Is that lame, though? It is gaming platform, not an open discussion forum. It is not like there aren't thousands of other places to discuss the war.

Agree, I get enough of the war through conventional sources and general discussion boards, it's nice to go to some places where it isn't at the forefront of discussion so you can get away from it for brief periods.

Poutine Restaurant Chain Forced to Explain It Has No Connection with Putin

I've always wanted to try poutine.

Me, too. Sounds yummy.

This Zelenskyy dude is good, really good.

He is a strong leader.

If Ukraine survives, he'll definitely win re-election. Their version of George Washington.

Another general down.

Unsure of the circumstances, I'm sure it'll come out after the war. But in a way, I guess it shows Russian generals aren't afraid to get up close to the action.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/07/russ...r-kharkiv.html
There was also a Lt. Col captured as POW that talked pretty liberally. I get talking if you get tortured but this guy doesn't look tortured.

Captured Russian officer apologizes to Ukraine for 'genocide'

Propaganda is one hell of a drug re: the Lt Col.

McDonald's is closing 850 stores in Russia. A couple of days without whatever the Russian equivalent of a Big Mac is, Putin will definitely be forced out. Fatty's rise up!

I'm very suspicious of that number. That would be more foreign fighters than in the entirety of the Spanish Civil War and they would have gotten to Ukraine in just a week.

Yeah, that is an eye popping number, and given the logistics I don't see it. Maybe that many inquiries, but hard to believe that many boots on the ground. Of course that could just be for the eyes of Russians, hoping to increase resistance to the war at home.

I disagree with this. We need to encourage these McDs to put more salt and fat into the food so that more Russians are unfit for fighting due to health conditions.

Obesity may be the end to war in the future.

In the US 71% of teenagers are unfit to serve due to health conditions.

Chinese generals say their teens are too fat and masturbate too much.

Fat = Peace

FYI: When we were in Russia in 2013 (2014?), we went to the famous McDonalds in Moscow on Tverskaya. And you know how there are stories about oddball regional things like the McLobster - we were wanting the see what the Russian equivalent of that was. But, nope - the menu was practically identical to the states. They had like a couple of extra sauces for McNuggets (I remember there was some curry-tasting sauce) and, yeah, the Royale vs Quarter Pounder thing is there, too. I had a Royale with cheese and some McNuggets, iirc. But, basically, same menu as in the states, which was kindof disappointing, honestly.

SI

Poland transfers MiG fighters to the U.S. as Ukraine asks for help - POLITICO

Poland is handing over 28 MiGs to the US and we're going to backfill with F-16s. Gee... I wonder where those MiGs are going to end up.

As mentioned before, this is a win/win for Poland. They get newer jets on the cheap/free and the US breaks out its checkbook to hand Ukraine some planes.

Bulgaria and Slovakia have MiGs, as well, but have not shown a willingness to do the same:

BREAKING:

Poland has agreed to donate all its 28 MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine via USA.

Poland calls now calls on other NATO members with Soviet era jets to do the same.

Bulgaria has 13 MiG-29s
Slovakia has 11 MiG 29s

Bulgaria also has 8 Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft.

�������� pic.twitter.com/ZgWVVr6dGp
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 8, 2022

SI

The best KFC I've ever had was in Fuling, China. It looked like regular KFC, but was Szechuan spicy and delicious. It tasted so much better than American KFC.

A way we can all help the people of Ukraine is by spending a minimum of $10

at itch.io on its Bundle for Ukraine. It contains almost 1000 assorted title-games, comics, books, and more from over 700 creators.



Now none of these games are from top companies, but in looking through some there are definitely some you will recognize/have played already. And a lot to discover after that:


Bundle for Ukraine by Necrosoft Games and 732 others - itch.io

Just did a 30 second look through that list and Hidden Folks and Death & Taxes are worth $10 alone.

I bought a similar bundle last year for a different cause. Well worth the money.

So apparently Poland will transfer their Migs to the US, and then the US can get it to Ukraine. Something like 28 Migs according to Reddit.

Not sure how the transfer to Ukraine will work. Maybe we fly Migs to a US base in Europe, Ukrainian pilots go there, and fly really low to avoid detection?

National fighter jet plane laundering scheme. Need to get the Byrde's to advise here.


More info. Doesn't seem that we've agreed to it but got to believe we'll make it happen.

Poland offers MiG fighters to the U.S. as Ukraine asks for help - POLITICO

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Invasion of Ukraine

/am I a joke to you/ meme? :D

SI

Is "Thirsty Sword Lesbians" any good?

Oh sorry.

No worries - just giving you a little grief, hence the smiley :D

SI

That one is pretty high up in the bundle queue for some reason.

It's basically She-Ra the RPG, (and by that, I mean the new show), focusing a lot on the relationships (not that KIND) between characters, even villains and heroes.

KFC in Germany was much better than the US version as well. The Pizza Hut I went to in Germany was legitimately outstanding pizza. One of the best I've ever had.

Please tell me we aren't going to bungle this plane deal (again). Find some creative way to make it happen. History's not going to remember what BS story you made up to make it happen and this isn't going to move Putin's needle on his next move. He's going to do what he's going to do, mostly independent of our actions. But history will remember if you had a way to help and failed to do so.

EDIT: I also am totally open to the idea that it's just a smokescreen for the US doing it and taking the heat. I mean, VP Harris is on her way to Poland right now.

SI

I wonder if it has to do with Europe having MUCH stricter regulations surrounding what chemicals can go into food.

I just realised I've had McDonald's in every country I've ever visited that has stores EXCEPT the US. Strange. Japan was my favourite so far, teriyaki chicken burger.


Love what Ukraine are doing with the Russian POWs too, genius move.

When I got to Bahrain, I ate so much McDonalds the first month. They had this sandwich in a pita that was actually pretty good. Biggest knock was they didn't really use ketchup but BBQ sauce instead.

Like 90% of their business was American folks, so I think they just thought we loved BBQ.

Easy for me as an armchair general, but do wonder if, instead of saying no boots on the ground in Ukraine, maybe say we are going to send boots on the ground in western Ukraine to establish a safe zone for non-combatants & humanitarian purposes.

In addition to truly protecting non-combatants, this would have allowed a part of Ukraine to remain Ukrainian in the worse case of a successful blitzkrieg.

From DailyMail so take it FWIW.

Supposedly long car line to get last of McDonalds in Russia. There's a video that pans around.

More of a BK and CFA guy, but yeah, I can understand trying to get a taste of a Big Mac (and special sauce) knowing it'll be a while before I get another chance.

Moscow McDonald's is swamped with customers before the chain closes across Russia | Daily Mail Online

The only thing I've eaten at McDs in the past decade is breakfast or an occasional apple pie when we stop for a pee break on drives and everyone else gets a snack. I haven't been to Burger King in probably 2 decades at least. They opened a brand new one in our town about a decade ago and I've never been.

I think part of it is they don't have fast food or delivery so ingrained into their society. Pizza hut was strictly a sit down place. KFC was a sit down place that you could get food to go. So these places aren't in a constant rush to get food out as fast as possible.

I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I do think it plays a big role in the overall quality.

Fixed that for you.

If Poland wants to give them planes, by all means, give them planes.

For the U.S. to be conned into being the source would be the single dumbest move in the history of the planet.

I went to Jamaica and they have no McDonald's because McDonald's refused to use local meat. They have several KFC's, which were insanely popular. The line of cars was always insanely long when I was there.

There are lots of ways to do this that don't involve just flying them over from Germany, which was a really stupid plan.

SI

Invasion of Ukraine
 

I think we’re closer to ww3 than you know.

If the images and video coming out get more deplorable you could see a real public outcry to do “something” and our attempts, whether right or wrong, to toe the line increases the chances of a ‘mistakes’ being made.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There's a really good chance we're already in what the history books will call WW3. I doubt that people living in October 1939 really thought they were in WW2, but a regional European war. But it's widely regarded WW2 starts with Germany invades Poland.

The mostly likely way that doesn't happen is, of course, if Russia is rolled back and/or Putin killed. If Russia succeeds in rolling over Ukraine, maybe this isn't actively WW3, but it's probably akin to the 1938 and 1939 runup with Germany annexing Austria, et al. If not, then we'll be talking about Georgia and Crimea as those things.

It's also why I don't think it matters all that much what the US does with regards to, say, the MiGs from Poland. The die is already cast - we don't have a part to play in this in terms of "is Putin/isn't Putin" going to do something. He already knows what his limits and plans are. It's clear that the optics of it don't matter to him. At most, it might sway China a little one way or another with regards to what they are going to do but I bet they already know most of their plans, too. If the US, say, did something unpredictable like drop marines on the ground in western Ukraine and lights up the sky with F-16s - ok, then everyone re-calibrates. But I'm sure Russia already has already assessed what they think everyone is going to do and their plan is based on that. China, too. So long as we're only doing half measures like economic sanctions and supplying arms but not troops, the plans are no different.

Also, remember this, too, when there's some story in a month about how some American or German or French or Ukrainian did something in a month - it's a pretext as the plan has already likely been made.

SI

The next flashpoint is when an active serviceman from a NATO country among the 40k volunteers who have allegedly gone to Ukraine gets captured or killed and that gets used for an escalation. That is absolutely a story that Putin has written and is ready to use.

Just waiting to see which spark lights all the touch paper that has been left lying around at this point. Putin knows he has no endgame at this point except the nuclear option - we can only hope he’s thinking figuratively rather than literally

I think the best hope is people in the country rise up. The sanctions don't really impact the oligarchs or Putin personally, but they do mess with the rest of the country.

I basically have no hope of that happening when you hear what the average Russian on the street is hearing. If there’s one thing Putin and his circle hasn’t forgotten from the Soviet days it’s how to shut out the outside world and run an effective propaganda campaign.

... with a little help from their friends.

Politically-fueled brain rot. pic.twitter.com/8rpTel5zq3

— Kimberly Ross 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@SouthernKeeks) March 9, 2022

The last big mac I had was an abomination. I doubt I'll ever eat another one.

The Chinese media referenced the Azov in Hong Kong yesterday.

That's a nice rabbit hole to live in for a while. But it explains where Xi is right now, and that he's going to continue to allow Putin to do this - even as the invasion becomes more and more barbaric every day.

Apparently, members of Azov photographed themselves in Hong Kong during the protests a few years ago. I don't think there's any evidence they were there by invitation, or that they participated in any way. I could be wrong. They say it was "protest tourism," which actually makes some sense. There might even be a connection to Charlottesville in there, if you're interested in some high-level cunicular activity.

Much is made of Azov's official role as part of Ukraine's National Guard, involved in the battles in eastern Ukraine. It doesn't have all that much influence in Ukraine (the one political party that would support it gets all of 2% of the national vote), but it's there and there's no mistaking the imagery - this is a neo-Nazi group rather than a bunch of tattooed soccer fans.

Putin apparently thinks, or finds it convenient to connect, the genesis of Azov to the US-leaning group that overthrew the Russian-friendly government in the Maidan uprising of 2014. Putin refers to this quite negatively in his rambling essay from last year. He says the US sponsored this, which is possible. He invaded Crimea the next day and the new government was much more pro-US.

That Xi is completely on board and references the same group as Putin did... this isn't going away easily and it's not going away with more sanctions.

We are in an economic, technological, political (e.g. New Silk Road), and a military influence war with China right now. Trump pushed the issue and I agree it needed to be done. Before Trump, all we got was lip service from all previous administrations. Biden is continuing the Trump strategy albeit not as much in your face.

I read about Xi returning to Iowa (?) to visit the American family that he got to know during his college years here. I remember thinking having Xi as premier would be great as he's experienced US culture and understands us (at least better than other Chinese premiers).

Because he is the Chinese Premier, he is (understandably) vested in growing China economically, technologically, politically & militarily at all cost and at the expense of other countries. It is not a zero sum game (or pie) but we are at the stage where (generally) a +++ for China is a -- for the US.

Although I would love a Matt Damon "The Martian" kumbaya moment, I think we know it is highly unlikely. Forget trying to appease China. The US just has to get its house in order and do what is necessary to out-compete China.

If I was a senior advisor to future Presidents, I would advise

1. Future administrations follow the Trump, Biden approach. Specifics may differ but overall recognition we are in a "war" is the correct one. Recognize that China-Russia alliance is what we need to counter. Recognize that China-Russia-India alliance will be very bad, we need to convince India to not be as neutral in the future
2. Identify strategic areas where we are vulnerable to China in raw materials, manufacturing & technology and remediate it. Globalization with China at the core is dead, but certainly spread the wealth to other currently more friendly and reliable nations
3. Do the brain drain thing. Encourage well educated Chinese to immigrate to US. Do not allow dual citizenship (from the US point of view). It's to the point where I would say allow dual citizenship for all current countries we have agreements with but call out & strip that privilege for Chinese immigrants. No, this isn't racist
4. Continue to develop "the Quad" in Asia. India is a tough one but India would welcome much more US commitment (have to drop what's left of our commitment to Pakistan). Eventually, add other Asian countries to the Quad (although I suspect this would require a good deal of US economic and military investment to those countries)
5. Grow military footprint and relationships with friendlier Asian & Oceana countries. I would call out Vietnam as a good target, they do not like China that much
6. Somehow, not sure how, increase the chance of a Chinese market meltdown (maybe enroll George Soros to the cause? :))

etc.

This will take $ and long term commitment, not just 4 or 8 years of a single Presidency.

I definitely agree that appeasing China isn't a good idea, but we've been doing that for decades and we're at the point where economically the consequences of not continuing to do so would not be tenable politically. Suffice to say they're far worse than gas prices going up a moderate amount. Xi operates as if China already has a long-term, secure, strategic advantage. He is not wrong.

1. Agreed.

2. Impossible. We can minimize this but it's a plain fact of life the some resources we need don't exist in the quantities we need them outside of trade with regimes like China. At a certain point it's like telling people living in the middle of a desert to farm. There are some things that simply can't be done.

3. Agree overall with the brain drain strategy, but in the short-medium term that's a losing strategy. The dual citizenship proposal actually is definitionally racist.

4. I think that sheer geographic proximity and more similar values ensure that most of Asia ultimately leans towards China, not us. This is for the same reasons that Europe's interests in Ukraine are different than ours.

5. Certainly, although I don't expect it'll help much.

Ultimately in the decades to come the US, China, and everyone else is going to be forced to accept that as important as our geopolitical rivalries seem, the word is interconnected to the point that it's inevitable for us to rely on each other and such concerns are pretty much details. Even if we're willing to tolerate the effects of climate change to the degree that we continue to focus on the present, oil demand continues to rise and oil discoveries are not keeping pace. That bill will come due eventually, and when it does our current squabbles are very likely to be seen as the good ole days.

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