Zoraptor

Jesus Christ, the Daily Mail. That's actively worse than just 'unnamed politician' or 'unnamed intelligence official'. Guess at least it wasn't The Sun. Plus of course there's a seldom mentioned and in this case absolutely contemporaneous western example of the same thing, in Al Hawl refugee camp.... As for civilian casualties not adding up: Precise and humanitarian western liberation of Iraq, 2003: minimum civilian deaths 3200 in just over a month (and the more realistic figure is ~7000) Brutal and indiscriminate Russian invasion of Ukraine, 2022: ~1000 minimum, and even Ukraine is only claiming ~4000, in just over a month Either the Russians aren't being indiscriminate, or the US was as much or more so in 2003. Take your pick, either is fine as long as you're consistent.

Going to be very interesting to see if a certain Ukrainian video released a couple of hours ago gets mentioned at all in the media.

I'd have done that anyway, numbersman just got in quicker. Mistaking them for uxo is pretty common though- doubly ironic Yahoo doing so in an article about the '60% failure' claim. (One of the first image search results for 'smerch booster' on duckduckgo is... an Intel CPU. Yeah, OK)

That's general supply. The go to example there would be something like fuel. Russia has rather a lot of petrol and diesel, I think everyone accepts that, it's getting it to the front line that is potentially difficult. Which is why I brought up cruise missiles specifically. According to 'western intelligence source' Russia has been running out of them- ie their stocks would be literally depleted, no more available, not just hard to deliver to the front in [timespan++] since week one, and not being able/ having enough to use them on military targets, and now according to the same sources they're also incredibly unreliable with a failure rate of 50%+. Except, they also have plenty to fire pointlessly at civilians, apparently, and they're also apparently absolutely reliable, when fired at civilians. That's propaganda, because the two claims are fundamentally incompatible. Or at least they're incompatible without some variation on "but they're just eeeeevil". Which is itself a very common sign of propaganda. (The classic example of that sort of propaganda is the Syrian 'Barrel Bomb'. In reality, they were made because Syria was running out of proper bombs and you could roll them out of an otherwise useless transport helicopter with no specialist equipment, and they required basically nothing specialist to build either. They weren't used preferentially, or because they were particularly brutal- you didn't have Dorniers or B-17s and Lancasters dropping barrel bombs in area bombing specifically designed to kill civilians and destroy their cities, they dropped incendiaries and proper bomb(lets)- they were used because it was that or nothing. Barrel bombs were ad hoc, had no guidance, they were highly unreliable. Except, when it came to targeting the last hospital in [cityname] and bakeries etc. Then, they were aimed with precision to embarrass a JDAM. At least, in western and rebel media they were. Truth is, they were rolled out from above manpad ceiling- ie up to 5000m- over an area, with something like +/- 500 metres accuracy. You'd have difficulty hitting a hospital or bakery if you aimed for it a dozen times, and at 5000m the operators wouldn't have had a clue besides an initial gps or something. You also ended up with every bomb dropped from fixed wing craft being a 'barrel bomb' due to the hysteria in western media. Surprisingly, you can't actually roll a barrel out of a MiG 21 or Su 22 nor attach it to the hardpoints on the outside... They were also so effective that when Russia supplied the Mi8s with proper bomb rails and Syria with proper bombs the barrel bomb... got deprecated instantly? Because the aim wasn't actually to pointlessly waste military resources targeting civilians in areas you'd ultimately have to pay to repair)

Given the stereotypical complaint about Amazon's slave shops: "maybe now we can bring in a mandatory colostomy requirement and charge for the colostomy bags"

And the US bombed a civilian air raid shelter in Baghdad and killed 400+ people- that the DoD incontrovertibly knew was a civilian air raid shelter. Crap happens in war. I bring it up all the time because it's very pertinent to the question of perception vs reality, but the surgical and precise ~1 year liberation of Mosul may well have killed more civilians than the barbaric and indiscriminate ~5 year Battle of Aleppo (governate, not just city) killed civilians and combatants. If the enemy is defending a city nothing is surer than that you will kill civilians, and a lot of them, doesn't matter who you are. There's also the dichotomy of propaganda pretty obviously at work. 1) Russia is running out of arms and supplies. 2) Russia also has so much of both that they can be wasted deliberately targeting puppy orphanages and juice fountains for disabled old people rather than military targets. The second is especially 'funny' when we've heard they've been 'almost out' of things like cruise missiles since week 1 ye they're also accused of deliberately using them on civilians. Yep, if there was no concern for civilians they'd sit back and drop thermobarics on the place. That would definitely be a breach of the Geneva Conventions, but if you really don't care... TOS-1 can fire from well outside any ATGM range, let alone air dropped munitions like FOAB (lol, about as pointless as Tsar Bomba) and friends.

I watched Halo episode 1. It wasn't egregiously bad, but I did fall asleep and miss the last ten minutes, which was not a good sign considering that hasn't happened to me in years. I actually rather liked the miniseries from a few years ago with Susan from the Narnia movies (Forward Unto Dawn, and apparently a movie, definitely shown episodic here though).

Sogavare swapped recognition before the Australians intervened, so it can't have been that much of a surprise- he's also notoriously corrupt and it's unlikely the Ockers were unaware of that. Australia's problem was their unconditional support for Guadalcanal (yes WW2 buffs, that Guadalcanal, Henderson Field is the capital Honiara's airport) vs its near neighbour Malaita. In this case Malaita was very strongly pro Taiwan, and indeed in the previous round of internecine fighting around 2000 Malaitans had extensively and deliberately targeted Chinese interests. Ironically, or perhaps not, the worst parts of that fighting also had Sogavare as PM. Funny thing was that the US actually backed Malaita including a lot of monetary aid, and they held an independence referendum (unofficial, obviously) in... 2020, I think. Still, countries are free to choose their associations and who they sign defence agreements with, eh Scott, and those objecting are just paranoid?

Houthis blew up a Saudi Aramco facility in Jeddah with a drone. Formula 1 Race is meant to be held nearby this weekend.

Honestly, I'd say that actual CW genre drama style Trek would be an active improvement over what we've got, since you tended to at least get a few good seasons out of them. As much as something like Flash is a bit of a joke now, it at least had 2-3 decently entertaining seasons where you'd finish your 40 minutes feeling that the time wasn't wasted and you were more or less entertained.

Er lol. They need Turkey's permission to access the Black Sea in a time of war. That's not exactly extraordinary co-operation considering they're NATO allies. Fallujah style tactics would work in Ukraine with some adaption. Strong cordon, artillery, block to block with TOS-1. Thermobaric, so the advantage of hiding underground or in ruins is largely negated by losing all your oxygen. Just not very good for PR. Tanks aren't much use if they're used badly even with only 'traditional' ATGMs. The Syrians found that out constantly, and even ancient 60s/70s Malyutkas have taken out Saudi Abrams and Turkish Leopard 2s.

Pretty obvious what you were replying to anyway. Thing is, as much as Minsk may have been hard to implement what they've ended up with from not implementing is a lot lot worse, and they're still going to have a worse ultimate result than Minsk too. And on a somewhat related tangent; I am highly amused by Australia and New Zealand throwing fits about Solomon Islands maybe signing a defence agreement with China. I thought it was an inalienable right of countries to sign defence agreements with whoever they wanted, and objections were just a sign of paranoia? I'm getting the distinct impression it's only an inalienable right when they're signing agreements with, well, us... Might have helped if we- well, mostly the Ockers with a bit of political cover from us- hadn't treated the Solomons like a vassal state close to an outright colonial possession since independence. Though not as badly as Nauru, of course.

Uh, yeah. Girkin is a decidedly Zhironovsky style 'critic'. You might have heard stories about '200 Russians killed by the US in Syria' a few years ago- that resolves to him. It was actually about 190 local tribespeople and about a dozen Wagner. He said they were all Russians because he wanted Putin to... bomb the US in Syria. Yes, really. In other words his 'criticism' would be something like "this operation is badly run because Putin isn't nuking every west Ukrainian city, plus all the bits of NATO that are supplying them". Russia has way more tanks than that. It's cheaper to mothball tanks than scrap them so they've still got a load of ex soviet stock. Probably around 15,000 of them. In this case it's not even denied by Russia, but by the Ukrainians. Given the lols generated by americans not understanding the difference between rif and city in Syria they're probably confused by oblast vs city in this case. They actually had that already- that was the Minsk Agreement. The trouble was that that was signed when Ukraine was indisputably losing so didn't favour them, and was politically impossible to implement.

US Intelligence is not exactly a disinterested party. Their last estimate for Ukrainian losses is also now 2+ weeks ago, I believe. And jesus h christ twitterati, please look up thermite some time. If I see one more "omg teh white fosforuss!!!1!! it's a war crime!!!" post from some numpty proclaiming expertise I'll sigh and get on with my life. Worst thing is it's all recursive; they use the proof of WP being used in Syria- that was thermite too- to 'prove' that it's being used in Ukraine. Per the Israeli use in Gaza it's really, really obvious when WP is used on civilians as it has really, really characteristic burns. Just don't look them up in an image search unless you're really, really prepared for some unpleasantness. Eh, believe it when you see it, and not before.

There's also the question of what happens when the Ukrainian side starts getting reverses they can't paper over. It's all very well having glorious martyrs, so long as it's someone else. Per yesterday, the Russian casualty figures are going through a massive inflationary phase because the Ukrainians said they had ~15k troops in Mariupol. As soon as that battle is over the Ukrainian casualties overtakes the Russian ones, and they can't have that. [why did the forum software randomly post just the reply part of this? I blame Russian bots]

I wouldn't usually defend either Albright or Clinton, but I also don't doubt that their faux pas had a lot more legs because they were women. Quasi ironically considering Albright's justification of the 'special place in hell' remark their biggest mis-steps in office almost certainly came from trying to say something overly... aggressively to 'compensate' for being women too, and instead coming across as being sociopathic and diplomatically, being counter productive. End of the day though, if Hillary didn't get fulsome support from Albright she wasn't going to get fulsome support from anyone- possibly even including Bill in that. Would have been better if it hadn't come across as, well, overly aggressive and mildly sociopathic plus ultimately counter productive fulsome support though.

Hmm. I doubt he was arrested for something posted on Feb 24 whatever Ukraine says*. There were at least two videos from Ukrainian sources purporting to show a MLRS in- and a MLRS firing from- the mall carpark on the day it was hit so it seems likely it was one of those, not something from 3 weeks ago. The one of the MLRS firing was timestamped only a few minutes before the mall was hit (but was also not really able to be independently confirmed, except via its poster being Ukrainian and posting it as pro Ukrainian). The Russians also had video of a MLRS entering the mall, though a certain degree of skepticism about that would be understandable, and there were certainly secondary explosions- though that too is not absolute confirmation of weapon stores. They've also released a lot (relatively, since they aren't releasing much) of official videos of them using drones to tail MLRS and the like back to reloading stations and then hitting them while reloading to take out the supplies as well. Balance of probability is that it was a legit military target. *Good to see BusinessInsider maintaining its reputation for excellent research and in depth analysis. Citing Russian outlet... pravda.com.ua for the Feb 24 date. Hmmm. Bit odd of the Russians to use a Ukrainian url, it's almost like the Ukrainians have a Pravda too?

That's the US being... irrelevant in that situation, for want of a better term; it's not a direct snub. UAE doesn't like Iran, and they don't like Turkey due to Erdogan's support for the Ikwhan/ Brotherhood. Assad is already against Turkey, UAE has no Syrian proxies left to challenge Assad even if they wanted to, and they'd like to split him away from Iran if possible. They also don't really care about tacitly admitting they lost. The damage to their reputation from that- such as it is- is done already, they'd lose more from continuing to pretend they haven't lost. The US being the US they no doubt think they can still win, and it will take 20 years to admit they won't.

4000 Wagner mercenaries killed? Funnily enough, Ukraine itself reported a grand total of 1000 Wagner troops in Ukraine last week. So they've killed each of them 4+ times. To be blunt, that's all about the Ukrainians saying they had 15k troops in Mariupol and wanting to stay ahead (well, behind) in the casualty race. There's a decent amount of forest and swamps too, especially in some inconvenient places for the Russians like north of Kiev. (Comparison to WW2 is a bit fraught though, as the scale is completely different. Look at a relatively minor battle like the 2nd Battle of Kharkov which took place more or less from Lugansk to Kharkov, ie over maybe a third (to be generous) of the current frontage. Number of men involved? ~1.2 million, or around 3 times the number involved in the entire current war. Lasted two weeks, number of casualties, ~300k) Yep, and if the defenders don't want to 'starve' they have to either be relieved, or break out. And that means lots of troops out in the open, vulnerable to artillery and the like, and a reversal of the usual defensive advantage. The question is whether Russia has enough troops deployed for this to actually work. On Mariupol, sure, it'll work eventually. But they also have Sumy (kind of? there's been some sort of ceasefire there for 2 weeks supposedly) and Chernigov too which are definitely behind the front lines, and others which are sort of invested like Mykolaev or Kharkov (plus a bunch of others like Severodonetsk or Izium which are smaller). At some point you run out of troops able to do anything other than guard the cities, and it certainly appears that that point has largely been reached. Which is, presumably, why the Ukrainians are so keen for Mariupol to keep fighting despite it pretty obviously being hopeless.

The US never stopped bombing Iraqi anti air systems, so they only had what had been missed previously, which wasn't very much except for AAA. They (allegedly) got some up to date stuff like GPS jammers though. The usual question to ask whenever anyone cites 'experts' is 'which experts'. In this case, I've never seen that claim from anyone other than western intelligence sources (citation of) claiming it's what the Russians thought.

Sorry guys, not supposed to post this but someone leaked me a still from the set of Picard S3 on the hush hush. Apparently he's posing as Sejanus and infiltrating the household of the Emperor Tiberius. (You'd think they would have learned that de-aging tech is still uncanny valley tier, and look at that risible wig...)

Kind of? On a per country basis you already had the inevitable infrastructural and distribution/ supply issues with previous vaccine applications and that means that not everyone needs a new booster at the same time- there's already a built in smoothing of demand. If a booster gave decent protection for, say, 6 months then the only people needing a new omicron specific booster are those who got their booster 6+ months ago. On the more macro scale you could have the issue of all the countries wanting the new boosters simultaneously, but that's only an issue if there's a build up of demand. Contrast that with the situation 15 months ago: the initial dosage was 2 shots over 3-6 weeks and everyone wanted those simultaneously because no one had been vaccinated; despite the production starting at literally zero with limited precursor supply and manufacturing facilities. Hence the issues. That situation doesn't apply now- or at least doesn't apply to anywhere near the same extent.

Yeah, Elex 2's environmental graphics is far superior to 1's on PC. I actually replayed 1 not that long ago, and in some respects it's really really obvious how large the improvement is- Elex 1 has some very low poly objects and environments which clash with the rest, there's almost no grass and the water quality is night and day better in 2 etc. 2 has got a lot of extra engine overhead though and runs far worse (but nowhere near as badly as, say, Gothic 3 did at a similar point) And also yes, the human models are... well, they probably should have stuck with the Elex 1 models in most cases, the E1 flashback cutscenes actively look better. They do now seem to have had the bump/ normal maps applied at least, but the mouths are still gateways to hell and the eyes still imply that an eldritch horror has taken up residence in a meat puppet. Also one or two funny dialogue bugs, like rescuing a merchant who is grateful to some dude called 'Calahan', instead of 'Calaan'. I'm about 20 hours in and the biggest difference is still difficulty curve. Instead of being the traditional "run away from literally everything you can't kite" PB gameplay most of the starting enemies ('young' 'sick' 'old' __) are easily dispatchable with even starting gear, very unlike getting stunlocked and killed by the tutorial area biter in E1. It's actually more difficult now than in the beginning, which is a big change.

The ETA for an omicron specific vaccine was March, though it had been pushed out a 'couple of weeks' from that, apparently. The issue with natural omicron immunity is that we already know it doesn't even protect fully against other omicron strains- if you've had BA.1 you can still get BA.2, and much like delta was BA.2 is also worse than BA.1 That's also immunity gained after being sick, not really comparable to immunity gained after a bit of a sore arm after a trip to a clinic.

I think the war crimes statements are in the context of [future western friendly Russian government] handing him over for some reason (or joining the ICC). Which would require two fairly fundamental alterations to reality- a western aligned government willing to join the ICC, which is a pipe dream after Yeltsin, and a change to Russia's Constitution to allow extraditions. As for the more general point of why the concept of international law has to be applied to everyone even handedly or else is pretty much pointless, if not actively counterproductive: what we have is a system where only the weak and poor can be punished. Imagine claiming that is a good justice system in any other context, and it's fine because "at least some people are getting punished". Well sure some are getting punished, but others are getting away with it not because they're innocent, but because they are too powerful or threatening the judge and police. That's probably the single biggest sign of a bad justice system.