Agiel

As the opening hours of Barbarossa can attest to the acreage of the Eastern half of Poland was absolutely no obstacle for the Luftwaffe in annihilating the Soviet Air Force. Not to mention in totally abandoning the Stalin Line in order to fortify the Molotov Line, with forces there under orders to not make any defensive preparations to boot, Stalin had effectively offered large formations to the Germans on a silver-platter and if anything gave them a clearer shot at Kiev and Minsk. Had the Soviet positions in Poland been recognised to be at best a tripwire against a German invasion and that there remained a need to have a defense in depth, and once the Molotov Line collapsed had the forces the Soviets hastily mustered not been ordered to conduct piecemeal and poorly organised counter-attacks with under-equipped units into the waiting jaws of ambushes the Soviets would likely have enjoyed far better exchange ratios with the Germans and the tragedy on the Eastern Front may not have been so terrible as it is in our timeline. But of course Stalin had to believe that Hitler was someone he could work with, providing him with all the materiel he needed to prop up the German economy up until the last minute and prioritising making the Red Army look good on paper while filling its officer corps with incompetent yes-men like Budyonny and Kulik. And by the same token you could ponder how those who are still with us would have fared were it not for food shipments to the Soviet Union considering the necessary mass mobilisation for both fighting and war production meant less hands working the fields, not to mention the fact that the most productive agricultural centers were no longer in Soviet hands come Case Blue, especially when undernourishment and starvation remained a perennial problem even in Soviet-controller territory.

Taking into account that in the interim months the Soviets launched an invasion in which they had been humbled by the Finnish (arguably giving Hitler as good a reason as any to believe Barbarossa would be a walkover) and Stalin continued to hollow out the officer corps of the Red Army, and made little to no progress untangling the logistical problems that had plagued the Red Army's mechanised forces (the overwhelming majority of T-34s and KV-1 were lost before firing a single shell, not because they were knocked out before they could, but because they were never working to begin with and were stuck in mothballs when the Germans overran the depots), I guess for all those dead Soviets between Lviv and Moscow that was time well spent. Hell, considering that the Germans fighting the British and French up until the last minute before Barbarossa were fed with bread made from Soviet wheat, driving tanks and U-boats constructed with steel made with Soviet coal, and flying planes sustained by Soviet oil, I believe it positively _magnanimous_ that the British so readily agreed to ship aid to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. People were furloughed or outright lost their jobs, thereby losing their health insurance, loved ones have perished from this disease as Trump makes light of it, kids haven't seen their grandparents living under virtual house arrest since February, and yet Trump tries to turn BLM and cancel culture into the issue that ought to be on everyone's mind. On the morning after whatever day the results become certain you and I would like to hear the pundits asking: "How on Earth could anyone believe this election would turn out any other way?"

And some companion tools: Nukemap and Missilemap by Alex Wellerstein.

Vaccine Makers Plan Public Stance to Counter Pressure on FDA How many people had the "Drug Makers push FDA for more caution & regulation" headline on their 2020 bingo card?

To cheer things up (well, at least it brought a great big smile to my face):

Re-visiting Hemingway and some might call me crazy but I think his anti-semitism is even grosser than Louis-Ferdinand Céline's. As despicable as <<Bagatelles pour un massacre>> is you actually get the sense that these are the ravings of someone who's had life beat him down far too many times, whereas the way Hemingway goes out of his way to make Cohn so unlikable in <<The Sun Also Rises>> suggests something far more dyed in the wool.

How long into it do you think we'll hear a "Not great, not terrible" gag?

The Homeworld series: The Void/Turgor:

Layoffs have hit the company. I managed to survive this round but I'm not certain such would be the case when the second wave of COVID-19 takes another swing at the economy in the Fall/Winter. My immediate supe had to take a big pay cut with this round.

The belief that law enforcement in "high-risk jurisdictions" need an approach resembling counter-insurgency operations overseas seems to massively overlook what actual counter-insurgency work entails: Public diplomacy Training indigenous forces Infrastructure construction

Yup. Don't see anything wrong with the use of the term "bloodlines" in relationship with Henry Ford. No-sir-ee-bob.

If this keeps up Trump will be saying he's been taking Life Savers to stave off COVID-19.

In honour of V-E Day:

Something from the famed Italian comic artist Milo Manara that hits home:

A friend of mine suggested that the by acting in the spirit of integrity, honour, and self-sacrifice Captain Crozier was very clearly acting contrary to the values and standards expected by the Commander-in-chief. Effectively mutiny. Evergreen quote from George S. Patton, whom Trump claims to idolise, though I find it doubtful that he could name any of the formations he led during the Second World War (or even which theater he was involved in):

I'd say stage freeze in the nude before Robert Pattinson while out in the rain.

I too dream of the day when humanity's combined scientific efforts may be turned to exploring and colonising the stars... and that our combined military might would be turned against the Romulans.

If anything I believe that Nixon normalising relations with China is a giant net positive since it helped hasten the end of the Cold War. With warming relations between the US and the PRC the Soviet Union now found itself in a strategically untenable position (Both China and the USSR had a simmering border conflict at the time, to say nothing of Soviet meddling in what China considered its own sphere of influence). Should a shooting war erupt in Europe the Soviets would face the very real possibility that China would stab them in the back as it exhausted itself in other theaters.