Zoraptor

Yep, of all the flaws in nuTrek imo the biggest is the complete lack of memorable characters, even worse than the awful inconsistent plotting. At least people remember Neelix or Harry Kim, though they may wish they didn't. To be honest there's a pretty big lack of memerable characters too. Number of novel Discovery names I can remember after 3 seasons: Michael, Lorca, Tilly, Saru. I could probably remember the names of the engineer and his boyfriend, if put to the coals. Number of novel Picard names I can remember after 1 season: none. Number of random Blake's 7/ Farscape/ BSG/ old Trek/ random SW EU I browsed at the library/ computer game characters I can remember after 10+ years... multiple times more for each.

Last week it was Lavrov who was breaking ranks and Gerasimov who was going to be the scapegoat. Maybe not Pacific Ocean --> Grain of salt, but not too far off.

They've got a pretty good system for 'guiding' unguided bombs though, that's the vast majority of what was used in Syria. They're not as good as a fully GPS (Glonass) guided system- and aren't dynamic so cannot hit moving targets like laser/ optical guiding- but they also use fully dumb bombs, so they're massively cheaper and don't require fancy targeting on the plane either. Won't protect against any Buks/ Tors/ S2/300 etc that the Ukrainians may have left- or planes, which supposedly the Ukrainians had active yesterday- but they do allow flying above manpad ceiling.

Could have Vega graphics, game ain't exactly fun with that at the moment.

I'd argue as previous that the vast bulk of the 'indiscriminate' stuff would come from artillery rather than the air anyway. That was the case in Syria, the air stuff got more coverage for being dramatic. It would be difficult to prove but I'd suspect that bog standard mortars killed more civilians than air power there. They clearly have to do some low level attacks to hit moving targets and the like, but for a lot of stuff the difference between +/- 1m for a PGM and +/- 10 for a semi precision one is irrelevant. If nothing else you can't drop bombs of any type from a plane that has been shot down.

Most of the people who want a no fly zone know what it entails, they are just convinced that Russia will back down instead of, say, using tactical nukes on every nearby NATO airfield. Haven't even learned/ forgot the lesson of 9 days ago. Fortunately there are some more level heads on the military side who know exactly what it would entail. 5 hours for an evacuation of Mariupol was never going to be enough for everyone, but it can safely be assumed that it was intended to be the first rather than the only. Indeed, they might end up busing out the combatants too, though I wouldn't be relying on that. It's the dichotomy of propaganda- you're doing great, but, not so great you don't need more help. Funny thing is, Ukraine has been claiming that level of losses for Russia every single day, and managed to verify maybe one in ten up to now. Don't really know why the Russians aren't using their semi precision bombs rather than flying low enough for stingers to have an effect (exc Su25). That's the vast majority of what they did in Syria, and the rebels there had far less AA. Situation on the ground is a lot less rosy though. The US ambassador to the UN has Russian forces ~70km further into southern Ukraine than even the most pessimistic pro Ukraine map- further than some pro Russian ones- and they're outside Kiev on the eastern side now too, about 100km further on than maps show. Indeed, most of the pro Ukraine maps seem to be trying to build up their credentials by having advances already made marked as being planned advances, making them effectively a couple of days behind reality. Russians also turned up at Enerhodar when they were 'meant' to be ~50km away. Way too many optimistic prognostications based on maps that rely on 'confirmed' gains, which means only stuff Ukraine confirms- and sometimes not even that (eg Pologi, taken 5 days ago). Also, Ukraine takes control of Mykolaev, according to Ukrainian media. Didn't think there had been any suggestion they'd lost control of it.

Dunno, has he been begging to see footage of Ukrainians shooting up that 40 mile long convoy north of Kiev? That would seem to give the context of suggesting A-10s as whatever the Ukrainians have left doesn't seem to be doing that job*. Some people also seem to think they're indestructible so air superiority doesn't matter. *Indeed, we got just enough Bayraktar videos on day3-4 to get their enthusiasts enthusiastic, and- so far as I am aware- literally literally nothing since. That amounts to ~1/10 of a video per Bayraktar over ~8 days (or 1/3, for those definitely supplied by day 1).

I saw the Adventures of Brisco County Jr a few years ago and it held up really well for the most part. The sci fi elements were always a bit silly* but all the Bowler/ Socrates/ Brisco/ Dixie interactions were good as ever. As an aside, I'm not sure if we got the post orb episodes shown here first time around as I couldn't remember them at all. I actually checked if they'd made a 2nd season they were part of. *they at least made more sense than meteorites burning the gas off a gas giant though.

Looks like the Russians have captured Sumy, which would be the second 'oblast city' taken after Kherson (or fifth, if you count Simferopol (not technically an oblast city, but there is no Crimea city)/ Lugansk/ Donetsk). No official confirmation from anyone yet though. Ukrainians had better hope that their talk about coups and the like has a basis, or there's likely to be a lot more bad news for them over the next week. Probably an idea to put down some of the observations from the Russians tactics in Syria too- they're hardly revolutionary, and I wouldn't imply they are. But I have seen some vague attempts in the media to extrapolate tactics from Syria to Ukraine, but they all devolved into 'they just bombed the last bakery in Aleppo! and won completely incidentally to the baby killing and fluffy bunny eating' type stuff. This is post any 'try rushing the city centre to see if everyone surrenders' tactics. It's also more or less what happened in Kherson prior to it being taken. First step is to isolate the city. Done for all of Mariupol, Kharkov and Sumy (if not taken already). Pretty close to if not done for Chernigov/ Kiev/ Mykolaev. Once that's done you've capped the enemies' resources. Second step is to bring up artillery. If there's one thing Russia has massive amounts of it's artillery. They've also lost pretty much none of it so far. Third, provoke a response from the defenders That response is crucial, you want the enemy to counter attack and expose themselves. Because all their lovely dug in troops come out into the open and run straight into massed pre-sighted artillery. And in just about every conventional modern war the thing that kills the most soldiers is... artillery. You can repeat that as many times as you need, if the enemy is isolated they won't be getting resupplied, and won't get more men. It's a great way to reverse the tactical advantages of being on the defence. If they don't respond then, well, they've lost ground anyway and since they're isolated they can't keep losing it. Air power is mostly used for hard points and to defeat forces trying to break into the urban areas to relieve them. Move on to the next place you've isolated, and repeat. That's why I kind of cringe when I see Ukrainians celebrating their last successful counterattack and then counterattacking the same place again the next day after it's retaken for multiple days. That's exactly the pattern you got in Aleppo, and it was a losing pattern, not a winning one. Certainly got a lot of pro rebel twitter users excited then disappointed in 2016 though.

That would far more likely be caused directly by a hike in grain prices rather than indirectly by fertilisers. Russia is the biggest grain exporter in the world and Ukraine is pretty high on the list too, and the Arab Spring kicked off in part because of the failure of the grain harvest in Russia. Indeed, I don't think any African country is sanctioning Russia so they're far more likely to embargo western purchasers to force their producers to focus there. That frees up market in places that aren't sanctioning them, raises their exports and drops their enemies'. The irony is watching western 'experts' describe Russia as a glorified gas station because that's what they buy from her*. You can see a huge amount of concern from places like Egypt because they remember the last time the Russian harvest failed- 2010. Next year something happened there, slight disturbance known as the Arab Spring. *the double irony, Africa etc get absolutely screwed because Europe is only food independent (more or less) because of its immense agricultural subsidies, which Africa obviously cannot afford and the surpluses of which are often dumped in their markets, suppressing their agricultural sector and compete for exports with everyone else. It's also horrendously inefficient in terms of resources, hence meat and dairy imported from New Zealand the other side of the world having less carbon footprint. Same for the US, except they'd be food independent anyway and the subsidy target is industrial producers rather than mom and pops.

That's from a Reuters reporter, not a pro Russian source. The building has also variously been reported as being for admin, hence that caveat.

I wouldn't quite say complete fraud, but yes, just a tad overexaggerated. The reported fire was in a building outside the reactor grounds (though associated with the facility via training/ admin) according to the people running the place, let alone outside the reactor building(s) itself, and the plant is secure. That probably doesn't make quite as exciting a story nor earn as many clicks though. They're chunky reactors anyway and designed to survive a plane crashing into them- though they do lack the charm and unique personality of the classic RBMK design.

I don't think you can talk about Indian- or the whole sub continent- and their attitude without mentioning the African sized elephant in the room which is the Bangladeshi Independence War and the attempted US intervention. Hard to forget the US sending a Carrier Strike Group to intervene on Pakistan's behalf, nor them being shadowed by a Soviet response force to prevent them. Indeed, literally none of the participants in that war voted along with the west and the only two countries that did on the sub continent were Nepal and Bhutan, and they're of... modest importance to be fair. India remembers being a potential target for an intervention, Bangladesh remembers that the US would have preferred literal ongoing genocide and mass rape to them being free, and Pakistan remembers that the promised help didn't eventuate and they had an absolutely humiliating and total defeat. Even if you count Pakistan's two biggest non US supporters you still don't get a single for vote, since those were... China and Iran. The really funny thing being that for all his supposed nous and acumen Kissinger's great achievements were detente with now enemy China, and alienating India for a generation or more. China and Russia being a voting bloc is very much a construct of western politics and media, mostly so they can point when China doesn't vote alongside Russia. Which happened plenty of times over Syria, for example. China can do that though as they know Russia would veto. Now, try and imagine a scenario where China doesn't vote against Russia being removed from the UNSC, or doesn't veto a no fly zone or whatever. Yeah, not exactly likely. Everything is carefully crafted word wise with the specific aim of making sure that China doesn't vote against it- and that means that everything is a lot more wishy washy than the west would like.

Yeah exactly. Why not just agree to it a month, a year or 8 years ago? Would have saved a whole lot of deaths. And he's still going to have massive problems getting it past the people who would have probably outright murdered him if he tried who now think Ukraine is not just doing better than expected, but actually winning. I'd presume Ukraine would want something they weren't already getting, at least. A lot of the supply issues for Europe was Russia deciding only to pump the contracted amounts in at their end, and it mysteriously disappearing somewhere mysterious that no one knows where- it's a mystery, maybe it was aliens?- when it arrived at the other side of Ukraine. In a more pedantic objection: Russia only has ~80 years of proven reserves.

I'd be playing Elex 2 except it doesn't like Vega cards*. I can currently choose between endless soothing clouds, or frantic flickering shapes when trying dxvk. I did manage to pick up an arrow completely randomly at least, with that with the tech troubles I know it has to be a PB game even if I can't see it. *Shouldn't have complained about their weird tech specs all requiring RDNA cards, though apparently it runs fine on 4/500 series...

It will also be the average (well, median) tax payer who will freeze if gas runs out. Doesn't matter if the government is paying you 1000€ subsidy for gas heating if there isn't any. Guess at least many of the truly vulnerable have already died of covid which will keep deaths down (this is what trying to think like a politician does to you). Every time there's been stimulus money in the past 20 years it's gone into the back pockets of the rich either wholesale or mostly, and who is going to profit off the increased gas prices and passing it along to consumers? Why mom and pop investors, of course, if you listen to politicians with massive numbers of shares in energy. Just another step on the road to completely overt neo-feudalism. Or maybe just print more money so poor people can get a 1% wage increase with 5% inflation; a 4% pay cut. Funnily enough the biggest producer missing apart from the US hasn't been mentioned by anyone: China. Much like the US, doesn't export much though. Otherwise, Qatar, especially for LNG.

There's also the small matter of mercenaries literally being illegal in Russia (unless they've changed the law recently) and Wagner still existing... But they also aren't officially part of the Russian military, and aren't ideologically neo nazi in the same way Azov is.

Well yeah, and Putin has also said 'nice' things about Stalin too which won't have gone down to well in Ukraine much as Bandera doesn't really appeal to Russians. Wagner isn't an official part of the Russian military though, and most of them are run of the mill mercenary ex soldiers- both occupations that disproportionately attracts the hard right. Not the same as a wholesale (c)overtly nazi formation being added to a country's army.

The problem with Azov is that it's a specifically nazi (ok, they don't call themselves nazis, they just use related symbology and share its ideology etc) formation. There will be nazis scattered through every military, but they're scattered rather than in a formalised part of the armed forces which was added wholesale despite already being nazi. Ukraine also has an... interesting history when it comes to Bandera; albeit most of his ethnosuperior thuggery was aimed, ironically given the current situation, at Poles. He's an extraordinarily unpleasant guy to be naming streets and the like over, and there is definitely a lot of pretty odious hero worship of someone who is basically an extremely unpleasant mass murderer especially in the western bits of Ukraine.

Our own Kiwi version of the Canadian antivax protest is finally getting moved on like the bunch of hobos (apologies to actual hobos) they are. It's exactly the same as Tiananmen Square, you know when the Chinese used a bit of pepper spray and riot shields instead of running protesters over with tanks and flushing them down the drain with firehoses... Should ship the lot of them off to Ukraine to see what real problems are. Only problem is, something like 80% think Ukraine is some sort of global elite conspiracy to get them off the front page and would probably end up joining up with the Russians...

Pretty close to it though, as it would at minimum Demand a Response. If the other side decides that response is disproportionate then you've started a cycle of escalation. If the current situation has some people demanding an armed response and no fly zones imagine what the public would want if the Russians nuked a Polish airbase Ukrainians were flying out of... I doubt they'd care that the first part makes it a justifiable target and skip straight to wanting a mushroom cloud over the Kremlin. Then again I had an argument here a while ago who someone who thought the US literally nuking Moscow wouldn't necessarily provoke an escalation, so there are varied opinions on the matter.

The geographic divide of Europe runs through the top of the Caucasus. I know that's fuzzed for a lot of political stuff like Eurovision (hi Israel and, uh, Australia?) but geographic Europe ends at the top of the Caucasus and it's pretty obvious it does from any relief map. That excludes Georgia and everything south of it (exc Azerbaijan, to be fair, that does have some geographical European territory). If you include places like Armenia you have to end up including most of Anatolian Turkey too, Iran, even down to northern Syria and Iraq. Otherwise you have the Indian subcontinent extending most of the way to Siberia due to how high the Himalayas are and how many subsidiary ranges it generates. Which would be a good way to troll the Chinese, at least. More directly relevant, you never get Europe defined as being the Urals, and its subsidiaries. That line runs down the highest altitude line (and in political terms, generally excludes Kazakhstan which like Turkey/ Azerbaijan has some European territory, in the geographic sense). And yeah, racial theories == stupid. But you still get plenty of people using terms like Caucasian, and many are amazed that people from the Caucasus are white.

Are you deliberately trying to prove my point, if so, thanks. They're literally literally European- unlike Georgia. Ironically, Chechens are also white as anything, being, well Caucasians- from the Caucasus- a lot more than the average whitey. Loads of gingers too. What's the difference that makes them not European? Let's see if we can get an answer which doesn't boil down to them being uncivilised muslims... Some people today would get a bit of cognitive dissonance if they searched for Avala Tower or RTS, but I suspect there'd be a lot more "but that's just different, because." Maybe, even if they thought back a year or so to when Israel destroyed the AP building in Gaza. Best to manage expectations though. That's because it's a personal opinion/ observation, and not really analytics. I might think it's founded on objective reasoning, but I would think that or it wouldn't be my opinion. I wouldn't dispute that a lot of the level of coverage is because it's happening in Europe, it's also impossible to think there's anything apart from racism at work when reporters specifically say that they're trying not use racist terms to describe something they think. "Surely I can't be racist, I used People of Colour to describe arabs being inherently violent...".

Australia bans Rimworld! (Oh OK, refuses to classify unannounced console port of Rimworld, to save you a click. Untold harm to Ocker youth prevented, anyway, and I'm sure those hundreds of hours saved will go into joining church volunteer groups or similar)

Yeah, or a bit less than 2 days for the EU/ US alone. Not completely insignificant, but only ~0.5% of annual supply even if limited to the west alone.