dan/california

This seems to imply she is still at the nastygram stage, although obviously she is just nuts and might change her mind before I finish typing this. Edit: Nothing counts at this point until there is a vote scheduled, anything she does that doesn't put the vote on the calendar is just posturing.

This is the critical bit. There is a way that she can do this that is just a high profile nastygram, and there is way she can doit that forces a vote on Johnson next week. It isn't quite clear which way she intends to go. And Trump hasn't said anything that I can find. And I honestly don't know which way he will jump on this. He may want absolutely maximum chaos, or may realize that making the Republicans look COMPLETELY feckless is not good for him.

Or may this is just MTG being theatrical. Given how bleeped up everything in the house is Johnson isn't going to make a deal on Ukraine until five minute before the vote on his ouster, we don't quite seem to be there yet. Subject to change without notice obviously. Trump hasn't weighed in that I am aware of at this exact moment.

Well, this will get the cards on the table, at least. Edit: I wonder if Trump asked her to do this? or if she is freelancing because she is mad that he hasn't already made her his VP pick?

It isn't that I think our relationship with the Ukrainians is excessively dysfunctional given the circumstances. It is that I think Jake Sullivan has had the wrong strategic conception from the beginning. That isn't to say he it isn't seven orders of magnitude (edit: better) than it would be with Trump, but it is still a problem. And this situation much more like our relationship with Great Britain before Pearl Harbor, instead of after it. That time we came all the way in, eventually. If this is correct the French and Germans have agreed just agreed to waste a lot of money on class of systems that is well on its way to being obsolete. Although it sounds like this at the agreeing to have a design committee meeting stage.

It isn't clear to me that most of the current crop of Mobiks has the opportunity to commit warcrimes at anything like the rate of the early part of the war. I suggest this simply because as the lines have gone static the Russians have just not had the opportunity to go full Waffen SS on new batches of civilians. I am not saying they wouldn't if they could, but if you are stuck in a trench with barrier troops behind you, Ukrainian guns in front of you, and nothing but the Somme 2.0 around you there is just a lot less scope for certain things

What I don't understand is why the they think the refinery strikes are pushing up crude prices. I thought that Russia was putting more crude on the world market as it lost refinery capacity. This brings me back to my question about Russian infrastructure capacity for importing refined products? I also think it is a classic example of the Biden administration trying to exert a level of control over the glide path of this war that just doesn't exist. If they want the Ukrainians to settle for the current lines as a long term armistice they need to say so. If they don't, they need to let them fight.

I don't think he liked the answer... He would try to surrender if he had any sense. Better to be the butt of a Ukrainian joke than the butt of a Russian rifle, which I am pretty sure he is going to get if the platoon/company commander catches up with him.

It is sort of a sign that the standard colors are yellow and blue. Certainly it would be excellent for the walls and roof of a position with some sandbags/dirt over the top. Whether it makes any sense cost wise is a another question. I am guessing the troops would appreciate the inherent water proofing though.

Practice at burning and sinking is about all the Russian Baltic fleet needs with about 98% of the shoreline now in NATO.

I wouldn't say it is a good try, but they are at least attempting to confuse overhead ISR.

It is worth pointing out that you could basically reuse the same software, or at least big pieces of it. A lot of the work has been done for decades,

The interview I quoted earlier said they typically engaged Russian vehicles about five kilometers from the front lines, and that they rarely even made into firing positions. If you had to use a Javelin the drone guys were having an off day. Edit: I think this goes under heavy mechanized forces being obsolete unless someone come up with drone countermeasures that have so far been notable by their absence.

The Economist seems to think Russia only has a about a years worth of barrels left, and new production isn't even making a dent.

Hard to spend the money when you are a corpseicle(TM)

A truly excellent interview today with a former member of the Ukrainian special forces that is a Ukrainian MP, and a primary liaison between the military and political sides. His three main points won't surprise anybody here, but he certainly makes them forcefully and convincingly. 1) Drones dominate the battle field. 2) Ukraines training standards, infrastructure, and everything related to both of these need to be massively improved. 3) Last but most certainly not least, Western support needs to get unbleeped as quickly as humanly possible.

Apparently bigger booms are better. Someone might want to run up some detonators that you don'y have to light with a cigarette lighter though.

Some excellent stuff fro Dmitri as always.

The place where I would focus very heavily on looking for drone video is the protection detail for a head of state. It is already illegal to fly them in DC, and I assume their is some sort of bubble of drone banning that travels around with the President. If five or ten FPV feeds I wasn't expecting popped up, i would be getting the protectee under cover as fast as if the radio started yelling SNIPER.

Te way to analyze the election is to realize it was propaganda exercise that no more significant than one of Medvedev's drunken rants. We are simply spending to much band width on it. see below Obviously it would be better if there was an easy way to encrypt the video feeds. That said if I was going to spend money and engineering talent improving FPV drones, I would spend it on making then autonomous, That solves a lot more problems, a lot more effectively.

I think Putin is ever more determined to make Moldova a problem that has to be dealt with. Someone might want to have a plan for that. For Starters NATO and the Eu need to figure out if they can live with Romania just annexing it, or not.

And those are valuable assets, Two recovery vehicles is one heck of a hole in some brigades TO&E. Actually the very way Putin has failed points out how valuable it would be to push the transition harder. Think about what would happen to world oil markets if U.S. oil consumption went down by even 25%. The tech to make that happen EXISTS, all we have to is incentivize its adoption a little more. And when we do all of our enemies except China go broke spectacularly. I am not saying shale has been a bad thing, the guy quoted above is right about what has happened in the last ten years. But a gallon/thousand BTUs you don't burn is just as much help as one drilled out of Texas.

do not, under any circumstances go past the eagle cartoon. You have been warned.

Long but fascinating video on AI training. Not super specific to the war, except maybe it is...