Biden isn’t quite as bad as the soundbites make him seem, but he is slowing down (physically and mentally) in his old age and was just generally an extremely uninspiring candidate. Trump, if anything is worse than you portray. He’s way more senile than Biden, in addition to the blatant corruption, rulebreaking, childishness, and being horrifically and openly racist and sexist. He has literally quoted Hitler! No decent and reasonable person who is paying the slightest attention to what he says and does would think he is remotely qualified for any position of authority. The fact that he is polling roughly evenly with an extremely qualified and intelligent person like Kamala Harris is indeed an absolute clownshow.

That does seem to be the story of this war, doesn’t it? I bet all the major militaries are looking at stuff like this and investing in more drones for themselves, too.

Wait, fallout 4 didn’t do the ending slideshow? That’s an iconic part of the series! I’m so glad I stopped buying Bethesda games.

Unfortunately for the residents of Moscow, all Russian AA weapons are currently in Ukraine.

It seems that we have progressed to the “find out” stage. I wonder if this will have any measurable effect on Putin’s support, though. Russians seem like heavy sleepers.

Both have the same ultimate cause, as well: politicians safe at home demanding immediate results no matter what it costs.

Putin thought he could defeat Ukraine in three days, and the result is two years and plus of war, tens of thousands of casualties that he will admit to, and US-made weapons now being fired into Russia. I don’t see him being the kind of 4D Chessmaster you seem to think he is.

At this point Putin’s goal is pure personal survival. He needs to not lose the war because that would make him look weak, which is very dangerous for a dictator. To keep himself alive and in power he is willing to throw any amount of Russian soldiers into the meat grinder.

All South Korean male citizens are required to perform 18-21 months of military service.

While this is true, the fact that war would be a bad idea doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t happen. People make bad decisions all the time.

it does seem excessively lurid to suggest, without direct evidence, that they have been raped in captivity for the past several months

But you’re just going to do it anyway?

Okay that’s something. I’d like more, obviously, but it’s nice to hear.

That’s great. Are they actually going to do anything about it?

This is an important part of it. The other part is the fact that success in politics is very hard without money, and most rich people aren’t progressives.

Actually the battle lines have hardly moved at all since Ukraine withdrew from Avdiivka.

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/can-either-side-actually-advance

Lol, no one’s putting a gun to people’s heads to make them act bigoted. If your response to being accused of racism is “Oh, yeah? I’ll show you racism!” then you’re just showing your true colors.

Well, of course he is. He’s evil, not crazy. He knows he would lose that war very badly.

Great. That always works out well. /s

Right, a smaller country can never successfully resist a larger one. That’s why Vietnam has been under US occupation (or was it French? I can never remember for some reason) all these years since Ho Cho Minh wisely surrendered to spare his people’s lives.

Even if he can’t formally quit, he could effectively quit by just refusing to meet the obligations of the treaty. Who would stop him?