sburke

lol! I gotta say some of the best Jamaican beef patties I've had were in Toronto.

calling yourself Fred/California won't help... oh wait..

heh getting tough to be a Russian. An 'almost naked' party of Russian elites brings on jail time, a lawsuit and apologies (yahoo.com)

maybe make a deal with the Somalis The CIA has been known to disregard international law on more than one occasion. Russia seems to be having some other issues though. This is about a week old but still relevant. Russian Oil Headed to India Never Arrived, Stuck on Tankers (businessinsider.com)

some more potential cracks in morale. "en masse" is a bit of a stretch, but it looks like there may be a trickle to start. Russian soldiers surrender to Ukraine en masse, citing 'inhumane treatment' by command (msn.com)

so the navy decided to beat the army turret toss competition?

I doubt this will help much. Even China and India are having already issues with Russian airlines not meeting parts standards. Owning more aircraft isn't the core problem for Russia.

interesting. They already had them, not sure what the implications are of formally coughing up 2 billion. They still can't get parts.

Merry Christmas or Happy Festivus might be more appropriate! Seems we almost had some additional Northern lights. Panic in the Arctic as mystery fire breaks out on Russian nuclear ship (msn.com) A mystery fire broke out on Russia’s only nuclear-powered cargo ship in the Arctic – triggering panic onboard. A blaze on the Sevmorput broke out as the vessel was berthed at a high-security dock, with no injuries reported. One local posted: ‘I saw several fire units rushing there, and an ambulance.’ Another message read: ‘Shall we leave now? Is there anything from the authorities? Why no update? It would be too late to run given what kind of ship this is.’ Russia gave only limited information about the fire, claiming later it had been extinguished after breaking out in a 322-square-foot area. The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry did not explain the cause of the fire, but said: ‘There were no injuries in the incident.’

The other part is pilot losses. Sure maybe somehow Russian can find the resources to rebuild aircraft. Get specialized parts through China or Turkey, wherever. The pilots however....

no, in fact @The_Capt has been known to come down pretty hard on those who paint a rose-tinted view of UA capabilities or plans. The push for fact-based info is across the board, but yeah those who post stuff more in line with Russian defeatist stuff are gonna get the whack a mole first specifically to prevent RA mis information that is so deliberate these days.

It is getting worse because they can't get parts that pass international regs so even places like China and India are refusing flights for planes that don't meet inspection standards. Was Russian aviation bad before, yes, but there were a lot of carriers flying to Russia that were safe before the war. Those carriers no longer fly there so by default, Russians are now forced to fly on carriers with bad records that are getting worse. Now the iphone 15 is a whole other matter. Maybe that will be the next mobilization lure- Get an iPhone 15 for your family, serve in the SMO!

Well with that standard I doubt you will ever be satisfied. And yet the Russian aviation industry ( ) is still cratering and yes it has changed. This is from a year ago. Things have continued to get worse. Punished By Western Sanctions, Russia's Airlines Are Showing More Cracks And More Problems (rferl.org)

If that were true, then why did they take the huge financial hit to leave in the first place? The reality is if you are caught violating sanctions, you are gonna get smacked for it. If even Chinese banks are loathe to get too involved with Russia it would seem there are still teeth in the sanctions regime. Do some move to get around it, maybe. Are many of these products actually knock offs? Probably.. especially from China. A few luxury items don't make for an argument that western businesses are returning to Russia. One need only look at their aircraft industry to understand that. On the other hand it wouldn't hurt to make more exposure of the duplicity of these companies that are skirting the sanctions. In the age of social media that doesn't seem to be a difficult thing to do.

looking for this on tik tok now.

I think @Vet 0369 s point was use a different resource for that. Maybe task an Army Infantry unit for that as opposed to something that is more useful as a rapid deployment force. I would argue that one needn't have an infantry heavy force. The Taiwanese have their own army 130,000 strong. What could be done is review where the Taiwanese need additional units that could act as a force multiplier. Think about it. You'd prefer the PLA not be able to land period. What would facilitate the ROC army accomplishing that and bolster those capabilities. Maybe help them expand a diesel sub fleet for example. They have 4 with one under construction.

uh no, that isn't even close to what he is saying.

Luke.... “You don’t know the power of the dark side.”

And from our perspective, If UKR troops are behaving the same way as Russians, then why would we be involved at all? You either represent something different i.e Human rights and democratic values or we won't have skin in this. I understand the frustration Haiduk feels, but being different than the Russians is entirely the point. And it is not impossible to win. Despite the frustrations and the ongoing destruction that Russia commits, the fact is Ukraine still stands despite the overall imbalance of forces. Just wish my own Gov't would get its act together and seriously commit itself wholeheartedly to knuckling Russian under.

you are making my brain hurt. Granted I retired from telecom but I'm thinking WTF is an SBC gonna do for you? For me SBC = Session Border Controller. Acronyms....

sadly stories like this are too much the norm. Look at the fight it took to pass the compensation fund for 9/11 responders.

So Morocco is now preparing to take on NATO? Dang when I was there they seemed more worried about their own population.

? How did we get to that conclusion? Not that they didn't, I've just never heard any reference prior that it was boots on the ground versus monitoring Russian communications and satellite imagery.

LOL That was one of the reasons I retired. I just couldn't handle spending one more minute of my life trying to figure out how to make a binary choice into three options. That was a McKinsey thing, they always had to have 3. I wondered if some high level partner had simply read Rendezvous with Rama* or something. *the big line for the sequel was "The Ramans do everything in threes."

If you put a power point on here you are going on my ignore list! As a former McKinsey employee, I endorse this message.