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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 5th, 2023

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  • This… is difficult.

    See, the oligarchs love Putin because he keeps them wealthy and comfortable at the cost of his people. If I come in and start helping my people, it’ll come from the oligarchs, then they’ll turn on me. Which comes to the other Putin thing, he’s absolutely feared in Russia. Someone annoys him, polonium tea. To those that are absolutely loyal to him, he has an iron fist with a velvet glove. To those not in positions of power, the glove isn’t there. That’s what his power is.

    I’d like to think I’m cutthroat if it were in the name of good… but we’re talking Ex-KGB with top tier paranoia, deservedly earned. I’m pretty sure Putin-Me would have a “self inflicted gunshot” to the back of the head within hours.



  • US Here, I’d like to but not having the skill sets right now makes for difficult to move to another country.

    Which leads to another problem, if I do I leave my entire social network behind to a culture that I don’t know and trying to live there. While I’m not against that, I realize that can be VERY isolating so not sure where the place I’d want to go right now.


  • I mean 2 parts. 1: Ukraine is fighting off a bigger countries tanks with Molotovs.

    2: Logistics, supplies, etc is a HELL of a fight in two directions and the US has a hell of a home field advantage. If someone (I’m going to say from the Asian continent for this argument) any supplies they want has to cross the ocean. Then right now unless we do something to massively piss them off, we’ve got allies to the north and south so no country is giving a foothold next door (This is why South Korea and Japan being allies is important to the US, and why China really likes North Korea being there. So far the only foothold the biggest enemies to the US can get is Cuba… which right now involves circling the globe the even longer way).

    But now our hypothetical military force has beaten back the US navy which is filling the oceans with all sorts of attacks, they get to the shores where they contend with the US Coast Guard, the US’s second navy. That gets beaten back, and now the land war has started. Lets say they take LA and that’s where the invasion is starting.

    “Defeating” the US Military is truly a defeat of the US because now it’s a home front war. You’ll have the US military fighting on US soil, which I think the last time that happened was the civil war (correct me if I’m wrong), the Reserves are getting called in. Then even before you get to the “random guys with guns” the actual US militia gets mobilized where the National Guards of each state is called in. And you better believe they’ll definitely take their gun nutty neighbors in this because the national guard works day to day in civilian world.

    So now we’ve gotten to logistics. The US likes to beat its chest when it comes to military, but the true might of the US in history has been logistics of “We need x here today” and we can ship troops to the other side of the globe faster than Amazon can deliver a package to a doorstep in country. The US has a robust interstate system, designed after the autobahn of Germany for the same purpose, moving hardware. So whatever military is fighting now has to contend with whatever front line is existing getting supplied by the factories in the middle of the country with semis running supplies daily as well as military hardware from the side of the country not getting attacked at the moment (I live near multiple military bases that’s as far from any border as one can logically get, where there’s tank divisions just waiting).

    But we’re calling a defeat scenario for the US, so the hypothetical beats back the US military, who’s probably tearing apart the infrastructure as it backs up if it’s smart and plays like the Russians do. Granted the US doesn’t have a Russian Winter, but if you’re coming from the West you have the Rockies, coming from the East you have the Appalachians. Mountain ranges that makes mobilization difficult if the infrastructure is fucked, but the infrastructure is fine on the other side.

    I legit cannot imagine a country, even the US, with the infrastructure to break through that wall scenario delivering hardware across the world.

    But hey, we don’t have to talk a complete invasion of the US. Just some area. Remember, many US states are as big as countries, especially the western ones. So an invasion happens, now you’re dealing with large swaths of territory. Russia had trouble with the Finns in the Winter War, with Russia being right next door because the Finns didn’t just up and fight the major people. No they’d let tank battalions pass, then when the logistics crew following the battalions showed up they’d get sniped. Or the US tried to fight in Vietnam and were beaten back by civilians. Or occupied Afghanistan and ultimately the Taliban managed to regain control. Occupation is REALLY hard because even for a small territory you have to have a large soldier to civilian ratio for those “military grade” weapons and tactics to beat civilians (the difference between a “military grade” AR-15 and a civilian one is the ability to turn it to fully automatic. That is something that modifications exist to do.) And if an invasion is coming I guarantee you every Scheels, Bass Pro, Cabelas, Academy Sports, and every mom and pop gun store will be having a fire sale on ammunition.

    TLDR: It would be a logistical hurdle to even shut down US military bases before reaching one of the mountain ranges, while the US would be sitting in its logistics hub. Invading forces only really truly succeed historically long term when the civilians are on the side of the invaders because occupying long term is really hard, and I think you’re underestimating the military logistics of a country that has ammunition vending machines.


  • And while the Navy is brought up, lets not forget the Coast Guard.

    While the Coast Guard is joked about as dollar store Navy, it’s a legit military service that has been actively at war against drug smugglers past few years, but gets sent over in previous wars to fight in riverways. This gives the US navy the entire pacific to fight against Russia, and when they do get to the US, there’s a second home based one under a completely different administration to fight at the shores.



  • From the US and I pay a lot of attention to politics.

    Her past is she was a bulldog in the courtroom, absolutely a firebrand and ready to take on anyone. By making her VP, her job was mostly to not make the administration look bad, which is a tough job for a firebrand so for years it felt like she was put in the back and kept quiet.

    Roe v Wade decision happened, making the abortion argument on the side of the Republicans getting what they wanted, Biden is a Catholic and male so completely uncomfortable using the fact that abortion is the winning ticket item for the Dems so Harris has been beating that drum hard and getting out. GRANTED the media has been focusing on “Biden too old!” (Legit had to learn a Biden policy from BBC because American news isn’t going to talk about that) so she’s still feeling a relative unknown to the country at large.

    There are people calling for wanting the DNC to do a vote, but we’re past that marker, there’s people disappointed, and then there’s a lot of people excited. Right now this election is going to shape up to be more “interesting” than Bush v Gore or Trump v Hillary.


  • I’d get a block of houses, not mansions, just 6 small houses where the backyards are all together and make that into a little community where I can get the people I’m closest to into an area with a shared community space in the backyards. That’s my expensive one.

    Rav4 hybrid. I just want a fuel efficient car I can go camping in.

    Set up a trust to make sure that I don’t have to work if I don’t want to, get to retire.

    Then the rest… I’m stuck between which is better, dumping it into becoming a non-profit to get as many homeless people housed as possible, or build into a superpac specifically meant to bring down Citizens United.


  • Lets be honest, the “fight” part people are too comfortable and aren’t going to do anything. I’d love it if it were so, but I"m not a leader.

    So my realistic plan is buy in bulk, start a garden, try to convince friends and neighbors to do the same to be able to help each other out when the worst of it comes. Which frankly is the exact same plan if Biden wins, but with a lot more fear behind it.



  • Bentonville AR is being turned into a bicyclists haven. To the tune of Arkansas laws are making it that bicyclists don’t have to pay attention to traffic laws. That’s neat, wonder why… Ah. And while bicycling is one of the better things I guess billionaires can do, in the region buying bicycles are far beyond affordable anymore to a walmart wage because it’s gotten so over the top fancy, and the Waltons literally have a helicopter with a bike rack to fly out to the trails. My dad is irritated because of how often it shakes his house as it goes over.

    Same city, Alice Walton had a really nice museum built in the area that was surely out of the good of her heart… Ah. Unless really local, one might not know of her nickname “Drunken Alice” where she has a history of dwi’s and wrecks, including one where someone was killed, yet somehow nothing seems to stick.

    Yea… I’ve got a bit of an axe to grind with the Waltons having grown up in their personal playground, I agree with you to think this is a problem with just Amazon is ludicrous, and despite only living a state away it’s amazing to hear how people bitch about Amazon, it’s chokeholds, it’s problems, its wrecking of the country, and gives a full pass to Walmart. We live in an oligarchy.

    Completely unrelated to my bitching about Walmart, but a perfect example of execs doing this nonsense and how I got in trouble because I can’t stop snarking: Worked for a medical testing facility, ran by a doctor. Said doctor buys himself a brand new shiny Lamborghini, then through the whole email has an announcement that for one day for 4 hours where any of the staff can get a picture with the Lambo and share on the company page. Now I met said doc once during training, but otherwise worked 3rd shift with two other people, he certainly never showed up when we had issues.

    So when the day happened, it was one of those I commented it’s the first time I think I’m glad that 3rd shift gets ignored on any staff events. Think about it for a second, then ask the others “Who has the newest car?”, turns out was a Nissan Juke. So each of us go out and get a picture with the Juke, then sent the pictures in to where people were supposed to send in the pics with the Lambo. Turns out they got 4 pictures, the 3 with the Juke, and 1 with the Lambo. Got told by our manager said doc was pissed and to keep our heads down.