xzar_monty

It's very interesting that those Western countries where the media environment looks most suspect tend to be the ones that are also suspiciously close to Russia. Hungary being the prime example. I find an awful lot to criticize in the Western media, US media in particular, but there's a world of difference between that and Russian media. It would be extremely interesting to get to the bottom of the Russian involvement in the US (media, elections, Trump, all that). But it's such a convoluted subject that I don't think we're going to know the details for a long time, if ever. But that is going to be one great field of historical study in the future.

Incidentally, here's a fresh analysis of the evil West.

There's no question about this one, I agree. However, there were earlier strikes of significance: for example, the one on the Saky airbase was August 9, followed by nothing.

I still wouldn't call it failed, but let us hope that that is how it ends up. Another encouraging thing is that once Russia has used this potential energy weapon that it has / had at its disposal, it will never have it again. Other countries will act, too, and not in ways that will please Russia.

Indeed, it's going to be interesting to see what it is. I suppose everything is possible. I am reminded of Medvedev who asserted that anything in Crimea would lead to "instant Armageddon" or something along those lines to the Ukrainians. I am also reminded of Putin who asserted that Sweden and Finland joining NATO would be completely out of the question. But in fact, Russia has done close to nothing. And yes, I know that the word "yet" is relevant. More than one historian / military strategist / etc. has pointed out that Russia has a history of employing a strategy comparable to pushing a knife into something: as long as it's soft, Russia will push further, but as soon as it comes against something solid and unyielding, Russia will pull back or even retreat. Of course this doesn't always happen, and of course this isn't unique to Russia, nor are meaningless words: I am reminded of that lamentable Obama who insisted that so-and-so would not go unpunished in Syria, but once it happened, Obama courageously did nothing. If ever there was someone unworthy of the Nobel peace prize.

Btw, I thought it was a nice touch that this can go one of two ways. In my first (aborted) game, I found myself defending the inn, as I suppose many people do. But in my second (also aborted) game, I ended up doing things quickly enough (no idea what the limit is), so the attack on the inn never materialized and I ended up being thanked for being quick. I think I also got some extra gear and extra XP, which probably wasn't significant. But I thought it was nice that they'd thought of this possibility and then realized it in the narrative, too.

Reading To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 by the historian Ian Kershaw. Excellent. (His biography of Hitler is also very good.) Stuff like this gives good insight and allows for better understanding of current conflicts, too.

Not a bad one, either. I might do that. We shall see. I have little enough time to play anyway, so it can wait, but I do agree that the patches have been annoying because the problem's still there.

The best joke mythic power was one that I juggled in my mind for a while. Its idea is so nice that I absolutely wanted it, but given the opponents I was likely going to face, I wondered whether it'd be useful and whether it would be better to take those "extra spells" powers first. I ended up making a choice which turned out to be quite ok, in terms of efficacy vs. role-playing fun. But that "Killed the giants" bug still persists so I haven't been furthering my new playthrough one bit. EDIT: new patch out today. Did they fix the bug mentioned above? No.

Russians retreating from the Kherson region. This only "makes sense" if you watch it all the way to the end, which is worth watching IMO. (I hope this doesn't violate any forum policies; in my understanding it doesn't. But if it does, I'll stand corrected and mea culpa and apologies.) EDIT, later: This does not look good. But it is not a surprise, either. These guys are cannon fodder and they know it. They are going to widow many of their wives.

It's been unusually warm over here, too, but I wouldn't say anything about the winter yet. The same holds true for the gas question that @Elerondand @BruceVC have spoken about. It may be that Russia's attempt turns out to be an epic failure (to quote Bruce), but we can't say that yet. Let's talk about this in March or April.

This guy didn't sound particularly impressive when talking about war in the winter in Ukraine (him being an Australian may be a factor), but this is an interesting thread:

No I don't. When it's a language people here don't speak and Google translate doesn't do well with, I often don't post the link. But there you go: https://tinyurl.com/a3zdabk6

Just read an interview with Christo Grozev, Bellingcat's main researcher on Russia. The most significant takeaway for me was that everyone near Putin knew well before the war that the Russian army was in a terrible state. But Putin was completely unaware.

Yeah. This remains a problem in tabletop. There's also the opposite problem: the player, having played for decades, will inevitably know stuff (general lore, monsters etc.) that his character shouldn't know at, say, level 2. This stuff is annoying every now and then, but usually it can be dealt with.

Yet again: https://tass.com/emergencies/1527319 And in other news, the Russian army is being absolutely as expected: brutal beyond reason, beyond nightmares. Comments on the UN report, focus on rape and violence: https://twitter.com/mykhed_o/status/1584867753860558848/

Watched a bit of the Sandman for the first time; bits and pieces from here and there to see whether I'd want to watch a whole episode. One interesting thing was that every new line, i.e. one not from the comics, seemed to be worse than what was in the comics. I wonder how much of a hand Gaiman in any of that stuff. I suppose everything from "none" to "he wrote all of it" is possible. Casting Stephen Fry as Fiddler's Green seemed like a wonderful idea, but it just didn't work at all, in my view. Making Lucifer female, on the other hand, worked splendidly. The guy playing Morpheus did a really good job. All in all it looked pretty decent but I can't see myself watching more of it. I wonder if it's been a success.

This is one of those "will be extremely interesting to see how it turns out" historical developments. Is possibly coming to an end, sure. Whether that's "good" or "bad" and for whom is, again, extremely interesting.

Manifestly not true: cynicism as an attitude is extremely corrosive and doesn't lead to good decisions or a good life. It's rare that cynicism is useful in any way. Your phrasing of "... we need for money", emphasis mine, also sounds like a severe case of self-loathing. For example, my stance on other people isn't predominantly exploitative, even though I am from "the West". Oh, I know, you'll laugh, but that's fine. It is true that any decision at all, even the most altruistic-seeming ones, can be viewed as cynically selfish if one is so inclined; Mark Twain demonstrates this quite unassailably in his smallish volume What is Man? If I help my neighbor, it is always possible to say that I only do it so that I can feel good about myself and that the help my neighbor receives is essentially meaningless. But the reasonable counter-argument to this is that this viewpoint is generally not helpful, as it does not lead to good decisions or actions, and it most certainly isn't conducive to, say, happiness. To anticipate one possible retort: no, the alternative to cynicism certainly isn't naiveté. "The West" also really does do some very stupid things, but that's a different matter.

Your cynicism is quite frankly breathtaking.

Btw, this is an interesting point. I'm currently working on a project that deals with the Stalinist purges in the 1930s (among a whole lot of other things). It is both fascinating and astonishing to note how important it was to make everything proper and kosher from a legal standpoint. The double-think and/or cognitive dissonance is rather frightening to behold: on the one hand, many of the decisions are clearly mad and murderous, but on the other hand, an awful lot of care is taken so that everything looks legal and proper -- and even helpful and benign, done in the spirit of making the world a good place for everyone. This continued to be true throughout the 1900s, with "brotherly assistance" signifying "occupation" and "murder", and it persists to this day. Now, it is true that this is, to an extent, something that can be seen everywhere: anyone who's ever spent time in criminal court and listened to what is said there will know that the most innocent people in the world are found just there. But the degree to which this is true is particularly significant in the SU / Russia.

Have to agree with that, I'm afraid. But hey, the good news about this is that I've started a new playthrough, so now I can use Aivu properly as soon as the spells appear. But hey, the bad news about that is that the savegame corruption bug still persists so I'm not playing at the moment at all.

But that's not true. It is true that "the West" uses its domineering position in ways that are very questionable indeed, but this only pertains to certain aspects of life, society, economics and politics -- it's not even close to "dictating to every other country how their citizens should be living". You may see this as nitpicking but I do seriously think that precision with language is valuable.

This, coupled with a remarkably flippant attitude on Saudis dismembering journalists, gives an impression of a particularly wholesome soul.

"Decadent West on the brink of collapse" That's a headline from the Pravda (Soviet version) in 1989. The headline is especially poignant / funny given what happened soon and to whom.