BruceVC

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/what-are-the-new-us-eram-missiles-ukraine-just-got-that-threaten-every-russian-base-400-km-away-11024 The US has approved the sale of new ERAM missiles to Ukraine. Good news for Ukraine and its defense against the Russian invasion "ERAM is essentially a hybrid between a cruise missile and a bomb. It has a strike range of 240 to over 400 kilometers (150-250 miles). Ukraine has only a limited number of comparable long-range strike systems, notably the Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles and domestically produced drone missiles. The delivery of a large batch of additional missiles will further strengthen Ukraine’s defensive capabilities. To reach distances of up to 400 kilometers, ERAM is equipped with an engine with a flight speed exceeding 700 km/h. Known technical specifications include: Approximate range: 463 km (288 miles) Flight speed: at least 763 km/h (475 mph) Accuracy: within 10 meters (33 feet) Weight: around 227 kg (500 pounds) The weapon was designed as simply as possible to ensure it can be launched from Ukraine’s existing platforms—specifically, aircraft. It can also be equipped with additional systems, including the Quicksink guidance head. With a range of 400 kilometers, ERAM dramatically expands the list of potential military targets for Ukrainian aviation, both inside Ukraine and on Russian territory. Within reach are all occupied territories and Crimea, allowing Ukraine to strike Russian military personnel concentrations, depots, railway infrastructure, supply routes, as well as air defenses and radar systems. Airfields and Shahed drone launch sites would also be vulnerable. "

At least items worth less than 100 Euro will still be sent so that means letters (who still sends letters???) That's a positive at least

Yes but we abandoned nukes before 1994 because we didnt need them as Apartheid and the Cold War was over That had nothing to do with NATO, it was an internal decision and we signed and agreed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991 https://thebulletin.org/2021/11/fw-de-klerk-who-ended-south-african-apartheid-leaves-another-legacy-nuclear-disarmament/ https://www.icanw.org/south_africa "Former nuclear-weapon programme South Africa formerly possessed an arsenal of six nuclear weapons. It dismantled them prior to acceding to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991, recognising that its security was best achieved through disarmament. In 1994, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that South Africa had dismantled one partially completed nuclear weapon and six completed weapons."

Im about 10 hours into Life in the Ruins mod collection for Fallout 4 and Im really enjoying it It creates a survival reality for FO4 but its balanced and so far not frustrating Lots of thinking went into what mods would make the game harder, lore friendly but still enjoyable The immediate changes I noticed was no Fast Travel, initially I was a little unhappy but now I appreciate it. You become lazy when you can fast travel between towns and I enjoy exploring and travelling Then ammunition is very scare and this means you need to scavenge everywhere, this is a great feature and reminds me of the constant resource shortages in games like STALKER It makes you become more strategic in combat and just increases the overall fun and reward with needing to explore. And Vendors so far have limited stocks of ammo But excellent mod collection so far, its makes FO4 much more hardcore and a fun survival game in this massive post-apocalyptic world I have also added a few new mods outside the Mod Collection like additional radio stations and its easy to see any issues with MO2 but so far so good

Why would South Africa need nukes, what are you talking about? We have nuclear energy but we definitely dont need nukes and NATO has nothing to do with it

So you understand why Israel wont let Iran get nukes and they will resort to military actions to prevent this Its the same principle for the US and Russia?

S2 looks excellent, I cant wait 👌

What do you mean NATO proxy? What is the difference between a NATO member like Sweden and a NATO proxy?

I agree but the nuke idea as a security guarantee is over If Ukraine hadn't abandoned its nukes you right, Russia would never had invaded But thats not realistic anymore. I dont support any new country getting nukes and that includes Iran or Ukraine

That is a problem, any suggestion to ban adult movies or adult content must be rejected at all costs I would even consider protesting if that happened in South Africa Im an adult, no one must dictate to me what I can or cant watch or what game I decide to play As long as its legal of course and not things like paedophile content

Yes and China passed the EU in 2022 and it was predicted to become the strongest economy in the world by 2030 if you read links like this https://trt.global/world/article/12768680 And that was influenced because the UK had left the EU and its GDP wasnt counted Now in 2025 the EU has passed China again, the point being economic predictions are often wrong But you right, this doesn't include US tariff impact and we will see that more accurately reflected at the end of the last quarter And this will apply to all countries that include China. But we need time to see the impact of US tariffs on countries that export to the US

https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPD@WEO/EU/CHN/USA The EU has passed China in nominal GDP, good economic news for our European members @Elerond It looks like the EU will economically survive the US tariffs. This should put you in a good mood 🥂

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/19/what-security-guarantees-might-ukraine-get-in-return-for-a-peace-deal The US doesnt need to deploy " boots on the ground " to support the EU in security guarantees for Ukraine End of the day this is a proposed US\Trump peace plan and we need to see how it unfolds and what is agreed on "Trump has promised to coordinate a Europe-led peacekeeping operation in Ukraine. “When it comes to security, there’s going to be a lot of help,” he said on Monday, sitting next to Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. The US president made clear European countries would be expected to carry most of the burden. “They are a first line of defence because they’re there. But we’ll help them out,” he said. Ukraine wants to buy $90bn worth of US weapons and says they could form part of the security guarantee. Overall, however, Trump has been vague about how much the US would contribute. He has ruled out Ukraine’s membership of Nato, which Kyiv believes would be the best deterrent against a future Russian onslaught. There seems no prospect the US would send its own troops to take part in a peace-keeping mission. One more realistic option would be for the Pentagon to provide logistical support to a proposed “sky shield”. The plan envisages an air protection zone in the west and the centre of Ukraine, including over the capital Kyiv, enforced by European fighter jets. "

Having a sense of humour is objectively not a bad thing even for world leaders When its obvious the person is joking

Why are you done with Dune, what dont you like about it?

I have often mentioned that Trump likes to joke and troll the media and yet many people dont seem to know when he is joking Yesterday he made me laugh when he realized how Ukraine cant have an election Constitutionally under martial law https://people.com/trump-jokes-no-more-elections-if-united-states-at-war-11792856 " During one part of their press conference, the U.S. president latched onto a statement by Zelenskyy about pausing elections during wartime, and spun it to hint at the possibility of him outlasting his two-term limit in 2028. "So you're saying during the war you can't have elections," he said, interrupting the Ukrainian president's remarks. "So, let me just say, three and a half years from now... if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections. Oh, that's good."

Why because they want an end to the war and they aware they need to engage with Trump in the normal obsequious way, all world leaders do that when they meet Trump if they want the meeting to be constructive. Its really easy to do once you understand Trump. But Trump was also very complimentary to the EU leaders End of day its clearly only the US who can get both Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table and achieve a significant and lasting peace And that means keeping Trump happy around how you engage with him Compare this meeting with Zelensky to the disastrous one in February, that wasn't funny

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/crlzey2j406o What a completely different and positive meeting with Trump compared to the disaster in February, the EU and Zelensky should be very happy with the outcome which was expected considering the number of prominent EU leaders who attended Zelensky had clearly been prepped around how to engage with Trump and this included he was smartly dressed and he received a compliment from a right-wing journalist he thanked Trump and the US on several occasions he presented a personal letter to Trumps wife who cares about the reality of the thousands of kidnapped Ukrainian children. This went down very well with Trump, he likes this personal touch Zelensky avoided responding in too much detail around his expectations when asked certain questions Trump was also much more relaxed and complimentary to both Ukraine and the EU leaders who travelled to the US. He joked about several things But key takeaways which we have to wait and see how these things unfold the US would be involved in a peace keeping role in Ukraine in some form with the EU. This would be part of the peace negotiation agreements around security guarantees for Ukraine Trump wants to arrange a Putin and Zelensky direct meeting Trump believes Putin will make compromises The US is selling Ukraine an additional $90 billion in weapons I do think we are some distance off to this war ending but this was a very constructive engagement with both Russia and Ukraine and a good step in the right direction For me it highlights again the global influence and agency of the US, it really is the only country that can bring the likes of Russia and Ukraine with the EU to the negotiating table in a significant way

I am very impressed, I did my scrambled eggs this way and Im always going to do them like this now. It created the perfect texture and balance around moisture and solid egg Its funny, I have spent close to 30 years cooking scrambled eggs, I watch cooking shows all the time and I read cooking books and I cant recall a suggestion to do scrambled eggs like this . Granted I dont follow much egg cooking content but still And then I get a simple tip on a gaming forum and its significant, who says you dont learn new things on the Internet

I dont think a peace deal is that complicated and the general terms have been discussed many times The war ends on current gains, Russia gets to keep Donbas and Crimea and Ukraine keeps 80% of its country Ukraine wont join NATO but can join the EU and Ukraine gets security guarantees that Russia wont invade again Russia cant be trusted but if they agree to not invade after this agreement I cant imagine another invasion because Putin will have his geographical "win " in the Donbas region

That looks very simple, I will try that tomorrow

Thats interesting, I only ever whisk my scrambled eggs I can see how that other method would work but no one I know cooks eggs like that

I completed the entire install of Life in the Ruins (LITR) for Fallout 4 using Wabbajack and it all worked after some minor troubleshooting. Using Wabbajack is definitely the easiest way to install large Mod Collections, this one has over 400 mods A couple of issues I experienced and how I resolved them Make sure you spend time on the readme file because there are post config changes you have to make once its installed Some mods didnt download, I tried a few times and the same mods failed. But Wabbajack provides a link and then you can manually download them and copy them to the Wabbajack Download folder I had some incorrect virus alerts from my AV program so I just excluded the Wabbajack folder from AV and the Wabbajack install and unpack was able to progress I had an " access denied " during the unpack of all the mods. I just rebooted and it went away, I think this was related to my AV program I want to play around with adding some Adult mods so I have created a test profile in MO2 so I cant break my working vanilla install of LITR And I want to test and confirm how adding mods to a collection works or doesn't work because its not recommended But Im very impressed with Wabbajack

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-08-06-three-months-later-trumps-afrikaner-refugees-knuckle-down-to-hard-reality-in-us/?dm_source=dm_block_grid&dm_medium=card_link&dm_campaign=main&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=first_thing Interesting read about the life the initial white Afrikaners have faced in the USA since they arrived Its a mixed bag but they mostly working " much harder " but they feel much safer as the main positive around living in the US This made me chuckle " Kleinhaus said: “The biggest challenge is here you work, hey. There’s no kitchen lady you call to sweep the house, or clean the house, or stuff like that. You do the work yourself. He said that even farm owners worked from “morning till 11pm at night” with no farm labourers to call for help "

Here's a potentially positive story around US foreign geopolitical developments https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/2/drc-rwanda-agree-economic-framework-outline-as-part-of-peace-deal The US has brokered a peace deal between Rwanda and the DRC. Hopefully it maintains @Malcador we have chatted about this interminable conflict through the years. What is disappointing is it took the US to achieve this deal and the AU and SADC through the years failed to do the same thing despite numerous attempts But end of the day the most important thing is the war\conflict ending, for me it doesnt matter who is responsible for this