xzar_monty

This kind of stuff is not very meaningful, but in terms of propaganda, it's poor. Surprising to see:

It's interesting that we sometimes see a tyranny of the minority in this area, too. For instance, many muslim immigrants dislike public indoor swimming pools for reasons of religion and their perceived propriety. That's fine: they don't have to go there. What is not fine is that the pools are sometimes (like, once a week for a number of hours) closed for everyone else so that muslim immigrants can go. This is labeled as "opening the place for muslim immigrants", but of course that is not true. What is true is that they are "closing the place for everyone else". At other times, the place is open for everyone, including muslim immigrants, it's just that they choose not to go. This tyranny of the minority should not be allowed in places that are specifically intended for everyone in the population. The mathematician N. N. Taleb has pointed out how in many instances it is the least tolerant member/group that gets to rule everyone else. This is not wise. The kosher phenomenon in food products is fine because it doesn't bar anyone from anything. Namely, some companies make all food kosher because everyone is ok with kosher but a certain group of people is not ok with non-kosher; thus, it is easier to only make kosher food. Nothing wrong with that: nobody is prevented anything.

Now, this is a noble aim, and I support it. However, there is a fairly big problem, too, namely the fact that a substantial portion of the immigrants have absolutely no desire or inclination to integrate. This is readily apparent for anyone with eyes to see, or with ears to listen to what the immigrants themselves are saying. What to do about this? To me, Sweden appears as a country whose immigration policies have been abused in a really big way, and Sweden still hasn't woken up to it, at least to the extent that it should.

Also, the editor of Komsomolskaja Pravda, Vladimir Sungorkin, is dead. Presumably the KP is/was Putin's favorite paper. Reported cause of death: stroke.

Two rather surprising things that suggest Russia is not doing all that well. 1: And 2: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1569772561277353985.html I must say I was surprised by this. The usual caveats apply.

Owlcat doesn't seem to do DLCs well, then. I think they were really quite poor in P:K. I haven't bought any of them for WotR. The difference in DLC quality between the Pathfinder games and PoE games is huge, in my opinion. (The White March is superb, The Beast of Winter is superb, SSS is OK and the FS is good.)

A few months ago I watched an interview where a former KGB guy said the only surprise for him in the war has been the fact that apparently there's a new Churchill in Ukraine. I wouldn't go that far, at least not yet, but I agree that Zelenskyi has been impressive. (It was also funny that Russia's corruption and lack of military prowess did NOT surprise the KGB guy.) I enjoy the historical context in his use of "friendship and brotherhood". It has been Russia's and the Soviet Union's habit to attempt to mask occupation, warfare and just plain slaughter in language of brotherly assistance(*) and sometimes even love, and of course everybody and their mother knows this. But it was still a good choice of words from Zelenskyi('s speechwriters). (*) I mean, just as an example, when Soviet forces began streaming into Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979, the minister of defence, Dmitry Ustinov, declared to his own troops that it was not an invasion, and the idea repeated to the world again and again throughout the next decade or so was that the Soviets were trying to restore stability at a time when the "political and military situation in the Middle East" was in turmoil, and after requests by the government in Kabul "to provide international help to the friendly Afghan people". Perhaps a bit rich, that, as far as lies go. (And yeah, I'm sure you knew.)

Okay, so I was just uninformed and ignorant. Thanks for the corrections!

Now, I am not an expert on this, but doesn't it look like the Crimean bridge and Putin's mansion should soon(ish) be in Ukrainian HIMARS range? Laugh away if I'm just completely unaware of what I'm talking about.

Ukraine reports of a massive looting spree in Donbas and Kherson areas; hundreds of stolen cars roaming around as Russian soldiers steal everything from houses vacated by people fleeing the war. Here follows a list of all the people in the world surprised by something like this: Presumably this might signal something slightly positive, too, in the sense that these soldiers are about to head home with their loot (but not much XP).

Sheesh, these guys just keep falling off things. https://www.newsweek.com/putins-key-man-artic-found-dead-after-falling-overboard-1742218

Yeah, it's actually easy. For instance, if you simply combine Putin with a Hitlerian hysteria and sense of impending personal demise, you'd have a pretty awful leader without any reservations about killing everyone everywhere. Of course it's uncertain whether such a person were stable enough to end up as a leader. (Well, Caligula would suggest that stability is not necessary.) Realistically speaking, someone like Patrusev would appear to be even worse than Putin, though it's debatable whether he'd qualify as "much worse", and I hope we don't get to find out.

That is an instant classic! Deserves to be discussed in classes dedicated to (at least) logic and good use of language. If Russia was hit by a Great Depression, he would probably try to commit suicide by jumping from his janitor's apartment up to street level. (Joke stolen from Woody Allen.)

Russia, as an entity, is nuts. Here's a current example: there will be elections in Italy on September 25. The two right-wing parties, Fratelli d'Italia and La Lega, are beginning to have more and more fascistic overtones about them (Fratelli in particular). Russia is all for the success of the right, and the more extreme the better. Indeed, there was recently a cartoon with two people speaking. One of them says, "The Kreml is not interfering with the elections in Italy." The other replies, "The Kreml is one of the candidates." What's nuts about this is that Russia is deliberately and forcefully going for the thing Italy that it has very vocally declared to go against in Ukraine, namely the (extreme) fascist right. This is just one example of the many contradictory positions that Russia has assumed. Russia wants to conquer Ukraine and destroy the Ukrainian culture and people, and at the same time it wants to create as much chaos in the EU as possible. That's clear, I get that. But its rhetoric concerning all this is poor beyond belief: the attempted deceptions are astonishingly crude, the contradictions are clear for all to see, and so on.

Here's a video of a liberated house in the Kherson region. The Russian occupiers have clearly treated it particularly well. This reminded me of a contact I had with a surgeon in the very early 2000s; he had been involved in the Chechen war in a medical capacity, mostly performing amputations, and one of the things he had to remind the Russian soldiers of was not leaving excrement all over the bathrooms (that were on their side in the war, but not in their homes). I am not kidding, and neither was he.

Russian soldiers handling ammunition. Note: male life expectancy in Russia has traditionally been very short.

If you just google "84 signed Putin resignation" or something like that, you'll find more hits -- but not from sources that I'd trust. Mostly they are from sources unknown to me, not from sources I would say are rubbish.

Look at the history of Russia. You will find almost nothing that suggests things will change for the better. There have been two very brief glimpses of light in Russia, the most recent of which was about 30 years ago and lasted but a moment.

And therein lies the biggest problem: there is no democratic movement or even a semblance of it behind Putin, just waiting for its opportunity to rise. There's likely to be a power struggle which could go all the way up to civil war. The nature of the power struggle is likely to be dictated, at least to some extent, by the way Putin falls (and I don't mean whether it's from the 3rd floor or the 4th). But then, Putin hasn't fallen. The implosion of his regime could be quick, though. Let's see.

I was thinking along those same lines. But then, should this spread enough, there are not going to be enough bombs, so things may change. Let us have some hope for that. Zelensky's rethoric is fairly strong, and not bad at all, in his latest "address" to Russia: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/12/europe/zelensky-message-kharkiv-russia-ukraine-intl/index.html

I am not using the death's door option, and that encounter felt so unnecessarily mean that I felt like doing something not altogether constructive.

You can extend that to the Russian army (or Russia?), with some very minor reservations. Early on in the war, the Red Cross and Russia made a deal about a corridor that civilians could be evacuated through. It was mined by Russians. https://www.businessinsider.com/land-mines-proposed-ukraine-evacuations-humanitarian-corridor-red-cross-2022-3?r=US&IR=T

I must say this was a tempting comment, in the sense that maybe I should give it a try. But then, with family, work, and all the rest of it, maybe it's a no.

18 local politicians from Moscow and St. Petersburg are calling for Putin to step down, claiming that he and his regime are hurting the future of Russia and its citizens. Not going to do anything, except perhaps end these 18 people in serious trouble, but given the state the country is in, I would not ignore this sort of bravery, either.

Ha! Indeed. After dealing with the dragon and then failing with the veggies, I decided to roam elsewhere, level up a bit and only then return. Btw, I wonder how many people can manage the dragon on, let's say, Core, in case they fail the scripted checks before the enounter (and haven't deliberately overleveled before going there). That one looks like sheer hell.