Zoraptor

At least this time only 8.5% of people bothered to turn up just to spoil their ballot, that's 1 in 12 instead of 1 in 8 last time. I'm still quite impressed that that many people would turn up to make a paper airplane from or draw smiley faces on the ballot paper instead of just... not turning up. Though of course the number who didn't bother voting went up by 2.5% in absolute terms, so you had almost exactly the same historic high level of disengagement in total.

hmm, maybe the slightest scintilla/ smidge/ soupçon of sarcasm, after all one doesn't like to bludgeon the reader over the head with it. (I always thought the Oceania Football Confederation was a great example- when Australia was in it all the other members consistently voted to do things specifically designed to piss them off because the Ockers weren't shy about thinking it should all be run for their benefit and that everyone else was irrelevant; yet consistently failed to make the finals. Fast forward to after Australia goes into the Asian Confed, and suddenly all the other countries are doing their best to annoy the new big dog that thinks everything should be run for their benefit, New Zealand. Hold qualifiers outside of the international window? Don't mind if I do says everyone; except us...)

Of course not, don't be silly. We wouldn't invade, we'd "regretfully deploy peacekeepers from responsible regional powers to protect the legitimate grievances of the people of Malaita who are being brutally oppressed by the Sogavare regime, and restore the democracy and freedom they deserve to the people of the Solomons". Of course, that's having spent the last decades, uh, sending peacekeepers to protect the legitimacy/ primacy of Guadalcanal and maintain the suppression of Malaita; including under the previous Prime Ministerial reign of, um hmm uh, Sogavare. But let's not mention that, since hopefully everyone won't know about it, and it makes us look bad. Let's also not mention every other time we've asterisked up a small country for our own benefit, like Nauru. On an unrelated matter I've always wondered why Australia and (to a far lesser extent) New Zealand have a reputation for throwing their weight around and being massive hypocrites in the Pacific. It's really weird. (If there's a lesson from Ukraine here- apart from how selective the concept of freedom to choose allies is- it's that the Solomons would be very wise to get those Chinese troops in as fast as possible, because we sure as sith are exactly as capable of invading a neighbour as Russia is, so long as we dress it up right)

To be fair, it's probably got as much journalistic vigour as "Putin has Parkinsons and will retire in January [2021], intelligence sources say" which was made up by The Sun then reported by everyone else. Mostly, that meeting was just staged weirdly/ awkwardly- possibly to make Putin look tall compared to Shoigu; but Tom Cruise Complex isn't a medical condition. For whatever reason they've used chairs which aren't the right height for the table they're sitting at (easily visible in one of the stills the Kremlin released, and no I'm not game enough to hotlink from The Kremlin's website). Pretty much everything is explained by... Putin leaning back in his chair. It's not like Shoigu looks better either, he's just leaning forward instead of sitting back. Then again, guess he looks pretty good for someone who has suffered two fatal heart attacks in the last month... My completely non medical opinion on the desk gripping- Putin has carpal tunnel. Because I do exactly the same thing when I have to sit at an awkwardly set up desk/ chair combo where I can't rest my arm properly and doing my usual stretches isn't appropriate. (Lord knows what the press would make of my behaviour at a desk/ table, I spend at least half my time doing stretches) If you think the worst then every surprise is a positive one...

Haha, yes, the story that keeps giving when it comes to cognitive dissonance. Irony, thy name is, uh, pretty much any western politician espousing the absolute freedom of countries to associate with and chose mutual defence with whoever they like, so long as it's the west and no one else- then wondering confusedly why the rest of the world thinks you're a bunch of arrogant hypocrites... Though to be honest, I very much doubt we share the same red lines as either the Ockers or Yanks since we get on a lot better with the Chinese than either. Our position would be far closer to "no military bases in the region, full stop (we'll just ignore the US ones all over the place, including here despite ANZUS being defunct)". Also, the rules lawyer in me notes that Scotty specified no Chinese Naval bases, so he'll be fine with an airbase instead.

It isn't really a change for US strategy, per se, though it is an upping of scale. Just about every single thing done in Ukraine happened in Syria previous, it was just clandestine because Syrians are too brown and non european, so the war there isn't popular enough to do things overtly. But the US/ France/ Britain were training the moderate rebel head choppers, and supplying them with arms (eg the CIA program Timber Sycamore), and intelligence, and consistently ran diplomatic interference. They had a lot of ATGMs, they just didn't use them well (and they were mostly older models; but then even a well deployed Malyutka can take out Leopard 2s and at least export Abrams. Still, the handful of modern Kornets they had knocked out two Abrams). It would be a lot less fun for the US now, post Afghanistan and Syria. There are other implications though- Israel has remained pretty much neutral despite all exhortations because they want Russia to maintain its soft ban on advanced exports to Iran, for example, and it's a reason- apart from their dislike of Biden- why the Gulf Monarchies aren't being very supportive of the west either. I'm pretty sure the idea at least is to just steal Russian money to pay for it, and saddle them with 'war reparations' to permanently cripple their economy. Double benefit, get the Russians to pay for western companies rebuilding and that way they can also justify keeping reliance on Russian hydrocarbons too- after all it would be paying for Ukraine to be fixed! Case Study: Iraq. Saddled with massive debt to Gulf countries from fighting their proxy war with Iran for them, Kuwait stealing their oil (like a milkshake, they drink it up), and then massive reparations on top of that. Then get the Gauleiter Colonial Administrator Paul Bremmer to award lots of no tender contracts to US companies for reconstruction to be paid for by the Iraqi state.

"If you've ever looked at the mess that is Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 and thought to yourself, "I could do better than that," here's your big chance to prove it." Not sure if Paradox going open(ish) license on VtM really implies anything for VtMB2, but given the prior press and lack of news it's hard not to read it negatively.

Ah yes, Strelkov/ Girkin. The guy who thinks Putin is... far too soft. Highly unlikely he'd actually win this war in Ukraine either- as he would already have started WW3 years ago after bombing US troops in Syria. [Good luck though, if Putin actually goes in a coup he's exactly the type of person who'd follow, and he'd quite literally nuke Poland/ Slovakia/ Romania to stop arms supplies]

Can't wait for the media to spooj themselves over another 'landslide' Macron election win and how that means everything is right with the world; a win with... historically low voter turn out and a staggering 1 in 8 people actually bothering to turn up just to spoil their ballot. Shame it isn't Le Pen vs Melléncon, as I forgot to make my quadrennial Jean-Cougar Mellencamp's joke as that really would have had the global elites' heads exploding.

You can get a decent idea of the landscape from satellites, eg. They didn't really try to attack (in order to capture) azovstal proper, just isolate it and pin down the defenders. The other parts were always the greater focus as they were easier, and azovstal is in a naturally defensible position with the sea and river along 3 sides. Random people on the internet knew about the Azovstal fortifications, I think it's fair to say that the Russians knew as well. I'll explain how the water thing would work, though personally I suspect they'll just starve them out instead. I've just got a bit sick of people saying they're impregnable... You don't need specialist equipment to flood tunnels, if their altitude is below sea level, except maybe a pump to start things off. We're on tank water here instead of municipal/ reciprocated, and I've accidentally siphoned ~5 cubic meters out via a standard 10mm domestic hose- didn't even actually require priming, as even I'm not dumb enough to have primed the hose and left it in the tank. Took about a day, but even the most bog standard 200mm black pvc drainage pipe can do 400x that rate, and it will do it every hour non stop until the sea runs out or level equilibrium. You'd want to prime it, but you can locate the pump in a safe place and once it is primed gravity does everything else. (The other thing to consider is that because of the low altitude and sea proximity the water table is very high. Even if bunker busters aren't effective at destroying the tunnels they'll ruin the waterproofing

Well sure, but then there's plenty about the lead up to WW2 that everyone wants to forget. One of the reasons the western reaction to M-R was so extreme was because... their entire plan involved getting the soviets and nazis to fight each other, and they patently didn't have a back up when that went wrong. M-R completely reversed that in favour of the soviets, and got the nazis and west to fight each other instead. It only didn't work because the west was so inept. (well, and because Stalin gonna Stalin) When did the west ever do something precedent setting that they didn't expect themselves to be immune from the logical consequences of? Just look at the mess the 'non precedent setting' Kosovo caused and the howls about it being a unique case. The only thing unique about it was that it was a western project. I very much doubt the Russians have just realised this. I don't think there was ever any prospect of them 'storming' the tunnels. The only question was how they'd avoid storming them- siege, Grand Slam/ Bunker Buster type bombing, or whatever. The other thing about the tunnels though is that they are, well, right next to the sea, and below sea level. Pretty easy to siphon or divert water into, and then gravity does all the work for you. Even if they have defences for that they're subject to being overwhelmed by volume, and you can't get much more volume than the sea. Mariupol pretty much has to be taken for a land bridge to Crimea. M-14 motorway runs to/ from it and that joins the M-18 to Crimea at Melitopol. There are alternative routes around Mariupol, but none as important and they all take you closer to the front line.

I don't think it's near that stage yet anyway. The footage of the pows from Ilyich has them looking thin, but not literally starving. They were just psychologically spent. Something like Antarctic exploring may be a good parallel. Physically people could last ages, even doing hard physical labour, in a situation where- even on full rations- you literally can't process enough calories to keep up with energy requirements; so long as they didn't have any other options but to do so. If you do have those other options they become more and more attractive because even a potentially bad option is better than a definitely bad option.

It's not all that surprising. Syria's a lot drier and sieges there lasted literally years, yet getting 'starved out' seldom (never?) happened. You can last an awfully long time on a can of beans a day, if you have to. For water there's a river right next door to azovstal too (OK, you wouldn't want to drink from it and it would be brackish that close to the sea, but still). OTOH going by what CossackGundi (the Brit Ukrainian Marine who surrendered) was saying from azovmash/ Ilyich they'd been out of food and drinking from puddles for a while there. Technically you could supply ~1000 soldiers with a single Mi-8/17 helicopter load, assuming you could distribute it- Syria did that for months with the Deir Ez Zor Airfield pocket. But that's a lot easier against ISIS which has no airforce or much AA than against Russia. The route is technically still there, since azovstal has a coastline. The helicopter losses were just completely unsustainable. And when they lost the helicopter on the way in their defenders didn't get the supplies anyway.

Named after a bad Voyager episode and run by Brannon Braga. No thanks. Honestly though, I remember liking Threshold a fair bit, and far worse ideas/ series lasted a lot longer. About the only thing I can remember Spiner being in apart from TNG was that fairly recent Robert Kirkman series ?The Outsider? (actually 'Outcast', after checking). I even watched that Dreadful Penny Dreadful spin off series and only realised/ remembered he was in it when I was checking the name of Outcast.

Probably the best evidence you could get that they're close to imminent defeat in Mariupol. If they're going to lose imminently anyway holding negotiations even if you actually aren't going to concede anything gives you extra time for free. Also kind of telling that they've gone from an "evacuation via a 3rd party guarantor on the ground" baseline to "talks without conditions" in a day. I guess they have to be able to say that they tried to save them, given the propaganda interviews Russia has been holding with pows where the constant theme was how the government continually promised to help/ rescue them and nothing eventuated. Realistically they aren't even tying down that many troops any more, since the perimeter has reduced ~80% over the last ~week; and the Russians aren't going to accept anything other than unconditional surrender which could be ordered without any negotiations. Might not be obeyed, but they could order it.

Probing Uranus is top priority this decade. I'm guessing with that headline one journalist's life aims are now complete.

Berbers on the Barbary Coast --> Bearbears on the Bearbeary Coast. Practically writes itself.

I do wonder if the Japanese would have had similar headlines in 1942 as to Kherson had twitter/ youtube existed. Probably yes; we'd have had "Henderson Field on fire again, Guadalcanal to fall imminently, when will those stupid Gaijin learn?" for like 9 months. They have to be the right type of Explosive Reactive, and they have to be where the atgm hits. As Gorth mentioned NLAWs (and Javelins) do top down attack, and you can't put ER over the whole top (turret) of your tank as you've got hatches etc. T-14 is meant to have that fixed though, as the turret is unmanned. There have been some other ad hoc defences tried, like cages you sometimes see added, but they don't seem to be very effective. You also need updated ER for modern atgms with tandem warheads. The first warhead on a tandem atgm sets off the ER, then the second works pretty much as if the ER didn't exist. The blocks on the destroyed tank above are kontakt-1, which is old. The Russians have at least three more effective blocks (Kontakt-5, Relikt and Malachit) that can defeat tandem warheads. They look like big slabs rather than small blocks. There's also no point in stealing ER, it isn't worth anything. Far more likely any tanks missing blocks had them fall off in action or had them cannibalised to replace missing blocks on active tanks. Eh, Bayraktars have done pretty much nothing verifiable in Ukraine. A lot of stuff is attributed to them by their horde of fanboys, but in pretty much every single case it's turned out to be something else that was actually used.

There's certainly been smoke escaping (except maybe the aft most circled area in the thumbnail; there's a big hatch there which seems to be open and the 'smoke damage' is suspiciously rectangular). It's not indicative of all those areas themselves being on fire though, as that damage is usually different. That's HMS Sheffield after burning out uncontrollably in the Falklands War- the damage is pretty distinctive. There's definitely some similar damage forward under the superstructure, but none visible aft.

Funnily enough the Russians did retrodesign separate/ blow out ammo storage on at least one model of T-80. It didn't proceed to production though and the prototype was (supposedly) destroyed in Ukraine. As with all things it's a matter of balance. You can buy 4 T-72s for the price of an Abrams, they're smaller and lighter and the autoloader means one less crew. The balancing factor is definitely survivability, though blow out panels are not 100% either. I kind of presume that the unmanned turret in the T-14 would give better survivability, but I don't think we know enough about that tank to be sure.

I have to admit to liking the first season of Bridgerton despite manifestly not being its target audience. Probably helped that it was lockdown, and I had to find stuff that would entertain my mother as well as me for a change- and had already run out of scandi-esque crime dramas. So far the only problem I have with S2 is that it seems like an almost point for point rehash of S1 (two episodes in) just with the bachelor and bachelorette's positions on marriage reversed. But yeah, it's definitely a sumptuous visual feast and the cast seems to be having enormous fun in a pantomime sort of way.

Always love those sort of articles, though I suspect not for the same reasons. (Patriot zealots are always amusing. Yeah write a big article on the lessons of Ukraine where one entire point is ballistic missile defence while completely ignoring the lessons of Yemen. Saudi Arabia has to fire off an entire launcher to reliably hit an antique Scud, and the Houthis veritable 1.2 drones/ missiles per day had Saudi requesting hundreds of resupply missiles. What the literal asterisks is Taiwan going to do against China who can probably fire off that number per minute on a fairly sustained basis if they wanted? They're not even very effective against ~half the most impoverished nation in the ME, one that has been bombed and under blockade for 6 years and whose armaments are mostly machined in a Saada shed by people hopped up on Qat. Though of course to be fair a lot of the well published failures in Saudi's air defences have been against things Patriots aren't really designed for, but they haven't done brilliantly at the things they were designed for either. Oh yeah, and no mention of the oft cited 'airforce in being' that Ukraine has managed to maintain when implying more Patriots would be better than F-16s. Really though, every single lesson when it comes to hardware has to be filtered through Ukraine having a land border with multiple friendly countries where you can literally send supplies in by truck or train and they arrive the same day; something Taiwan lacks entirely. Once you've fired off your supply of missiles those Patriots might as well be paperweights, and if you're going to try and use them for missile defence they're going to be firing a Very Great Deal)

Don't think there's much doubt of that, plain not enough damage- and none aft- and all the lifeboats have been deployed. Most of the pro Ukrainians have switched to '100 survivors' now anyway. At this point the 50 survivor die hards can join the Snake Island Martyrs and Ghost of Kiev aficionados. They'll have lost a fair few though. (For similar incidents in the Falklands or the Stark losses dead and injured were up to ~30%, which would be ~170 for the Moskva if it was fully manned)

They'd be utterly pointless to Ukraine- nuclear deterrent relies on MAD, and 2 warheads wouldn't even approach that. Guess you could kill a lot of civilians in Smolensk or Rostov even with a small warhead, but then the retaliation would be massively disproportionate. Might give some 'fight to the last Ukrainian'/ 'only good Russian is a dead Russian' types a chub though before all of west Ukraine becomes Chernobyl 2.0 and they switch to how much of a warcrime it is to use nukes, on people they like. They'd also be pointless on the Moskva. The nukes are designed mostly for hitting Carrier Strike Groups and the like and Montreux means those can't even get into the Black Sea in the first place. So, whose Black Sea fleet would they be for nuking? Ukraine's fleet consists almost entirely- and really, pretty close to entirely- of inflatables. Even for hitting land based targets they're almost pointless since you've got limitless better options in ground based missiles and Tupolevs.

They should have been bombing the railways from the start- the whining about war crimes would have drowned out a fleet of 747s, but they are and always have been legitimate targets. The criticism would also have been monumentally hypocritical given, well, incidents like Grdelica. They should also have blown and kept blowing every bridge they didn't plan on using themselves. Can't hit a lot of the crossing of the Dniepr though since they're dams, but you get some lovely supply line choke points if they're the only option. And they already have a bridgehead over it in the south. Yeah, it's very unlikely. (Ships do carry ammunition they don't plan on all the time- she probably had ASW ammo on board despite Ukraine having no subs for example. It isn't that she wouldn't have planned to use it so much as that nuclear missiles would potentially take up space for missiles they might intend to use) Ah yes, the dichotomy of propaganda. Your enemy is precisely as brilliantly ruthless and cunning or monumentally inept and stupid as you need him to be for the scenario in hand. I think my favourite way to get it to manifest itself inside two sentences is to suggest that since Russia is so inept and can't even handle Ukraine that defence spending can safely be cut instead of increased. After all, if they can't handle Ukraine how could they handle NATO?