How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

Heating with oil is almost totally a New England thing as I understand it. I have lived ALL over the South and West, and have never seen a single oil furnace in my life. I admit it completely slips my mind that a pretty good chunk of the country uses oil, and has even more reason to watch every OPEC meeting with a sense of dread.

It apparently used to be a thing in the PNW to some extent, though wood stoves are probably much more common..  Our place in Portland had an oil tank that had to be removed before the seller could sell it, and also had two wood stoves (one EPA approved, one not, so the latter also had to go).  The primary heating is now natural gas, but there's a nice wood stove in the living room that will warm about half the house.  My best guess it that it was originally wood, then oil, then replaced with gas.  When Texas was having the the big cold snap a few years ago that made the news, Portland had an ice storm that took out electricity, but it didn't even make the news as far as Hillsboro. Everybody just got out their chainsaws and cut up the trees that fell in their yards (free wood!) and fired up the wood stoves.

[Undaunted]

An interesting but very long interview with the famous wargame designer Mark Herman, on Nov 3, 2022, a bout a week before Russian withdrew from Kherson.

The discussion jumps between wargame design, his works at Pentagon, Ukraine and Taiwan, etc..  Here are the bits related to Ukraine, but I am sure I missed some.

27:45 about munition based warfare
55:35 about battle at the Antonov airport, suggesting he is working on a game about it
57:45 about his initial opinion about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine-Russia historical tie
1:02:00 about where Ukraine war is heading
1:07:45 about infowar and cyberwar
1:12:00 about cooperations between state and non-state actors with varying levels of capabilities and interests
1:23:00 about Russian mobilization
1:25:00 about possbility of an army coup in Russia
1:27:40 about whether nuclear-armed Russia can lose
1:51:00 about possbility of Ukraine war, potential Taiwan war, Korea situation to connect into a global conflict
1:53:40 about recurrence of bad leaders like Putin Xi Hitler
2:19:10 about strategic surprise and nuclear weapons

[Ultradave]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Here in New England prices in 2020 and 2021 were down due to a drop off in demand during the pandemic and the related reduced costs for energy generally.  This was already trending upwards before the war started due to greater demand and supply lagging behind it.

My state's utilities are semi-regulated and have to petition the government each year for what they charge customers.  Last year the two companies were approved for a 50% rate hike for the energy supply portion of our bills, but this rate was requested BEFORE the war started.  This year they submitted another 50% request for 2023.  Other states in my area are seeing similar rate increases.  For us the increase is purely from natural gas as oil and coal generation are almost non-existent and we get roughly 70% from renewables.

Heating, on the other hand, is dominated by oil and not electricity.  So the majority are going to pay a lot more for electricity and heating separately.  I'm off grid solar and heat by wood, which means the decisions I made 15 years ago continues to look pretty favorable

Steve

Rhode Island Energy (part of PPL), has raised our gas price, almost double the charge/kWh from summer. It matches the raw cost of natural gas pretty well, though, so really can't complain. Our heating bills won't be double though because the gas/unit cost is only about 40% of the bill. The rest is distribution, which hasn't changed. We live in a house built in 1901 but it's pretty tight, well insulated, and we just had it resided this summer which included Tyvek house wrap. We have forced air gas heat and a gas stove. Hot water though is oil, and we have underfloor hot water radiant heat in our "sunroom" which the previous owners installed to make it 4 season room. Plus electric. So we have low total costs spring and fall, but high electric in the summer to run a couple of window AC units, and high gas in the winter for heating. Overall though, it's significantly cheaper than the previous house we had that was completely ceiling radiant electric heat. And that house was built in the 70s.

[Taranis]

Quote

Putin at the meeting of Russian military: all information about NATO forces and measures should be studied and used to develop Russian Armed Forces
https://t.me/bbbreaking/144171

 

[pintere]

6 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Come to Canada my friends. Cheap hydro power and all the snow you can eat. 

Unless you’re in Saskatchewan of course (almost all fossil fuel power and more snow than you can handle)

[billbindc]

6 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

It is interesting how half of the internet is seeing Zelenskyy's visit as "this means Ukraine will get some really good support now" and the other half as "this means Ukraine is going to be pushed to sue for peace at current borders now".

We'll see who got it right.

I can quite literally guarantee you that nobody who matters in DC is going to be pushing for Ukraine to sue for peace. It the one thing there's real consensus on. If anything, this is going to be a victory lap of sorts and a chance of Zelensky to make some bridges to House GOP members the struggle might need next year. 

[Taranis]

 

 

[cesmonkey]

6 minutes ago, Taranis said:

 

 

Russian sources say the 1.5 million total is for the entire Russian armed forces - which previously was at 1 million according to Wikipedia.

[Offshoot]

37 minutes ago, Taranis said:

 

 

That must be the reason for all the join the army to buy phones and sausages adverts

 

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, Taranis said:

 

Lolololol

Soooooo sooo sooooo too late. 

Oh my God you just can't make this **** up. 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

I can quite literally guarantee you that nobody who matters in DC is going to be pushing for Ukraine to sue for peace. It the one thing there's real consensus on. If anything, this is going to be a victory lap of sorts and a chance of Zelensky to make some bridges to House GOP members the struggle might need next year. 

That is my take on it as well.

On top of the support for Ukraine's moral and legal positions that they should not have to compromise on anything, US officials, including in Congress, have repeatedly vocalized Russia is not serious about negotiations.  Just a day or two ago I heard this out of someone high up in the Pentagon.

Where we should get worried is if the Russian position hasn't changed and you see Western officials pressing Ukraine to negotiate.  That would be a bad sign.  So far, none of that from anybody that matters.

The West has finally caught onto the Russian way of negotiating:

1.  Demand everything under the sun

2.  Offer no opportunity for a fair and equitable settlement

3.  Wait out the opponent until they suggest giving in to some of the demands

4.  Accept less than demanded, but more than is fair

5.  Walk away with more than Russia started with

Russia's main problem with using this strategy is it requires a certain degree of fear on the part of the opponent/s.  In this case, Russia has so clearly lost the war nobody (that matters) thinks Ukraine needs to give up anything.

Steve

[danfrodo]

58 minutes ago, Offshoot said:

That must be the reason for all the join the army to buy phones and sausages adverts

 

That is so utterly F-ed up.  "I'll go kill innocent Ukrainians so grandpa can buy sausage".   One might ask "why is russia so messed up that this old guy is so poor?".  Of course the answer is that ukrainians caused all russia's problems.

 

[pintere]

Still doesn’t beat their best recruitment video so far

 

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, Taranis said:

 

 

All the more reason for us to do everything possible to help Ukraine win ASAP.  A bloody slog does no one any good.  RU military collapse leading to at least recovery of Feb22 borders could provide basis for war to end.  be even better if UKR got crimea and some/all of Donbas, but Feb22 seems the minimum that would allow this war to end.  Then UKR starts building an army RU won't ever be able to mess with again.

[Zeleban]

7 minutes ago, pintere said:

Still doesn’t beat their best recruitment video so far

 

 

Subtitles garbled with sarcasm

[Offshoot]

31 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

That is my take on it as well.

On top of the support for Ukraine's moral and legal positions that they should not have to compromise on anything, US officials, including in Congress, have repeatedly vocalized Russia is not serious about negotiations.  Just a day or two ago I heard this out of someone high up in the Pentagon.

Where we should get worried is if the Russian position hasn't changed and you see Western officials pressing Ukraine to negotiate.  That would be a bad sign.  So far, none of that from anybody that matters.

The West has finally caught onto the Russian way of negotiating:

1.  Demand everything under the sun

2.  Offer no opportunity for a fair and equitable settlement

3.  Wait out the opponent until they suggest giving in to some of the demands

4.  Accept less than demanded, but more than is fair

5.  Walk away with more than Russia started with

Russia's main problem with using this strategy is it requires a certain degree of fear on the part of the opponent/s.  In this case, Russia has so clearly lost the war nobody (that matters) thinks Ukraine needs to give up anything.

Steve

6. Renege on the agreement at a time of their choosing

[Battlefront.com]

28 minutes ago, Offshoot said:

6. Renege on the agreement at a time of their choosing

Heh... yeah, forgot that one!

Steve

[cesmonkey]

 

[LongLeftFlank]

16 hours ago, billbindc said:

DC

 

15 hours ago, sburke said:

DC

I too spent salad days as a penniless grad student in DC, in '93 - 95; one of the only truly bike friendly cities in the US (in Canada, most cities are).

U street and 'Madams Organ' were the hopping places back then, although I also caught some great live bands (e.g. Social D) at the 930.

Overall, a fantastic city to be young and geeky-but-pretty in. I lived, loved and lost richly!

[billbindc]

17 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

 

I too spent salad days as a penniless grad student in DC, in '93 - 95; one of the only truly bike friendly cities in the US (in Canada, most cities are).

U street and 'Madams Organ' were the hopping places back then, although I also caught some great live bands (e.g. Social D) at the 930.

Overall, a fantastic city to be young and geeky-but-pretty in. I lived, loved and lost richly!

I was just on the edge of AM and Mount Pleasant. Ike's Mambo Room. Rumba Cafe. The Raven. Venus Lounge. Don't get me wrong...it's great now but it was better then if you were young and didn't have much money. 

[Taranis]

"Reports of Liga(Wagner) mercenaries being deployed near Krupeyki village in Belarus to stage a provocation on the border"
 

 

[Calamine Waffles]

Meanwhile, over in TankNet, the delusion continues:

Edited December 21, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[Billy Ringo]

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

[danfrodo]

11 minutes ago, Billy Ringo said:

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.   

[Taranis]

↓warning : corpse near the end, could be sensitive for some