How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

 

 

[Kinophile]

This is an excellent UKR PSA. As a commercials 1st AD I have worked on many worthy, but ****, PSAs. Wish I had been on this. 

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Kinophile

[The_Capt]

36 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

You tell me what you are first, if you're so interested.

Actually, don't, the label game is boring and OT and interminable. Nobody cares.

Ah, over-educated nihilistic liberal then.  No hippie would ever use the term "interminable".

I am a Canadian-centrist, which in the rest of the world (except Scandinavia) appears to be slightly left of Marx.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

3 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I am a Canadian-centrist, which in the rest of the world (except Scandinavia) appears to be slightly left of Marx.

 

Dependensia by any other name would smell as sweet.

[Harmon Rabb]

Hey politics day. Well for my two cents.

According to the oh so helpful political campus and my lifelong voting record I'm a conservative. No way around it the truth is more than enough people with right wing views seem to have accepted the idea that Putin is not so bad, or Ukraine is not our problem. I think a lot of them think this way because they believe that our society is deteriorating, and Russia represents true traditional Christian values or whatever. Thing is Russia is basically just a mafia state. Some just don't like how much this war costs.

Well, that being said some folks on the left read "tankies" also give Russia a pass, because they still like Russia as it is a successor to the Soviet Union and they still think the Soviet Union is a force for good...Lets ask some of our friends from central and eastern Europe about that.

Anyway, I think the North American conservative movement needs more guys like Mitt Romney and Steven Harper as far as their understanding of the threat that Putin presents. As far as Russia goes, I think both of those guys would feel right at home on this forum.

What I always loved about this place is we have liberals and conservatives uniting to oppose an unjust war of aggression by a nation ruled by a man that we know is not our friend. 

Alright now that I said that I will go back to posting cool videos from Twitter.

[Kinophile]

 

[Kinophile]

I lol'ed,  truly. 

 

[Kinophile]

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Kinophile

[LongLeftFlank]

10 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Anyway, I think the North American conservative movement needs more guys like Mitt Romney and Steven Harper as far as their understanding of the threat that Putin presents. As far as Russia goes, I think both of those guys would feel right at home on this forum.

 

Well of course, conservative capitalists like their plumbers and other 'buttcrack' service providers and offshore labour to be hard working, goal-oriented, cheerful, not-too-expensive and if possible, white.

Them O'rentals got too dam' uppity....

Edited November 23, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Harmon Rabb]

 Ukrainian M113 in the snow.

 

VAB.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[Kinophile]

Interesting compare/contrast of what was given v final product. 

[Kinophile]

Grey Zone owner killed. 

 

[Kinophile]

https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/once-again-russian-tyranny-is-forcing-young-men-in-ukraine-toward-a-moral-precipice/

Quote

"As Putin drafts soldiers from the country’s occupied east, the author reflects on why his father fought with Germany against the Soviets in WWII."

 

[sburke]

Russian aviation ‘on verge of collapse’ due to sanctions, Ukraine announces after successful hack (yahoo.com)

Quote

 

Sanctions are accelerating the collapse of Russian aviation, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) reported.

The HUR made the comments after analyzing classified official documents it obtained in a complex special cyber operation against Federal Air Transport Agency Rosaviatsia, which is responsible for flight safety and records of all emergencies.

"Among the data obtained as a result of hacking and penetration into enemy information systems is a list of daily reports of Rosaviatsia throughout the Russian Federation for more than a year and a half. Their analysis shows that the civil aviation sector of terrorist Russia is on the verge of collapse," HUR wrote on Telegram on Nov. 23.

In January, 185 air accidents were recorded, about a third of which were serious. In total, in the first nine months of this year there were 150 cases of aircraft malfunctions, while last year in the same period there were 50.

Russia, due to the lack of capacity and specialists in Moscow, is trying to redirect aircraft maintenance to Iran, where the work is carried out in a "makeshift manner" without appropriate certification.

"The analysis of the nature of aviation incidents from the documents we received indicates that a number of failures, especially those related to engines, landing gears, and wing mechanisms, are systemic. The trend indicates that the civil aviation sector in Russia is in a zone of serious turbulence with a high risk of a steep crash," the HUR concluded, stressing that this poses a "deadly danger to the population".

 

 

[Carolus]

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Umm, I don't know your lived experience, but mine teaches me that no sector of society -- any society -- is any more or less emotional and gullible than any other, overall.

Other than the benevolent, wise and rational philosopher rulers *I* voted for, of course. (Assuming I had in fact voted in the last 30 years)

This leads too far away from the topic, but I dare to make this one post before the mods and admins rightfully punish me.

In both the fields of psychology and sociology, research shows quite reliably that (Western) conservatives are more likely to go with their "gut feeling", they value personal experience (empiricism) more than abstract thinking (rationality), they are more invested in their close social surroundings than general principles, they tend to have stronger stress responses to perceived challenges etc. These psychometrics form a pattern.

This type of human* has its place and likely had an evolutionary beneficial function in our society, but the problem is that the modern age is increasingy confronting us with problems in which the characteristics and qualities of the Homo Conservatus do not help as much anymore. E.g. instead of tribal conflict over a wild fruit orchard or keeping social cohesion in the village during winter famines, we now have "post-normal", abstract problems like climate change, global macroeconomics, and intercultural exchange on an unprecedented scale. None of these processes favour an empiric approach to their understanding, but populist slogans on the other hand are basically designed to exploit the emotional vulnerabilities people have based on their "lived experience", and those who favor lived experiences over abstract knowledge tend to be conservatives.

*type of human =/= an unchanging group here, but a number of humans as a sub-group of all humans at a given time. Generally humans change their political preferences over time through environmental factors, aging, and personal experiences etc. whatever affects our hormonal and neural make-up, which are the things which give us political preferences in the first place (no matter which side of the political spectrum someone is from).

Edited November 23, 2023 by Carolus

[kimbosbread]

26 minutes ago, Carolus said:

In both the fields of psychology and sociology, research shows quite reliably that (Western) conservatives are more likely to go with their "gut feeling", they value personal experience (empiricism) more than abstract thinking (rationality), they are more invested in their close social surroundings than general principles, they tend to have stronger stress responses to perceived challenges etc. These psychometrics form a pattern.

You say this, but I think it’s more age skew (conservatives lean older) and in the US that the population reads at a 6th grade level or below. Lots of very smart people on all sides go with feelings unfortunately (see my rant on Lucy Calkins and our public schools) much to the detriment of the country. As much as I’d like people to use logic and reason to make decisions, I don’t think 95% of the population has the ability or capacity for this. And the 5% that do, well, they still can’t figure it out most of the time.

I submit that our country is big enough and complicated enough that it’s very hard for the voter to understand what’s going on, what the consequences of a choice are, and that is no less harder for the people who produce the campaigns of elected officials, and all the decision makers. Seriously. You get people from opposite sides for beers, and they can usually relate to each other, regardless of background. But when you get to big abstract problems, and the future, it’s much harder. I really think our best answer is to go full big-C Culture on this, as the system is not getting any less complex.

 

[Kraft]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

Grey Zone owner killed. 

 

Claimed atleast, hopefully this time the claims are right, but I do hear his phone is just damaged

[mosuri]

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

 

 

Should install the whitewash mod.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Grey Zone owner killed. 

 

Whoa.  That is a very high profile propagandist if it's true.  He was either in the wrong place at the wrong time or Ukraine had intel about where he was and assigned a HIMARS to change the status quo.  He certainly warrants one.

Steve

[dan/california]

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, sburke said:

Russian aviation ‘on verge of collapse’ due to sanctions, Ukraine announces after successful hack (yahoo.com)

 

Could be a Ukrainian psyop, but it is more likely to be as it seems.

I've been saying this since the start of the war... it's only a matter of time.  Sanctions are not precise, perfect, or fast acting against an industrialized nation like Russia.  But given time, they can have major impacts.  Commercial aircraft were always going to go down this route because, unlike so many other things, there aren't easy alternative sources for parts and services.  It's not like they can log onto Alibaba and order Boeing or Airbus parts at all.  These parts are traceable as well.

This is an example of Russia's house of cards.  To quote the old saying, Russia is never as weak as it looks, nor as strong.  We tend to get overly fixated on Russia's carefully crafted image of strength instead of the reality of its weakness.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

27 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

Congrats to the Russians!  They finally figured out something useful to do with their armored vehicles   "The tank is dead, long live the EW hidey hole!"

Steve

[JonS]

1 hour ago, kimbosbread said:

You say this, but I think it’s more age skew (conservatives lean older) and in the US that the population reads at a 6th grade level or below. Lots of very smart people on all sides go with feelings unfortunately (see my rant on Lucy Calkins and our public schools) much to the detriment of the country. As much as I’d like people to use logic and reason to make decisions, I don’t think 95% of the population has the ability or capacity for this. And the 5% that do, well, they still can’t figure it out most of the time.

I submit that our country is big enough and complicated enough that it’s very hard for the voter to understand what’s going on, what the consequences of a choice are, and that is no less harder for the people who produce the campaigns of elected officials, and all the decision makers. Seriously. You get people from opposite sides for beers, and they can usually relate to each other, regardless of background. But when you get to big abstract problems, and the future, it’s much harder. I really think our best answer is to go full big-C Culture on this, as the system is not getting any less complex.

 

Lol, so *exactly* what @Carolus said, then?

[kimbosbread]

33 minutes ago, JonS said:

Lol, so *exactly* what @Carolus said, then?

I guess so, more or less. My disagreement is that happens more on the conservative side (though the present form of US conservatism is remarkably stupid). In education alone Prof Calkins has done more damage than pretty much anybody until the last few years where liberal cities effectively shut down public schools and are now wondering why there are “problems”*. Intelligent design “advocates” eat your hearts out! 

Obviously we all can agree cueing theory is a load of unadulterated bullsh**, but on school closures there wasn’t much evidence initially of course, and it came down to a complete lack of understanding of the tradeoffs, and willful ingorance and outright silencing of people who said maybe this is not a good idea, and maybe the lives saved from children not being in school will be outweighed by suicides and lives of crime that will result from a few years of the public school net not working. And now we are in the situation where people might need to agree with Ron DeSantis on at least one thing, which depresses me terribly.


*https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/opinion/pandemic-school-learning-loss.html

Edited November 23, 2023 by kimbosbread

[Harmon Rabb]

Cool, nice to see the crew of this Bradley in good spirits.

I hope more of these bad boys can be sent over to the AFU. Ukrainians really seem to like them.

 

Aussie Bushmaster also in the snow.

 

And a D-20.

Edit: Looks like the SBU eliminated another collaborator.

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Harmon Rabb