The News Thread

[Blurry_Dreams]

China deploys machine-gun armed robot vehicles along India’s border

RoboCop wasn't supposed to be instructions...

"unmanned-ground-vehicles" that are armed with machine guns...
...China actually made the ED-209 from the first Robocop movie...
what the fuck China??
so does this mean China is going to start making other forms of future-tech from 1980's American-made sci-fi movies??

also
are these armed robots actually going to use the machine-guns to actually kill humans??

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

Russia just going to war because??? The hell is going on

Vladimir Putin is currently 69 years old, might be going senile, and was already kinda crazy when he was still young

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Russia just going to war because??? The hell is going on

Russian leaders have viewed control of Ukraine, the Crimean Peninsula and access to the Black Sea as vital to the security of Russia and Russian interests for centuries. ... But unlike his predecessors, Putin’s working with a terminal demography. Russia’s geography certainly hasn’t improved, but in the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 a collapsing healthcare sector, skyrocketing alcohol and substance abuse, falling birthrates, declining life expectancies, and the ravages of disease – including tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS – has left Moscow to secure vast territories with a shrunken, and shrinking, military. If Russian geography can help explain the why of recent aggression, Russian demography can help us understand the timing. It’s now or never."

https://zeihan.com/russias-twilight-war/

 

[Bloopy]

It's kind of amazing seeing Ukraine's Azov regiment wearing Nazi symbols (wolfsangel etc.) while defending their country against imperialists under a Jewish president. Feels like we've stepped into one of Tarantino's alternate timelines. Of course, Russia's propaganda machine will want all eyes on that to distract from the more worrying reality of Russia's own far right groups.

 

[Burkhard]

The proof that parallel worlds actually do exist, especially at the part starting at 2:58 into this clip: conservative (?) Americans cheering for Putin after he invaded Ukraine! This is also remarkable, because they thus side with the leaders of Trump's arch-enemy Iran who also support Putin - this must be a first. I now wonder, if these people would also cheer for Kim Yong Un, if he decided to invade South Korea.

 

[rms]

https://zeihan.com/russias-twilight-war/

The now or never seems pretty damn obvious at this point. Kind of blown away that this is the path they think is best. still comes off as just because to me , wild times.

Is this the first conflict between two major countries since the second world war? Memory is telling me of proxy wars starting with Korea but maybe I'm forgetting something.

 

[Bloopy]

If major means both countries have large populations... there's been India and Pakistan's conflicts, Bangladesh fighting for independence from Pakistan, and the Iran-Iraq war of the 80s.

 

[CiG]

He means white countries lmfao.

 

[Burkhard]

The "smart genuis" (as his biggest fanboy uses to call him) must be really desperate:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ldren-for-laying-flowers-at-ukrainian-embassy

Of course, children and old ladies asking for peace are a serious threat for any warmongering dictator that must be harshly dealt with, because how do you get full support for war when people don't hate the (alleged) enemy?

 

[rms]

If major means both countries have large populations... there's been India and Pakistan's conflicts, Bangladesh fighting for independence from Pakistan, and the Iran-Iraq war of the 80s.

didn't know the Bangladesh revolution. Totally forgot Iran Iraq. Still pretty irregular, been 30 years!

 

[Einherjar86]

Is this the first conflict between two major countries since the second world war? Memory is telling me of proxy wars starting with Korea but maybe I'm forgetting something.

If we're being colloquial and using major to mean post-WWII global superpowers, then maybe; but I'm suspicious of calling places like Iraq and Afghanistan minor and Ukraine major. I think the conflicts in the Middle East are very substantial in the grand scheme of post-WWII global economics and imperialism. And I'm not sure Ukraine is a significantly larger geopolitical entity than Iraq or Afghanistan.

I think it's also a bit of a defense mechanism for Americans to call those countries "minor" since we were the ones doing the invading. (unless I'm misunderstanding your meaning, in which case apologies).

 

[CiG]

It depends on one's perspective. Ukraine itself might not be significantly larger than Iraq or Afghanistan geopolitically, but the implications of Russian imperialism against them, in order to maintain a curtain of buffer states against NATO, is arguably much larger than anything going on with Iraq or Afghanistan right now.

 

[zerostatic]

Years ago I read a book by an academic in which he argued the West was responsible for pushing Russia to annex Crimea back in 2014. Something about the expansion of NATO and the EU into Eastern Europe being unacceptable to Russia. He made the comparison to the USA not accepting a hypothetical military alliance between China, Canada and Mexico. I am not sure if find his argument convincing but I can see how Russia may feel uneasy about this proposition.

Props to the Ukraine and Zelensky for putting up a good fight so far in defense of their country. I am not really sure what to make of the Russian military performance after a week. Are they really giving it their best effort? Is their performance subpar, or is the assistance provided by NATO to Ukraine combined with their determination to throw back an invading force enough to give them a strategic advantage? The drive to Kiev seems to have stalled, the quality of Russian military gear seems poor, and morale amongst the troops seems low, but I get half of my news from social media so I might be way off base in my opinions.

 

[no country for old wainds]

https://twitter.com/SoniaAdesara/status/1499405301312802816

this is incredible for anyone who hasn’t seen if lmao

 

[Bloopy]

The dilapidated state of some of Russia's equipment: https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499164245250002944

Years ago I read a book by an academic in which he argued the West was responsible for pushing Russia to annex Crimea back in 2014. Something about the expansion of NATO and the EU into Eastern Europe being unacceptable to Russia. He made the comparison to the USA not accepting a hypothetical military alliance between China, Canada and Mexico. I am not sure if find his argument convincing but I can see how Russia may feel uneasy about this proposition.

Putin sees the slightly narrower part of Europe from Kaliningrad to the Black Sea as a key line of defence he'd like to hold, but I'm not sure how much is in response to that expansion or if he would've gone after it regardless. That doesn't address Ukraine's position though. My impression is it's more Ukraine wanting to change of their own volition. Even many Russians are all too aware that their own country represses/tortures its own citizens and spews propaganda, not to mention choosing the pandemic as the time to announce another round of major health cuts. I'd blame Russia if Ukraine finds it preferable to chat to EU countries.

 

[no country for old wainds]

don’t suppose anyone cares around here but shane warne died probably the most iconic prick sportsman from my childhood. the number of sexting related scandals on his wikipedia is legendary.

 

[Burkhard]

Putin sees the slightly narrower part of Europe from Kaliningrad to the Black Sea as a key line of defence he'd like to hold, but I'm not sure how much is in response to that expansion or if he would've gone after it regardless. That doesn't address Ukraine's position though. My impression is it's more Ukraine wanting to change of their own volition. Even many Russians are all too aware that their own country represses/tortures its own citizens and spews propaganda, not to mention choosing the pandemic as the time to announce another round of major health cuts. I'd blame Russia if Ukraine finds it preferable to chat to EU countries.

I think if Ukraine was governed by a Putin-friendly dictator like Lukashenko in Belarus, there would have been no reason for Putin to invade Ukraine. Ukraine's first step in the "wrong" direction (from Putin's view) was the Orange Revolution in 2004/2005:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Revolution#Prelude_to_the_Orange_Revolution
The second step was the Maidan Uprising in 2013/2014:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan
Putin doesn't like democracy, unless it might help him to politically divide western countries and thus destabilize them - as Dave Mustaine once wrote: "a country that's divided surely will not stand". Maybe it had also shocked him that Lukashenko "nearly" lost the election in Belarus - that could have been contagious, though he has already been doing his best to prevent a democratic change of government in Russia for years. E.g. organizations who are critical towards the government must call themselves "foreign agents" and critical politicians who might have a chance to get elected aren't allowed in the elections. Also not to forget his recent "coup", the dissolution of the human rights organization Memorial International, probably an attempt to delete the memory of polticial oppression in the former USSR and thus rewrite history as he sees fit.

I wonder if the following act already counts as "spreading fake news" about the war in Russia and will get the person in concern detained:

 

[Vegard Pompey]

don’t suppose anyone cares around here but shane warne died probably the most iconic prick sportsman from my childhood. the number of sexting related scandals on his wikipedia is legendary.

I glossed over some headline that said "some cricket guy Shane Warne died", didn't think anything of it. Now if it had said "sexting legend Shane Warne died", that might've caught my interest! Someone needs to teach these hack journalists not to bury the lede.

 

[no country for old wainds]

he also subscribed to a theory that humans evolved from aliens if that intrigues you at all

edit: i think someone deleted the controversies section from his wiki since earlier lol

 

[Slammed]

Warnie was good player but his off field stuff was always more fun. Some of the stuff he did must have had his manager and publicist shitting themselves. Australian cricket lost both Warnie and Rod Marsh in the same 24 hours. Marsh was a true legend and a fucking nice guy to boot.