on sources like RT, but then one is condemned as a Russian apologist.
There are many layers and channels of deception, and they do seem to reinforce one another in a remarkably systematic way.
because the masses are scared. the entire "western" political military and media complex are controlled by the jew and if you speak out against them you get canceled, fired, imprisoned, or even killed. it is illegal to even question their fake holohoax in most erupean countries and DJT put his jew masters first in line as far as "hate crimes" zionist is now a protected class
But here too one has to be terribly careful. There have been, and are today, countless Jewish people who are the salt of the earth. Good, kind, honest, altruistic. Part of the harm that is done by those who obfuscate and distort the truth is that they encourage everyone to blame "the Jews", which is ridiculous and wrong. Many of those who have done the best work in exposing Zionism and its methods are themselves Jewish. The great and worthy Ron Unz, for example - and many more. https://www.unz.com/
I suspect it from the beginning. There were videos where people were discussing the US/zionist plan about Israelis relocating to Khazaria as it seemed unviable for them to stay in West Asia for long. Those videos disappeared quickly, so did the channels that showee them. The out-of-nowhere October 7 attack sort of verified it for me. And now Trump wants to own Gaza, with its gas fields of course. Most of the rabid Russia hating neocons are zionists from East Europe, after all. And most globalists are from that group as well. And Trump is as much beholden to them as others...
The drone war will reposition the empire in its projection of power. Imagine a drone ship with 100,000 drones deployed to a distant coastline. Or to the home front. Drones completely change the balance of power between governments and citizens, empires and hinterlands, tech lords and civilians. In ten years time it will be insurmountable. Slaves or sheep,
I'm just waiting for our Police (UK) to start using the FPV ones, and wouldn't be surprised to learn that training on their use isn't underway already.
This whole fiasco reminds me of Berlin 1945…soon there will be parades of old men and young boys marching to the front. This is insane! Both Ukraine and the West have nothing…absolutely no leverage. The best that can be done is to end the war, accept the territorial losses and forget NATO. There has been enough death and the stealing from the US taxpayer. Ukraine never was of importance to our national security. Time to face the music.
You reminded me of when the German high command decided to move their HQ to Berlin in 1945, one of the generals quipped that this was a wonderful idea as 'we can now travel by the Berlin tram from the Eastern front to the western front and vice versa.' Everyone had a good giggle at that, even the boss.
Rwanda's Jean-Paul Akayesu Case and its close association with Ukraine:
Akayesu's case IS applicable to ALL ukrainian leaders: Zelensky, Syrsky, Budanov, ...
Case "Akayesu 1998" in Rwanda:
The case of Jean-Paul Akayesu was a milestone in international jurisprudence.
Akayesu, who was Mayor of the Taba Commune in Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide, was convicted in 1998 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on nine charges of GENOCIDE and Crimes gainst Humanity.
It was the first time that an International Court of Justice had convicted a person of the crime of GENOCIDE and also the first time that RAPE has been recognized as an ACT of Genocide.
This case established an important precedent for subsequent trials related to War Crimes and Genocide.
The ICTR, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its landmark judgment, "Akayesu (1998)", established that "the offender is GUILTY of GENOCIDE because he knew or SHOULD have known that the act committed would destroy, in whole or in part, a GROUP.
(Adam Jones, Genocide, a Comprehensive Introduction, Routledge, New York, 2006, page 21).
When DJT was still a candidate back in April 2024 and it wasn’t possible to know whether he would actually win the 2024 election or not, his former advisors Gen. Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz floated what got billed as, quite heavily, DJT’s plan for Project Ukraine. It was full of bravado-type pressure points: if “Mr. Putin” does not come to the negotiating table, President Trump will arm Ukraine to the teeth, etc.
So we were forced to live for 9 months w/ Kellogg’s description of what was called DJT’s peace plan for Project Ukraine.
Then after DJT won the election, we grew excited, anticipating a more intelligently nuanced approach—but when he appointed Kellogg to be his Special Envoy to Ukraine, what we got were Kellogg’s retread ideas from 9 months before—the maximalist bombast of arming Ukraine to the hilt, trashing VVP’s red lines & harsh sanctions.
Which left us all crestfallen.
In a conflict as dynamic as this one has been, especially in the past 9 months, it’s difficult to believe Kellogg has not even changed the prepositional phrases or the commas on the text of DJT’s purported plan for Project Ukraine from back in April 2024 or dusted it off a bit. It remains uninsightful, complacently recycling the zero-sum CIA talking points we had to suffer through for four years w/ Collective Biden. Clinging-on to stale fragments of a discredited narrative, Gen Kellogg offers low energy, non-starter ideas about Project Ukraine. Kellogg himself seems permanently frozen in a Cold War mind-set, indistinguishable from any nameless faceless bot in Collective Biden or Brussels.
Of course that was dispiriting for those of us who had paid quite astute attention to the conflict—from as far back as late 2013, w/ the first protests on Maidan Square. It was dispiriting for those of us who expected more from the new admin. Bloomberg has sketched out the high-points (or should I say low-points?) of the Peace Plan, and the Daily Mail has ‘leaked’ the contents of the plan.
Russia is not going to accept a frozen conflict or a demilitarized zone policed by British or European troops. What’s the point of neutrality if you’re going to permit an OTAN-adjacent army to assume a permanent occupation? The Austrian model is a more palatable model for Russia. Moreover, Russia is looking for a Big Picture solution—like viewing the situation from 35,000 feet—a regional design for the continent that would provide for Russian security as well as that of Europe and also the U.S.
As soon as DJT’s team starts to have actual contact w/ Lavrov’s ensemble & actual consequential conversations, DJT’s ideas about the whole affair will change. By that point, the notion of maximizing pressure against Russia—and arming Ukraine w/ Tomahawks to the hilt—will have disappeared.
Right now, without even having had a conversation w/ Lavrov, for instance, Kellogg pats himself on the back for being a Russia Hand. For an American person, being a Russia Hand means never *hearing* what the Kremlin’s views are or what Moscow wants to communicate. Being a Russia Hand means never allowing VVP to have a perspective or to gain security requirements. Being a Russia Hand means talking down to the Russians at every turn. Being a Russia Hand means Russia can never *grow up,* so to speak.
Recall Mrs. Nuland’s comment to Mrs. Amanpour in March 2024: “This isn’t the Russia we wanted.”
E. Wayne Merry, a political analyst in the U.S.’s 1994 embassy in Moscow, argued back then that America always fell for the old fallacy of attempting to understand Russia “by looking into a mirror.” He saw Washington “trying to ram an American square peg into a foreign round hole.” Merry’s analysis today is that the expansion of OTAN in 1994 had a greater role in souring Russians on the West than misguided advice from Harvard’s ’shock’ economists @ the time.
Right before DOGE pulled Bloomberg’s USAID funding, the outlet reported that Gen. Kellogg would present the Europeans w/ a Peace Plan @ the Munich Security Conference—this without Kellogg having had contact w/ Lavrov’s team or Ryabkov. In other words, Kellogg would be echo chambering w/ the Europeans @ the MSC—the most echo-ey, yodel-y forum on earth—as if ululating into an alpine chasm can get results.
But DJT reeled Kellogg in—so it sounds like he is not in fact going to present a potential Peach Plan @ Munich, though he *may* yet yodel. Yodeling to the Europeans is no substitute for talking w/ Lavrov’s team.
DJT is a narcissist and with his history it's pure hopium to expect some 5D move; it's like rekindling the spirit of Qanon tea leaf readings - a waste of valuable time. Now he's parading a band of hucksters who like himself are driven by grandiose narratives. I mean look at the Gaza nonsense that's being paraded, it's embarrassing reading or listening to the imaginings of Tom Luongo. You may be diverting the course of USS Titanic but the gaping hole of disaster is already in place.
"Then after DJT won the election, we grew excited, anticipating a more intelligently nuanced approach—but when he appointed Kellogg to be his Special Envoy to Ukraine, what we got were Kellogg’s retread ideas from 9 months before—the maximalist bombast of arming Ukraine to the hilt, trashing VVP’s red lines & harsh sanctions.
Which left us all crestfallen."
And here lays the crux!
Most of the US people don't even start to comprehend the bigger picture and keep working themself in a sweat over names and 'plans' of what and how to do xyz.
The US system won't allow any other figures to come to power or get the meanings to voice sane directions on whatever foreign policy the US should and could do.
There is constantly this underbelly feeling everyone outside the US gets, that the US still considers themself as the exceptional nation. That's so ingrained in the people over such a long period of time that it's almost hilarious to watch it from the outside.
But it's dangerous to the USA and to those who observe this fact from a powerless position outside of the US
As long as the US people don't understand that they are simply being handled and have nothing to say (established by an inquiry by Princeton quite a while ago) nothing will change, in no aspect, not domestic or in foreign policy.
This US system carries war in itself like as a cloud carries the rain, it is it's only way of function as a capitalist power - no wars, no power, no coercion and stealing resources abroad, no power, no exploiting of labour, making the most shitty products and selling them to the most high price imaginable etc.= no power.
This applies to all capitalist countries, the distinction here is simply that the US is able and has a proven record that it is willing and has the means to bring to bare it's ability to kill, destroy everyone and anything that is not bending to their will. People who are willing to enable this are not the people who are willing to change that, so most of the US people are hypocritical or really convinced that they deserve the right to leech on the rest of the worlds resources and labour.
But times have changed, there are powers and more people around the world willing to face the US threat and terror that the USA tries to bring to them.
The US is no longer the exception, not even a primus inter pares anymore - it's become a nation of uneducated, illiterate, arrogant morons where the Dunning-Krüger effect is more obvious every day.
So if anyone is surprised by the wording or actions taken by DJT, they only show that there is little understanding of the system, the powers that cling onto imagined reality and the utter dishonesty that's needed to keep the own people in their blissful ignorance.
"People who are willing to enable this (the indispensable nation's capacity to kill & destroy) are not the people who are willing to change that, so most of the US people are hypocritical or really convinced that they deserve the right to leech on the rest of the worlds resources and labour."
concerning oil refineries. how much of a task to bulldoze and construct vast underground reservoirs, storage tanks? I get that won't help the refinery if it goes up and replacing that is a different kettle of fish. but just wondering...
Refineries are enormous facilities. Some units (crackers, pressure vessels) are critical but the rest is just piping and tanks and distillation towers and so on. Everything is made of some form of steel, nothing is really fragile. Damage tends to be at impact area, plus fire if any. Once the fire is out, assume there's capability to replace or repair modules, it's not a big job, relatively speaking. It's why Germany in ww2 was able to keep production up despite round the clock bombing
They have tried putting up nets and such. Limited success. A big oil storage tank typically is just a giant cylinder made of concrete or steel with a floating roof. Those can take hits from small drones. The smaller tanks are maybe 5-7mm steel and easy to penetrate. The fires are spectacular but it's hydrocarbon burning, the actual facility is typically not flammable - intentionally. Of course fire damages everything but you get my point
Germany was able to keep production up because the failed Norden bomb sight was a complete failure. The aUS Army classified everything within a quarter mile of the target a direct hit. It was only late in the war when we switched to bombing railroads and Autobahn's that we disrupted their production.*
Rudolph Hess told to Theodore H. White in Fire In The Ashes.
Sorry to correct you but the exception of industry as a target was intentionally from the beginning. They bombed civilian areas because they would not destroy their own industrial base, they owned a large part of German Industry, like Opel (general motors) plus large parts of the chemical Industry / oil industry (standard oil)
The US Industry has funded the NSDAP to a great extend.
The story that the US was anti-Nazi is a legend, their support was enormous.
Just after the industrialized killing of millions in the camps they could no longer prolonging the opening of the second front, because they also feared that the red Army would walk through to the Atlantic coast eventually.
I was amazed recently to learn that Ford & GM amongst other were compensated to the tune of $millions for the damage inflicted by Allied bombing. Citroën was mentioned too iirc.
Refineries are among the largest industrial facilities. As a rough heuristic, putting a plant as large as that underground, with all its towers, storage tanks, and pipelines, triples the infrastructure cost, mostly due to increased construction workload rather than cost of material and equipment. More or less. Unfortunately labor is what Russia has in very short supply.
Germany during WW2 put a lot of its industry underground, but firstly, most factories not giant refineries, and secondly, they used slave labor massively. There was a special state corporation, Organisation Todt, that handled this.
Yep, I was thinking simply of the oil tanks. The tank farm. It would seem massive deep bulldozing could do something. Perhaps a bit after the style of how all our petroleum in our service stations is underground.
Bash, I think, is saying that we wouldn't gain much however.
In a refinery, the reaction vessels such as fractional distillation towers, and the massive pipelines, are full of petroleum products and just as flammable. And more expensive to rebuild than tanks. And so is machinery, such as compressors, and power supply, etc.
That's how I thought it would be. I simply see from the air what a large footprint a refinery has and how massively flammable the storage tanks are.
If it were me I'd be inclined to reduce that footprint as much as possible and increase my protection of what remains.
Musing on that I idly wondered (in print) how much of a task it would be, thinking I'd possibly get back some civil engineer giving me a back of the envelope quote, sort of thing.
A mammoth undertaking, and the industries that would need to be involved are already occupied creating fortifications, such as the much more critical concrete hangars for exposed aircraft. And the time scale would be on the order of years, it would essentially be necessary to rebuild these refineries from scratch, vastly more cost and effort than fixing localized damage. So I think it is not practical.
Thanks. Yep, I just did a consult with our unreliable friend gpt and i learned (?) that a medium dozer might move 100 cubic m/hour and an average size oil storage tank might be 80,000 cu m so if we call it 100,000 to allow for surround and approach ramp we're looking at 100,000 cu m and therefore 1000 hours work for a dozer. I can see that's more than 40 days so four dozers on the job would get it done in maybe 10 days. running day and night. which might require extra dozers so's to allow resting and maintenance. but we're talking 'ball park' talk here.
Mammoth and expensive job alright but, come to think of it, as i suddenly have done, nothing like as big as i've commonly seen in the city of Sydney when putting down holes for a new 'skyscraper'.
I think well within reason IF there's substantial benefit.
But i don't know if there is.
That's somewhere like 600,000 barrels of oil I think. How significant is the loss of that?
Refineries are replete with fire mitigation provisions: do the 600k barrels get lost?
Of course...Z..zee gourmand, is serving veal to the Russian artillery. A cannibal's feast for the Ukrainian people. Bigly sad. Umm, maybe joining NAFO is not so important after all.
Wow—Forbes, using the last of its soon-to-run-out USAID money, reported that Russia ineptly *attempted* to launch a dud of an Oreshnik on Russian soil this week and that the missile simply tipped over. Eyewitnesses compared it to peeling a banana too far, which makes the bulk of the banana above where you’re actually holding it wobble out of the peel and drop to the ground: we’ve all been there. Oreshnik Dysfunction Syndrome is not something a pale blue pill can easily correct. Sounds like phantom DPRK troops might have assisted w/ the phantom launch of this phantom Oreshnik—and then simply melted away.
If only the Russians had rubbed some rare earth minerals on the Oreshnik--! Then they could have avoided the Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.
This is a by the by comment, but on peeling bananas, there is a much more sensible method.
With your thumbnail cut open a 2-3cm section down the spine near the stalk, and then bend the banana backwards. The split will pop open, and you have the whole banana available to eat, while still held firmly by the peel.
Once you try this method, you'll never go back to the 'TV' version.
From what I saw, even the Ukies have pissed upon this Hazelnut mislaunch claim.
And verily I say unto thee when that day comes to pass, they will beat their swords into ploughshares. One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.
It's a bad time of the year at the moment, the front has somewhat slowed due to the weather
However, there is room for US sanctions (true) and there is room for additional US military aid. And since the Ukrainians seem to be able to manage the odd assault, and the Russians work on lets call them slower timelines, the political process gets messy and stupid.
Now Trump says he will meet zelensky next week. He has yet to speak to putin.
This war will still be on when he leaves office, my guess.
"Isn’t it ironic that Zelensky shows a map of Ukrainian mineral wealth, suggesting that Russia is the enemy because they want Ukraine for its natural resources—yet it’s his very own primary ‘ally’ who just openly described Ukraine as nothing more than a transactional business opportunity for natural resources. The US is literally what Zelensky believes Russia to be..."
Just when you think you can't be more disgusted by the actions of the USSA...they say "hold my beer." Don can use the purloined resources to build a beautiful, double-plus-good resort on the mouldering remains of the people formerly known as Gazans. Real evil shite going down in the clear light of day.
Trump has to consolidate power in America. Trump’s main concern and duty is restoring Constitutional government- any government at all really.
What Trump shouldn’t do is fall into any foreign trap set for him by the Deep State especially Ukraine.
This is the mistake Nixon made in Vietnam, which he considered a sideshow.
It was also the mistake Truman made in Korea.
The truth is that every American President who got suckered into war - or the Middle East- was damaged or ruined by it.
The larger truth is this is a deliberate policy and practice of The State Department to control the President- any President- since Truman.
The hardest truth for the Ukrainians and Russians to except is while tragic and criminal- it’s not our main problem, it’s not a secondary problem and we need to avoid addressing it until we have consolidated power in America.
Of course Trump’s comments and Kellogg’s meanderings are nonsensical. Actually addressing the issue falls into the trap.
We don’t need the Empire, we never did. We do need our country. The President must restore elected and Constitutional government in America first.
After that, this terrible tragedy can end, at least our part in the matter. At present Ukraine is all trap and nothing but a trap.
The conversation would instantly all be about Ukraine- and then the perpetrators escape and will get back into power.
Sorry. We need our country back, then the mischief can end.
We have to fight them here, to end their criminal antics over there- They are the Deep State.
Trump is consolidating power, just not how you or I hoped. His allies are creating a huge distraction psych op to keep you from noticing that his 'tech bros' are the owners of Palantir, a AI driven panopticon domestic surveillance and social credit score company. They are also downloading ALL the data in those systems to be used in their AI Surveillance system.
Look at my moniker! Not a radical anti Trumper, I bet I donated more in '16 than anyone else here.
I cheer the public actions but, we keep making 'tools of tyranny' and people keep picking them up and using them.
I've repeatedly stated until I am breathless: the Paypal mafia is running the show and literally dismantling the fed govt with cheering. They are not hiding themselves but americans are too blind. Americans will sell their soul for "American 1st" and be forced to use digital id because 'the border' just like the people begged for the shots because 'the science'. The anti-vaxxers will be replaced by the anti-patriot. The script is revealed and no one pays attention.
That’s because 🇺🇸 voted for The Script with both eyes open, Soujourner. The script being Constitutional government.
We read the script and voted for it. Yes, we sold our souls to the Constitution. I did anyway by Oath.
DOGE is no more “Tyranny” than volunteer rescue workers at a natural disaster helping, what we have here in DOGE is the Software Engineer version of the American Red Cross, or Tech Cajun Navy. DOGE is at the direction and discretion utterly of the President - like USAID and any number of organizations and government rules for decades - and we have a President who read Article II and is governing accordingly. At the direction of the President DOGE is finding some Inefficiencies.
… EOs by the way are Constitutional government since at least FDR, certainly JFK created USAID that way.
You have great insight and I appreciate your respectful reply.
I emphasize MHO, and it is truly an opinion for who really knows?
We all succumb to the established hierarchies , we all must choose to be a slave, who will own us. I myself am only beginning to realize how enslaved I am, I confess my haughtiness thinking because I have no financial debt I am not a slave. I still remain under their bondage. I don't care if one is in a communist, socialist or constitutional republic, they are all flawed and they all end up in tyranny. The cleverest of all is the one we Americans have deluded ourselves that we are 'free'. Completely brainwashed by our masters, to the point of death (sacrificing our own sons and daughters) and insurmountable debt laid upon us (willingly, as you state, we voted for it), to keep us in slavery.
The noose is clearly tightening and many will cheer and beg for it, others will 'reluctantly' go along, most will pressure others like me that want no part of it. Nothing changes except we go further into the abyss, further from our Creator, indulging in our passion to dominate and control.
I am thrilled to be alive witnessing these events and grateful that the iron yoke is not yet upon me. When (not 'if') it happens, I pray that I have prepared enough and given enough strength to overcome.
At the Direction and Supervision of the President and Vice President: The Tech teams of DOGE are auditing and mapping the state and its Money.
- and finding fantastic levels of corruption.
They aren’t “surveilling” their auditing with 6 cleared coders, being supervised by Senior and experienced government officials who told these 6 brilliant young men where to look, they wrote code to find out what our Executive Branch of * 3 million Executive Branch employees are spending our money on.
If you think an audit is surveillance or tyranny I disagree.
The government is being governed, or at least we’re getting a map of what is and was being spent and where and on who.
We have begun to restore control of the government, the Elected Executive had begun to restore control of the Executive Branch, we certainly elected any public official to uphold Their Oath to Constitutional government, or bluntly any government at all.
This should have been happening all along.
On the subject of “tyranny” we voters who won the election don’t appreciate the tyranny we still have got, still - and I support the Executive in his efforts to resolve control of the Executive Branch.
I’m not worried about a hypothetical Tech Tyranny or hypothetical abuses or possible corruption when we have decades of rampant corruption, abuse and anarcho-tyranny we have just voted to rid ourselves of, I suggest we let the President perform his duties with the tools he uses. As it happens Congress failed, all the administration’s for a century failed and private citizens at the direction of the Constitutionally elected President are doing the job. DOGE is no more “Tyranny” than volunteer rescue workers at a natural disaster helping, what we have here in DOGE is the Software Engineer version of the American Red Cross, or Tech Cajun Navy. DOGE is at the direction and discretion utterly of the President - like USAID and any number of organizations and government rules for decades - and we have a President who read Article II and is governing accordingly.
-BTW all of DOGE coders were vetted and cleared, the new Administration hit the ground running.
*(plus 3~6 million contractors who strangely enough seem to have the last name of the bureaucrats who sign contracts).
“Thousands of engineers in Ukraine have friends on the frontline who understand how wars are actually fought,” Farah Stockman tells us. “Their product know-how is unmatched.”
A member of the nytimes editorial board, Stockman extols the virtues of Ukrainian IT, since the 1940s in her 4 February op-ed: Ukraine’s “scrappy culture of innovation is a big part of why the country is still standing three years after a merciless Russian assault.”
Stockman’s use of the word “scrappy” triggers a flashback to the first week of the SMO, when pervasive propaganda in every Western media outlet portrayed Ukraine as “a scrappy little fledgling democracy.” Her phrase “merciless Russian assault” retreads the intractable trope: “an unprovoked full-scale war of brutal aggression.”
So Stockman’s op-ed is triggering of a familiar brand of Post Traumatic Stress.
Col Mark Cancian, retired, is an advisor @ a neocon think-tank—the Center for Strategic International Studies—who tells Stockman that Ukrainians now lead the world in producing the quadcoptors which give entrenched operators an over-the-horizon glimpse of the battlefield. The innovation cycle for drone warfare is dynamic, in Col Cancian’s eyes—fast moving: it takes less than a month for Russia to meet new drones in Ukraine w/ knock-down electronic jamming, which disables the drone. “The U.S. and Europe are struggling to keep up,” Col Cancian says.
Stockman has an agenda in her op-ed—no surprise, right? It’s the nytimes, after all, perhaps bankrolled a bit by USAID money. She wants OTAN allies “to build on what Ukraine has learned about drone warfare by deepening a partnership w/ Ukraine’s defense sector. Buying drones from Ukrainian companies or joint ventures would help ramp up production and goose R & D.”
Stockman identifies the business angle of this investment: “Sourcing drones from Ukraine would save money, because they can be made in Ukraine more cheaply than almost anywhere else. It would put more in Ukraine’s coffers and grow the economy. Most important, it would boost Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. That’s the best security guarantee there is—and crucial to any lasting peace with Russia.”
Non-ironically & non-comically, Stockman sees a downside to business ventures in Ukraine right now: “There are very real obstacles to manufacturing weapons in Ukraine during the war, including scarcity of power, the constant threat of bombardment by Russia and export restriction by China on critical components.”
But a go-fund-me-style program called Manufacturing Freedom, inaugurated by “European countries,” as Stockman describes it, has bought near a billion dollars’ worth of weaponry for Ukraine, including its own domestically-produced Bohdana howitzers and a long-range drone which acts like a cruise missile, called Palanyitsa. “Americans haven’t donated to Manufacturing Freedom yet,” Stockman says, “but the Biden administration secretly made a separate big investment in Ukraine’s drone industry.”
The upshot—? It’s “up to President Trump to decide what to do about the war. Will he keep Ukraine’s long tradition of scrappy, against-all-odds innovation on our side?” By *our side* Stockman means the non-Russian side, the collective West side, the OTAN side, the side that seems to believe Russia doesn’t have a perspective, an interest or a side.
Trump is clearly delaying involvement in Ukraine; his team is emitting various test balloons with all sorts of half-baked ideas, but none of that is in earnest. The funding for Ukraine has been stopped, then partially restored, but nothing new is being done. There is neither escalation nor any serious attempt to initiate negotiations. This is clearly a stalling tactic.
Why is Trump delaying engagement with Ukraine? Because it is an uphill struggle where he holds a very poor hand, and he is afraid of being shown as weak and ineffective. This would negatively impact two issues that are much more important to him: firstly, internal reform (the so-called draining of the swamp) and secondly, stabilizing and defusing the situation in the Middle East, bailing out Israel that has bogged down in its aggression, like a tank in mud. But the Middle East is secondary, paying the devil's due for the Jewish lobby's support (or more accurately, its refraining from opposition) in the election.
Domestic issues, on the other hand, are what is really important to Trump. The Deep State is well entrenched and immensely powerful; to have any chance of bringing it down, even a little, team Trump must keep swinging without letup: the first hundred days of his term are the critical window, win or lose.
Ukraine, in this context, is at best a distraction, and at worst a potential stumbling block. I predict that, for the critical hundred days, Trump will avoid involvement there like the plague. His team will mouth platitudes and empty threats, but nothing will happen for now.
This could be a golden opportunity for Russia to push ahead, breaking the AFU's back while USA is doing its best to look the other way. Alas, we do not see any decisive moves; on the contrary, the pace of advance seems to have slowed down. Russia is squandering its window of opportunity, taking a breather just as they ought to be redoubling their pressure. This failure of effort is likely to cost Russia Odessa, and maybe Kharkov as well.
A good comment which paints a plausible scenario, it is a matter of timing and power at home. A premature walk away from the Ukraine fubar would damage Team trump too much at this early stage, so he is pretending to go along with the Kellogg type nonsense. The intention though is to walk away. That anyway is my working best theory at present.
” This could be a golden opportunity for Russia to push ahead, breaking the AFU's back while USA is doing its best to look the other way. Alas, we do not see any decisive moves; on the contrary, the pace of advance seems to have slowed down. Russia is squandering its window of opportunity, taking a breather just as they ought to be redoubling their pressure. This failure of effort is likely to cost Russia Odessa, and maybe Kharkov as well.”
Have been telling this for years now. Good to see comrades out there thinking the same.
This talk of a ceasefire and peace from the west must be avoided by Russia. Ukraine is a free-fire zone so you need to lure more of NATO's assets towards Russia. Is there some target Russia has not yet hit that would really piss off the EU enough to send more?
Moldovia anyone? (Every time I say a nuke everyone gets all pissy with me but that does tells me it would get people's attention).
Kellogg is nauseatingly stupid. I used to watch his analysis on the boob tube channels that sponsored him and never failed to roll my eyes in reaction to his completely deep spaced out and erroneous ponderings that he bathed his audience in, with all the grace of distributing slop for farm animals. Maybe I am a bit too much on this but, I don't think Trump could get a bigger horses ass for an advisor on this is he chose people at a retired clown convention.
In my opinion, Kellogg will eventually be shit canned, that's right, straight up flushed, after he has screwed things up beyond repair. He illustrates the point made here by Simplicious that the swamp never truly gets drained.
Given that Trump is not interested in addressing the Ukraine debacle now, and has reasons to procrastinate, I find it entirely plausible that this is deliberate---that Kellogg is intended to be the fall guy, and will be removed as ineffectual once Trump has stabilized things on the home front and feels like getting around to serious dealing with the Ukraine debacle.
Great!
lol
I used to think they weren't poisoning our food to make us sick..."𝐛𝐮𝐭" this changed everything.... https://t.co/jf4RGMjpol
AFU infantry are rarely leaving their foxholes as they rely instead on aerial attack—kamikaze drones from the sky—to hunt down clusters of Russia’s forces, as they make their advance toward Pokrovsk. The WSJ spoke w/ an AFU battalion commander, Munin, who stated that Ukraine produces 20,000 drones each month and that his troops launch 60 per day. A year ago, Munin said, his group was launching 15 FPV drones a day. This current strategy has slowed the Russian Forces but has not stemmed their ability to acquire territory and take up new fortifications.
Sometimes jammers down Ukraine’s drones. On rainy or foggy days, most drones can’t fly—and the Russians maximize their gains @ that point. Once foliage returns to the trellises in Spring, it will be harder for the drones to spot Russia’s troops.
Against a backdrop of drone warfare, the WSJ regurgitates the blue & yellow propaganda about casualties: 7 Russian casualties for every 1 Ukrainian casualty. Still, they emphasize that AFU reinforcements around Pokrovsk lack the quality of troops early in the war: “One brigade commander said 30 men of the earlier quality would be more effective than 100 of the men he now has.”
Speaking of which, the WaPo reported that “As Ukraine faces a desperate shortage of troops at the front line, there has been a wave of bombings against recruitment centers meant to replenish the ranks.
”Ukraine’s SBU has accused Russia of intensifying efforts to send saboteurs to attack these recruitment centers: “The SBU said this week they had identified 497 individuals who had committed arson against military vehicles or had planned to bomb recruitment centers and the Ukrainian railway. Though law enforcement officials have pointed to Russia as being the main coordinator of these attacks, some incidents have occurred without Moscow’s direct involvement.”
The WaPo acknowledges that “the Russian efforts are mining a growing strain of dissatisfaction in Ukrainian society which has grown weary of the war.” A military volunteer told the WaPo that Russia “is increasingly looking for ways to destroy us from within.”
The best way to cope with drones is to locate their controllers and wipe them out.
Were you thinking of "wiping out" grunt drone controllers at the front, perhaps via Opfors drone control frequency seeking versions of HARM missiles?
Or targeting the top end of drone control chain of command via "extreme human resources" teams handing out "field expedient notices of termination" in Kiev, London and Langley?
To be honest, I hadn’t got that far! Just using simple uninformed logic. Don’t waste your time stamping on hundreds of individual ants; pour some boiling water into the nest. I understand that it may be easier said than done. But I do have high regard for Russian ingenuity.
Zelensky is trying to clear out the Ukrainian Goyim for his masters. Early on, he said one of goals was to turn Ukraine 🇺🇦 into “Greater Israel 🇮🇱 .”
more and more i believe it is jews doing it all. yep, i know, i don't want to be 'anti-semitic' or even 'anti-not-really-truly-semites'. don't really want to be 'anti-a faith' because people should be able to believe what they like.
But it's hard to maintain that latter stance in the face of islam beheadings, jewish genocides based on religion really, aren't they?
How do the Jews get away with it? Everything, utterly everything, is based on their religion yet they constantly claim it's the religious freaks are the problem not us ordinary jews. But they are all one. Is the point. They seem to be like a nest of destroyer ants. They keep building and multiplying underground and when they get the opportunity the warrior destroyer ants come and start destroying. For that's their religions imperative.
And upon confrontation the 'others' say 'it's not us, it's them'. That's like me punching you in the head and saying don't blame me, blame my fist.
It seems absolutely the last word in crazy conspiracy theories but for christs sake just look at what we're seeing: a genocidal leader of the jews and the leader of the usa right up his ass like a dildo. and the two of them laughing over the pager joke. before the whole world.
Where is 'non-jewish' america in all that?
nowhere.
So they still haven't answered the question for me: which is the submissive in this incestuous homosexual relationship?
And isn't anyone, anywhere in the world going to do anything about it?
You deserve a 100 likes for your courage to ask the right questions and for pointing out the salient facts, arthur.
Thanks, Arthur. It's what I'm doing: asking, not telling Today they attack people for asking as though they're telling something the attackers don't want to hear for one reason or another.
Surely we can ask? Might as well shoot yourself if you can't even ask - what is thinking without asking and what is life without thinking... ? zombie, that's what.
Ah, that's the point, isn't it? To stop people hearing the answers, the most efficient way is to prevent anyone asking the questions! "A stitch in time saves nine".
I think that's right. If he doesn't want to consider the question, doesn't want to hear any information, doesn't want to think about it, doesn't want to hear what you have to say, he'll attempt to stop you asking the questions.
Happens at home doesn't it? Some issues you simply cannot raise with the wife. It's a commonplace; a common human trait I think.
The non Jewish American in all this is paying for it through his taxes, and Zelensky is just falling for the money, he would even sell his wife, children, mother and father, so why not a whole generation of 18-24 year old, boys and girls, even 10, 12 and 14 year old and Trump salivating from the rare earths
Yep, I haven't heard anyone say it yet, to my surprise, but I'm expecting a major outcry from the citizens if they try sending their children to war. Yep, I know it is 'traditional' in the western world for 18 yr olds to get conscripted. But that's nearly 100 years ago now. It is a different world where i live. 18 year olds often look like mere babies, still playing with their toys (read 'smartphones') and ignorant of hard work, opposition, difficulty, danger, antagonism, unfairness....
Even in Ukraine I think such a dynamic may have been in operation and the value of 18 yr olds risen in the popular mind.
I feel everything has changed. The 'value' of children and the 'status' and 'power' of women, their mothers, too. If the mothers of Kiev Ukraine once say this is enough then I feel that will be enough. How many times did you see videos of women in the street attacking those press gangers?
Wouldn't that be great if the mothers of the world rescued us from the total disaster the fathers have brought upon us?
I think everybody is so sick and tired of this over-sold war both; In Ukraine and the West. Plus, whoever bought into the motto "if Ukraine does it, it must be good," they still buy whatever goes at the face value. On a larger scale, nobody cares, and it was up to Ukrainians to not fall for BS sold to them, or at least have the brains to stop by now. But they can't.
I think you're right. And it worries me. Everyone is so sick of everything that for instance genocide in gaza and no one does anything. The whole problem perhaps is that the people are so sick of it that they just turn away. And hope it will fix itself.
After all, most of us feel nothing, we don't get hurt do we?
That 350 million Americans, the main causes of it all inasmuch as it is their government doing it, they just enjoy increased wealth from increased MIC prosperity.
We feel no pain where i am, that we know of, that we can sheet home to there.
To Ukraine, or Israel or Syria or Africa or Yemen or wherever.
So I guess we maybe feel it is not hurting us and it is not going to hurt us. So if a few hundred thousand people suffer and die then that's just too bad but what can we do about it. Shrug.
But with every passing week their impunity grows and they get more emboldened, these lunatic 'leaders'. Look at Trump now: he'll take Greenland and Canada and Panama and Gaza and crack jokes with his genocidal mate Netanyahu while exchanging gold plated pagers, get it? wink, wink...
And strengthen their hold on the satrapies, the servile lap dogs that are our masters.
So what?
So at any moment they may require any thing of our masters, that they inflict upon us. Any thing. Things we wouldn't dream of. Things of nightmare and excess.
Could you imagine being under house arrest while your grandmother chokes to death in a hospital where she is denied efficacious treatment, subjected to inappropriate and harmful protocols, forcibly injected with a potion that makes things worse: and is denied any human contact during that time?
Can you imagine your government doing anything like that to you? To your nation?
Well I can.
And so I am aghast at what they might do next at the bequest of the lunatic americans.
So I'd like them stopped. Now.
They slowly boil us like the proverbial frogs, turning temperature a notch again and again with every horror they expose us to, to make us "immune" and accept. There is only that much a human psyche can take re.: the exposure to cruelty, then it just shuts off. I don't know wth I expected better of Trump, but he seems just as tune deaf and a savage brute like the rest of the gang.
Once I had these high thoughts of mothers (woman in general). More equality and more woman in leading positions would results in less War or no War at all. Christ, it is there sons going out and being maimed…
But once Thatcher (Malvinas), Albright (Iraq), Hillary (Libya), Nuland (Ukraine) and Leyen, Kallas, Baerbock showed their real demonic faces I quit the idea.
Well that's exactly right, isn't it?
But they are as far away from the mothers of those ukrainian boys as zelensky and his madmen are from you and I.
Lots of research validates educating and empowering women. Not sure what those people are Mikey cited, Psychos for sure.
It really is crucial to review how we got here, for those just coming to their senses; The Maidan on 2014, the relentless NATO encroachment since early 1990's, despite empty promises not to.
The constant "unprovoked" invasion refrain that continues to this day. Minsk 1 & 2. Nordstream.
Perhaps the most appalling feature is the Stephan Banderites legacy. All this lecturing on Anti-Semitism, the Democratic Woke credentials of the leaders of the Maidan, collapses in the face of Banderas reality. Their grandpa's terrified the Nazi SS back in the day, how?
Well if you don't know, that's a problem! A close relative lectured me on the evil Putin. Yet they knew nothing written above. Had they ever read any speech of Putin's? No.
So that makes them stupid? No just utterly uniformed. I told them to look up building #7. Ya gotta start somewhere! But for God's sake use a search engine, not a propaganda engine!
You must distinguish carefully between average women and the tiny fraction who seek power - and the still smaller fraction who get it. Just as academic and professional examination generally select the few who excel, politics selects those who are the hardest, most merciless and selfish. Indeed, Western "liberal democracy" turns out to be a highly efficient machine for excluding ordinary decent people with any ideals, and choosing only hard core psychopaths.
Quite a good joke by Roman standards.
I do distinguish them but find them almost all supporting War.
Woman in my country and elsewhere hailed when it was possible for women to be soldiers. It was equality…
They support the idea of forcing every 18 year, boys and girls, doing military service.
If avarage woman, as you describe it, are in majority and shun War. How come you dont find them protesting?
What a glorious thought! But I cannot be sanguine. "How many divisions have the mothers?"
The point is that in Ukraine they are mothers of the potential divisions that will be all Ukraine has. For each soldiers one mother (putting aside brothers). So that's how many divisions they 'have'.
And the government wants to wrest them from them.
And they show strong signs of not wanting to let go.
What would be very powerful at just this time would be strongly authentic counting of the dead, wounded, deserted, captured and missing. With a final set of figures the main one of which would be what chance of seeing your boy again if he goes off to war.
If Russia had a fraction of the propaganda and media intelligence acumen that it is often accused of having it would be right on top of this but it is not; rather it is virtually silent on it.
It does publish daily figures on TG and doubtless they would be much challenged if the kind of figures i'm talking about were put together and published.
But if they had the courage and the wit to do that then it's my opinion it would bigger in impact than the biggest bombs they can throw.
If they had a propaganda service that could simply put this question to the Kiev Ukrainians it too would be immensely powerful to my mind, powerful enough to stop the war overnight virtually; this question:
'What does it profit you to fight to the last man?'
For isn't that the most insane thing of all? This 'proud', 'defiant' claim of Kiev Ukraine? That they will fight to the last man?
For what? What will be left that counts as a victory?
When there are no people? ( well, no men ).
It is clear what will be left and what will consider itself 'victorious' and what will enjoy 'the fruits of victory': the american MIC and the Kiev regime.
If that question were subtly introduced to the minds of the people of Kiev Ukraine, particularly those mothers who hold the future divisions that will die to the last man, together with its corollary: who profits - then I think we could see great changes for the better.
But sadly I see no attempt whatever on the part of Russia to engage in that kind of exercise.
Lavrov, Putin, Zakharova, they all speak well, at a loftier level and to a much smaller audience.
Throughout all these conflicts this is most evident: the people simply don't signify to anyone at all.
"How do the Jews get away with it?"
A combination of factors, none of them obviously decisive in itself. High intelligence - in many but not all cases. A culture shaped by centuries of hostility to Gentiles and perceived or actual persecution. An extremely high level of organisation and coordination. Above all, I think the key lies in the Jewish belief that they are the only true human beings, with souls created by God. According to the Torah and many rabbis throughout history, Gentiles have no proper human souls and are therefore subhuman. It makes sense for the true humans to stick together and support one another through thick and thin.
Ironic that such Jewish beliefs exactly mirror those of the NSDAP - unless, of course, the case is the other way round, Maybe the NSDAP just adopted traditional Jewish methods going back to Old Testament times; tried to employ them; succeeded at first, but lacked the conviction.
I had to think a bit to figure out what I was referring to when I said 'how do the Jews get away with it?' With what? And I think I meant with not being blamed for what Israel is doing.
And they are not. It is everywhere spoken of as what Israel is doing, not as what 'Jews' are doing.
Though of course, the usual mob are blaming the Jews, just as they always do.
And not blaming 'Jews' seems fair enough. For millions of Jews are aghast at what is going on.
Max Blumenthal might be an example if I've got him right. It wouldn't be right to blame Max for this horror. He's horrified by it.
But there's a little semantic confusion here I think.
My fault.
I said why aren't 'the Jews' blamed. I didn't really mean that.
I meant why isn't their creed blamed for it.
Why isn't the Jewish faith, the Jewish mantra, the Jewish holy book, the whole Jewish religion and religious structure: why isn't it blamed for it?
And it's a dumb question from me as usual. The masses of the world cannot blame the Jewish religion for they know little of it. Virtually nothing. And they are not in the habit of blaming 'creeds', 'doctrines', 'schools of thought', 'mental disciplines', they are in the habit of blaming people.
And the masses of the world are too intelligent to blame the Jewish people world wide for what the Israeli lunatics are doing.
So they blame Israel and because they like to blame people rather than insubstantialities, as i say, they blame Israelis.
I think that's it.
There is no blaming of creeds. Or very little. Is there?
It was tried and repudiated back in the time of ISIS.
The innate horrors at the centre of Islam were brought to light and presented as a good reason to hate Islam ( meaning, colloqially, of course: Muslims, the people )
But world wide thousands, millions, came to the defence of Islam and pointed to peaceful Islamic countries and so on.
The creed was held not to matter because it was not adhered to.
It was pointed out that the old Testament of the Christian bible, the Christian creed, also contains these horrors central to it and that was thrust in the face of the christians - you want to condemn the Islamic creed, then how about yours?
So the whole question of blaming creeds was shelved.
But it should not be.
Nobody seems to find it strange or illogical or unreasonable to blame a non sectarian creed such as 'socialism', or 'communism' and don't forget they have their critics everywhere too: 'capitalism'.
They are simply creeds, too and they don't contain the horrors in them that religious creeds do yet they are reviled to such an extent that there always somewhere in the world where you can go to jail or even worse simply for espousing them.
But that's what I'm asking, was asking: why doesn't the creed get blamed? For it is the problem, to my mind.
And I think I know the answer, as I've said: the masses are not sophisticated enough to blame creeds, they want human sacrifice if I may dramatise a little
And the politicians who lead the masses and who might well be expected to be totally familiar with creeds and their power and possibilites, being that's the substance of politics? Well I think that in actuality they're less sophisticated than the masses in this direction. They are mere fawning, toadying, grasping, deceitful egomaniacal evil blights on the face of the earth. And the more shame us that we leave them there.
It’s ironic, as I think you suggest, that Islam - on the face of it a murderous, barbaric, unacceptable religion - is practised by so many millions of good, decent people worldwide, as well as a fair number of murderous barbarians. While Christianity, on the face of it perhaps the most positive, moral, kindly religion - leaving out the Old Testament of course, which is basically Bronze Age Judaism - has been responsible for about as many callous, cynical murders as Islam.
One aspect of Zionism that is insufficiently noticed is the huge amount of clever, systematically dishonest deception it uses. Of course, believing that Gentiles are no better than farm animals, Zionists think it quite moral to lie to them or even kill them. But if you think about the implications of a blanket licence to lie about everything to nearly everyone in the world… while being protected by some of the most powerful people in the media and politics - it explains a very great deal.
The key, as I said, lies in methodical cooperation and coordination, consistently maintained over time. Centuries, even. Hardly anyone else uses such effective techniques.
We're talking slightly at cross purposes here I think. You're addressing the question of how come they are so successful, I feel. So coherent, integrated and survivalist. And its as you say. It's within the creed.
I was simply talking about how come they don't get blamed. And what I last posted was pointing out I meant 'it' rather than 'they'.
True. It happens easily in an informal forum like Substack. But there is some overlap. I would say the main reason they don’t get blamed is because they are so successful. Substack apart - and I have misgivings about how long we will be allowed to frolic here - the means of communication are firmly in, let’s say Zionist hands. Well, Jewish hands actually, most of which seem to be Zionist. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb has pointed out, a small minority - say 10% - can control opinion of the majority if they are energetic and coordinated.
Not just the mainstream media, but hitherto useful Web tools such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are censored. A day or two I wrote here on Substack that many US politicians had publicly boasted that they were more loyal to Israel than to the USA; but when challenged to cite evidence, search engines yielded little or nothing. One has to fall back on sources like RT, but then one is condemned as a Russian apologist.
There are many layers and channels of deception, and they do seem to reinforce one another in a remarkably systematic way.
98% of jews support the genocide in gaza and the greater isreal project - NAXALT is not an argument to defend these demons.
because the masses are scared. the entire "western" political military and media complex are controlled by the jew and if you speak out against them you get canceled, fired, imprisoned, or even killed. it is illegal to even question their fake holohoax in most erupean countries and DJT put his jew masters first in line as far as "hate crimes" zionist is now a protected class
maybe the NSDAP was just right ..... the jew problem is the only real problem the world needs to solve.
But here too one has to be terribly careful. There have been, and are today, countless Jewish people who are the salt of the earth. Good, kind, honest, altruistic. Part of the harm that is done by those who obfuscate and distort the truth is that they encourage everyone to blame "the Jews", which is ridiculous and wrong. Many of those who have done the best work in exposing Zionism and its methods are themselves Jewish. The great and worthy Ron Unz, for example - and many more. https://www.unz.com/
I suspect it from the beginning. There were videos where people were discussing the US/zionist plan about Israelis relocating to Khazaria as it seemed unviable for them to stay in West Asia for long. Those videos disappeared quickly, so did the channels that showee them. The out-of-nowhere October 7 attack sort of verified it for me. And now Trump wants to own Gaza, with its gas fields of course. Most of the rabid Russia hating neocons are zionists from East Europe, after all. And most globalists are from that group as well. And Trump is as much beholden to them as others...
The drone war will reposition the empire in its projection of power. Imagine a drone ship with 100,000 drones deployed to a distant coastline. Or to the home front. Drones completely change the balance of power between governments and citizens, empires and hinterlands, tech lords and civilians. In ten years time it will be insurmountable. Slaves or sheep,
I'm just waiting for our Police (UK) to start using the FPV ones, and wouldn't be surprised to learn that training on their use isn't underway already.
This whole fiasco reminds me of Berlin 1945…soon there will be parades of old men and young boys marching to the front. This is insane! Both Ukraine and the West have nothing…absolutely no leverage. The best that can be done is to end the war, accept the territorial losses and forget NATO. There has been enough death and the stealing from the US taxpayer. Ukraine never was of importance to our national security. Time to face the music.
You reminded me of when the German high command decided to move their HQ to Berlin in 1945, one of the generals quipped that this was a wonderful idea as 'we can now travel by the Berlin tram from the Eastern front to the western front and vice versa.' Everyone had a good giggle at that, even the boss.
the bear in sleeves
eats chicken Kiev
at hotel Kievan
rus slurp
Rwanda's Jean-Paul Akayesu Case and its close association with Ukraine:
Akayesu's case IS applicable to ALL ukrainian leaders: Zelensky, Syrsky, Budanov, ...
Case "Akayesu 1998" in Rwanda:
The case of Jean-Paul Akayesu was a milestone in international jurisprudence.
Akayesu, who was Mayor of the Taba Commune in Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide, was convicted in 1998 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on nine charges of GENOCIDE and Crimes gainst Humanity.
It was the first time that an International Court of Justice had convicted a person of the crime of GENOCIDE and also the first time that RAPE has been recognized as an ACT of Genocide.
This case established an important precedent for subsequent trials related to War Crimes and Genocide.
The ICTR, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its landmark judgment, "Akayesu (1998)", established that "the offender is GUILTY of GENOCIDE because he knew or SHOULD have known that the act committed would destroy, in whole or in part, a GROUP.
(Adam Jones, Genocide, a Comprehensive Introduction, Routledge, New York, 2006, page 21).
When DJT was still a candidate back in April 2024 and it wasn’t possible to know whether he would actually win the 2024 election or not, his former advisors Gen. Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz floated what got billed as, quite heavily, DJT’s plan for Project Ukraine. It was full of bravado-type pressure points: if “Mr. Putin” does not come to the negotiating table, President Trump will arm Ukraine to the teeth, etc.
So we were forced to live for 9 months w/ Kellogg’s description of what was called DJT’s peace plan for Project Ukraine.
Then after DJT won the election, we grew excited, anticipating a more intelligently nuanced approach—but when he appointed Kellogg to be his Special Envoy to Ukraine, what we got were Kellogg’s retread ideas from 9 months before—the maximalist bombast of arming Ukraine to the hilt, trashing VVP’s red lines & harsh sanctions.
Which left us all crestfallen.
In a conflict as dynamic as this one has been, especially in the past 9 months, it’s difficult to believe Kellogg has not even changed the prepositional phrases or the commas on the text of DJT’s purported plan for Project Ukraine from back in April 2024 or dusted it off a bit. It remains uninsightful, complacently recycling the zero-sum CIA talking points we had to suffer through for four years w/ Collective Biden. Clinging-on to stale fragments of a discredited narrative, Gen Kellogg offers low energy, non-starter ideas about Project Ukraine. Kellogg himself seems permanently frozen in a Cold War mind-set, indistinguishable from any nameless faceless bot in Collective Biden or Brussels.
Of course that was dispiriting for those of us who had paid quite astute attention to the conflict—from as far back as late 2013, w/ the first protests on Maidan Square. It was dispiriting for those of us who expected more from the new admin. Bloomberg has sketched out the high-points (or should I say low-points?) of the Peace Plan, and the Daily Mail has ‘leaked’ the contents of the plan.
Ceasefire by Easter
Ukraine barred from OTAN
Kiev must recognize Russian sovereignty lands
UK & EU troops to enforce the demilitarized zone
EU assistance for reconstruction: estimated to cost $460bn
Russia is not going to accept a frozen conflict or a demilitarized zone policed by British or European troops. What’s the point of neutrality if you’re going to permit an OTAN-adjacent army to assume a permanent occupation? The Austrian model is a more palatable model for Russia. Moreover, Russia is looking for a Big Picture solution—like viewing the situation from 35,000 feet—a regional design for the continent that would provide for Russian security as well as that of Europe and also the U.S.
As soon as DJT’s team starts to have actual contact w/ Lavrov’s ensemble & actual consequential conversations, DJT’s ideas about the whole affair will change. By that point, the notion of maximizing pressure against Russia—and arming Ukraine w/ Tomahawks to the hilt—will have disappeared.
Right now, without even having had a conversation w/ Lavrov, for instance, Kellogg pats himself on the back for being a Russia Hand. For an American person, being a Russia Hand means never *hearing* what the Kremlin’s views are or what Moscow wants to communicate. Being a Russia Hand means never allowing VVP to have a perspective or to gain security requirements. Being a Russia Hand means talking down to the Russians at every turn. Being a Russia Hand means Russia can never *grow up,* so to speak.
Recall Mrs. Nuland’s comment to Mrs. Amanpour in March 2024: “This isn’t the Russia we wanted.”
E. Wayne Merry, a political analyst in the U.S.’s 1994 embassy in Moscow, argued back then that America always fell for the old fallacy of attempting to understand Russia “by looking into a mirror.” He saw Washington “trying to ram an American square peg into a foreign round hole.” Merry’s analysis today is that the expansion of OTAN in 1994 had a greater role in souring Russians on the West than misguided advice from Harvard’s ’shock’ economists @ the time.
Right before DOGE pulled Bloomberg’s USAID funding, the outlet reported that Gen. Kellogg would present the Europeans w/ a Peace Plan @ the Munich Security Conference—this without Kellogg having had contact w/ Lavrov’s team or Ryabkov. In other words, Kellogg would be echo chambering w/ the Europeans @ the MSC—the most echo-ey, yodel-y forum on earth—as if ululating into an alpine chasm can get results.
But DJT reeled Kellogg in—so it sounds like he is not in fact going to present a potential Peach Plan @ Munich, though he *may* yet yodel. Yodeling to the Europeans is no substitute for talking w/ Lavrov’s team.
DJT is a narcissist and with his history it's pure hopium to expect some 5D move; it's like rekindling the spirit of Qanon tea leaf readings - a waste of valuable time. Now he's parading a band of hucksters who like himself are driven by grandiose narratives. I mean look at the Gaza nonsense that's being paraded, it's embarrassing reading or listening to the imaginings of Tom Luongo. You may be diverting the course of USS Titanic but the gaping hole of disaster is already in place.
'As soon as DJT's team starts to have actual contact w/ Lavrov's ensemble .... DJTs ideas about the whole affair will change' --- most definitely !!
Not going to happen 🤣
Painfully true
"Then after DJT won the election, we grew excited, anticipating a more intelligently nuanced approach—but when he appointed Kellogg to be his Special Envoy to Ukraine, what we got were Kellogg’s retread ideas from 9 months before—the maximalist bombast of arming Ukraine to the hilt, trashing VVP’s red lines & harsh sanctions.
Which left us all crestfallen."
And here lays the crux!
Most of the US people don't even start to comprehend the bigger picture and keep working themself in a sweat over names and 'plans' of what and how to do xyz.
The US system won't allow any other figures to come to power or get the meanings to voice sane directions on whatever foreign policy the US should and could do.
There is constantly this underbelly feeling everyone outside the US gets, that the US still considers themself as the exceptional nation. That's so ingrained in the people over such a long period of time that it's almost hilarious to watch it from the outside.
But it's dangerous to the USA and to those who observe this fact from a powerless position outside of the US
As long as the US people don't understand that they are simply being handled and have nothing to say (established by an inquiry by Princeton quite a while ago) nothing will change, in no aspect, not domestic or in foreign policy.
This US system carries war in itself like as a cloud carries the rain, it is it's only way of function as a capitalist power - no wars, no power, no coercion and stealing resources abroad, no power, no exploiting of labour, making the most shitty products and selling them to the most high price imaginable etc.= no power.
This applies to all capitalist countries, the distinction here is simply that the US is able and has a proven record that it is willing and has the means to bring to bare it's ability to kill, destroy everyone and anything that is not bending to their will. People who are willing to enable this are not the people who are willing to change that, so most of the US people are hypocritical or really convinced that they deserve the right to leech on the rest of the worlds resources and labour.
But times have changed, there are powers and more people around the world willing to face the US threat and terror that the USA tries to bring to them.
The US is no longer the exception, not even a primus inter pares anymore - it's become a nation of uneducated, illiterate, arrogant morons where the Dunning-Krüger effect is more obvious every day.
So if anyone is surprised by the wording or actions taken by DJT, they only show that there is little understanding of the system, the powers that cling onto imagined reality and the utter dishonesty that's needed to keep the own people in their blissful ignorance.
"People who are willing to enable this (the indispensable nation's capacity to kill & destroy) are not the people who are willing to change that, so most of the US people are hypocritical or really convinced that they deserve the right to leech on the rest of the worlds resources and labour."
Bravo
those "peple" are the jew
concerning oil refineries. how much of a task to bulldoze and construct vast underground reservoirs, storage tanks? I get that won't help the refinery if it goes up and replacing that is a different kettle of fish. but just wondering...
Refineries are enormous facilities. Some units (crackers, pressure vessels) are critical but the rest is just piping and tanks and distillation towers and so on. Everything is made of some form of steel, nothing is really fragile. Damage tends to be at impact area, plus fire if any. Once the fire is out, assume there's capability to replace or repair modules, it's not a big job, relatively speaking. It's why Germany in ww2 was able to keep production up despite round the clock bombing
so the fires don't signify so much? it wouldn't be a great help if oil storage were safe from such attack?
They have tried putting up nets and such. Limited success. A big oil storage tank typically is just a giant cylinder made of concrete or steel with a floating roof. Those can take hits from small drones. The smaller tanks are maybe 5-7mm steel and easy to penetrate. The fires are spectacular but it's hydrocarbon burning, the actual facility is typically not flammable - intentionally. Of course fire damages everything but you get my point
Germany was able to keep production up because the failed Norden bomb sight was a complete failure. The aUS Army classified everything within a quarter mile of the target a direct hit. It was only late in the war when we switched to bombing railroads and Autobahn's that we disrupted their production.*
Rudolph Hess told to Theodore H. White in Fire In The Ashes.
Sorry to correct you but the exception of industry as a target was intentionally from the beginning. They bombed civilian areas because they would not destroy their own industrial base, they owned a large part of German Industry, like Opel (general motors) plus large parts of the chemical Industry / oil industry (standard oil)
The US Industry has funded the NSDAP to a great extend.
The story that the US was anti-Nazi is a legend, their support was enormous.
Just after the industrialized killing of millions in the camps they could no longer prolonging the opening of the second front, because they also feared that the red Army would walk through to the Atlantic coast eventually.
I was amazed recently to learn that Ford & GM amongst other were compensated to the tune of $millions for the damage inflicted by Allied bombing. Citroën was mentioned too iirc.
lol lol lol ciation needed- your comment "Just after the industrialized killing of millions in the camps" proves your nonsense.
the jew terror bombed civilians in WW2 (and nuked them) as a strategy same as we see in Gaza. the jew is the problem...
Refineries are among the largest industrial facilities. As a rough heuristic, putting a plant as large as that underground, with all its towers, storage tanks, and pipelines, triples the infrastructure cost, mostly due to increased construction workload rather than cost of material and equipment. More or less. Unfortunately labor is what Russia has in very short supply.
Germany during WW2 put a lot of its industry underground, but firstly, most factories not giant refineries, and secondly, they used slave labor massively. There was a special state corporation, Organisation Todt, that handled this.
Yep, I was thinking simply of the oil tanks. The tank farm. It would seem massive deep bulldozing could do something. Perhaps a bit after the style of how all our petroleum in our service stations is underground.
Bash, I think, is saying that we wouldn't gain much however.
In a refinery, the reaction vessels such as fractional distillation towers, and the massive pipelines, are full of petroleum products and just as flammable. And more expensive to rebuild than tanks. And so is machinery, such as compressors, and power supply, etc.
That's how I thought it would be. I simply see from the air what a large footprint a refinery has and how massively flammable the storage tanks are.
If it were me I'd be inclined to reduce that footprint as much as possible and increase my protection of what remains.
Musing on that I idly wondered (in print) how much of a task it would be, thinking I'd possibly get back some civil engineer giving me a back of the envelope quote, sort of thing.
A mammoth undertaking, and the industries that would need to be involved are already occupied creating fortifications, such as the much more critical concrete hangars for exposed aircraft. And the time scale would be on the order of years, it would essentially be necessary to rebuild these refineries from scratch, vastly more cost and effort than fixing localized damage. So I think it is not practical.
And FWIW I am an engineer, but not very civil.
Thanks. Yep, I just did a consult with our unreliable friend gpt and i learned (?) that a medium dozer might move 100 cubic m/hour and an average size oil storage tank might be 80,000 cu m so if we call it 100,000 to allow for surround and approach ramp we're looking at 100,000 cu m and therefore 1000 hours work for a dozer. I can see that's more than 40 days so four dozers on the job would get it done in maybe 10 days. running day and night. which might require extra dozers so's to allow resting and maintenance. but we're talking 'ball park' talk here.
Mammoth and expensive job alright but, come to think of it, as i suddenly have done, nothing like as big as i've commonly seen in the city of Sydney when putting down holes for a new 'skyscraper'.
I think well within reason IF there's substantial benefit.
But i don't know if there is.
That's somewhere like 600,000 barrels of oil I think. How significant is the loss of that?
Refineries are replete with fire mitigation provisions: do the 600k barrels get lost?
All very interesting stuff.
Of course...Z..zee gourmand, is serving veal to the Russian artillery. A cannibal's feast for the Ukrainian people. Bigly sad. Umm, maybe joining NAFO is not so important after all.
Wow—Forbes, using the last of its soon-to-run-out USAID money, reported that Russia ineptly *attempted* to launch a dud of an Oreshnik on Russian soil this week and that the missile simply tipped over. Eyewitnesses compared it to peeling a banana too far, which makes the bulk of the banana above where you’re actually holding it wobble out of the peel and drop to the ground: we’ve all been there. Oreshnik Dysfunction Syndrome is not something a pale blue pill can easily correct. Sounds like phantom DPRK troops might have assisted w/ the phantom launch of this phantom Oreshnik—and then simply melted away.
If only the Russians had rubbed some rare earth minerals on the Oreshnik--! Then they could have avoided the Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.
This is a by the by comment, but on peeling bananas, there is a much more sensible method.
With your thumbnail cut open a 2-3cm section down the spine near the stalk, and then bend the banana backwards. The split will pop open, and you have the whole banana available to eat, while still held firmly by the peel.
Once you try this method, you'll never go back to the 'TV' version.
From what I saw, even the Ukies have pissed upon this Hazelnut mislaunch claim.
Thank you for keeping S's Garden of Knowledge fruit-centric
This is a garden but most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.
And verily I say unto thee when that day comes to pass, they will beat their swords into ploughshares. One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.
Trump's talk about "rare earth" is just a misdirection. We all know it's Ukraine's apple orchards he really wants.
It's a bad time of the year at the moment, the front has somewhat slowed due to the weather
However, there is room for US sanctions (true) and there is room for additional US military aid. And since the Ukrainians seem to be able to manage the odd assault, and the Russians work on lets call them slower timelines, the political process gets messy and stupid.
Now Trump says he will meet zelensky next week. He has yet to speak to putin.
This war will still be on when he leaves office, my guess.
"Isn’t it ironic that Zelensky shows a map of Ukrainian mineral wealth, suggesting that Russia is the enemy because they want Ukraine for its natural resources—yet it’s his very own primary ‘ally’ who just openly described Ukraine as nothing more than a transactional business opportunity for natural resources. The US is literally what Zelensky believes Russia to be..."
Just when you think you can't be more disgusted by the actions of the USSA...they say "hold my beer." Don can use the purloined resources to build a beautiful, double-plus-good resort on the mouldering remains of the people formerly known as Gazans. Real evil shite going down in the clear light of day.
We need America back first.
Trump has to consolidate power in America. Trump’s main concern and duty is restoring Constitutional government- any government at all really.
What Trump shouldn’t do is fall into any foreign trap set for him by the Deep State especially Ukraine.
This is the mistake Nixon made in Vietnam, which he considered a sideshow.
It was also the mistake Truman made in Korea.
The truth is that every American President who got suckered into war - or the Middle East- was damaged or ruined by it.
The larger truth is this is a deliberate policy and practice of The State Department to control the President- any President- since Truman.
The hardest truth for the Ukrainians and Russians to except is while tragic and criminal- it’s not our main problem, it’s not a secondary problem and we need to avoid addressing it until we have consolidated power in America.
Of course Trump’s comments and Kellogg’s meanderings are nonsensical. Actually addressing the issue falls into the trap.
We don’t need the Empire, we never did. We do need our country. The President must restore elected and Constitutional government in America first.
After that, this terrible tragedy can end, at least our part in the matter. At present Ukraine is all trap and nothing but a trap.
The conversation would instantly all be about Ukraine- and then the perpetrators escape and will get back into power.
Sorry. We need our country back, then the mischief can end.
We have to fight them here, to end their criminal antics over there- They are the Deep State.
Trump is consolidating power, just not how you or I hoped. His allies are creating a huge distraction psych op to keep you from noticing that his 'tech bros' are the owners of Palantir, a AI driven panopticon domestic surveillance and social credit score company. They are also downloading ALL the data in those systems to be used in their AI Surveillance system.
Look at my moniker! Not a radical anti Trumper, I bet I donated more in '16 than anyone else here.
I cheer the public actions but, we keep making 'tools of tyranny' and people keep picking them up and using them.
I've repeatedly stated until I am breathless: the Paypal mafia is running the show and literally dismantling the fed govt with cheering. They are not hiding themselves but americans are too blind. Americans will sell their soul for "American 1st" and be forced to use digital id because 'the border' just like the people begged for the shots because 'the science'. The anti-vaxxers will be replaced by the anti-patriot. The script is revealed and no one pays attention.
That’s because 🇺🇸 voted for The Script with both eyes open, Soujourner. The script being Constitutional government.
We read the script and voted for it. Yes, we sold our souls to the Constitution. I did anyway by Oath.
DOGE is no more “Tyranny” than volunteer rescue workers at a natural disaster helping, what we have here in DOGE is the Software Engineer version of the American Red Cross, or Tech Cajun Navy. DOGE is at the direction and discretion utterly of the President - like USAID and any number of organizations and government rules for decades - and we have a President who read Article II and is governing accordingly. At the direction of the President DOGE is finding some Inefficiencies.
… EOs by the way are Constitutional government since at least FDR, certainly JFK created USAID that way.
You have great insight and I appreciate your respectful reply.
I emphasize MHO, and it is truly an opinion for who really knows?
We all succumb to the established hierarchies , we all must choose to be a slave, who will own us. I myself am only beginning to realize how enslaved I am, I confess my haughtiness thinking because I have no financial debt I am not a slave. I still remain under their bondage. I don't care if one is in a communist, socialist or constitutional republic, they are all flawed and they all end up in tyranny. The cleverest of all is the one we Americans have deluded ourselves that we are 'free'. Completely brainwashed by our masters, to the point of death (sacrificing our own sons and daughters) and insurmountable debt laid upon us (willingly, as you state, we voted for it), to keep us in slavery.
The noose is clearly tightening and many will cheer and beg for it, others will 'reluctantly' go along, most will pressure others like me that want no part of it. Nothing changes except we go further into the abyss, further from our Creator, indulging in our passion to dominate and control.
I am thrilled to be alive witnessing these events and grateful that the iron yoke is not yet upon me. When (not 'if') it happens, I pray that I have prepared enough and given enough strength to overcome.
Luke 17:20-21
At the Direction and Supervision of the President and Vice President: The Tech teams of DOGE are auditing and mapping the state and its Money.
- and finding fantastic levels of corruption.
They aren’t “surveilling” their auditing with 6 cleared coders, being supervised by Senior and experienced government officials who told these 6 brilliant young men where to look, they wrote code to find out what our Executive Branch of * 3 million Executive Branch employees are spending our money on.
If you think an audit is surveillance or tyranny I disagree.
The government is being governed, or at least we’re getting a map of what is and was being spent and where and on who.
We have begun to restore control of the government, the Elected Executive had begun to restore control of the Executive Branch, we certainly elected any public official to uphold Their Oath to Constitutional government, or bluntly any government at all.
This should have been happening all along.
On the subject of “tyranny” we voters who won the election don’t appreciate the tyranny we still have got, still - and I support the Executive in his efforts to resolve control of the Executive Branch.
I’m not worried about a hypothetical Tech Tyranny or hypothetical abuses or possible corruption when we have decades of rampant corruption, abuse and anarcho-tyranny we have just voted to rid ourselves of, I suggest we let the President perform his duties with the tools he uses. As it happens Congress failed, all the administration’s for a century failed and private citizens at the direction of the Constitutionally elected President are doing the job. DOGE is no more “Tyranny” than volunteer rescue workers at a natural disaster helping, what we have here in DOGE is the Software Engineer version of the American Red Cross, or Tech Cajun Navy. DOGE is at the direction and discretion utterly of the President - like USAID and any number of organizations and government rules for decades - and we have a President who read Article II and is governing accordingly.
-BTW all of DOGE coders were vetted and cleared, the new Administration hit the ground running.
*(plus 3~6 million contractors who strangely enough seem to have the last name of the bureaucrats who sign contracts).
“Thousands of engineers in Ukraine have friends on the frontline who understand how wars are actually fought,” Farah Stockman tells us. “Their product know-how is unmatched.”
A member of the nytimes editorial board, Stockman extols the virtues of Ukrainian IT, since the 1940s in her 4 February op-ed: Ukraine’s “scrappy culture of innovation is a big part of why the country is still standing three years after a merciless Russian assault.”
Stockman’s use of the word “scrappy” triggers a flashback to the first week of the SMO, when pervasive propaganda in every Western media outlet portrayed Ukraine as “a scrappy little fledgling democracy.” Her phrase “merciless Russian assault” retreads the intractable trope: “an unprovoked full-scale war of brutal aggression.”
So Stockman’s op-ed is triggering of a familiar brand of Post Traumatic Stress.
Col Mark Cancian, retired, is an advisor @ a neocon think-tank—the Center for Strategic International Studies—who tells Stockman that Ukrainians now lead the world in producing the quadcoptors which give entrenched operators an over-the-horizon glimpse of the battlefield. The innovation cycle for drone warfare is dynamic, in Col Cancian’s eyes—fast moving: it takes less than a month for Russia to meet new drones in Ukraine w/ knock-down electronic jamming, which disables the drone. “The U.S. and Europe are struggling to keep up,” Col Cancian says.
Stockman has an agenda in her op-ed—no surprise, right? It’s the nytimes, after all, perhaps bankrolled a bit by USAID money. She wants OTAN allies “to build on what Ukraine has learned about drone warfare by deepening a partnership w/ Ukraine’s defense sector. Buying drones from Ukrainian companies or joint ventures would help ramp up production and goose R & D.”
Stockman identifies the business angle of this investment: “Sourcing drones from Ukraine would save money, because they can be made in Ukraine more cheaply than almost anywhere else. It would put more in Ukraine’s coffers and grow the economy. Most important, it would boost Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. That’s the best security guarantee there is—and crucial to any lasting peace with Russia.”
Non-ironically & non-comically, Stockman sees a downside to business ventures in Ukraine right now: “There are very real obstacles to manufacturing weapons in Ukraine during the war, including scarcity of power, the constant threat of bombardment by Russia and export restriction by China on critical components.”
But a go-fund-me-style program called Manufacturing Freedom, inaugurated by “European countries,” as Stockman describes it, has bought near a billion dollars’ worth of weaponry for Ukraine, including its own domestically-produced Bohdana howitzers and a long-range drone which acts like a cruise missile, called Palanyitsa. “Americans haven’t donated to Manufacturing Freedom yet,” Stockman says, “but the Biden administration secretly made a separate big investment in Ukraine’s drone industry.”
The upshot—? It’s “up to President Trump to decide what to do about the war. Will he keep Ukraine’s long tradition of scrappy, against-all-odds innovation on our side?” By *our side* Stockman means the non-Russian side, the collective West side, the OTAN side, the side that seems to believe Russia doesn’t have a perspective, an interest or a side.
Trump is clearly delaying involvement in Ukraine; his team is emitting various test balloons with all sorts of half-baked ideas, but none of that is in earnest. The funding for Ukraine has been stopped, then partially restored, but nothing new is being done. There is neither escalation nor any serious attempt to initiate negotiations. This is clearly a stalling tactic.
Why is Trump delaying engagement with Ukraine? Because it is an uphill struggle where he holds a very poor hand, and he is afraid of being shown as weak and ineffective. This would negatively impact two issues that are much more important to him: firstly, internal reform (the so-called draining of the swamp) and secondly, stabilizing and defusing the situation in the Middle East, bailing out Israel that has bogged down in its aggression, like a tank in mud. But the Middle East is secondary, paying the devil's due for the Jewish lobby's support (or more accurately, its refraining from opposition) in the election.
Domestic issues, on the other hand, are what is really important to Trump. The Deep State is well entrenched and immensely powerful; to have any chance of bringing it down, even a little, team Trump must keep swinging without letup: the first hundred days of his term are the critical window, win or lose.
Ukraine, in this context, is at best a distraction, and at worst a potential stumbling block. I predict that, for the critical hundred days, Trump will avoid involvement there like the plague. His team will mouth platitudes and empty threats, but nothing will happen for now.
This could be a golden opportunity for Russia to push ahead, breaking the AFU's back while USA is doing its best to look the other way. Alas, we do not see any decisive moves; on the contrary, the pace of advance seems to have slowed down. Russia is squandering its window of opportunity, taking a breather just as they ought to be redoubling their pressure. This failure of effort is likely to cost Russia Odessa, and maybe Kharkov as well.
A good comment which paints a plausible scenario, it is a matter of timing and power at home. A premature walk away from the Ukraine fubar would damage Team trump too much at this early stage, so he is pretending to go along with the Kellogg type nonsense. The intention though is to walk away. That anyway is my working best theory at present.
” This could be a golden opportunity for Russia to push ahead, breaking the AFU's back while USA is doing its best to look the other way. Alas, we do not see any decisive moves; on the contrary, the pace of advance seems to have slowed down. Russia is squandering its window of opportunity, taking a breather just as they ought to be redoubling their pressure. This failure of effort is likely to cost Russia Odessa, and maybe Kharkov as well.”
Have been telling this for years now. Good to see comrades out there thinking the same.
Where is Darth Vader when you need him?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6o93Gwiarc
This talk of a ceasefire and peace from the west must be avoided by Russia. Ukraine is a free-fire zone so you need to lure more of NATO's assets towards Russia. Is there some target Russia has not yet hit that would really piss off the EU enough to send more?
Moldovia anyone? (Every time I say a nuke everyone gets all pissy with me but that does tells me it would get people's attention).
Kellogg is nauseatingly stupid. I used to watch his analysis on the boob tube channels that sponsored him and never failed to roll my eyes in reaction to his completely deep spaced out and erroneous ponderings that he bathed his audience in, with all the grace of distributing slop for farm animals. Maybe I am a bit too much on this but, I don't think Trump could get a bigger horses ass for an advisor on this is he chose people at a retired clown convention.
In my opinion, Kellogg will eventually be shit canned, that's right, straight up flushed, after he has screwed things up beyond repair. He illustrates the point made here by Simplicious that the swamp never truly gets drained.
Given that Trump is not interested in addressing the Ukraine debacle now, and has reasons to procrastinate, I find it entirely plausible that this is deliberate---that Kellogg is intended to be the fall guy, and will be removed as ineffectual once Trump has stabilized things on the home front and feels like getting around to serious dealing with the Ukraine debacle.
This is very possible RalfB. I wish you a great weekend.
I for one, love that sexy lisp of his.