Seedorf81

No, not verified and stress usually makes you lose hair, not regrow it, so I doubt it is the Lt Gen.
 

Having seen the actual clip that the picture originates from, knowing that it is an image of a human being in a moment of absolute terror and anguish, I personally am revolted by its use in a meme. I know full well that my emotions are shaped by what might be described as the arrogance of a western comfort, but could we please refrain from going that much orc and refrain from posting gore here?
 
Looking into the abyss and all that… 

I understand what you're getting at, but maybe using 'genocide' in that specific context isn't your best play?
I also feel that stealing land from one country to give it to two others while evicting the legal occupants is probably not a great way to maintain the moral high ground or credibility.
 

Stolen from the ACIG forum

Girkin summary of Battle of Bridgeheads
 

meanwhile Putin's big friend seems to be facing a crisis of their own.  Hopefully Xi doesn't view military adventurism as a way of deflecting attention as well.  That may be one additional benefit of the western response to Russia, unity and action as a deterrence.
China’s dim prospects turn disastrous (msn.com)

These maps are really helpful understanding what's going on. Thanks for making them.

Listening to MSNBC talking about nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It would have been better to have some kind of expert to talk to and not just a reporter and the host discussing it. Their general mood was, OMG they are distributing iodine tablets because a leak could occur at any time. Potassium iodide (KI) is what they are talking about. It's actually standard procedure that people living in the immediate area of a nuclear power plant have them on hand. When I lived in Niantic, CT we had them in our dresser drawer because the 3 unit Millstone power plant was across the bay in Waterford, CT. 
Potassium iodide when taken in the immediate aftermath of a radioactive release involving spent nuclear fuel will flood the thyroid gland with stable iodine, leaving any radioactive iodine-131 no place to attach too. The biological half life of iodine is pretty short, so it's quickly excreted from the body if it has no place to attach itself. This is also the reason that it must be taken immediately, 1) before the radioactive iodine can be ingested, and 2) any remaining excess iodine of any isotope is quickly eliminated.
Saying all this, it's a very good precaution to go around and make sure everyone has them. If they were ever issued, they may be misplaced, there may be refugees from other areas living there, etc. Or who knows, maybe they never had them. Thyroid cancers resulting from I-131 ingestion are the most common long term effect from exposure to radiation stemming from a spent fuel accident. "Fortunately," these days it's also one of the most treatable and survivable. Fortunately in quotes because cancer patients/survivors kind get peeved when you tell them how lucky they are that they have a "good" cancer. Cancer sucks, no matter which kind.
Most of the rest of the spot discussed Chernobyl and how it was run by the Russians and look what happened to it (paraphrasing). Yup. It was on Ukrainian soil and they suffered for it. A lot. Still do. Chernobyl was caused by a combination of poor reactor plant design and incompetence. This reactor design is more robust. Russian competence? There is obviously still a severe problem there, Russia wide - nuclear, military. Chernobyl would have been much more vulnerable to combat damage had there been combat around it as an operating power plant. They have no containment. At all. Russia claimed no containment was needed since their stringent operating procedures would assure safety. Then they violated about 6 of those stringent operating procedures, did not understand the problem they were having and made choices that aggravated the problem, leading to the almost simultaneous steam explosion followed by hydrogen detonation. (there was no nuclear explosion - that's physically impossible), and release of millions of curies of activity to Europe.

Dave 

In my experience big booms are not unlikely to turn into even much bigger booms.
I am totally amazed that bystanders keep filming those explosions at distances where I would be running my ass off to get away.
 
 

In my experience big booms are not unlikely to turn into even much bigger booms.
I am totally amazed that bystanders keep filming those explosions at distances where I would be running my ass off to get away.
 
 

In my experience big booms are not unlikely to turn into even much bigger booms.
I am totally amazed that bystanders keep filming those explosions at distances where I would be running my ass off to get away.
 
 

In my experience big booms are not unlikely to turn into even much bigger booms.
I am totally amazed that bystanders keep filming those explosions at distances where I would be running my ass off to get away.
 
 

Ok, bridge design and weights.
Here in the US, bridges are designed to handle the load of the heavest item that generally is going over it. That is a 18 Wheeler, a standard truck loaded is 40 Tons. but keep in mind, that is over the full lenght of the truck with so much weight on each axil. Also, part of the design is that you have to design it for bumber to bumper traffic, So when someone says a 50 ton bridge. it is a simple term used to reflect that if you are driving something 50 tons in weight, the bridge is designed for it in the worst case situation. Like bumper to bumper trucks all weighing in at 50 tons.
Plus engineering design has built in safety factors also included. Plus some engineers pad their design numbers even more.
So what I am saying to the non-engineer. If you drive a 60 Ton tank over a 40 ton bridge. And you did it one at a time, its likely no problem at all, even with Russians making the bridge poorly.
The fun part of it is, if the bridge is long, the numbers jump to it not being a issue at all. The only bridges likely to collapse is real short small ones since you would be getting close to maxing out the load of all the traffic it was designed for.
Another reason a tank is a chalenge is all that load is in a small area, somewhat of a point load, that is where the bridge might lack the design for it.  
But I know of truckers running loads off the books up to 80 Tons and managing to get from point A to B and crossing many of a bridge.
So yes, a bridge can take way more load than a posted  call out that is there for traffic.
 
 

I read at the beginning of the "Special Military Operation" that there was something like 1/3 of the French or even more who thought that Russian propaganda was true, that NATO was threatening Russia, etc. Conspiracy is all the rage in Western Europe. Look at COVID how many people think it's a US bioweapon to scare and control people...Sometimes I really feel like I'm in another world.

People don't realize that History is being written now and future generations will see us as if we were buying gas from Hitler

Since I remember, for sure before this war started, I had a rule not to watch videos where people explicitly die or are hurt, and have in general abide by this, as it is just too disturbing for me and serves no point. I'd by default react with revulsion to stuff like this.Yet this one somehow just slipped through the filter - and this is really what exposure to violence, even through very indirect means like videos does to a person, desensitization kick in without you even noticing it. I don't know how to feel about it really, for sure it's disturbing 😕

Shocking news: In England there is real commotion, public unrest even, because.. an impatient driver killed three ducklings.
No joke, that is what people are more angry about than this horrible war with hundreds dying every day!!!
Sure, I like duckies too, but sometimes I think this whole world is going crazy.

Shocking news: In England there is real commotion, public unrest even, because.. an impatient driver killed three ducklings.
No joke, that is what people are more angry about than this horrible war with hundreds dying every day!!!
Sure, I like duckies too, but sometimes I think this whole world is going crazy.

It surely doesn't look like things are improving..
Some topics and comments are so heated up that I start to reminisce about John Kettler and his conspiracy-stories. Those were less fanatical than some of the things I read in this thread (multi-multi-multi-topic-thread?) lately.
I loved reading the amazing news-updates and the very interesting debates and analyses, but things seem to go a little haywire, I fear.
 

I much preferred this thread when it was discussing the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

Not an army of saints by any means. But nobody will object that they had every right to do this in german territory as retaliation . And they actually spared the vast majority of people that had come to their land to ethnic cleanse them and make soap or purses from their skin. 
In this logic, we can say that the carefully planned colossal allied fire bombings of undefended german cities packed with refugees were more evil. But some people here will say for that, "you reap what you saw", while for the soviets they will say they were evil orcs and monsters. That's somewhat ironic and double standard. 
 

I swear if I ever read again that the Red army was equally evil with the SS and the Wehrmacht that made my father starve as a kid and his friends getting killed while painting slogans on walls, I'm going to delete my account here. There was nothing evil with the T 34s rolling down the streets of Berlin in 1945....Their crew could have been Ukrainian, Polish, Czech... Too bad I once had fun making mods for CMBB. Some had crosses, some had red stars, noone was actually offended.
It's still a WW2 monument, not a stazi agent bust. 

Guys you are being very short sighted sorry, cruising along with the shallow cancel culture. Here we have german paratroopers cemetery in Crete, German soldiers cemetery in Attica, Turkish monuments, venetian, franks monuments, all the freaking occupiers that walked this earth. And we respect all that no matter what, you vandals. 
 

Tearing down monuments is trying to erase history. It is more important to make sure that those who see these monuments know what or whom those represent.
Judging the past with current morale standards is necessary to understanding. But removing the offending statues means that this discussion will never happen again and the atrocities will be forgotten.

No. That is a disgrace.
I've been to that war memorial - back when it was in East Berlin, and since reunification. I've also lived by a German war cemetery on the Siegfried Line, seen countless British war cemeteries, visited Verdun and seen war memorials from all sides from literally dozens of wars on several continents.
Do not ****ing disrespect war memorials.

The antidote to Cognitive Dissonance (it would seem to me), is having some humility and introspection. The ability to say, "hmmm, how did I screw up, here?"  And, "I screwed up."

Seems to be lacking in a lot of people on this planet.