This is a trend I first really noticed with Covid, but the amount of hyperbolic, alarmist nonsense being spread by Americans about the situation in Europe is mindblowing.
Perhaps this is true for a few dozen people, but it's absurd to frame it as "what it feels like in Europe".
Putin’s taken Kyiv, capturing two million Ukrainians.
It’s okay, says Putin, this is a peace keeping operation, we came to free you. you can all live. I only want Zelenskyy.
I am Zelenskyy, someone calls. No I am Zelenskyy, someone else calls. I’m Zelenskyy. No. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy….
That would look good in a film, somebody should make it!
The end of that, not so good. The Romans adopted the simple fix for that problem.
'cept the Russians would run out of wood supplies after they'd nailed half a dozen up.....
The Romans must have had some pretty awesome logistics, for their time. The Roman army seems to have been a band of very aggressive builders, much of the time...
I've always been impressed with the Normans. They brought flat-pack castles with them, to hold the territory they gained.
It would make a great name for a tradesman. Imagine painting that on the side of your van. "Norman Castle, Painter and Decorator..."
Where do you think the "Castle" surname came from?
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
Putin was winning the war, until his people could not download porn....
For some reason Chrome thought I’d be interested in this article.
Ukrainian and Russian Pornhub Performers Protest the War
Ukrainians are posting videos of the Russian invasion to Pornhub, while Russians are using one of the last online spaces they have to speak against the war.
I'm wondering if the majority of Porn Websites could make themselves unavailable in Russia with out a VPN, could that prompt a lot of Russian users to get a VPN. getting a VPN allows them to appear to be outside Russia, and there for access video of there Step-Mums doing there thing, but would also allow them to look at BBC PB and other sites outside Russia?
I think this may be a better tactic that, simply cutting off Russia from the internet, at this time.
If Russian doesn't back down by Monday, say, make every single request for a website outside Russia resolve to ConHome.
Saudi Arabia’s habit of chopping up journalists and blowing up its neighbours makes it an awkward ally. But the British state has few qualms about letting it buy prized assets (and even unprized ones, such as Newcastle United)
Visegrád 24 @visegrad24 · 1h Temperatures are to drop to -20 degrees in Ukraine.
Very cold temperatures will spread across western Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland.
The worst cold is forecast to overspread Ukraine and western Russia from the mid-next week into the weekend.
How will it impact the war?
Out of fuel, with dead batteries, it is going to be bloody cold in that long convoy.... Once frozen, that mud they are in will act like concrete.
Even the Ukrainian farmers are going to find it tough to move them.
It is simple things like fresh water, food and shelter that the Russians are going to really struggle with. At -20 the steppe is harsh and unforgiving of even minor errors of judgment. Expect growing numbers of dead and hospitalisations due to exposure. Malnutrition, weakness and disease inevitably follow. We are about to witness how well planned this invasion is. The signs thus far are that the Russians have failed in areas like basic training.
As someone else posted a few days ago, it would be bitterly ironic if the Russians were stopped by winter.
Maybe Ukraine is part of Russia...
...and Putin is making the classic blunder of making a land invasion into Russia.
(Stolen from Twitter)
Really not far from the truth.
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia' - but only slightly less well-known is this: 'Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line! '"
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
Putin was winning the war, until his people could not download porn....
For some reason Chrome thought I’d be interested in this article.
Ukrainian and Russian Pornhub Performers Protest the War
Ukrainians are posting videos of the Russian invasion to Pornhub, while Russians are using one of the last online spaces they have to speak against the war.
I'm wondering if the majority of Porn Websites could make themselves unavailable in Russia with out a VPN, could that prompt a lot of Russian users to get a VPN. getting a VPN allows them to appear to be outside Russia, and there for access video of there Step-Mums doing there thing, but would also allow them to look at BBC PB and other sites outside Russia?
I think this may be a better tactic that, simply cutting off Russia from the internet, at this time.
If Russian doesn't back down by Monday, say, make every single request for a website outside Russia resolve to ConHome.
Do we really want another failed state on our hands?
Afternoon all and on topic: Eurovision has a special place in my betting history. In 1996, I was just discovering spread betting and my debut trade was a buy of our entry that year, a number by Gina G called "Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit". I did it because I thought the song – and the performance of it by the charismatic Gina – was a knockout. Certainly a cut above standard Eurovision fare. And I was absolutely right about that. The song is now generally acknowledged by experts in the field as one of the best of its type.
But I was also dead wrong. It came nowhere (so I lost money) because with the Song Contest geopolitical factors dominate and we were on the short side of them back then. This changed the following year, of course, with the Blair landslide transforming everything and enabling us to not only challenge at Eurovision but win it with Katrina and the Waves, however this was no help in 1996. I made a bad bet, heart over head, no research, no due diligence, and it taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten and to this day informs how I approach my betting.
So to Q’s tips here. I usually agree with him but here I don’t. In the circumstances I think Ukraine are more likely to win than not. They should therefore be odds on and are value at 2/1. As for the UK, I’m not tempted to lay at 20/1. I get the logic – I see how it’s a professional sell – but I wouldn’t risk it myself. The rumour of ‘big name’ sounds credible to me. We’re sick of being humiliated in this and I sense there could be a mammoth effort this year to change the ballgame.
Eg the Gallagher brothers might fancy it. Imagine if that news breaks – Oasis to reform for Eurovision with a stonking new Noel penned anthem – and you’re sat there with a grand of exposure to a piddly £50. No thank you. Or, perhaps more likely in the light of *yesterday’s* Glasto news … yes yes, I know, but if it happens you don’t want to be short at 20s, do you?
Putin’s taken Kyiv, capturing two million Ukrainians.
It’s okay, says Putin, this is a peace keeping operation, we came to free you. you can all live. I only want Zelenskyy.
I am Zelenskyy, someone calls. No I am Zelenskyy, someone else calls. I’m Zelenskyy. No. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy….
That would look good in a film, somebody should make it!
The end of that, not so good. The Romans adopted the simple fix for that problem.
'cept the Russians would run out of wood supplies after they'd nailed half a dozen up.....
The Romans must have had some pretty awesome logistics, for their time. The Roman army seems to have been a band of very aggressive builders, much of the time...
I don't know if I got the link from PB, but here's a route planner for ye olde Roman days.
It's interesting to see how much they favoured sea routes; London to Rome fastest by sea, with only a short land journey across southern France, taking a month.
For all we talk about Roman roads, the sea must have been very useful to them.
Yes, and easier to transport large loads, but you were much less likely to be sunk by a storm when travelling by road.
This is a trend I first really noticed with Covid, but the amount of hyperbolic, alarmist nonsense being spread by Americans about the situation in Europe is mindblowing.
Perhaps this is true for a few dozen people, but it's absurd to frame it as "what it feels like in Europe".
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
Putin was winning the war, until his people could not download porn....
For some reason Chrome thought I’d be interested in this article.
Ukrainian and Russian Pornhub Performers Protest the War
Ukrainians are posting videos of the Russian invasion to Pornhub, while Russians are using one of the last online spaces they have to speak against the war.
I'm wondering if the majority of Porn Websites could make themselves unavailable in Russia with out a VPN, could that prompt a lot of Russian users to get a VPN. getting a VPN allows them to appear to be outside Russia, and there for access video of there Step-Mums doing there thing, but would also allow them to look at BBC PB and other sites outside Russia?
I think this may be a better tactic that, simply cutting off Russia from the internet, at this time.
If Russian doesn't back down by Monday, say, make every single request for a website outside Russia resolve to ConHome.
We need somebody to be offering a six month free VPN service within Russia.
Then when 20 million have signed up, send the list of subscribers to the Kremlin. "Here you go, arrest that lot...." Should keep them busy.
Just an incredible amount of planes shot down today. At least 4 videoed, plus several helicopters.
"I'm pretty sure the reason we're seeing so many 'advanced' Russian aircraft being shot down - they should be relatively immune to MANPADS - is because they're having to fly low to deploy dumb ordnance as they're already running low on precision guided munitions..."
Kaliningrad is now to be called/referred to as Königsberg.
That will drive Putin up the wall.
Well actually the local nickname for the city is "Kyonik" or "K-grad". On the other hand the wider local government unit around St. Petersburg is still called "Leningradskaya oblast". No one de-Sovietized Russia or Belarus after the fall of the USSR and we can now all see the result.
Putin’s taken Kyiv, capturing two million Ukrainians.
It’s okay, says Putin, this is a peace keeping operation, we came to free you. you can all live. I only want Zelenskyy.
I am Zelenskyy, someone calls. No I am Zelenskyy, someone else calls. I’m Zelenskyy. No. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy….
That would look good in a film, somebody should make it!
The end of that, not so good. The Romans adopted the simple fix for that problem.
'cept the Russians would run out of wood supplies after they'd nailed half a dozen up.....
The Romans must have had some pretty awesome logistics, for their time. The Roman army seems to have been a band of very aggressive builders, much of the time...
I don't know if I got the link from PB, but here's a route planner for ye olde Roman days.
It's interesting to see how much they favoured sea routes; London to Rome fastest by sea, with only a short land journey across southern France, taking a month.
For all we talk about Roman roads, the sea must have been very useful to them.
Yes, and easier to transport large loads, but you were much less likely to be sunk by a storm when travelling by road.
Carts were pretty rubbish back then. The Romans built some fair sized cargo ships - 500 ton loads.
It's worth remembering that well into the 19th Cent shipping was gambling. If your ship made it, tons of money. Quite often it didn't - look up ships vanishing on various routes.....
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
Putin was winning the war, until his people could not download porn....
For some reason Chrome thought I’d be interested in this article.
Ukrainian and Russian Pornhub Performers Protest the War
Ukrainians are posting videos of the Russian invasion to Pornhub, while Russians are using one of the last online spaces they have to speak against the war.
I'm wondering if the majority of Porn Websites could make themselves unavailable in Russia with out a VPN, could that prompt a lot of Russian users to get a VPN. getting a VPN allows them to appear to be outside Russia, and there for access video of there Step-Mums doing there thing, but would also allow them to look at BBC PB and other sites outside Russia?
I think this may be a better tactic that, simply cutting off Russia from the internet, at this time.
If Russian doesn't back down by Monday, say, make every single request for a website outside Russia resolve to ConHome.
Do we really want another failed state on our hands?
Russia is already a failed state. And has oil. We all know what we do with failed states with oil, don't we, children?
This is what Total Moral Defeat looks like, even if you grind out a "win" eventually
Russian APCs must be easier to nick than a Vauxhall Viva.....
Another mind-boggling vid from "occupied" Kherson. The woman proclaims her Ukrainian freedom, you can hear the desperate Russians firing into the air, the crowd nervously moves away.... but then they move BACK, towards the firing soldiers
If you have a citizenry this dedicated to its freedom and independence, there is nothing you can do. You absolutely cannot win
Again it reminds me of Vietnam, except that everything is amplified by social media, and the Ukrainians are not dodgy communists, so basically the entire world is cheering them on. Loudly.
Afternoon all and on topic: Eurovision has a special place in my betting history. In 1996, I was just discovering spread betting and my debut trade was a buy of our entry that year, a number by Gina G called "Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit". I did it because I thought the song – and the performance of it by the charismatic Gina – was a knockout. Certainly a cut above standard Eurovision fare. And I was absolutely right about that. The song is now generally acknowledged by experts in the field as one of the best of its type.
But I was also dead wrong. It came nowhere (so I lost money) because with the Song Contest geopolitical factors dominate and we were on the short side of them back then. This changed the following year, of course, with the Blair landslide transforming everything and enabling us to not only challenge at Eurovision but win it with Katrina and the Waves, however this was no help in 1996. I made a bad bet, heart over head, no research, no due diligence, and it taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten and to this day informs how I approach my betting.
So to Q’s tips here. I usually agree with him but here I don’t. In the circumstances I think Ukraine are more likely to win than not. They should therefore be odds on and are value at 2/1. As for the UK, I’m not tempted to lay at 20/1. I get the logic – I see how it’s a professional sell – but I wouldn’t risk it myself. The rumour of ‘big name’ sounds credible to me. We’re sick of being humiliated in this and I sense there could be a mammoth effort this year to change the ballgame.
Eg the Gallagher brothers might fancy it. Imagine if that news breaks – Oasis to reform for Eurovision with a stonking new Noel penned anthem – and you’re sat there with a grand of exposure to a piddly £50. No thank you. Or, perhaps more likely in the light of *yesterday’s* Glasto news … yes yes, I know, but if it happens you don’t want to be short at 20s, do you?
If I was a British big name I'd be thinking of backing out to try next year instead. There's now no upside. There are three possible outcomes: (1) you win, by being the party-pooper who denied Ukraine, (2) you're steamrollered by the Ukraine sympathy vote, (3) you don't even do that well.
Yes, good point. If you were a genuine big star plus the song was a corker you could find yourself in a similar position to Bieber in 2015 when his single looked like it was going to prevent the Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Charity Choir getting the Christmas number 1 spot. He had to find a way to throw it. Similar problem occurred last year too, resolved only by Ed Sheeran and Sir Elton John agreeing to actually work with LadBaby.
As off-topic as you can get, but I think there are gardeners on here - I'm translating regulations on insectides from Danish, specifically: referring to the use of pheremones to discourage undesired insects from breeding. The Danish is literally "insect confusion" (forvirring). The machine translation, which I think draw on an early version of the legislation, calls this "insect contagion", which I'm accustomed to thinking of meaning "illnesses being passed on by insect bites". Do you happen to know which is the usual English term?
This is a trend I first really noticed with Covid, but the amount of hyperbolic, alarmist nonsense being spread by Americans about the situation in Europe is mindblowing.
Perhaps this is true for a few dozen people, but it's absurd to frame it as "what it feels like in Europe".
Putin’s taken Kyiv, capturing two million Ukrainians.
It’s okay, says Putin, this is a peace keeping operation, we came to free you. you can all live. I only want Zelenskyy.
I am Zelenskyy, someone calls. No I am Zelenskyy, someone else calls. I’m Zelenskyy. No. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy….
That would look good in a film, somebody should make it!
The end of that, not so good. The Romans adopted the simple fix for that problem.
'cept the Russians would run out of wood supplies after they'd nailed half a dozen up.....
The Romans must have had some pretty awesome logistics, for their time. The Roman army seems to have been a band of very aggressive builders, much of the time...
I've always been impressed with the Normans. They brought flat-pack castles with them, to hold the territory they gained.
It would make a great name for a tradesman. Imagine painting that on the side of your van. "Norman Castle, Painter and Decorator..."
Where do you think the "Castle" surname came from?
You're a Babylon 5 fan.
I was wondering last night, whether Putin has gone full Emperor Mollari on us.
(For those unfamiliar, the Centauri Republic launches a pointless and provocative attack on the League of non-aligned worlds, causing the international community to counterstrike against the Centauri homeworld and demand reparations. This leads the Centauri people to turn their backs on the international community and embrace autarky, as a beaten, broken and resentful empire.)
Perhaps someone should check whether or not Putin has a keeper on him...
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
Putin was winning the war, until his people could not download porn....
For some reason Chrome thought I’d be interested in this article.
Ukrainian and Russian Pornhub Performers Protest the War
Ukrainians are posting videos of the Russian invasion to Pornhub, while Russians are using one of the last online spaces they have to speak against the war.
I'm wondering if the majority of Porn Websites could make themselves unavailable in Russia with out a VPN, could that prompt a lot of Russian users to get a VPN. getting a VPN allows them to appear to be outside Russia, and there for access video of there Step-Mums doing there thing, but would also allow them to look at BBC PB and other sites outside Russia?
I think this may be a better tactic that, simply cutting off Russia from the internet, at this time.
If Russian doesn't back down by Monday, say, make every single request for a website outside Russia resolve to ConHome.
Do we really want another failed state on our hands?
Russia is already a failed state. And has oil. We all know what we do with failed states with oil, don't we, children?
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
I wonder, looking at the demeanour of those nervous Russian soldiers in Kherson and elsewhere, whether the Russian military might turn on Putin. Russian soldiers are being mown down - for what? Russian hardware is being destroyed - by 18 year old students with British missiles (yay!). The entire Russian military is being globally humiliated. And Putin did all this and wants to carry on - forcing Russians to kill sort-of-Russians
There MUST be generals who are looking at each other and wondering: Hmmm
Putin’s taken Kyiv, capturing two million Ukrainians.
It’s okay, says Putin, this is a peace keeping operation, we came to free you. you can all live. I only want Zelenskyy.
I am Zelenskyy, someone calls. No I am Zelenskyy, someone else calls. I’m Zelenskyy. No. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy. I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy I’m Zelenskyy….
That would look good in a film, somebody should make it!
The end of that, not so good. The Romans adopted the simple fix for that problem.
'cept the Russians would run out of wood supplies after they'd nailed half a dozen up.....
The Romans must have had some pretty awesome logistics, for their time. The Roman army seems to have been a band of very aggressive builders, much of the time...
I've always been impressed with the Normans. They brought flat-pack castles with them, to hold the territory they gained.
It would make a great name for a tradesman. Imagine painting that on the side of your van. "Norman Castle, Painter and Decorator..."
Where do you think the "Castle" surname came from?
You're a Babylon 5 fan.
I was wondering last night, whether Putin has gone full Emperor Mollari on us.
(For those unfamiliar, the Centauri Republic launches a pointless and provocative attack on the League of non-aligned worlds, causing the international community to counterstrike against the Centauri homeworld and demand reparations. This leads the Centauri people to turn their backs on the international community and embrace autarky, as a beaten, broken and resentful empire.)
Perhaps someone should check whether or not Putin has a keeper on him...
Better yet - check around him for men drinking tea in a sinister fashion.
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
Putin was winning the war, until his people could not download porn....
For some reason Chrome thought I’d be interested in this article.
Ukrainian and Russian Pornhub Performers Protest the War
Ukrainians are posting videos of the Russian invasion to Pornhub, while Russians are using one of the last online spaces they have to speak against the war.
I'm wondering if the majority of Porn Websites could make themselves unavailable in Russia with out a VPN, could that prompt a lot of Russian users to get a VPN. getting a VPN allows them to appear to be outside Russia, and there for access video of there Step-Mums doing there thing, but would also allow them to look at BBC PB and other sites outside Russia?
I think this may be a better tactic that, simply cutting off Russia from the internet, at this time.
If Russian doesn't back down by Monday, say, make every single request for a website outside Russia resolve to ConHome.
Do we really want another failed state on our hands?
Russia is already a failed state. And has oil. We all know what we do with failed states with oil, don't we, children?
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
Isn't it possible that he's replaced by another Ultra-Nationalist with the same basic policy, but less corruption?
We might then face the risk of the next conflict with Russian being one where we are surprised at how competent they are.
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
Putin was winning the war, until his people could not download porn....
For some reason Chrome thought I’d be interested in this article.
Ukrainian and Russian Pornhub Performers Protest the War
Ukrainians are posting videos of the Russian invasion to Pornhub, while Russians are using one of the last online spaces they have to speak against the war.
I'm wondering if the majority of Porn Websites could make themselves unavailable in Russia with out a VPN, could that prompt a lot of Russian users to get a VPN. getting a VPN allows them to appear to be outside Russia, and there for access video of there Step-Mums doing there thing, but would also allow them to look at BBC PB and other sites outside Russia?
I think this may be a better tactic that, simply cutting off Russia from the internet, at this time.
If Russian doesn't back down by Monday, say, make every single request for a website outside Russia resolve to ConHome.
Nice try, but cruel and unusual punishments are outlawed by the Geneva Conventions.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
Isn't it possible that he's replaced by another Ultra-Nationalist with the same basic policy, but less corruption?
We might then face the risk of the next conflict with Russian being one where we are surprised at how competent they are.
That was the argument for not supporting the German Generals who wanted to over-throw Hitler - *before* WWII.
The British Government thought that a re-armed Germany run by the German General Staff was way more of a threat than if it was run by an ex-corporal.
Clearly, Macron is hoovering up the centrist and centre-right vote but Mélenchon is also gaining ground. I said last night you couldn't rule out a Macron-Mélenchon run off if Le Pen and Zemmour both implode as a result of their too-close associations with Putin.
Just an incredible amount of planes shot down today. At least 4 videoed, plus several helicopters.
"I'm pretty sure the reason we're seeing so many 'advanced' Russian aircraft being shot down - they should be relatively immune to MANPADS - is because they're having to fly low to deploy dumb ordnance as they're already running low on precision guided munitions..."
This is the obvious (only) route for him, the only escape from total failure. Escalate it insanely. He's maybe going to threaten us with nukes, directly, or drop on one Kyiv to make a point
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
I wonder, looking at the demeanour of those nervous Russian soldiers in Kherson and elsewhere, whether the Russian military might turn on Putin. Russian soldiers are being mown down - for what? Russian hardware is being destroyed - by 18 year old students with British missiles (yay!). The entire Russian military is being globally humiliated. And Putin did all this and wants to carry on - forcing Russians to kill sort-of-Russians
There MUST be generals who are looking at each other and wondering: Hmmm
Most of the troops being used here are recent conscripts barely out of school. They were told they were going to be doing training exercises in Belarus before being shipped off to war with no notice or time to tell their families. They are pure cannon fodder, as their type has been used by Moscow for centuries. They do not have the connections to higher ups to stage a mutiny, but they can surrender or desert at scale, and there are signs this is already starting to happen.
What can happen is that the higher ups stage a coup out of pure anger from the humiliation.
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
Putin was winning the war, until his people could not download porn....
For some reason Chrome thought I’d be interested in this article.
Ukrainian and Russian Pornhub Performers Protest the War
Ukrainians are posting videos of the Russian invasion to Pornhub, while Russians are using one of the last online spaces they have to speak against the war.
I'm wondering if the majority of Porn Websites could make themselves unavailable in Russia with out a VPN, could that prompt a lot of Russian users to get a VPN. getting a VPN allows them to appear to be outside Russia, and there for access video of there Step-Mums doing there thing, but would also allow them to look at BBC PB and other sites outside Russia?
I think this may be a better tactic that, simply cutting off Russia from the internet, at this time.
If Russian doesn't back down by Monday, say, make every single request for a website outside Russia resolve to ConHome.
We need somebody to be offering a six month free VPN service within Russia.
Then when 20 million have signed up, send the list of subscribers to the Kremlin. "Here you go, arrest that lot...." Should keep them busy.
Would be very good if somebody could offer free VPN in Russia now.
I fear that by blocking all payments including credit cards, that at the end of the month, those that had VPNs will not be able to pay and therefor lose service.
Clearly, Macron is hoovering up the centrist and centre-right vote but Mélenchon is also gaining ground. I said last night you couldn't rule out a Macron-Mélenchon run off if Le Pen and Zemmour both implode as a result of their too-close associations with Putin.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
Isn't it possible that he's replaced by another Ultra-Nationalist with the same basic policy, but less corruption?
We might then face the risk of the next conflict with Russian being one where we are surprised at how competent they are.
Even another ultra nationalist would not be as bad because they wouldn't want to be humiliated again. The bigger danger is leaving Putin in power with prestige partially held intact, desperate for revenge.
Clearly a lot of weakness this time is because years of corruption in the Russian armed forces have left them with shoddy kit, poor training and privileging of special interests. This has happened a lot in European history, when a power doesn't go to war for a while and suddenly gets found out when it does. What usually happens is reform for ten years, with special interests brushed aside, after the war and a much more effective fighting force for the next one. This has happened to Prussia, Austria, France and Russia over the last 300 years. We must appreciate this and maximize our settlement this time, not let Russia get an easy out.
I said at the PB event on Wednesday evening I thought Labour to win most seats was a sensible bet at this time - currently Smarkets have the Conservatives at 1.74 and Labour at 2.5. Obviously, IF the Conservatives dump Johnson or they get a bounce from other events, it's a trade from which you can cash out.
If you add the Conservative and LD seat numbers it's a mirror image of 2010 (or pretty close). The key here is Starmer would not need the support of the SNP if he could get the support of the LDs as they would have 324 and with SF absent, they would have a small but clear Parliamentary majority.
For the Conservatives, it wouldn't be as bad as 1997 or 2001 but it would still be roughly a third of the seats gone.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
I wonder, looking at the demeanour of those nervous Russian soldiers in Kherson and elsewhere, whether the Russian military might turn on Putin. Russian soldiers are being mown down - for what? Russian hardware is being destroyed - by 18 year old students with British missiles (yay!). The entire Russian military is being globally humiliated. And Putin did all this and wants to carry on - forcing Russians to kill sort-of-Russians
There MUST be generals who are looking at each other and wondering: Hmmm
Most of the troops being used here are recent conscripts barely out of school. They were told they were going to be doing training exercises in Belarus before being shipped off to war with no notice or time to tell their families. They are pure cannon fodder, as their type has been used by Moscow for centuries. They do not have the connections to higher ups to stage a mutiny, but they can surrender or desert at scale, and there are signs this is already starting to happen.
What can happen is that the higher ups stage a coup out of pure anger from the humiliation.
Presumably the Russian troops in Kherson have come out of Crimea. Do we know where they have come from originally?
This is the obvious (only) route for him, the only escape from total failure. Escalate it insanely. He's maybe going to threaten us with nukes, directly, or drop on one Kyiv to make a point
He has realized he has lost and is now seeking a negotiated peace that allows him to pretend the definitely-not-a-war "special operation" achieved its modest aims. By threatening nukes he is trying to maximizing his leverage to get the West to give him a win before his leverage fully slips away. But it is a paper threat. As a Russian nationalist the last thing he wants is his country flattened in nuclear war. The same is true for those around him who would have to carry out any such order.
Clearly, Macron is hoovering up the centrist and centre-right vote but Mélenchon is also gaining ground. I said last night you couldn't rule out a Macron-Mélenchon run off if Le Pen and Zemmour both implode as a result of their too-close associations with Putin.
I got on Melenchon 2 days go at 14-1
I wouldn't rule out a Macron-Melenchon run off as I've said so if you're on each way it's a good bet. I cannot see Macron losing a run off to Melenchon as the centre-right LR vote will back him over the leftist - it's quite likely the FN vote will sit on its hands but that won't matter.
It will be fascinating to see how current events play out politically and electorally in the coming weeks and months. Assuming we avoid incineration, we have elections in Malta, Hungary and Slovenia before the end of April as well as round 1 in France.
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
Putin was winning the war, until his people could not download porn....
For some reason Chrome thought I’d be interested in this article.
Ukrainian and Russian Pornhub Performers Protest the War
Ukrainians are posting videos of the Russian invasion to Pornhub, while Russians are using one of the last online spaces they have to speak against the war.
I'm wondering if the majority of Porn Websites could make themselves unavailable in Russia with out a VPN, could that prompt a lot of Russian users to get a VPN. getting a VPN allows them to appear to be outside Russia, and there for access video of there Step-Mums doing there thing, but would also allow them to look at BBC PB and other sites outside Russia?
I think this may be a better tactic that, simply cutting off Russia from the internet, at this time.
If Russian doesn't back down by Monday, say, make every single request for a website outside Russia resolve to ConHome.
Do we really want another failed state on our hands?
And these are only the losses that this site has photos of on the ground with unique identifiers. There's been a couple more helicopters and planes rumoured to have been taken down.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
I wonder, looking at the demeanour of those nervous Russian soldiers in Kherson and elsewhere, whether the Russian military might turn on Putin. Russian soldiers are being mown down - for what? Russian hardware is being destroyed - by 18 year old students with British missiles (yay!). The entire Russian military is being globally humiliated. And Putin did all this and wants to carry on - forcing Russians to kill sort-of-Russians
There MUST be generals who are looking at each other and wondering: Hmmm
Most of the troops being used here are recent conscripts barely out of school. They were told they were going to be doing training exercises in Belarus before being shipped off to war with no notice or time to tell their families. They are pure cannon fodder, as their type has been used by Moscow for centuries. They do not have the connections to higher ups to stage a mutiny, but they can surrender or desert at scale, and there are signs this is already starting to happen.
What can happen is that the higher ups stage a coup out of pure anger from the humiliation.
Presumably the Russian troops in Kherson have come out of Crimea. Do we know where they have come from originally?
The Crimean ones are actually proper soldiers based in Sevastopol since the annexation. That is why they have been much more successful. The ones from Belarus are substantially recent conscripts and the ones from the East aren't even "Russian" soldiers but LNR/DNR conscripts... and these ones are the dregs of conscription that hadn't been called up in previous rounds.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
I wonder, looking at the demeanour of those nervous Russian soldiers in Kherson and elsewhere, whether the Russian military might turn on Putin. Russian soldiers are being mown down - for what? Russian hardware is being destroyed - by 18 year old students with British missiles (yay!). The entire Russian military is being globally humiliated. And Putin did all this and wants to carry on - forcing Russians to kill sort-of-Russians
There MUST be generals who are looking at each other and wondering: Hmmm
Most of the troops being used here are recent conscripts barely out of school. They were told they were going to be doing training exercises in Belarus before being shipped off to war with no notice or time to tell their families. They are pure cannon fodder, as their type has been used by Moscow for centuries. They do not have the connections to higher ups to stage a mutiny, but they can surrender or desert at scale, and there are signs this is already starting to happen.
What can happen is that the higher ups stage a coup out of pure anger from the humiliation.
Presumably the Russian troops in Kherson have come out of Crimea. Do we know where they have come from originally?
Reports that the spearhead of the attack was Chechen (which might explain why Russia actually "won" something - the Chechens are brutal professionals)
But those nervous guys in Kherson streets and squares look like average (indeed undersized or unathletic) Russian squaddies. Scared, and desperate to go home
And these are only the losses that this site has photos of on the ground with unique identifiers. There's been a couple more helicopters and planes rumoured to have been taken down.
The losses from the air so far exceed the entire Chechen War over 8 years.
This is the obvious (only) route for him, the only escape from total failure. Escalate it insanely. He's maybe going to threaten us with nukes, directly, or drop on one Kyiv to make a point
He has realized he has lost and is now seeking a negotiated peace that allows him to pretend the definitely-not-a-war "special operation" achieved its modest aims. By threatening nukes he is trying to maximizing his leverage to get the West to give him a win before his leverage fully slips away. But it is a paper threat. As a Russian nationalist the last thing he wants is his country flattened in nuclear war. The same is true for those around him who would have to carry out any such order.
The danger is that he and his circle see the result of the war as an issue of their personal survival...
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
I wonder, looking at the demeanour of those nervous Russian soldiers in Kherson and elsewhere, whether the Russian military might turn on Putin. Russian soldiers are being mown down - for what? Russian hardware is being destroyed - by 18 year old students with British missiles (yay!). The entire Russian military is being globally humiliated. And Putin did all this and wants to carry on - forcing Russians to kill sort-of-Russians
There MUST be generals who are looking at each other and wondering: Hmmm
Most of the troops being used here are recent conscripts barely out of school. They were told they were going to be doing training exercises in Belarus before being shipped off to war with no notice or time to tell their families. They are pure cannon fodder, as their type has been used by Moscow for centuries. They do not have the connections to higher ups to stage a mutiny, but they can surrender or desert at scale, and there are signs this is already starting to happen.
What can happen is that the higher ups stage a coup out of pure anger from the humiliation.
Presumably the Russian troops in Kherson have come out of Crimea. Do we know where they have come from originally?
Reports that the spearhead of the attack was Chechen (which might explain why Russia actually "won" something - the Chechens are brutal professionals)
But those nervous guys in Kherson streets and squares look like average (indeed undersized or unathletic) Russian squaddies. Scared, and desperate to go home
A bunch of Chechens actually went on aan assassination mission to kill Zelenskiy near Kyiv, but these were detected and killed. This included the infamous Tushayev, who delighted in torturing gay men in Chechnya.
Just an incredible amount of planes shot down today. At least 4 videoed, plus several helicopters.
"I'm pretty sure the reason we're seeing so many 'advanced' Russian aircraft being shot down - they should be relatively immune to MANPADS - is because they're having to fly low to deploy dumb ordnance as they're already running low on precision guided munitions..."
The US claims of Ukrainian air superiority make a lot more sense now.
There's a very interesting thread somewhere (have we mentioned it) that the capture of intact Russian SAM missile systems has given some access to / knowledge of the Russian IFF system for the Ukranians, which they can then play around with. Hence Russians havign difficulty being sure about who is who.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
I wonder, looking at the demeanour of those nervous Russian soldiers in Kherson and elsewhere, whether the Russian military might turn on Putin. Russian soldiers are being mown down - for what? Russian hardware is being destroyed - by 18 year old students with British missiles (yay!). The entire Russian military is being globally humiliated. And Putin did all this and wants to carry on - forcing Russians to kill sort-of-Russians
There MUST be generals who are looking at each other and wondering: Hmmm
We can only hope that there is a spectacular collapse. That convoy being bussed home would be humiliating beyond anything Putin could survive, surely?
🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
Even another ultra nationalist would not be as bad because they wouldn't want to be humiliated again. The bigger danger is leaving Putin in power with prestige partially held intact, desperate for revenge.
Clearly a lot of weakness this time is because years of corruption in the Russian armed forces have left them with shoddy kit, poor training and privileging of special interests. This has happened a lot in European history, when a power doesn't go to war for a while and suddenly gets found out when it does. What usually happens is reform for ten years, with special interests brushed aside, after the war and a much more effective fighting force for the next one. This has happened to Prussia, Austria, France and Russia over the last 300 years. We must appreciate this and maximize our settlement this time, not let Russia get an easy out.
Yes and No - I think.
The comment about military preparedness is well made - I think the way war is conducted is continually evolving and fighting the next war using the thinking of the last war rarely ends well. As I often say to colleagues you have to ask four questions about any event:
What happened and why did it happen? What might have happened and why did it not?
I'm hoping defence analysts and experts are cogitating the lessons from the Ukraine (which arguably were there for all to see from the recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and that's the thing - anyone who saw the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 could have foreseen the trench warfare of WW1).
The other side of this is political - Russian scepticism of democracy is founded on the experience that it provides weak leadership and opens the door to crime and corruption. That's true unfortunately of many early democratic cultures - it was true of Britain as well. Establishing democratic culture takes time, patience and money. It means institutions which are not open to corruption (paying public servants properly and strong action against graft or venality) and representatives who themselves don't see election as a way to put their snouts in the trough.
That won't be an easy sell - all democracy is imperfect (ours is) and the temptation when it all becomes difficult is to pick a "strong man" to sort it all out. Russia's road to democracy will be long and arduous but we will do ourselves a huge long-term favour by helping them on that road.
🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
Clearly, Macron is hoovering up the centrist and centre-right vote but Mélenchon is also gaining ground. I said last night you couldn't rule out a Macron-Mélenchon run off if Le Pen and Zemmour both implode as a result of their too-close associations with Putin.
Yes, Jadot is also fairly high at 7.5% so there is potential for a squeeze there.
NEXTA@nexta_tv·2m🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
Just an incredible amount of planes shot down today. At least 4 videoed, plus several helicopters.
"I'm pretty sure the reason we're seeing so many 'advanced' Russian aircraft being shot down - they should be relatively immune to MANPADS - is because they're having to fly low to deploy dumb ordnance as they're already running low on precision guided munitions..."
The US claims of Ukrainian air superiority make a lot more sense now.
There's a very interesting thread somewhere (have we mentioned it) that the capture of intact Russian SAM missile systems has given some access to / knowledge of the Russian IFF system for the Ukranians, which they can then play around with. Hence Russians havign difficulty being sure about who is who.
🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
I said at the PB event on Wednesday evening I thought Labour to win most seats was a sensible bet at this time - currently Smarkets have the Conservatives at 1.74 and Labour at 2.5. Obviously, IF the Conservatives dump Johnson or they get a bounce from other events, it's a trade from which you can cash out.
If you add the Conservative and LD seat numbers it's a mirror image of 2010 (or pretty close). The key here is Starmer would not need the support of the SNP if he could get the support of the LDs as they would have 324 and with SF absent, they would have a small but clear Parliamentary majority.
For the Conservatives, it wouldn't be as bad as 1997 or 2001 but it would still be roughly a third of the seats gone.
Less than 250 seats would be quite a bad result for the Tories, I am still assuming 250 seats is the Tory floor.
As off-topic as you can get, but I think there are gardeners on here - I'm translating regulations on insectides from Danish, specifically: referring to the use of pheremones to discourage undesired insects from breeding. The Danish is literally "insect confusion" (forvirring). The machine translation, which I think draw on an early version of the legislation, calls this "insect contagion", which I'm accustomed to thinking of meaning "illnesses being passed on by insect bites". Do you happen to know which is the usual English term?
@NickPalmer I am not absolutely certain, but my thoughts are: Confusion makes sense in as much as the use of pheromones is to do with (in nature) the insect emmitting the pheromene causing a change of behaviour in insects of the same specie, pheromones are species specific so very selective. The common assumption is that they alter and increase sexual attraction, however they are able to alter many other behaviours. By creating an inappropriate response with the use of synthetic pheromnes Insect confusion makes perfect sense, or insect behavioural confusion.
Insect contagion could have the meaning you suggest but makes little sense. Depending on context it could imply contagion of the plant by the insect(s) where we would normally use a term such as infestation.
Clearly, Macron is hoovering up the centrist and centre-right vote but Mélenchon is also gaining ground. I said last night you couldn't rule out a Macron-Mélenchon run off if Le Pen and Zemmour both implode as a result of their too-close associations with Putin.
I got on Melenchon 2 days go at 14-1
I wouldn't rule out a Macron-Melenchon run off as I've said so if you're on each way it's a good bet. I cannot see Macron losing a run off to Melenchon as the centre-right LR vote will back him over the leftist - it's quite likely the FN vote will sit on its hands but that won't matter.
It will be fascinating to see how current events play out politically and electorally in the coming weeks and months. Assuming we avoid incineration, we have elections in Malta, Hungary and Slovenia before the end of April as well as round 1 in France.
Everything carries “if not incinerated” clause now!
If you owe someone money good moment to filibuster?
Sorry, I should have said the bet is only for top 2 first round. Yes he won’t beat Macron, no one will this time.
My reasoning announcing bet was He got 19% first round last time, that’s like less than a length in racing terms from coming second, and running a slick campaign this time. Where three Right candidates are battling for votes not two last time. But Melechon is battling for the same votes. Is Melenchon like a communist lefty? Nope. He’s one of the more extreme Nationalist in this race, anti immigration, anti German, once on a roll he can take votes from everyone. And he won’t need 19% to come second.
In a further post on this election I asked how will this war impact elections. The impact of this barbaric war in the minds of voters is either to swing to strong arm nationalists or swing against? And surely the impact in the West of Putin’s barbarity and the necessity for a belt tightening and fearful Cold War will not play into the hands of politicians trying to paint a nuanced picture or offer a conciliatory tone? It’s only a fortnight ago the German and French leaders were face to face with Ukraine government telling them to implement Minsk II.
I then followed up with this link which explains Melenchon platform as anti immigration and claims that Germany is motivated by radical individualism, neoliberalism, and the economic interests of an aging population.
This is the obvious (only) route for him, the only escape from total failure. Escalate it insanely. He's maybe going to threaten us with nukes, directly, or drop on one Kyiv to make a point
Daft pillock (him, not you). If you opt out of the rules based system, then why should it not opt out of letting you retain its benefits ?
🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
Has NATO somehow smuggled serious anti-aircraft kit to the Ukes?
apparently Russia has 1511 combat aircraft, so at this rate in 189 days they wont have any left!
I suspect nowhere near that number are airworthy. Running out of smart weapons and flying low in a place full of shoulder launched missiles is a death run.
I see the plane was downed near Chernihiv, which is supposedly surrounded, so either existing weapons or very permeable siege.
The maps showing large areas occupied are probably far from the truth. More like roads that were traversed, hence the logistics problems for the spearheads.
Just an incredible amount of planes shot down today. At least 4 videoed, plus several helicopters.
"I'm pretty sure the reason we're seeing so many 'advanced' Russian aircraft being shot down - they should be relatively immune to MANPADS - is because they're having to fly low to deploy dumb ordnance as they're already running low on precision guided munitions..."
The US claims of Ukrainian air superiority make a lot more sense now.
There's a very interesting thread somewhere (have we mentioned it) that the capture of intact Russian SAM missile systems has given some access to / knowledge of the Russian IFF system for the Ukranians, which they can then play around with. Hence Russians havign difficulty being sure about who is who.
This is the obvious (only) route for him, the only escape from total failure. Escalate it insanely. He's maybe going to threaten us with nukes, directly, or drop on one Kyiv to make a point
Daft pillock (him, not you). If you opt out of the rules based system, then why should it not opt out of letting you retain its benefits ?
Properly desperate now. Veiled threats against Britain, veiled threats against the entire West, whining about sanctions after saying "we don't care about sanctions"
This is the whiff of defeat, even if he can steamroller a temporary victory
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
Isn't it possible that he's replaced by another Ultra-Nationalist with the same basic policy, but less corruption?
We might then face the risk of the next conflict with Russian being one where we are surprised at how competent they are.
Even another ultra nationalist would not be as bad because they wouldn't want to be humiliated again. The bigger danger is leaving Putin in power with prestige partially held intact, desperate for revenge.
Clearly a lot of weakness this time is because years of corruption in the Russian armed forces have left them with shoddy kit, poor training and privileging of special interests. This has happened a lot in European history, when a power doesn't go to war for a while and suddenly gets found out when it does. What usually happens is reform for ten years, with special interests brushed aside, after the war and a much more effective fighting force for the next one. This has happened to Prussia, Austria, France and Russia over the last 300 years. We must appreciate this and maximize our settlement this time, not let Russia get an easy out.
A related option I idly wondered about (assuming there is some sort of negotiated peace) is a new, reborn Saint Putin - shocked (shocked I tell you!) to have found out corruption has been rife. Vows to sweep the palace clean, route out the ne'er-do-well's, a new set of ministers - clean, pure as the driven snow, etc etc.
Bunch of oligarchs 'escape', some ministers get sacked, few high profile show-trial's, round up the usual suspects. And behold, the father of Pure Russia gets another few years in power while he picks a compliant successor.
I said at the PB event on Wednesday evening I thought Labour to win most seats was a sensible bet at this time - currently Smarkets have the Conservatives at 1.74 and Labour at 2.5. Obviously, IF the Conservatives dump Johnson or they get a bounce from other events, it's a trade from which you can cash out.
If you add the Conservative and LD seat numbers it's a mirror image of 2010 (or pretty close). The key here is Starmer would not need the support of the SNP if he could get the support of the LDs as they would have 324 and with SF absent, they would have a small but clear Parliamentary majority.
For the Conservatives, it wouldn't be as bad as 1997 or 2001 but it would still be roughly a third of the seats gone.
Less than 250 seats would be quite a bad result for the Tories, I am still assuming 250 seats is the Tory floor.
Has NATO somehow smuggled serious anti-aircraft kit to the Ukes?
apparently Russia has 1511 combat aircraft, so at this rate in 189 days they wont have any left!
I suspect nowhere near that number are airworthy. Running out of smart weapons and flying low in a place full of shoulder launched missiles is a death run.
I see the plane was downed near Chernihiv, which is supposedly surrounded, so either existing weapons or very permeable siege.
The maps showing large areas occupied are probably far from the truth. More like roads that were traversed, hence the logistics problems for the spearheads.
That kind of wooded, obviously farmed terrain we are seeing a lot of makes me think about the reports of the Ukrainians building up (pre war) local militia units to fight on their home ground.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
This could be how it pans out but the downside is the suffering involved in the meantime. What if a settlement could be reached in which what Putin gets is palpably less than he wanted or expected and also less than it has cost him, ie a net negative outcome for him. Would this not be worth considering?
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
Isn't it possible that he's replaced by another Ultra-Nationalist with the same basic policy, but less corruption?
We might then face the risk of the next conflict with Russian being one where we are surprised at how competent they are.
Pretty unlikely. The current "elite" are mostly all over 70. The next generation are often Western educated and much less open to the pseudomystic bullshit of Dugin and other lunatics. I think the could be change for the better, but much depends on how this war plays out. We could still be some distance away from Moscow regime change and it is a dangerous time until that happens.
Russia is certainly looking a bit North Korea at the moment. The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway) Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks. They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs. The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot. Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
Even another ultra nationalist would not be as bad because they wouldn't want to be humiliated again. The bigger danger is leaving Putin in power with prestige partially held intact, desperate for revenge.
Clearly a lot of weakness this time is because years of corruption in the Russian armed forces have left them with shoddy kit, poor training and privileging of special interests. This has happened a lot in European history, when a power doesn't go to war for a while and suddenly gets found out when it does. What usually happens is reform for ten years, with special interests brushed aside, after the war and a much more effective fighting force for the next one. This has happened to Prussia, Austria, France and Russia over the last 300 years. We must appreciate this and maximize our settlement this time, not let Russia get an easy out.
Yes and No - I think.
The comment about military preparedness is well made - I think the way war is conducted is continually evolving and fighting the next war using the thinking of the last war rarely ends well. As I often say to colleagues you have to ask four questions about any event:
What happened and why did it happen? What might have happened and why did it not?
I'm hoping defence analysts and experts are cogitating the lessons from the Ukraine (which arguably were there for all to see from the recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and that's the thing - anyone who saw the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 could have foreseen the trench warfare of WW1).
The other side of this is political - Russian scepticism of democracy is founded on the experience that it provides weak leadership and opens the door to crime and corruption. That's true unfortunately of many early democratic cultures - it was true of Britain as well. Establishing democratic culture takes time, patience and money. It means institutions which are not open to corruption (paying public servants properly and strong action against graft or venality) and representatives who themselves don't see election as a way to put their snouts in the trough.
That won't be an easy sell - all democracy is imperfect (ours is) and the temptation when it all becomes difficult is to pick a "strong man" to sort it all out. Russia's road to democracy will be long and arduous but we will do ourselves a huge long-term favour by helping them on that road.
Yes, let's hope we (and they) get a second chance at that.
Their amphibious assault on Odessa also keeps getting postponed because the weather conditions aren't right.
If I were the commander I'd probably say something similar. A contested beach landing against well prepared defences, with minimal air cover, no second front, with the two potential methods of delivery being massively vulnerable to NLAWs/Javelins is not fun.
I have been saying this for three days. Russia cannot win this war. It's like the Brits in the American Revolution. Regular forces can take a city, pacify it with a vast number of troops, but the moment they move on, the populace retakes the city. You can respond with brutality, but that just increases the share of the population actively supporting the enemy. The difference is that the ill fated war didn't affect Britain's domestic economy which was about to have the Industrial Revolution. Russia, on the other hand, is being economically strangled, and the noose is tightening.
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
This could be how it pans out but the downside is the suffering involved in the meantime. What if a settlement could be reached in which what Putin gets is palpably less than he wanted or expected and also less than it has cost him, ie a net negative outcome for him. Would this not be worth considering?
Putin is now utterly in control of the media in Russia, and they have been told that this operation has limited aims - particularly to do with denazification. It might be possible for him to declare 'operation over' and proclaim success, the troops in Kharikiv and elsewhere having got rid of all the Nazis.
Many in Russia would not know any different. And then he can screech about the ongoing sanctions against a country that got rid of evil Nazis and withdrew.
This is the obvious (only) route for him, the only escape from total failure. Escalate it insanely. He's maybe going to threaten us with nukes, directly, or drop on one Kyiv to make a point
Surely the generals will intervene before the nukes start dropping?
As I'm thinking forthcoming elections, let's not forget Australia which looks likely to go to the polls on 21st May.
In 2019, as we all know, Scott Morrison won an unlikely re-election victory for the Liberal-National Coalition against the polls and the odds winning 77 seats out of 151 in the House of Representatives.
The Australian Labor Party (ALP) won 68 seats with 6 seats going to Independents and minor parties. On the two-party vote, the Coalition beat ALP 51.5-48.5.
With the caveat of that shock result (think UK in 1992 as a parallel), it's wise to be cautious about current Australian polling but the latest polls look ominous for the Coalition. Roy Morgan has the ALP up by 13 while the latest YouGov has a 10 point ALP lead in the Two-Party Preferred Vote.
Morrison's lead as preferred PM (perhaps a more reliable guide) has diminished to just two points over ALP leader Anthony Albanese.
The key is what is happening in the individual states - in New South Wales, the Coalition won the Two-Party vote 52-48 but are now behind 41-59 which is a huge 11% swing to the ALP. In Queensland, the swing to ALP is about 10% but it's much lower in Victoria and it's about 9% in South and Western Australia.
Now, there's still time for Morrison and the Liberal-National Coalition to pull this round and as we know polls often underestimate the LNP numbers - we may get another clue in the South Australia State election two weeks today.
In 2018, the LNP won 25 seats in the 47 seat House of Assembly ending a 16-year period of ALP rule. The ALP ended with 19 seats with 3 going to Independents. The Two-Party preferred showed the LNP ahead of the ALP by 52-48 but the latest Newspoll from late last month has the ALP ahead 53-47 so a 5% swing to the ALP compared with a 3% swing on the primary vote but that would be enough to return the ALP to power.
Russia is certainly looking a bit North Korea at the moment. The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway) Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks. They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs. The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot. Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
I don't mean to piss on your chips but Putin's been like this for a while. Like that time he brought a dog into a meeting with Merkel beacuse he knew she is a cynophobe. That's low-grade trolling right there and it was like 6 years ago. Putin's been a weird little shit for a long time. So if he was ever a "respected statesman" it wasn't recently.
Comments
Putin's War - Keep it simple and to the point
The War Of Putin's Ego - slightly more poetic
any better ones?
TSE's style guide for this year. Field gray is the colour this season....
Perhaps this is true for a few dozen people, but it's absurd to frame it as "what it feels like in Europe".
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1500080857146703878
Saudi Arabia’s habit of chopping up journalists and blowing up its neighbours makes it an awkward ally. But the British state has few qualms about letting it buy prized assets (and even unprized ones, such as Newcastle United)
https://www.economist.com/britain/2022/03/05/the-rise-and-fall-of-londongrad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWW6aDpUvbQ
Mind you, one of Putin's chums made the New Classic blunder.
Then when 20 million have signed up, send the list of subscribers to the Kremlin. "Here you go, arrest that lot...." Should keep them busy.
Literally driving a stolen Russian APC through the town of Kherson, waving a Ukrainian flag
https://twitter.com/EmineDzheppar/status/1500053365178478596?s=20&t=w3-ArXs0iMdOJsossZDOLg
This is what Total Moral Defeat looks like, even if you grind out a "win" eventually
"I'm pretty sure the reason we're seeing so many 'advanced' Russian aircraft being shot down - they should be relatively immune to MANPADS - is because they're having to fly low to deploy dumb ordnance as they're already running low on precision guided munitions..."
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1500113244136083456
The US claims of Ukrainian air superiority make a lot more sense now.
It's worth remembering that well into the 19th Cent shipping was gambling. If your ship made it, tons of money. Quite often it didn't - look up ships vanishing on various routes.....
But the loses just averaged out.
https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1500033385812615170?s=20&t=w3-ArXs0iMdOJsossZDOLg
If you have a citizenry this dedicated to its freedom and independence, there is nothing you can do. You absolutely cannot win
Again it reminds me of Vietnam, except that everything is amplified by social media, and the Ukrainians are not dodgy communists, so basically the entire world is cheering them on. Loudly.
Of course that wouldn't represent the situation in Europe.
I was wondering last night, whether Putin has gone full Emperor Mollari on us.
(For those unfamiliar, the Centauri Republic launches a pointless and provocative attack on the League of non-aligned worlds, causing the international community to counterstrike against the Centauri homeworld and demand reparations. This leads the Centauri people to turn their backs on the international community and embrace autarky, as a beaten, broken and resentful empire.)
Perhaps someone should check whether or not Putin has a keeper on him...
Putin is going to lose this war, whether he pulls the plug in three weeks or three years. The cost will have been too great for a defeat, and Putin will not be able to pass the buck. When he does admit defeat, he will be replaced in power by a Russian elite that will be desperate for rapprochement with the West. That means a Russia much better for the world, perhaps even a liberalizing one.
The only way he gets out of this is if the West accepts a compromise peace to rescue him, thus rewarding his aggression and war crimes.
There MUST be generals who are looking at each other and wondering: Hmmm
Better yet - check around him for men drinking tea in a sinister fashion.
We might then face the risk of the next conflict with Russian being one where we are surprised at how competent they are.
@oryxspioenkop
· 53m
Russian Air Force losses over #Ukraine in the past 26 hours:
- 1x Su-30SM multirole aircraft
- 1 Su-34 strike aircraft
- 3 Su-25 close air support aircraft (pictured)
- 2 Mi-24/35 attack helicopters
- 1 Mi-8 transport helicopter
- 1 Orlan-10 UAV
https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1500113298351693828?s=20&t=w3-ArXs0iMdOJsossZDOLg
Has NATO somehow smuggled serious anti-aircraft kit to the Ukes?
The British Government thought that a re-armed Germany run by the German General Staff was way more of a threat than if it was run by an ex-corporal.
Meanwhile, back in the real world of polls and polling, another spectacularly awful poll for Pecresse:
This is the Ipsos/ Sopra Steria poll for Le Monde, fieldwork 2-3 March 3,599 respondents.
Changes from 3-7 February:
Macron: 30.5% (+6.5)
Le Pen: 14.5% (-0.5)
Zemmour: 13% (-1.5)
Mélenchon: 12% (+3)
Pécresse: 11.5% (-4)
Clearly, Macron is hoovering up the centrist and centre-right vote but Mélenchon is also gaining ground. I said last night you couldn't rule out a Macron-Mélenchon run off if Le Pen and Zemmour both implode as a result of their too-close associations with Putin.
Reuters
@Reuters
Putin says Western sanctions are akin to declaration of war http://reut.rs/3ILsurz
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1500120245289238531?s=20&t=A6GXMXXsbRCkvw6bIi2P4Q
This is the obvious (only) route for him, the only escape from total failure. Escalate it insanely. He's maybe going to threaten us with nukes, directly, or drop on one Kyiv to make a point
What can happen is that the higher ups stage a coup out of pure anger from the humiliation.
I fear that by blocking all payments including credit cards, that at the end of the month, those that had VPNs will not be able to pay and therefor lose service.
Clearly a lot of weakness this time is because years of corruption in the Russian armed forces have left them with shoddy kit, poor training and privileging of special interests. This has happened a lot in European history, when a power doesn't go to war for a while and suddenly gets found out when it does. What usually happens is reform for ten years, with special interests brushed aside, after the war and a much more effective fighting force for the next one. This has happened to Prussia, Austria, France and Russia over the last 300 years. We must appreciate this and maximize our settlement this time, not let Russia get an easy out.
LAB: 306 (+104) - 39.6%
CON: 243 (-122) - 34.1%
SNP: 57 (+9) - 4.2%
LDM: 18 (+7) - 10.2%
PLC: 5 (+1) - 0.6%
GRN: 1 (=) - 5.5%
RFM: 0 (=) - 3.3%
Others: 1 (+1) - 2.5%
I said at the PB event on Wednesday evening I thought Labour to win most seats was a sensible bet at this time - currently Smarkets have the Conservatives at 1.74 and Labour at 2.5. Obviously, IF the Conservatives dump Johnson or they get a bounce from other events, it's a trade from which you can cash out.
If you add the Conservative and LD seat numbers it's a mirror image of 2010 (or pretty close). The key here is Starmer would not need the support of the SNP if he could get the support of the LDs as they would have 324 and with SF absent, they would have a small but clear Parliamentary majority.
For the Conservatives, it wouldn't be as bad as 1997 or 2001 but it would still be roughly a third of the seats gone.
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1500127883725058049?s=20&t=A6GXMXXsbRCkvw6bIi2P4Q
How many iconic images is that? A hundred?
It will be fascinating to see how current events play out politically and electorally in the coming weeks and months. Assuming we avoid incineration, we have elections in Malta, Hungary and Slovenia before the end of April as well as round 1 in France.
- 1x Su-30SM multirole aircraft
- 1 Su-34 strike aircraft
- 3 Su-25 close air support aircraft (pictured)
- 2 Mi-24/35 attack helicopters
- 1 Mi-8 transport helicopter
- 1 Orlan-10 UAV
https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1500113298351693828
And these are only the losses that this site has photos of on the ground with unique identifiers. There's been a couple more helicopters and planes rumoured to have been taken down.
But those nervous guys in Kherson streets and squares look like average (indeed undersized or unathletic) Russian squaddies. Scared, and desperate to go home
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/05/truth-social-emptiness-donald-trump-00014355
🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1500133197887201285
The comment about military preparedness is well made - I think the way war is conducted is continually evolving and fighting the next war using the thinking of the last war rarely ends well. As I often say to colleagues you have to ask four questions about any event:
What happened and why did it happen?
What might have happened and why did it not?
I'm hoping defence analysts and experts are cogitating the lessons from the Ukraine (which arguably were there for all to see from the recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and that's the thing - anyone who saw the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 could have foreseen the trench warfare of WW1).
The other side of this is political - Russian scepticism of democracy is founded on the experience that it provides weak leadership and opens the door to crime and corruption. That's true unfortunately of many early democratic cultures - it was true of Britain as well. Establishing democratic culture takes time, patience and money. It means institutions which are not open to corruption (paying public servants properly and strong action against graft or venality) and representatives who themselves don't see election as a way to put their snouts in the trough.
That won't be an easy sell - all democracy is imperfect (ours is) and the temptation when it all becomes difficult is to pick a "strong man" to sort it all out. Russia's road to democracy will be long and arduous but we will do ourselves a huge long-term favour by helping them on that road.
Go fuck yourself Russian warship.
NEXTA@nexta_tv·2m🤡Russian Foreign Ministry: #Russia will not forget London's cooperation with the "nationalists" in #Ukraine and the "#Kyiv regime," as well as the supply of weapons that are used against the #Russian military.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1500133197887201285?s=20&t=BeSRBug0KRyNHKyH0FxwHA
And fuck you, anyone complaining about Britain "not pulling her weight". We're being singled out for helping the Ukes more than anyone
A huge number of people could've died from that, and one person did.
Since I made that post, a further helicopter and plane have been downed.
All RUSI's left with is pumping out articles titled: "Is the Russian Air Force Actually Incapable of Complex Air Operations?"
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/rusi-defence-systems/russian-air-force-actually-incapable-complex-air-operations
I am not absolutely certain, but my thoughts are:
Confusion makes sense in as much as the use of pheromones is to do with (in nature) the insect emmitting the pheromene causing a change of behaviour in insects of the same specie, pheromones are species specific so very selective. The common assumption is that they alter and increase sexual attraction, however they are able to alter many other behaviours. By creating an inappropriate response with the use of synthetic pheromnes Insect confusion makes perfect sense, or insect behavioural confusion.
Insect contagion could have the meaning you suggest but makes little sense. Depending on context it could imply contagion of the plant by the insect(s) where we would normally use a term such as infestation.
Hope that helps.
If you owe someone money good moment to filibuster?
Sorry, I should have said the bet is only for top 2 first round. Yes he won’t beat Macron, no one will this time.
My reasoning announcing bet was He got 19% first round last time, that’s like less than a length in racing terms from coming second, and running a slick campaign this time. Where three Right candidates are battling for votes not two last time. But Melechon is battling for the same votes. Is Melenchon like a communist lefty? Nope. He’s one of the more extreme Nationalist in this race, anti immigration, anti German, once on a roll he can take votes from everyone. And he won’t need 19% to come second.
In a further post on this election I asked how will this war impact elections. The impact of this barbaric war in the minds of voters is either to swing to strong arm nationalists or swing against? And surely the impact in the West of Putin’s barbarity and the necessity for a belt tightening and fearful Cold War will not play into the hands of politicians trying to paint a nuanced picture or offer a conciliatory tone? It’s only a fortnight ago the German and French leaders were face to face with Ukraine government telling them to implement Minsk II.
I then followed up with this link which explains Melenchon platform as anti immigration and claims that Germany is motivated by radical individualism, neoliberalism, and the economic interests of an aging population.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/this-is-what-the-french-election-means-for-germany-and-europe/
If you opt out of the rules based system, then why should it not opt out of letting you retain its benefits ?
I see the plane was downed near Chernihiv, which is supposedly surrounded, so either existing weapons or very permeable siege.
The maps showing large areas occupied are probably far from the truth. More like roads that were traversed, hence the logistics problems for the spearheads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuHFvgXlEQk
This is the whiff of defeat, even if he can steamroller a temporary victory
https://twitter.com/colinphoenix/status/1500124806729154561?s=20&t=9KCGTvCuFwFyiC-OEHHqiQ
Bunch of oligarchs 'escape', some ministers get sacked, few high profile show-trial's, round up the usual suspects. And behold, the father of Pure Russia gets another few years in power while he picks a compliant successor.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russian-troops-in-disarray-crying-26363358
Worth remembering that with military aircraft, the numbers on the books vs the numbers that can fly are often quite different.
At one point Germany was down to between zero and 2 Eurofighters that were capable of operations. Out of hundreds.
The latest picture of Putin with air hostesses cements this image in my mind (not sure if it is real or current, but anyway)
Putin and Lavrov have gone from respectable statesmen to Kim Jong-un like figures in the course of a couple of weeks.
They used to come across as smart, but now they just seem like mad provocateurs.
The descent has been spectacular and unexpected. Even the taliban are distancing themselves, which says a lot.
Maybe there was something in Wallace's 'gone full tonto' comment. It isn't looking that stupid now.
https://twitter.com/katyn1940/status/1500026909845082114
Many in Russia would not know any different. And then he can screech about the ongoing sanctions against a country that got rid of evil Nazis and withdrew.
Putin should maybe watch that tea
In 2019, as we all know, Scott Morrison won an unlikely re-election victory for the Liberal-National Coalition against the polls and the odds winning 77 seats out of 151 in the House of Representatives.
The Australian Labor Party (ALP) won 68 seats with 6 seats going to Independents and minor parties. On the two-party vote, the Coalition beat ALP 51.5-48.5.
With the caveat of that shock result (think UK in 1992 as a parallel), it's wise to be cautious about current Australian polling but the latest polls look ominous for the Coalition. Roy Morgan has the ALP up by 13 while the latest YouGov has a 10 point ALP lead in the Two-Party Preferred Vote.
Morrison's lead as preferred PM (perhaps a more reliable guide) has diminished to just two points over ALP leader Anthony Albanese.
The key is what is happening in the individual states - in New South Wales, the Coalition won the Two-Party vote 52-48 but are now behind 41-59 which is a huge 11% swing to the ALP. In Queensland, the swing to ALP is about 10% but it's much lower in Victoria and it's about 9% in South and Western Australia.
Now, there's still time for Morrison and the Liberal-National Coalition to pull this round and as we know polls often underestimate the LNP numbers - we may get another clue in the South Australia State election two weeks today.
In 2018, the LNP won 25 seats in the 47 seat House of Assembly ending a 16-year period of ALP rule. The ALP ended with 19 seats with 3 going to Independents. The Two-Party preferred showed the LNP ahead of the ALP by 52-48 but the latest Newspoll from late last month has the ALP ahead 53-47 so a 5% swing to the ALP compared with a 3% swing on the primary vote but that would be enough to return the ALP to power.
https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2017/10/20/all-of-germanys-submarines-are-currently-down/
'Hanger queens' can occur with any limited-number, low-use mechanical item. The more complex they get, the harder it is to get them out of the hanger.