Zoraptor

Sarex bro, why respond to people whose opinions are worthless. I mean jesus christ, citing HoonDing as starting the discussion? Has he said anything seriously in his entire posting career- even going back through virumor/ Drudanae- in Off Topic? Maybe 1 in a 100, and that post very very obviously wasn't that 1. Doesn't really matter if Obama has a different geopolitical view from GWB though, if they end up doing the same things and the only difference is Obama looking mildly concerned. The difference between Torquemada setting someone on fire and me doing it is that Torquemada thinks God tells him to while I want to... make some smores, maybe? Torquemada's reason may sound better than general psychopathy, but God (morality) can tell him to do literally anything and he'll do so while thinking he's in the right and doing it for other people. For the poor bloke getting toasty the difference is zero and the actual justification is political, old Torquie's just convinced himself that it's moral. Now, some might think comparing Torquemada to Obama is unfair, and I'd agree to an extent; but when it comes right down to it it doesn't matter if Obama had moral qualms about droning people half a world away on dodgy intelligence while Bush didn't because Bush Believed in the Inherent Goodness of the American Cause. Obama still did it anyway and even stepped up the program. Indeed, in some ways that would make Obama worse, not better, since he 'knows' what he's doing is wrong. You'll get people saying that the neoliberal worldview is completely different and so much superior to the neoconservative one because it's all about helping the oppressed while neoconservative is all about changing the world to favour [the US, not even sure other countries have neocons] instead. The practicalities are that both worldviews are exactly the same in everything except the rhetorical aspects; ie it's only the justification that's different. If Torquemada sets someone on fire to save their soul that sounds better than me doing so so I can steal their gold but again, ain't no difference for the victim.

Russia had a decent chance of being a 'liberal democracy' in 1992 and maybe even making it to one without the air quotes. Instead they got economic shock therapy that lead to two bankruptcies, and the incomparable incompetent sot Boris Yeltsin. Who may have been feted among western politicians but left office on the basis that the population would not be permitted to lynch him- and that's pretty much literally the one thing he asked- and whose democratic credentials internally were utterly ruined by the 1996 election. At that point what do you do, vote for ongoing disaster? Not likely. It's a real shame, if there had been even a moderate Marshall Plan type system in place for Russia the world would likely be a massively different- and better- place. There's a very significant point of view difference at play here between those who live in the US- where no doubt there were major differences between Presidents- and those outside where apart from Trump there's been a pretty consistent neocon/ neolib interventionist foreign policy and economic mindset at play since... Reagan, maybe? Certainly since Clinton. So something like Obamacare would have been a major point of difference for an American, but it meant little to nothing to anyone outside the US. They saw Obama having more or less the same external economic policy as Bush and- despite the rhetoric- an almost identical foreign policy too. Bombing Libya, arming the moderate beheaders in Syria, stepping up drone attacks everywhere, while not shutting down Guantanamo. Guy sure talked a good talk though compared to Bush. ('eats their own' is an overstatement. It's not like you got most of the conservative media going into a feeding frenzy against GWB; and similarly you might have the conservative media foaming about Obama, but not the liberal. Trump is the obvious outlier, but on some things they'd even unite on in praising him- eg bombing Syria. Better than Russian media, sure, but that's not exactly a high bar to pass now is it)

Sokolov watch: now sacked as commander of the Black Sea Fleet as of a couple of days ago. Given its performance, not before time, but it seems close to incontrovertible that he's been alive the whole time. I thought to check because one of the other senior commanders Ukraine had claimed to have killed (Andrei Mordvichev) in a separate incident was a senior commander in Avdiivka.

Yeah, I'd never advocate for skimping on the PSU, indeed I'd consider it the one component where you should never skimp on reliability at least, I do wish I'd paid the few dollars extra for 750W over 550W though as the added flexibility would have been good. I knew perfectly well that that Macron PSU was garbage* and never taxed it even slightly (probably max of 1/3 of the on the box load). *apparently, having looked it up, I was... completely wrong. While it's an old and inefficient design it's actually very reliable. Looks like I owe Macron an apology.

One of the issues with Avdiivka does seem to have been a lack of proper fortifications behind the initial line. Will be interesting to see how far they do withdraw, I though they might well try to hold the Coke Plant at least but it seems not.

I would have to say that the one no name ('Macron', I think) PSU I've personally used actually did ok. It died in a puff of blue smoke eventually, but in circumstances where you might expect even a reputable brand to do similar (incorrect voltage supplied from the plug) and without taking any other component with it.

That isn't quite the problem, since opposition is allowed to exist, it's not North Korea. The opposition is a lot more restricted than in most liberal democracies though, certainly. That problem is more, at least from the western perspective, that there's very little pro western sentiment at any level and the practical Putin alternatives are: Medvedev or similar from United Russia, Zyuganov's ossified non corpse from the commies, Mironov who's basically a CCP style State Capitalist, or Zhiro's ossified actual corpse from the Liberals. The only one of those who isn't stridently revanchist is Mironov, who is a bit more moderately revanchist. The liberal, pro west party that Gorth mentioned (Yabloko) cannot even pass the 5% threshold- less than 2% vote in 2021- and doesn't on western polling data either. While the commies and LDPR are seen as controlled opposition they supported the 2012 protests extensively, hence all the soviet and Russian Imperial flags being waved at them. Navalny wasn't tolerated since he was seen as a western stooge. Certainly his coverage in the west was disproportionate to his highest poll rating from western agencies of around 5% which might, barely have scraped his party into the duma. Both the commies and LDPR regularly get 3-4x that vote each, but are stridently anti west so don't count as opposition. Ultimately, the problem for any western liberal politician in Russia is not Putin, but Yeltsin and, well, the west in general. You're not going to get a nice liberal pro free market pro europe pro west non revanchist out of the margin of error while peddling racial stereotypes, talking about breaking up their country and actively supplying arms and intelligence to kill their countrymen. Obviously I'd agree with that, personally. The disclaimer was more to avoid the- inevitable, as it turned out, ho hum- accusations of them being irrelevant since they aren't politicians while Navalny (/Trump/ Kennedy) are/ were.

meh, shouldn't break my own rule of never replying to people whose opinions are worthless.

Vote Radagast.

Would think Assange or Snowden are better examples, albeit non political.

I'd be interested in Navalny's reasons for returning to Russia. It always seemed like a dumb decision similar to Iraqi generals Hussein and Kamal al Majid who defected from and then returned to Iraq under Saddam- and they at least got a promise of immunity (not kept, of course). He surely can't have thought there'd be a popular uprising to install him as President or something and he was nowhere near important enough to earn protected status.

To be honest, DeepState and the like are better than ISW. They're as accurate- more so, really- and they don't try and hide their bias behind a veneer of pseudo academic language. Guess if they didn't hide it they'd not be used by the Beeb, AlJ etc though and miss out on funding. (You're probably not really meant to remember it but if you do ISW's coverage of the 'counter'offensive and Robotyne in particular makes for an interesting contrast to their coverage of Ukrainian losses. Robotyne, 2021 (belated edit; lol) estimated population of 74* was a crucial gain and "tactically significant" (direct quote). A city in the 10s of thousands that had been touted as a fortress prepared for a decade: not operationally significant) *2001 census had a few hundred population, for military purposes that may be a more fair estimate since, militarily, it doesn't matter if a house is derelict and no one lived there. Either way though, not large.

Flatout on giveaway for a couple more days.

In this case it's also the NZ accent's vowel drift results in pronouncing eminently and imminently exactly the same ('uminuntlee'). Forum writing is a lot closer to speaking than formal writing is so you tend to 'hear*' the right word even if you've written the wrong one. *pronounced 'hee-uh' since we love a good diphthong and bad ones even more. Also pronounced identically: hare, hair, here and even heir.

Ha yes. From some of the reactions you'd think it was imminently plausible though.

EMP seems imminently plausible. Not that they'd need Starfish for inspiration, the soviets had (an) equivalent test(s) themselves at a similar time.

Hmm. The ABC report says it's nuclear, though as with Reuters from old friend 'anonymous sources'. (Good thing it's not the British MoD saying anything or I'd suspect it's Shovel Deterrence Initiative/ Putin having launched a mysterious yellow object into the sky early August 2023 that creates tactical undergrowth to selectively hinder Ukrainian counteroffensives)

The reason for the re-release of Episode 1 is obviously due to someone at Disney thinking that this is where the fun begins. I've also heard that they're going back to proper analogue film rather than digital too, since spinning is a good trick.

25 years: A surprise, to be sure, but a not so welcome one. Guess that means it's 25 years since The Matrix even sooner.

AMD's (and nVidia's) PSU recs are pretty conservative since they have no idea whether someone has a reputable 850W Corsair or a disreputable 850W ExplodeMAXX one, nor what the other specs and draws are. Corsair's a good brand and HX Platinum ought to be rock solid- most psu tier lists have it as top bracket last time I checked. While you can't preclude being unlucky it seems unlikely that the PSU is the issue. To put it in perspective my PSU EVGA G2 is 150W below the recommended wattage for a 7800XT Pulse and is 6+ years old, and has had no issues. Indeed, it had no issues with a Vega64 with a 750W rec either.

The special counsel's report into Biden's retention of classified information is... interesting. "At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory [..] It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him [..] of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness"* Poor memory included not remembering when he was VP, nor the year his son died- so not exactly the trivial minutiae of a life spent in office. Way better for Biden in many ways than Trump's conduct was for him but still, a choice between a crook and a dotard is not exactly a brilliant one. *should be noted, also not enough evidence to charge apart from having to prove willfulness, which sounds far better.

The Il76 that was shot down carrying PoWs (or, if preferred, 'carrying PoWs') at the end of last month was meant to be the same as an Il76 that was regularly going to Syria and Iran* (and thus carrying a cargo of S-300 instead of prisoners). That Il76 has however been back flying to Iran etc again. *per wikipedia: "The independent Russian media outlet iStories, citing Ukrainian OSINT investigations [NAFO], reported that the aircraft had flown over Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Red Sea and Iran before disappearing from radars and reappearing over Belgorod Oblast."

Not just Ukrainian. Syrsky's the Timoshenko (Semyon, not Yulia) pick: not absolutely untalented, but his main talent was loyalty to his leader. Pretty sure just about everyone would have preferred Budanov if Zaluzhny had to go. At least if Syrsky had been in charge we wouldn't have got all the 'they did not actually follow NATO tactics of zerg rushing the enemy like Guy de Lusignan at Hattin' excuses for the 'counter'offensive since Syrsky would have done what he was told no matter how badly it worked. Not a good week or so for NAFOids. Apart from the Zalauzhny sacking (he RESIGNED!!! and wasn't that good anyway!!!) being a Russian psyops the Il76 they had shot down carrying weapons has also managed to reassemble itself and now plies its trade again like a real life Ghost of Belgorod.

Write it in your diaries, the world ends Feb 8th, 2300 GMT. The only thing that will be funnier than the interview itself will be the reactions to the interview.

Not even the sexiest Sukhoi- that would be the Su-47. This is a family friendly forum, so no picture. Quiet Place sounded like a stupid idea on paper, but they're actually pretty great