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Comment Re:How is the Ukraine war going? (Score 1) 64

I don't know if you're a russian bot or some deluded idiot, but it amuses me to do a breakdown of your post.

NATO turned what was originally intended to be a mostly peaceful show of force like the temporary invasion of Georgia into a war of attrition.

First of all the "peaceful show of force" "temporary" invasion of Georgia involved a few hundred dead in the first two days, and another 5000+ civilians killed in the ethnic cleansing after that, all for a land-grab to seize control of territory covering half of Georgia's coastline that Putin wanted.

Secondly, the "peaceful show of force" "temporary" invasion of Ukraine involved hundreds dead, ballistic and cruise missile attacks on all of Ukraine's largest cities, and Putin publicly admitting the goal of overthrowing the Ukrainian government... and that's just within the first 36 hours. Within two and a half months Russian officials began admitting the intent to permanently annex parts of Ukraine, proceeding with a constitutional amendment a few months later claiming to annex vast territories that Russian had not remotely taken control of, and which Russia is not remotely capable of capturing. Donetsk alone has a population of over a million, two million if you include the metro-area. Russia spent months and many thousand of lives to capture, and later lose, villages in the range of low tens of thousands.

Remember WWI when the lines were pretty much static for years and then suddenly it was all over?

Yes, I remember. As I recall it wasn't exactly "sudden". As I recall... Russian casualties were around five million killed, wounded, or captured, the Russian economy was collapsing, Russia was running out of food, and Russian literally lost it's own capital to civilian rebellion. A few months later the Russian government collapsed and surrendered vast territories including Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, parts of Poland and Ukraine to Germany and its allies (known as the Central Powers). Right about that point the U.S. joined the war reinvigorating the Allied Powers. Germany&friends knew they couldn't win a protracted war. They attempted a quick win, and, in short, they failed. The Allied powers steadily beat them down, with the allies eventually breaking through the lines and progressively liberating territory. With the Allies steadily advancing and the war obviously lost, German forces began rebelling and Germany surrendered.

That's what's happening here. Russia has most of Donbas plus a buffer zone in some other regions that directly border Russia. Ukraine is throwing men at the front lines for Russia to kill but is running out. Territory held is largely irrelevant compared to the number of men killed and weapons destroyed.

So much to unpack there, but it's amusing how you cite "territory held is largely irrelevant" given that the tide has turned and Ukrainians are now the ones breaking through lines and liberating territory from Russian occupation. It's not much yet, but all the map trackers show the reversal. Russia is now officially loosing more territory than they gain. Russia WAS slowly gaining small bits of land, largely through sending meat waves of untrained ill equipped soldiers at Ukrainian lines until the Ukrainians ran out of ammo and had to fall back. However now 7 out of 10 Russians killed are killed by drones. The "no man's land" between the two sides is now many kilometers wide. Any Russian trying to advance gets hit by a drone. Russia has also losing on average 1 air defense system every day, and rapidly depleting. Russian supply lines are getting pummeled by drones. Russian refineries are getting pummeled by drones, with progressively worsening fuel shortages for both the military and for the increasingly rebellious population. Cheap advanced Ukrainian drones are taking out expensive crappy Russian drones, including Russian's new jet-drones. Practically every country on earth is asking Ukraine for their military drone tech, the Russians can't remotely match it. Russian's economy is also fucked, but that topic pretty needs a separate book to cover.

Interesting side notes on weapons destroyed. Russia is destroying it's aircraft almost as fast as Ukraine is, between incompetence and maintenance failures and friendly fire shooting down their own aircraft. Also the nation that is the biggest donor of tanks to Ukraine is... Russia. Ukraine captured countless Russian tanks intact because the Russian military is so abysmal incompetent and corrupt. And as I mentioned, Russian air defense units are depleting. The war is now approaching 5 years, longer than the entirety of WW1. Ukraine is a small fraction of Russia's size, and Russian is literally losing and headed towards another soviet-union-style collapse. The biggest shock to the world of this entire war is just how worthless Putin has made Russian military, through systemic corruption and systemic incompetence.

Polls show the Ukrainian population isn't interested in surrendering. They are defending their homes. It's simple, the war will end when all the soldiers go home. When Russian soldiers go back to their homes in Russia, and when Ukrainian soldiers go back to their homes in the currently occupied parts of Ukraine. Although that's not likely to happen until Putin either expires or is overthrown. Not only is he fanatical enough to drive his country to collapse in the attempt, he knows if he did end the war in failure he'd get killed or overthrown for it.

Anyway, pointless reply to a bot or a useful idiot. But maybe some random passer-by will find some bits interesting. I don't know about the rest of the world, but mainstream US news rarely mentions the Ukraine war anymore, and certainly not in any detail.

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Comment It's hogwash -- they survived comets and worse (Score 0) 19

Corals have been around for several hundred million years. They survived the comet which killed off the dinosaurs. They survived ice ages and glaciations, the most recent being a 400-500 foot sea level rise just 10-15,000 years ago. They routinely bleach themselves while shifting populations of the critters which give them color.

We puny humans are no threat to corals.

Comment Re:Well above the ocean [Re:Uh HUH] (Score 1) 84

Let me be perfectly clear about this: I am insulting you. I am calling you out as either being such a plonk that you keep old copies of People magazine around just in case ... or you are such a plonk that you google and select the answer you want.

Either way, you are a plonk. Your memory is reliable and truthful, mine is full of lies.

Comment Re:Well above the ocean [Re:Uh HUH] (Score 1) 84

That's not how it was reported at the time, and I have no reason to trust People magazine.

If you were an anti-alarmist, you'd be crowing this shows sea levels dropping.

For another indication of how sloppy sea level rise claims are, the alarmists published a list of sea level changes along the US Atlantic coast, and funny thing, they differed considerably, as if the ocean were rising more in some places than others. The alternative explanation of sinking land levels was pooh poohed as climate denialism. But another funny thing: California's central valley was once reported as having sunk 22 feet since the gold rush days 150 years earlier, due to pumping out so much underground water. Gosh, could the same thing be happening along the Atlantic coast?

Comment Record breaking temperatures are a joke (Score -1, Troll) 84

There was a world record high temperature reported in Algeria a few years back. Turns out the weather station was situated at an airport, on or close to the tarmac where jet airplanes shot their hot exhaust at the area.

There are standards for weather stations, such as fresh white paint, size and shape of the containing box, louvers, situated with grass around it, no artificial heat sources nearby, etc etc etc. Something like 90-95% of Britain's weather stations violate those standards, some so badly that they are rated as only being within 5 degrees of correct. Britain was also reporting record high temperatures for weather stations that haven't existed for decades; they average other weather stations within 50 miles to create fake weather station data.

These same patterns show up in the US and other countries. The reported "record high temperatures" are nothing of the sort.

Again: people don't lie like this when they have truth on their side. They not only don't need to, they know that lies ruin their reputations. These alarmists don't seem to mind being caught in such egregious lies. Apparently they don't mind having shit reputations.

Comment Strawmen, cherry picking, and outright lies (Score -1, Troll) 84

Your statistics are meaningless without providing dates. Anyone can cherry pick any starting date they want to show any trend they want. Al Gore and other alarmists specifically claimed "extinct" and "disappear", not "trending". Your strawman is another sign of a liar who doesn't believe his own propaganda.

Your stats on coastal flooding are not backed up by reality. An awful lot of people are moving to Florida. Obama still has that sea level mansion.

Perhaps you don't understand that "move heaven and earth" means not accepting the status quo on taking 30 years to build nuclear power, when it didn't used to take so long. Perhaps you don't understand the alarmists' claim of a tipping point and existential risk

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