Ukraine

[Fun CH]

Estimates of 15,000 Russian soldiers killed as Ukrainian forces push back 30 miles of Russian gains near Kyiv.

In other news there is no evidence that China is supplying weapons to Russia.

[Rideback]

In depth article on the use of Cryptocurrencies by both Ukraine and Russia. Turns out the Russians are pretty much SOL. And China is just not that interested in allowing crypto to be used in state-to-state transactions...as in military aid.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/cryptocur ... ine-crisis

[Rideback]

The music you tubes coming out of Ukraine are just incredible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9guzUoTNxeE

CLASH gives their permission https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clash-be ... 6ssebn0uuM

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... arms-beton

[pasayten]

Glad you are back to using your big boy words!

[dorankj]

Let’s go Brandon!

[PAL]

Ken, get a life. Sputter, sputter.

[mister_coffee]

Someone confuses "free speech" with "free beer".

Ray is free to run his own bulletin board however he sees fit. We are free to go elsewhere if we don't like how it operates. We are all guests here and aren't paying for this service so Ray gets to be the benevolent dictator here.

[pasayten]

Good grief Ray, I thought you told us all that you would never censor here? Is that the example of a “good Christian”?

Never said I wouldn't screen out unsavory words... Have 10 in the dictionary now... You seem to be the first one to call it "censoring" I won't allow F.. of anybodies initials... You have made 237 posts and you are upset because I won't let you F.. somebody?

[dorankj]

Good grief Ray, I thought you told us all that you would never censor here? Is that the example of a “good Christian”?

[pasayten]

I didn’t realize Ray was in charge of those, you’re right, that completely justifies him censoring my posts!

Good grief Ken... I just censored/changed your F.J.B acronym... and changed it again... I didn't physically edit you posts... The software swaps the words/acronyms... Nothing else... No other content was changed... I am sure that as a good Christian you can come up with something better than that when you dislike a person... You can go back and change your acronym/words to something else... Jeesh

[dorankj]

I didn’t realize Ray was in charge of those, you’re right, that completely justifies him censoring my posts!

[Rideback]

Meanwhile, this you tube just out from Ukraine where they have adopted Queen's 'We Will Rock You' as their national anthem during the war.
I don't think I've ever seen a more powerful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71nlhNH9YLY

[dorankj]

Never have seen that with Trump/republican/conservative or even personal comments. I can get this at Methownet.

[pasayten]

Yep... and with humor... Love the word/initials censorship feature in phpbb software

[dorankj]

Ah, censorship! Very democratic.

[Rideback]

There's so much more at risk from China than from Russia and because Xi is a much better chess player than Putin will ever be he's looking at layers and layers of complexities. Biden & his team recognize that China & Russia developed new economic ties because of Trump's embargoes, they recognize that China will make decisions based on what's good for China without taking into consideration what the human toll taking place in Ukraine is doing.

China wants to preview how the world reacts, the west in particular, to an invasion, so it can gauge what will happen when it implements its own plans of invasion, into Taiwan.

Dealing with these issues takes a firm understanding of history, of commerce and military strategy, not to mention the new player AI.

[PAL]

Thanks Ken.

[dorankj]

Biden appears eminently qualified to make “Biden look bad”, no Trump or ‘Puti’ needed. He sure told those Chinese how to behave! "Unsavory acronym"

[PAL]

Trump and Puti will do anything to make Biden look bad.

[pasayten]

WATCH: Bill Maher Asks ‘Why Didn’t Putin Invade Ukraine When His Boyfriend Trump Was In Office?’
Tommy Christopher - 3h ago

Comic and pundit Bill Maher asked his panel why Vladimir Putin didn’t invade Ukraine when “his boyfriend” former President Donald Trump was in office.

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the host put that question to guests Max Brooks and Kristen Soltis Anderson, and none of the responses were complimentary to Mr. Putin or Mr. Trump:

MR. MAHER: But I know you were watching our show last week and you heard me say, Why didn’t Putin invade Ukraine when his boyfriend, Trump was in office? I mean, Trump stood with him at Helsinki and defended him over our own intelligence agencies. So I was just asking the question. And maybe you do have an answer. Why not? When Trump was in office, it would seem to be the more logical place.

MR. BROOKS: No, he didn’t invade because he didn’t need to, because you only roll out the tanks when you think you’re out of options. And Putin had a grand asymmetric strategy to dismantle Naito from within. And it was working when the commander in chief of the United States Armed Forces calls Naito obsolete. You are on the road to a fifth column victory, and that’s what he was doing, and it’s a matter of fact we know now in 2018. Thank you. Maybe. Well, we know this, in 2018. Trump wanted to pull out of Naito, and it was John Kelly and John Bolton who had to hold him down like a rabid dog to stop him from doing that. And if Trump had won a second term, he would have done it. But Biden being elected caused Putin’s plan to go up in smoke.

MR. MAHER: We don’t know what he would have done. We don’t know why he did what he did.

MS. SOLTIS ANDERSON: Now it’s rather backfiring…

MR. MAHER: Trump generally did what he wanted not matter who held him down and said, what…

MS. SOLTIS ANDERSON: One of the things that Trump always said, though, was that he wanted Europe to be more in charge of its own defenses, and nobody has done more to advance that cause than Vladimir Putin by doing this invasion. Because now you have a country like Sweden or a country like Switzerland has said, Hey, we’re going to send weapons to Ukraine or countries like Germany has said we’re going to increase our defense spending to a significant portion of our GDP. You’ve messed up as Vladimir Putin strategically that you have provoked them to do the opposite of what this is.

MR. MAHER: What’s so surprising to me about Putin? We always knew he was evil, but nobody ever called him dumb. And now he looks dumb. He looks dumb and not powerful. You know, I honestly, I was wrong. I thought he was not going to invade. I thought it was just brinksmanship. But now like, this could really go so bad for him. I mean, the Russians have had a revolution before. … And when you have the morale of the army, we know is where it is, when you have the economy tanking the way it is. I mean, it looks like they pulled back the curtain and the Wizard of Oz is just this old man with the sound machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RET6fG_uqP4

[mister_coffee]

What does Asia use?

China has the BeiDou system, and Japan and India have regional systems that use a combination of satellites and ground stations.

[mister_coffee]

Russia still uses RF navigation for their military, however if you are correct and they are using GPS, the US needs to turn off GPS coverage over Ukraine unless the Ukraine military uses it for the weapon systems that we and others give them.

https://spacenews.com/op-ed-russian-thr ... otect-gps/

Russia has had its own satellite positioning and navigation system since the early 2000's, GLONASS. The European Union also has one called Galileo. In practice most commercial-grade GPS receivers used in the west use all three systems.

There are minor technical differences between each system, but on the average they are more similar than different and perform about as well. So shutting down (or degrading) our system isn't likely to make much difference.

My understanding was that unless you had some kind of special permission, private use or even possession of a GPS in Russia was a crime. I do not know if or when that rule changed, but that was certainly the case on the ground in the early 2000s.

[Fun CH]

Russia still uses RF navigation for their military, however if you are correct and they are using GPS, the US needs to turn off GPS coverage over Ukraine unless the Ukraine military uses it for the weapon systems that we and others give them.

https://spacenews.com/op-ed-russian-thr ... otect-gps/

[mister_coffee]

...
From vids I've seen, Russian forces seem well equipped, so not understanding that narrative.

Look at the soldiers who were trapped in the elevator when the build super cut power. All had body armor, AKs and alot of ammo.

What they are lacking is GPS, encrypted radios, and night vision gear. Special forces seem to have some of those things.

Interestingly, at least some Russian Pilots are using American GPS systems in their aircraft:

https://defence-blog.com/russian-pilots ... -in-syria/

That's a Garmin in the cockpit.

[mister_coffee]

[Why would Putin think the Ukrainians would just put down their arms and surrender? How does he think he can occupy a country that doesn't want to be occupied?

More curiously, how did he think he could do that with a poorly equipped and supplied army?

It really doesn't matter if he has more forces, he can't make effective use of them. If the Russian Army can't supply equip the forces already in Ukraine, what makes anyone think they can supply a larger force?

Unless something dramatically changes in the next week or so, the Russians have lost this war.