It will be interesting to see what happens.

Supposedly Murdoch has informed Trump he will no longer back another run at the WH.

 

I will say that for all his faults, I like Trump a lot more than DeSantis. Who seems to be the figure the GOP leadership is now rallying around to Trump's detriment.

On 11/14/2022 at 11:38 PM, Cult Icon said:

 

 

I think it has to do with the desire of war mongers/defense industry shrills to find their next enemy after the US was defeated in the middle east.  First the evil empire was Russia, then it was radical islam.  Now it's Russia again.  It's big business, the past two decades cost the US tax payer many trillions of dollars.

 

The popular interest in making Russia the 'new generational enemy' started in 2014 with Crimea and seemed to escalate with Russian inference with the election of Trump, and Trump being a fan of Putin.  Then the US withdrawal from Afghanistan took the middle east off the agenda.

 

The problem is, being into waging war against the middle east is one thing, screwing around with Russia- who is much more dangerous- is another.  It's like playing with fire.

 

The odd part is the liberals are really getting into it.

 

 

I had a very positive opinions on the liberals in the 00s when Bush did his crazy war in Iraq. Nowadays the Dems have become the warmongers and cult members they used to fight. They are the new Bush (lots of similarities - not to mention that Biden won a contested election, like Bush).

 

IMHO, the US Dems are the biggest threat to democracy in 2022 (but I know you disagree).

 

It seems to me that "ideas" work like fashion sometimes. You don't really know who started the trend, but some "influencer(s)" did and then everybody followed. It was the case with lots of political trends (like on Russia, but also the gender studies, CRT, BLM, etc.)

 

Quote

‘Final Fantasy XVI’ Producer On The Game’s Alleged Lack Of Ethnic Diversity: “We Simply Want The Focus To Be Less On The Outward Appearance Of Our Characters”

https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/11/07/final-fantasy-xvi-producer-on-the-games-alleged-lack-of-ethnic-diversity-we-simply-want-the-focus-to-be-less-on-the-outward-appearance-of-our-characters/

 

Japanese developers respond to Western journalists/media that are imbued with CRT nonsense. And it's great

 

The Japanese still have balls.

1 minute ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

Japanese developers respond to Western journalists/media that are imbued with CRT nonsense. And it's great

 

The Japanese still have balls.

 

The final fantasy character designs (and other Japanese franchises) tend to get my head scratching.

 

They look like teenagers that are part of boy bands/girl groups.  But at the same time they don't really look like white people in real life, like they are all a quarter asian.

17 minutes ago, Cult Icon said:

 

The final fantasy character designs (and other Japanese franchises) tend to get my head scratching.

 

They look like teenagers that are part of boy bands/girl groups.  But at the same time they don't really look like white people in real life, like they are all a quarter asian.

 

Yes, that's how they usually design their characters in manga/animes.

 

Some mangas are different than others.

 

In FF7, there is a great black character (Barret), but twitter mobs said he was too stereotypical (these mobs are never happy )

35 minutes ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

Yes, that's how they usually design their characters in manga/animes.

 

Some mangas are different than others.

 

In FF7, there is a great black character (Barret), but twitter mobs said he was too stereotypical (these mobs are never happy )

 

It seems like in a lot of Japanese franchises, the males look very effeminate, like gay male models.  And the Japanese tend to make the cheekbones too big and the noses super narrow, like all the white people have nosejobs.

 

 

Jojo's bizzare adventure is super gay, it's hilarious

 

 

 

hahaha

 

 

 

18 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

 

I had a very positive opinions on the liberals in the 00s when Bush did his crazy war in Iraq. Nowadays the Dems have become the warmongers and cult members they used to fight. They are the new Bush (lots of similarities - not to mention that Biden won a contested election, like Bush).

 

IMHO, the US Dems are the biggest threat to democracy in 2022 (but I know you disagree).

 

It seems to me that "ideas" work like fashion sometimes. You don't really know who started the trend, but some "influencer(s)" did and then everybody followed. It was the case with lots of political trends (like on Russia, but also the gender studies, CRT, BLM, etc.)

 

 

Yea propaganda is part of it, but still there is the common sense aspect that it is stupid to fight a war with Russia.  Recently the Poland missile problem is case in point- NATO and Russia both deny that the missiles are Russian but Ukraine wants to press the matter.  They can't wait to rope NATO into WW3.

 

Democracy in the US works better at the town and county level.  The corruption level rises at the state and federal level.  At the federal level it is literally just big money and the same group of corrupt people in Congress.  In a way the social structure is like 'Old hollywood', a closed-knit group of a few thousand elites. 

 

In the spring of this year in there was a local grassroots protest that succeeded in stopping the building of a sanitation facility right across my house.  I am pleased that democracy worked in our town.  They asked me for a donation but I didn't pay, and the crowdfunded lawyers got the job done.

The netflix adaptation of "All Quiet on the Western Front" reminds me too much of Stalingrad 1993.  Very politically correct, in the German sense with a lot of bitching and moaning from the protagonists about the horrors of war.  This stuff was new for film watchers in 1920 but it's cliche a hundred years later.

In this movie however, they use over-the top makeup on the faces of the soldiers, more over the top than any other film I've seen.  It belabors the point.  

 

Quote

PETA sparks outrage by barbecuing ‘dog’ in mall

https://nypost.com/2019/01/24/peta-sparks-outrage-by-barbecuing-dog-in-mall/

 

These people are mental.

3 hours ago, Cult Icon said:

 

 

 

This one was great as well

 

 

This is pretty funny to me.  The Russians have NEVER run out of missiles.  They shoot them everyday and recently they fired 100 plus in one day.  Last month they fired 84 in one day.  It is more rare that they don't shoot cruise or ballistic missiles during the course of 1 day.  

 

I hope people start questioning if the Ukrainian intelligence services are giving us in the West highly inaccurate military reporting.

3 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

 

This one was great as well

 

I watched a bit of that.  He gets most facts right, a few are questionable though.

 

The story of the Soviet Union in WW2 is insane and epic.  Historian David Glantz calls them "Stumbling Colossus 1941 and the Colossus Reborn 1942-1943".  

 

Are you interested in the Chechen wars?  

 

I am looking at a book about it.

 

 

15 hours ago, Cult Icon said:

 

I watched a bit of that.  He gets most facts right, a few are questionable though.

 

The story of the Soviet Union in WW2 is insane and epic.  Historian David Glantz calls them "Stumbling Colossus 1941 and the Colossus Reborn 1942-1943".  

 

Are you interested in the Chechen wars?  

 

I am looking at a book about it.

 

 

 

 

I used to be interested in the Chechen wars especially after I saw a documentary made by a former Russian soldier. I remember how ruthless it was.

 

I am looking at the Azerbaijan - Armenia conflict at the moment. It's terrible to see that Turkey and its allies are still trying to genocide Armenians after 1915. And they rarely talk about it on mainstream media.

17 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

 

This one was great as well

 

 

 

What's the most interesting fact is that the Soviets became better when Stalin cut them some slack and the Nazis became worst after Hitler tried to control everything.

 

Centralised and totalitarian powers (communism/nazism are essentially the same) never work.

22 minutes ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

 

What's the most interesting fact is that the Soviets became better when Stalin cut them some slack and the Nazis became worst after Hitler tried to control everything.

 

Centralised and totalitarian powers (communism/nazism are essentially the same) never work.

 

Politics is aways a part of war.  US wars have heavy political influence, and so does the war in Ukraine right now (on both sides).  

 

The problem is that the politics can strongly interfere with military reality, and lead to disaster.  

 

Stalin's problems in 1941 was that 1. he purged the army, but likely not to the extent popularly believed 2. no retreat policies, leading to huge defeats 3. misjudged the political situation and allowed the Russian army to reorganize.  The Germans attacked when their motorized forces were half-formed and trying to train/assemble into cohesive units.

 

Hitler from 1943 onward was doing the same thing with no retreat policies.  Although for Germany by 1943 they were so massively outnumbered that they had no chance of winning.

Putin's biggest failure of the war was to get mobilization started 7 months after his enemy.  If he did partial mobilization months before the war, the Russians would definitely be in much better strategic situation.  At the very least all 4 Oblasts (K, Z, D, L) would be completely under their control with Ukraine's army in tatters.  Instead his failure to maneuver Russian politics towards greater war support allowed Ukraine to amass many multiples numerical superiority in conscripted manpower and replace their 6-figure human losses.

 

I've been watching the Russian partial mobilization for the past 2 months.  It reminds me of WW2.  The US, British, and German army had good tactical and unit training but the Soviets were shoddy in this area.  The Russian reservists right now are getting mediocre training at best, 2 months of refresher training in their districts and then they are shipped to units for further training.  The training in Ukraine looks relatively local and improvised.  The 100,000 men already shipped to Ukraine are going to very useful in the defense but less so offensively.

 

The Ukrainian reinforcements are even more poorly trained.  The NATO trained 70000 only have up to platoon level, the rest are conscripts improvised training.

 

The Russians conducted sophisticated large scale maneuvers with Eastern Military District (50,000 men 6000 armored vehicles) and are planning big maneuvers in Belarus.  This leaves 300,000 new troops in the interior without higher level formation training.  Last week they inducted conscript class 2022-2023 with 130,00-120,000 men.  The previous year (160,000-140,000) is already fully trained and with their units but are legally not allowed to be used in the war (yet!).