kanisatha

The latest DLC for Solasta is out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2100430/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister__Inner_Strength/

And justifiably so. I love it when people (typically Westerners living peaceful lives within their own very secure borders) casually talk of other people giving up their land, something they themselves would NEVER ever under any circumstances say about their own land.

Yup. Mainly the result of cognitive dissonance. I see it so very often in my students. Very frustrating. Most people cannot overcome cognitive dissonance. Those few who can are the ones capable of critical higher-order thinking.

Ukraine cannot and will not ever accept "freezing" Russian territorial gains, because that will automatically become the de facto border in time. The most Ukraine will accept is a return to the pre-war status quo, but even that only with full compensation from Russia the damages of the war.

But I don't see anything in that article saying the US is looking to freeze the conflict; only that they want to push for peace talks, AND with Ukraine at those talks in a position of strength. That's a far cry from saying the US wants Ukraine to cede their territory to the Russians.

Yeah, there was another article from a couple of weeks ago I read in which they quote Russian commanders openly saying they have put the "reservists" in two lines on the west side of the river just so that they will serve as obstacles through which the Ukrainians will have to assault before they get to the "good" Russian troops.

And tomorrow you're going to see millions of people who used to be D lifers walking away from the Democratic Party. The news media, being totally in the tank for the Democrats, always loves to highlight and showcase only the R crazies. But ordinary average people know all about the D crazies too, who are absolutely 1:1.

The sorry situation facing Putin's 300k mobilization recruits: https://www.yahoo.com/video/battalion-russian-conscripts-destroyed-luhansk-194504321.html The details in this particular mobilization battalion's experience are quite shocking.

Oh right. And there are no idiot Democrats like this. Sure. And you want to quote MSNBC and the Rachel Maddow Show? LOL. That's Democrat propaganda central. I've already acknowledged there are idiot R's. And for every one of them there's an idiot D out there too.

Yes exactly. It's just simply not true to declare that there is pro-Russia Republican sentiment. Historically, it is Democrats who've been USSR/Russia-apologists, and Republicans have been anti-Russia. And even now, for every R who is publicly pro-Russia (yes of course there are some), I can easily point to prominent D's who are also pro-Russia, especially among certain left-wing academics. The R sentiment in Congress is, and has always been, that Biden's spending on supporting the war needs better oversight. And I would argue that sentiment is more about R's being against increased govt spending in general, and also being untrusting of giving *Biden* blank checks, rather than about anything to do with Ukraine specifically. And furthermore, key R leaders in both houses of Congress have already declared they will maintain financial support for Ukraine.

Was this meant for the science thread?

And despite all that revenue from oil and gas, per the IMF's estimation, Russia's GDP will shrink by as much as 6% for 2022 itself, much, much worse for 2023.

I can appreciate this, but as @majesticpointed out, for those of us who are hearing impaired this sort of CC is hugely helpful. I can watch TV shows or movies *only* with CC.

It's an awesome aircraft carrier when it can take six B-52s. 😉

B-52s to be rotationally based at RAAF Tindal, Australia: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-31/china-tensions-taiwan-us-military-deploy-bombers-to-australia/101585380

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2022/10/28/air-force-to-begin-withdrawing-f-15s-from-kadena-in-november/ My take is that the Air Force intends Kadena to be the inaugural base for the NGAD fighter, so they don't want to put something else there just for a few years before again reequipping the wing with another new type. So rotating in F-22s/F-35s is a good plan until NGAD comes online in ~2030.

This is an interesting and fascinating read about life in the Russian Army for newly mobilized civs: https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-now-has-a-second-frontline-set-up-just-to-kill-its-deserters-intel

In the Lost Valley DLC of Solasta ...

I'd much rather my country (USA) fight to defend Taiwan than quite a few of our so-called (Western) allies. Taiwan is one of the very few places outside the West where meaningful democracy and individual liberty exists, and for me that is worth defending, especially against a tyranny like the PRC.

Here's a link for the story on Iranian foreign minister's statement on Iranian drones in Ukraine: https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-says-it-will-not-remain-indifferent-if-proven-russia-uses-its-drones-2022-10-24/ I think the main reason for the spin is that preexisting UN arms sanctions on Iran would be violated by any Iranian arms shipments to Russia that are used in a conflict.

That's my problem, usually, with the so-called "cozy" games: I get totally bored with them pretty quickly and then never ever return to them again. And often I then feel like I didn't get my money's worth from the game.

FWIW, I started out doing a lot of Forge quests (because they give you those weapon crafting recipes), but then started doing the quests for all four factions (Forge, Rebels, Mask, People) in sort of a parallel way, never going too far ahead with any of the factions. Just need to keep in mind a couple of things:

Interesting. I guess I accepted the various quests in a different order and so did not suffer this specific issue. The impacts on the rep of other factions happens right away, so one option obviously is to load your last save and replay things differently.

Dunno. It's working quite fine for me. Once I accepted that I am going to tank my rep with the dictator of the valley, which happened super-early in that faction's questline, then I've been able to get almost all the way to the end of the questlines of all the other factions without any problem simply by being logical in how I sequence doing their quests. My only real gripe so far is that it is completely random what magical weapon crafting recipes you get, and I haven't been able to get very many so far.

Countries abstaining in UN votes are considered to be much more in alignment with the 'Yes' side than the 'No' side. In the most recent UNGA vote the Russians themselves openly lobbied countries to vote 'No' precisely because they openly admitted in public that abstaining was a tacit 'Yes.' Effectively, abstentions are 'Yes, but we have some reservations' votes, further evidenced by the fact that none of the abstainers spoke in support of Russia even in the slightest during the many hours-long floor debate. In India's case, in the procedural vote on Russia's demand that the final vote be by secret ballot because they believed a secret ballot would be better for them, India was one of the loudest voices to reject Russia's secret ballot demand and voted 'Yes' to have the vote be in public. Also noteworthy here is that countries like Iran and Ethiopia which had voted 'No' on previous votes abstained this time, and Brazil and the Gulf Arab states which had abstained previously now voted 'Yes.'