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Spring is here, I saw first butterfly today, sadly my dog was faster:

why would USA put weapon grade bio weapon labs in UKRAINE of all the places possible? xD

On 6 May 1992 Parliament of Republic of Crimea former Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic changed constitution of Crimea so that it says that Crimea is part of Ukraine. In 1994 Russia, UK and USA and recognized Crimea legally part of Ukraine in Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances which they signed.

Maybe Corona got out of Ukraine?

I mean they are french and fries drown in fat and cheese is offensive enough on its own

I can't unsee this!!!

I do agree that the west is also very much to blame for this conflict, but as said before... if living under russian rule wouldn't be such a crap deal, more people might consider it. If russia would be able to fix itself and be more trustworthy, the bordering countries might not try so hard to get away from them...

Well, Kaliningrad is next to Poland and ****ing close to my own country. I was always opponent of NATO going east, I always preferred independent EU army, but now I am glad, we are members... The reason why some ex Eastern Bloc countries wanted to join NATO, was close proximity of Kaliningrad, and the shared experience with Soviet aggression... For Baltic states, as you can see now, it was a decision of life or death. They would be now obliterated in one day, if they stayed "neutral"...

Diplomacy has no "win" condition. It is both a process and a state of affairs. So long as you are avoiding war between parties with conflicting interests, you are winning. I'm not a fan of the idea that, without the threat of massive force, one cannot have normal relations with one's neighbors. France and Germany have had a history of hostilities and preying on each other's weaknesses at different times. After WWII, a different approach was attempted. It is an open question whether without the Soviet threat, cooperation between them would have borne fruit as it has. What's certain is that if they had continued to regard each other as rivals waiting to stick a dagger in each other's back, the peace we now take for granted would be a pipe dream. We keep refusing to even consider the Russian perspective -- Ukrainians (and Baltics peoples, and Poles, and...) may be right to be wary about potential Russian aggression. And yet, this isn't mutually exclusive with Russian fears of Western aggression, especially in light of NATO's role after the Soviet collapse. Media and political leaders insist on painting Putin as an insane megalomaniac, when signs point to him rather being a calculating, pragmatic bureaucrat with a mild nostalgia for the past. It pays to remember that Russia has been under siege by the West, economic or military, for more than a century now. Whether this is the Russians' fault is immaterial -- the siege mentality is there, for both the people and the leaders. Dogged ignorance of this is a huge obstacle in the path to building normal relations. Arrogance in diplomacy isn't conducive to good deals. This much is obvious when we look at Putin's demands. And yet, this principle doesn't seem to apply to the West. The issue about nuclear powers perpetually looking as bullies to their neighbors isn't trivial either. Non-proliferation efforts are a joke, and a cynic could think they are more intended to gatekeep nations from graduating to "equal" status than preventing nuclear war. This of course has the opposite effect of pushing countries that feel threatened to seek nuclear weapons as an existential safeguard. If we really want a world where diplomacy and the international rule of law decide matters, we must push for nuclear disarmament. Otherwise, an exclusive club of countries will always exist that reserve the right to do as they please. As for why countries seem to flock to the US... funny story. We've had a history of political opposition to hosting NATO here. And yet, every single political leader who has held a position contrary to NATO since the early 80's, magically flips after being elected to office. Acceptance of the cold realities of politics, or utter corruption? Perhaps they are one and the same in this day and age?

The proximity of Russian territory to the possible delivery of Nuclear weapons to Ukraine is very weak argument, as Russia has nuclear weapons already in the "middle" of NATO... At Kaliningrad... Should we now start bombarding it as well and demand that Russia removes them and then in the peace deal require the territory be given back to Germany?

The ruble is dead; long live the rubble. Sorry.

Very nice. Would be great if you could fight that war on your own country instead of shooting up other people's places, for a change.

I know, but it looked better than what they have been making and calling Star Trek so I decided to check it. Notice I haven't read the spoilers in your post yet. It is reasonably good (at least in comparison with the first season), however, there is still lots of things that keep telling me this is not Star Trek. I can't even identify all of them. The beginning was really boring and the entire episode was full of forced things like Picard suddenly having a serious issue that he has never discussed with Guinan and every character from the first season showing up at the same time (I was genuinely surprised when the crew from TNG didn't show up). My bet is that it will get worse and if I continue to watch it will be like Discovery S1 and TWoT all over again. Well, in that case I'll deserve it.

Confirmed by the US, Victoria Nuland saying that she is working with the Ukrainian goverment on how to stop Russia getting control of the research from those labs. China is also asking for an explanation.

The planes are getting transferred to US for a rather pitiful pretense of polish non-involvement. I would expect them to either openly go with this on day 3, or never bow to pressure. Instead they kept sending mixed messages, (even after officially denying the news) likely trying to drive some bargain. In result they showed themselves afraid, wasted crucial time and fooled no-one.

Yes I do. That you don't, in the face of what are extremely credible reports from multiple sources, is troubling.

I'm back on a carnivore-ish diet, less strict than last time. Fruits and veggies are allowed, but I plan to eat them sparingly. All big carb sources like potatoes, bread, rice, and pasta are strictly forbidden. I had coffee and plain Greek yogurt for breakfast. I snacked on zero sugar beef jerky while driving. I ate a pear before working out then had some bacon and string cheese after. Good times!

And you honestly, and I mean really honestly, dont believe that deep down inside the Russians arent killing civilians ?

So there's lots of reports now of russians killing and raping civilians. Coincidentally also just saw a video of an old couple getting shredded by an autocannon. That's some vile ****, man. I think the "innocent russian soldier"-trope has worn off by now.

Yeah I look the names up. I can't remember the name of 90% of the people I meet in real life, though. Its a lot easier to pull out a VHS and stomp it than a hard-drive (at least for me).

Because we need a laugh about this - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/06/poutine-not-putin-classic-quebec-dish-under-fire-in-france People are ****ing stupid.

Congratulations to Russia for becoming the world leader in some field! Go Russia, I believe you can do even better! https://www.castellum.ai/russia-sanctions-dashboard

The meanest of mugs: "I've never seen [this child] take to a stranger so quickly before." Uh, right - there were literally about fifteen other mean mugs like these I could've also posted, . I appreciate a good mean mug, and this little girl is a professional mean mugger. Gainax sure knew how to make some impressive looking stuff before the 2000s - not that these screenshots really show it off in any way. It's less the aesthetic and more that they make complex shots from creative angles with impressive amounts of detail and motion. Well, why spend all that thought, time, and money when you could just...not?

Please take it with a big grain of salt, there are reports, there are some leaked documents, how Russian secret service did not knew about the attack, and now there is a big notion, that all the blame will be put on them, despite not knowing all details. First this might be a very strong anti russian propaganda hitpiece published to lower russian soldier morale even more, but on the other hand, this is from web page of our television, which is owned by a person, who has very close ties to Sputnik News. The link should be google translated to English. https://www-ta3-com.translate.goog/clanok/230111/ruska-tajna-sluzba-vraj-o-invazii-nevedela-teraz-caka-katastrofu-uvadza-to-uniknuta-sprava?fbclid=IwAR35MhBl8qI1KMW_isz_CqMqFcIKU2zyvq84zizOLoEpwvy6qT0pMxGwQyA&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

There's also Nikita Khrushchev's territorial redistribution in the sixties, but it would be even harder to pin that on Ukraine than pacts of Sovietistan's collapse. Although Gorth seems to think that "referendum" with Russian military present in Crimea was fair and square () and has this theory that Putler is an anime girl who only went criminally insane after mean girls of West kept blocking his heartfelt, earnest efforts to be accepted as part of the "West mean girls" club or something, so maybe things really look upside down from the distant Down Under. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Newest list of hostile COUNTRIES to Russia.

Kaliningrad is a very long way away from the most prominent NATO member though, and the one with by far the most nukes. It's also only in the middle of NATO because of... NATO expansion. Do we really need another example of "___ aggressively placed their country near western military bases"? If you are going to go for a strategic nuclear strike you want to hit everything with as little warning as possible and nothing trumps being close for that. Realistic scenario? You'd hope not. But then the US has quit pretty much every treaty designed to prevent that scenario. ABM. INF. Open Skies. They're doing a very good job of looking suspicious.

The problem, I think, is that you absolutely don't need consumables to go through most of the game unless you are a Nazpalca monk. In my current Arcane Archer/Skald playthrough I am literally killing megabosses and the first time I used a scroll was at Belranga, where I prepared a few Garden of Life scrolls for the ridiculous healing (obviously, with Arcane Archer you want to pump Arcana, so I had tons of scrolls lying around but never found any opportunity to use them). For the remaining 99% of the game I am just not going to blow cash on a Scroll of Great Maelstrom when I can just have Tekehu cast it the old-fashioned way.

So Roman Empire is back on the map. This one was hard, had to restart like 3-4 times after already playing for like 150 years Now I have make it look like this in next phase (this one is just for me, no achievement there)

If you want to specialize in consumables, I'd suggest an assassin build. This is because scrolls cast from stealth can benefit from the very substantial assassinate bonus. With high arcana and stealth you can really do serious damage with higher tier scrolls. @Not So Clever Houndhas posted a number of assassin builds that feature scroll casting as an important aspect of the build. Assassins too can make good use of poisons (as well as potions and drugs) as well as bombs (for afflictions mainly). You might consider an assassin/bellower with blightwood. You can start combat, summon some minions, cast scrolls or invocations from stealth, and gain phrases whenever you kill someone, regardless of the ways in which you do this. It's a very versatile build that you can play in a party or go solo.

Things have changed from 60s, in way that both USA and Russia have strategic nuclear weapons that can be shot from anywhere in world to anywhere in world. So close proximity of military bases and nuclear weapons has quite little impact to MAD

Helpful context for others here, particularly non-Americans, is remembering that Cuba exists, which the U.S. has been embargoing for the last 60 years or so, and whom we attempted to regime change multiple times as well as conducted what was essentially a campaign of terrorist attacks against it...among other unsavory activities*. U.S. leadership was willing to go to nuclear war in order to prevent Cuba from hosting Soviet missiles - only by secretly reducing their own stock of missiles in Europe did the Soviet Union relent and allow us to still be sitting here today. So you might be able to see why NATO expanding literally to the border of Russia might concern them, especially given that there are five U.S. nuclear bases already in Europe in other NATO countries - Russia may be a pretty pathetic rump state of the much grander Soviet Union, but they're still a strong regional nuclear power seeing all of their interests slip away to the Western bloc...a Western bloc that also largely acts like it owns the world and that everything it does makes it the "good guys" and everyone else the "bad guys". The difference I have with Numbers, though, is that I'm really not exactly sure...you know, like, what should have been done instead - how should these things have worked out that would've been better? He mentions expanding NATO as being the critical provoking issue, but if you do not have the concrete backing of a nuclear power, then IMO it is only a matter of time until you are in someone's target sights sooner or later...exactly as we are currently seeing with Ukraine, which did not have any iron-clad guarantees from anyone about anything, which is exactly why Russia felt pretty secure in invading it. Though things may have looked peaceful back in the 2000s, that is no reason to believe it will be true in the future - a lot can change in just ten years, and this alliance has held and guaranteed the sovereignty of many of its members for much longer than that, so it makes perfect sense that vulnerable countries would join NATO while they could...particularly given that there is no future where the U.S. looks to actually permanently "occupy" or annex any European countries, which is not necessarily the case when you have a directly neighboring regional power like Russia who already seems to kind of look at you like they own you. And if you're a regional power and literally just about all of your neighbors are flocking to different "foreign interests" instead of you, well...what're you doing wrong that your rivals aren't? Invading one of those neighbors certainly isn't going to encourage anyone else to cozy up to you when they could pick a less expansionist alternative instead, . However, while it may make sense for the countries that wish to join, Numbers' specific argument was against the U.S. allowing (and/or encouraging) them to join in the first place. That I am less sure about. Did NATO see Russia as its primary "threat" before 2014? Was Ukraine joining NATO even a realistic possibility? I guess it doesn't really matter to Russia - they were clearly slipping away after a suspicious change of regime and there was a distinct possibility that they could apply and get in suddenly before Russia could do anything about it, which was too strong of a risk to bear when they could put a pre-emptive end to it, consequences be damned. NATO's continued existence after the end(?) of the Cold War is a matter of discussion in of itself - personally, I have been pretty but not absolutely pro-NATO because I think it encourages peace and cooperation among its members, and if you are at peace with your neighbors, you are also likely to be at peace abroad by and large...and a powerful bloc of similarly aligned countries also has a sort of strong-arming effect on nearby non-aligned nations that might otherwise be more aggressive than they're being. It doesn't always work out like this, though, especially with consideration to the U.S., which, while it has generally been a good stabilizer in Europe (the issue of Kosovo notwithstanding, particularly given how completely screwed that entire situation was on all sides), has essentially been an ultra-aggressive wishy-washy/rogue military hyperpower with a legion of known and secret interests/goals throughout most of the rest of the world. Really, the idea that the U.S. somehow has cleaner hands than Russia is a joke - the only way you could ever possibly see it that way is if you have a completely Anglo/European-centric view where the rest of the world doesn't matter. Anyways, we tend to think of the future as somehow inherently being more peaceful than the present and certainly the past, but I don't think that's true at all...so something like NATO or the EU that tries to tie a bloc of directly neighboring nations together as natural allies with shared interests for the foreseeable future is always going to be a good idea to me - whether it's in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Americas, peace is good to me. *I really wish the U.S. had gotten over the whole "Communist" thing at some point in the 50s-60s and earnestly tried to have amiable relations with nations we didn't need to be fighting - specifically with Cuba and Vietnam. Unfortunately, I don't think it was until the 80s that we finally consciously realized that peaceful co-existences and even alliances with such countries were actually possible, by which time it was way too late.

Russia is not going anywhere. Chinas, Irans, Indias and Pakistans might be a problem from the perspective of a global superpower. For eastern Europe it will be just Russia.

In my experience consumables are much more important when you play solo. You can pretty much ignore them when playing in a party.....unless you're a Nazpalca! That said, you could build a character with consumables in mind. Aside from assassin, I'd recommend a SC Bellower. Casting from scrolls or throwing bombs will give you more to do than just auto attacking while building phrases. Cast a scroll of nature's mark/earth talon and throw a fire bomb to debuff reflex, then cast Her Revenge, Her Tears, etc. Or scroll of wilting wind, etc., to debuff fortitude then cast Ol Nary.

Another Russian General killed, apparently.

This is generally going to be the case simply because if consumables were good enough that you want to use all the time, it would blow out individual character customizations. For precisely this reason, consumables today are a heavily nerfed form of what they used to be at release. That being said, consumables can be very good situationally, but those situations are less common on lower difficulties (where you can just brute force fights). As @Constentin Lévine alludes, Arcana can scale to be extremely good, and is the only consumable skill to do this. The only downside is that compared to Alchemy or Explosives, I find them to be extremely hard/expensive to keep a regular supply of (and powerful scrolls consume extremely valuable/finite ingredients), up until the end game where you suddenly get tons of extremely powerful scrolls. Something to consider - one of the ways consumables were nerfed is that they don't benefit from stats (might, intellect, perception). For this reason, on PotD, it can be quite hard to actually land offensive consumables. However, they do benefit, from generic combat buffs, like accuracy boosts and such. In addition, indirect effects from inspirations have an effect: intellect inspirations above smart (+1 PL) perception inspirations above insightful (you get graze to hit and possibly hit to crit) might inspiration above strong (+2 PEN, possibly interrupt on crit) All that being considered, think about these classes for a consumable focus: monk: easy access to Tenacious. Dance with Death for up to +15 accuracy. fighter: easy access to tier 2 (up to 3) perception and intellect inspiration. Adventurer/Conquerer stance gives you direct accuracy bonus. ranger: marked prey/marked for the hunt spam to give you +10 accuracy to targets (won't always be calculated in the estimate to-hit/graze chance when you're targeting, but will always work correctly [which will be verified in the combat log]). Stalker's Link can also gives you bonus accuracy. Hunter's Fang/Claw will give you a further +20 acc and up to +20% damage boost. Survival of the Fittest will get you even more accuracy rogue: bonus hit to crit, smoke bomb is basically like a re-usable consumable . they also can get extra quick item slots. chanter: energized inspiration, up to tenacious (you also have great action economy) cipher: the bonus AoE you can get at tier 9 works for consumables and can be zany, especially with arcana scrolls druid: the potions they can summon at tier 7 also benefit from alchemy so there's a very light synergy here. Don't forget about Lucero, a very late-game pet that gives your entire party -25% recovery time bonus when using quickslot items. Ring of Focused Flame and Helm of hte White Void can boost various consumables. Ring of Overseeing can be a way to boost AoE for bombs and scrolls. Fleshmender can be upgraded to give you another quick item slot.

I have a theory about this. I do not believe the Russians are serious about allowing civilians to leave eastern Ukraine because, for all the nonsense-talk from them, the real reason they want eastern Ukraine is to take control of that population for Russia. The single biggest threat to Russia's future power is domestic demographics. Their population is in steep decline and has been for over 20 years. They desperately need people. But of course given their ultra-nationalism, they only want ethnic Russians. This war is less about a land-grab and much more about a population-grab. So they cannot afford to allow people in eastern Ukraine to leave. And let's be honest. The people fleeing the Russians are not just Ukrainians. Plenty of very credible reports that the ethnic Russians in these areas (Kherson for example) are openly siding with Ukraine and stating very categorically they do not want to live under Putin's rule.

The "deal" being offered by Russia is a horrible deal, one Ukraine should never accept. But, if it is indeed just Russia's opening bid, and Russia is open to meaningful negotiations in which they are willing to give Ukraine certain things, then diplomacy has a chance. But we all know that Putin only operates on the basis of take-it-or-leave-it dictates, so I am skeptical anything will come of this. I do hope I am wrong.

Did I not say here that Shoigu may rebel against Putin? And now, if Putin is trying to scapegoat him, he has that much more reason to try a coup. He has nothing to lose. He's dead whether he doesn't do anything or he tries a coup and loses.

It's all relative. Just because things are better in the EU than in Russia, it does not mean the situation is not in need of some deep changes in the EU. I mean, I moved to Sweden from Portugal, because the issues with Portugal were big enough that I felt it wasn't worth it to stay. But on the other hand a bunch of Brazilians have recently fled to Portugal in search of something better, partly because of Bolsonaro, and the fact that I left Portugal does not mean that the Brazilians who moved to Portugal were wrong or unwise. Too often the choices we are faced with are several ****ty ones, and we have to make do with whatever is less bad. Even if the less bad is a bunch of easily hate-able klepto/technocrats.