Billy Ringo

Fox did not even show Zelensky's speech, but TC unloaded on him as the speech was wrapping up.   Somebody at Fox has an agenda and it's not just Carlson--and it makes no sense to me whatsoever.    I found myself watching the coverage on CNN and then CNBC's Rachel Maddow and actually agreeing with her---like I was in some alternative universe. 
 
The Cat from Hue is a phenomenal read regarding the news media reporting on war and how their personal views can both change and impact public opinion.  Cronkite included. 

You said it Billy Ringo!
I want to wish our friends living in Ukraine who contribute to this forum and the brave members of the AFU a Merry Christmas.
Last year around this time I remember I was thinking about corporate holiday bonuses and taking a vacation, this year I feel like none of that even matters.
All I want for Christmas is victory for Ukraine!
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

Thanks for your concern about us

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

I woke up this morning to sub zero wind chills, howling wind and a little ice/snow on the ground.  Worried about the heat, do we have food in the fridge for a day or so, are the roads clear enough to go see my girlfriend,  etc.
Then I thought about Ukraine.  And I STFU about my own concerns.  
God Bless all of you in harms way, the Ukrainian military, Ukrainian refugees scattered all over Europe, and those in Ukraine trying to go about their daily lives with air raid sirens in the background wondering if today is their unlucky day.  The Ukrainian children taken from their homes/parents and now living in some backward hole in Russia---and think about my own kids in a similar situation.  Those that are no longer with us.
It makes me sad, then angry as Hell. 
God bless all of you going through such Hell and a return to safety and normalcy as soon as possible.  I've got nothing much else to offer but my words and my prayers. 
Peace to all.
(With apologies if this is a little off topic with regards to military strategy,etc. )
 

That ain’t the magic number.  I suspect the number is about 1.1 - 1.5 million dead and or wounded, but there are a lot of caveats to that estimate.
Humans can hold about 125 intimate relationships in their heads, max.  These are family, friends, acquaintances/neighbours, guys we hang out in forums with.  “Intimate” means we actually get a glimmer of empathy for them because we see them as people - of course empathy is a slippery beast and different for everyone, especially guys on a forum.
So if that is “first order” then those intimate relationships, relationships are second order - so 125 times 125 = 15,625 (“technically”, because I know some guys here are going to be that picky, it is 125x124 because our connection should not be counted twice). People who are connected to the max amount of people we can give a crap about. (Assuming no overlaps but let’s try and keep it simple).  So this is “there is a guy I know from work whose cousin…” type of thing - two degrees of separation.
In order to have an second order effect on 144 million people Russia need only have about 10,000 casualties in this war and they crossed that threshold months ago. This is the point where “I know someone who knows someone” effect kicks in.
However, we humans are also pretty damned insular.  Just because the guy at the grocery store had a second cousin who got his leg blown off at Kharkiv does not mean I am going to march in the streets and overthrow the government.  For that no one can really calculate the tipping or saturation point easily.  One could argue it is 1 in 125 - which for Russia is about 1.1 million.  This would mean that the average Russian is likely to know someone directly who has been killed or wounded in this war - “the guy in the grocery store went to Kherson and got his legs blown off”.
I am not sure that would even do it to be honest but as that number of dead and wounded grow the pressure on the average Russian’s little security bubble get higher and higher.  In order to ensure every single Russia household has at least one direct impact we are talking 58.6 million - https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/macroeconomic/number-of-households-in-russia-2096160/
That number will very likely set off the micro-social bomb unless Russia is truly “all in”.  The number for Ukraine is about 17 million - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households
Historical example - in WW1 Germany took 7.4 million casualties (https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses_germany)  with a population base as of 1910 of about 65 million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_Germany). That is 1 in 8 Germans.  No data on German households, given that family sizes were larger but that is approaching the 1 per household line. Add to this food shortages and a bunch of other pressures it really is not that hard to see why Germany buckled, in fact it is pretty impressive they lasted as long as they did.
But of course none of this takes into account context.  Is a nation in an existential war?  Who are they fighting?  How unified is their culture?  [aside: Russian mobilization concentrations in certain regions is a very bad idea as it creates schisms as some regions will feel the effects much more than others - this little exercise assumes uniform distribution of casualties, which we all know is not the case, but making it worse is a very bad idea]
So the real question: when does Russia start to feel the pain enough to do something about it?  Almost impossible to answer in detail.  How invested are Russian in this war?  Seconds cousins of grocery guy?  Grocery guy?  My second cousin?  Brother, son or father?  Me? Just about every society will tolerate the Grocery Guy’s second cousin to a point. Unless the war is really upside down or the society is really anti-war - we had rumbling and push back here in Canada on Afghanistan and we were likely just below the grocery guys cousin in that war.
Rate of loss is also a factor.  Over time the grocery guy’s cousin is going to die anyway.  So rates of loss = shock.  How fast those second order hit happen is important.  Over 20 years is a slow pressure, in 10 months the effect can be amplified.
And then we have the internet effect.  We are able to make connections over greater distances. I am not sure if this is changed fundamentally how many connections we can make but online communities clearly have an effect as we have seen here. Before it had to be people in my neighbourhood that mattered, now it is a much wider net.  The converse of this is a desensitization effect.  
We can also have a phenomenon I call spontaneous relevant convergence this is when something hits a note that resonant deeply within human collective psyche.  It creates convergence on a focal point from a large collective of people who would normally be completely disconnected.  For example, the was a dramatic difference in opinion and support wrt the 2015 European refugee crisis after that photo of the four year old boy washing up on the beach happened.  No one could predict that, nor are the mechanisms really well understood - some sort of empathetic transpositional response?   
So here we are at let’s say 350k Russian casualties of some shape or sort.  That is about 1 in 400ish, well outside uniform intimate community impacts.  Some neighbourhoods are going to be severely impacted while other only see it on the evening news.  Plenty of room for denial and whatabout-isms.  Until that number gets to 1 in 125 - about 1.1 million, large swaths of Russia will only see this war at a distance.  A thunderstorm “over there”, I can raise an eyebrow, have an opinion and pretty much get on with my life.  Unless something happens that resonates, I can ignore the whole thing because the grocery guys cousins really doesn’t mean much to me. I do not have a significant sense of collective empathy or social responsibility. I just want to get through the freakin week.
But once the storm get closer, faster…well then I start to think about my roof and my car. And we have not even touched the economic effects of this war, which are easily in that intimate area to some extent.  Finally, this is also likely why Putin is not mobilizing 5 million men, that is well into intimate communities across the entire nation, and he knows it.

FWIW, I'm still up here on my little hill...

Can't stand that feller, but if he were standing here right now I'd shake his hand and thank him for doing the right thing.   

FWIW, I'm still up here on my little hill...

FWIW, I'm still up here on my little hill...

Finally got round to making this video. Throughout this year the bravery and skill of the Ukrainian state and military against overwhelming odds has been nothing short of outstanding, and since this war also has so much quality combat footage that wasn’t even remotely possible to create in previous major wars I figured it would be awesome to make an action-packed tribute video for Ukraine’s defenders.
Almost all the source material is combat footage since 24/02/2022. Some of the clips are super iconic and will be well known to all, while others are relatively unknown. I tried my best to include footage from throughout the year and featuring as many of Ukraine’s star performers as possible (biggest gripe is that I couldn’t make any reference to the Moskva sinking). Also, the whole Russian Z vs the Ukrainian + has been kinda fascinating to me, so clips that showed vehicles with those markings were preferred.
Thanks to all the users here who’ve been sharing such footage since things kicked off (especially some of the less famous stuff). This thread has been the source of many of the clips that were used, in addition to just being an awesome way to keep up with war news in general. 
And, of course, a great big salute to all Ukrainians for not only standing your ground against the Russian beast, but also showing it can be pushed back. It’s nothing short of incredible, and history will remember your defiance.
 

Zelensky visited Bakhmut today.
Edit: Changed the tweet, this thread has a lot of photos from the visit

Not sure if this has been posted yet but I found the latter part of this interesting (first part explains what an integrated AD is so you won't learn anything new – or anything at all really)
Around about 40 mins they talk about why Putin is pushing for something before late spring and what is bubbling up in the Russian economy/society. It puts a bit of flesh on the bone of what a Russian home front ‘collapse’ (for want of a better word) could look like.

How is it that he's not imprisoned or shoved down a flight of stairs?    Absolutely brutal criticism of the Russian military which I've not seen to this extreme except for those outside of the reach of Russia.