I wonder actually...
He is such a narcissist maybe it does hurt.
Mostly I just forgot to press the sarcasm button.

What does he care about? Because his legacy project for Mother Russia looks like it is backfiring. His own legacy is also about to go down the drain. It will be difficult for his western friends to remain his friends, just like that pedophile whatshisname that was friends with everyone but no one will admit it now.

Putin broke his own treaty, his word, sent his soldiers into a sovereign country where everyone speaks russian. Some of those soldiers dont know where they are and what they are doing there, have no gas and no food after 4 days. He is lying to his own people and censoring information. Some legacy.

Unfortunately no one in the USofA gives much of a shit, but maybe Europe can get its act together based on this shitstorm.

No, he lucked out, but Trump’s foreign policy was worse. He just capitulated to international thugs, cozied up to them except Iran. That’s why Ukraine was already occupied and Crimea recognized. It’s why N Korea advanced their capabilities so much. It’s why the Taliban gained so much power in 2020. He actually claimed China used biological warfare against us (utter bullshit, but his position), but made no moves against them in retaliation. No wars happen if you don’t oppose our enemies.

Biden isn’t my god, he’s far from perfect, he’s just an improvement. Being instrumental in opposing Assad gassing his own people is a bad thing? I was disappointed we didn’t depose him quickly with international support.

The Ukrainian parliament threw Yanukovych out in Feb 2014 on the grounds that he "has restrained himself from performing his constitutional duties" and effectively resigned. He had surprised everyone by abandoning an agreement made with Europe to be part of a free trade union, shocking the country, and instead intended to strengthen ties with Russia, and had been murdering protesters in the streets when he fled the country.

The people of Ukraine and Russia will suffer. Germany too. Probably all NATO nations….and all countries dependent on Russian aid.

My idea would have been to threaten Putin months ago that if one MORE Russian soldier or piece of military equipment crosses the border into Ukraine, we will fast track Ukraine into the UN immediately, permanently recognizing their actual borders, if he doesn’t send more military, we can negotiate peacefully with UN status on hold…and get solidarity with our allies on the plan. Maybe simplistic, but it’s what he fears, use it.

"It can't happen here."
Europe
1914 - 1945

LMFAHS.
Yeah, you don’t sound triggered at all. Not one bit.

Way to intelligently answer the question.

*snicker*

Biden is moving towards putting American troops in Eastern Europe to stop Putin’s expansion plans….Trump illegally and secretly withheld congressionally approved arms and funding from the Ukraine that they desperately needed to fight Putin’s active invasion in a blackmail scheme, and recognized his annexation of Crimea without a whimper, and ignored multiple assassinations on foreign soil with collateral damages.
Biden helped draft crippling sanctions against Russia in 2016, Trump illegally negotiated those sanctions away for nothing in return before being sworn in, as a favor to his friend Vladimir….it’s what Flynn pleaded guilty to (after he learned he was on tape doing it).
So ignorant and deluded, bob. I guess that’s why you consistently fail to include any facts in your posts, it’s hard to fact check whining and sniveling.

So, you think there should be new regulations put on oil production companies so they don’t raise prices? Or are you calling for the full nationalization of the oil and gas industry? You must be, because for it to be Biden’s fault, he must control it somehow. I wonder, do you think he sets oil prices? Production schedules? Supply or demand? Controls OPEC or Russia?
Biden released oil reserves to mitigate the price gouging (didn’t work), but without nationalizing oil and gas, there’s little more he could do (maybe threaten to halt all new drilling permits until those already issued are used, but good luck). You would pretend cancelling Keystone XL raised prices, it wasn’t operational yet.

Just ask Texas how privatization and deregulation is working for them. Analysts say they aren’t better prepared for extreme weather than last year because there’s no requirement for them to upgrade, so statewide power outages and multiple deaths can be expected, and the hits to the economy that come with shutting the state down for weeks.

The largest oil and gas companies made a combined $174bn in profits in the first nine months of the year as gasoline prices climbed in the US.
Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP among group of 24 who resisted calls to increase production but doled out shareholder dividends and bought back stock.
The oil and gas industry has fought Joe Biden’s attempts to pause new drilling permits on federal land, despite its unwillingness to expand operations in order to reap the returns of costlier oil and the fact the industry currently sits on 14m acres of already leased land that isn’t being used, an area about double the size of Massachusetts.
“It’s not the government that is banning them from drilling more,” said Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James. “It’s pressure from their shareholders.”


Soooooo…..nationalize? Gas in Venezuela is $.12 a gallon. If not, blame capitalism, not Biden, for your “high” gas price. (Try gas prices in Europe where gas isn’t subsidized, now those are high gas prices).

A 2012 United Nations report summarized 65 different estimated maximum sustainable population size and the most common estimate was 8 billion. Advocates of reduced population often put forward much lower numbers. Paul R. Ehrlich stated in 2018 that the optimum population is between 1.5 and 2 billion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_population

Since we are at or near 8 billion and are far from sustainable, haven’t been for over 50 years, I think the 1.5 number is far more realistic, maybe even high. I think the 8 billion estimates assume international cooperation, constant advances in farming tech with constantly increasing yields (that aren’t happening), and don’t account for climate change disrupting supply chains and production at various levels….so wishful thinking.

War sucks for population control. It’s messy, expensive, destructive of both infrastructure and ecology, and just crap at killing meaningful numbers. We need to reduce by billions, the worst war killed a few million and destroyed much of Europe. A war that kills 1000 times more people….yikes. Forget global warming, hello planetary disintegration.

The only acceptable method IMO is quit having children, then you don’t kill anyone to achieve sustainability. For some idiotic reason, average people find the idea of not having excess children horrific and totally out of the question, but the idea of starving their children to death seems to garner a “shit happens”.

Agreed, we need something like an airborne infectious prion where there could be no vaccine, no sterilization, no escape…..only that would wipe out everyone so maybe not that.

I don't know, but there's a few things that concern me:

1. Underestimating your advisory. We did this with Japan in the lead up to WW2. Great powers always fight the last war they won. In our case, that's WW2. China learned from the war they lost as well: WW2, and they're not going to make the same mistakes twice.

2. Ambiguous defense posture. This is how England got dragged into WW1 due to an uncertain position if Germany invaded France. Germany gambled that England wouldn't get involved because it had no spoken mutual defense agreement with France. Had the defense pact been made readily clear, it's possible Germany wouldn't have invaded.

2. Use it or lose it weapons. In WW1, one of the main issues with the initial invasion was train schedules. Things had to go perfectly to get men and material to the front line and any hiccup could delay a military victory. Once the very first German troop train left the station, there was no way to stop the invasion. Now we've got a situation where a war over Taiwan would be won or lost in about an hour of the first shot. China knows that should the US get involved, China's military assets are going to be blown up and fast. This puts China in a situation where they might choose the launch everything in a maximum impact first strike. Faced with overwhelming damage, the US would be forced to make some hard choices about how to respond. Would it go nuclear? It's according to how much Taiwan means to us.

"It won't happen". Go to Europe and see how many tombstones bear that inscription.

I'd say 50/50.

Can we please have a practical outlook for the next 20 years instead of all this theoretical ideology.

It takes 20 years to build a nuclear power plant, in 20 years we hope/expect/pretend to believe only electric cars will have been sold for 5-10 years so maybe half of all cars in Europe will be electric.

I plan to open a beer and sit back and watch how society handles that. And no I am not worried about Norway and Switzerland or rich people in general.

Right, Hitler could have won if Biden was president....just as long as Trump surrendered to the Nazis unconditionally 10 months before he's sworn in, abandoning Europe and pulling troops and equipment out of England before D day, and as long as Biden's dealing with a pandemic, a major recession, and a near dissolution of the union by violent coup all thanks to his predecessor's total lack of leadership.

Lol...did bunker baby's cultists just make up some nonsense about Biden hiding in the basement at Camp David!? Too funny, like we forgot who really hid in the basement repeatedly, and who actually invited the Taliban to Camp David to discuss Afghanistan's future and our withdrawal without the Afghan government being even notified, much less involved.

Such idiotic infantile whining, @bobknight33. Let's forget what a total disaster Trump's last year was in every way possible and blame all the messes he left on the guy who's cleaning them all up.

More yummy Maga tears. Keep em coming, we love these reminders of how butt hurt you still are 10 months after losing the election in a record loss....sore losers.

Derp.
Better a useful tool than a useless fool....fool. (and every sentence needs a verb, Bob. When you can't even write in what you claim is your native language, you might refrain from insulting those who can. This is why graduating the 8th grade isn't enough education. It makes you an ignorant idiot no reasonable person will listen to.)

First, Open the Books is not a trustworthy or unbiased source of information. OpenTheBooks.com was founded in 2011 (to try to embarrass Obama) by its chief executive officer Adam Andrzejewski, an Illinois entrepreneur and past Republican candidate for governor, with former United States Republican Senator Dr. Tom Coburn as the honorary chairman. It's highly partisan and biased.


Most of those vehicles and weapons we did leave/are leaving, like the cash, were in the hands of the Afghanis when Trump sounded retreat last spring. To "secure/remove/destroy" them we either have to stay and support the government (too late, would have needed to start before releasing the Taliban's army last March), or go to war with the Afghan government and seize it by force, they wouldn't just hand it back...duh.
We aren't "leaving them behind", we gave them to the government that Trump abandoned last spring when he released 5000 hard core Taliban fighters from prison (more than the original Daesh) with no conditions (and without consulting with the Afghan government) and allowed them free reign to destroy the Afghan government while we sat by, not even really preparing to leave but not helping the Afghanis....and he apparently told them they could do whatever they want except attack the retreating Americans, and they did....but sure, that's Biden's fault. 🤦‍♂️

Biden failed to be prepared for the speed of the fall of their government, a failure to be sure, but Trump all but ensured it would be fast and that we would be unprepared. Biden should have been evacuating our allies and helpers since Jan 21....Trump should have started the evacuation of Afghanis in March 2020 but instead his administration wouldn't even consider letting them come to America, so there was no process or staffed department when Biden took over and stopped Trump's attempted civil war and dealt with the out of control Trumpidemic, just a round file and a blind eye for all refugee applications. Recently Biden's administration changed this, creating programs and staffing to accommodate the refugees and convincing our allies to accept many in Europe, something Trump didn't even try.

Trump didn't do anything to get this equipment out of the country for a year either, did he? His plan was to be out 100 days after he left office, but nothing was in the works to make it happen...Too busy campaigning, pushing fraud frauds, and starting coups.

Try again.

Thanks…I like to think what I cook up is entertaining, even when the menu doesn’t appeal.

Not kill kill kill, but definitely a lack of sympathy if it happened to some. I have no sympathy or tolerance for nazis and fascists, and I don’t see a thing wrong with that. Their atrocities at the time were unfathomable, and the youngsters could be more zealous and hateful than the adults.
I also learned about WW2 at an early age, preschool or kindergarten, I had an uncle who fought on a mobile howitzer in almost every major battle in Europe after D day, and helped liberate one of the smaller concentration camps, I can’t recall which one off hand. I heard first hand about man’s inhumanity towards man in details too graphic for children.
It’s just my worthless opinion though, it’s not like I pass judgment at The Hague or hunt down aged nazi youths. Who cares if I don’t sympathize with one group of young soldiers’ plight from almost 80 years ago? War is hell for all involved, there’s just not enough empathy for everyone.
I think the Nazis earned my disdain, if I don’t give it to them they might try to earn it again!

Yep, I’m on the West coast, in the one spot not baking like an oven, Humboldt, Ca. coast. We’re having low 70’s but overcast. I could use some more sun and warmth.

Who was the nazi?
What are my choices? In what context?
With no criteria, there are so many to choose from… I think I’ll take Mengele for the block.

Before "someone" spouts off about this being a singular, isolated weather event in America and Canada, it's happening world wide.
All time record high temperatures are also happening in Europe, Asia, Africa including ground temperatures in Siberia above the arctic circle at 118F, not so good for permafrost that should be near freezing. Mexico has seen all time high temperatures for June exceeding 125F, nighttime low temperatures are also shattering all time highs like 105F overnight in palm springs, and over 70F was the overnight low in S Africa (southern hemisphere) on the WINTER solstice. Let's not forget, June is typically the coolest summer month.
It's hard to imagine this not triggering feedback loops like permafrost releasing methane and less ice reflecting heat that are each, by themselves, more than we could possibly counteract with current technology with an unlimited budget and the collective will to try. Combined, and without the unlimited funds or collective will to act, it's looking like game over, man.
Somehow "we told you so" hardly seems sufficient.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/heat-wave-russia-brings-record-breaking-temperatures-north/story?id=78446355

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2021/06/22/wild-high-temperatures-worldwide-show-the-extent-of-record-june-heat-wave/?sh=496b6bc05668

I'm pretty sure the dude's just having a good time because he's at a concert and he's all young and shit. He's probably high, too. Look at that glorious blue sky! Who wouldn't be joyous on such a perfect day when they're all young and high and shit? Dude, I'm old, it's dark and I'm not even at a concert (full disclosure: I am listening to Lord Huron's new album and it's fucking amazing. There's some stuff that's not up to their other work, and a weird 14-minute filler piece at the end, but Drops In The Lake might become the most beloved Lord Huron song ever) and I'm totally joyous right now. I'm also stoned out of my mind, so take that as a plus, a minus or a none-of-the-above. Look, all I'm saying is there's a cute video video of a sheep standing down a Border Collie. Props to the sheep for having the kinda balls it doesn't have anymore, but fucking with a Border Collie is asking for that dog to fuck up your tax return later. So yeah, y'know, cute dog and cute sheep and some Welshman who knows he's getting some pussy tonight and if that dog screws this up, it ain't gonna be the sheep getting fucked. That's life in Wales, man. Those dudes will fuck anything. I mean, if I was stuck in Wales with nothing else to do, I'd be looked at our four-legged friends in a far more than friendly way, too. Also, they don't have vowel mines there so they're stuck spelling words with all contestants and chunks of coal for punctuation. NO idea how that little linguistic hiccup got passed the Proto-Germanic language tree, but people in Quebec speak a language that's completely similar to French, only without the word order, the grammar and any words that are actually in French. The French hate that shit because they're French and no one in Europe is being all shirty these day. Except that dude in Belarus who apparently doens't know what an utter fucking legend the guy who runs Ryanair is. Fucking hell this shit's good. Anyway, the whole point of this was that a dog, a sheep and a Welshman walk into a bar and the bartender asks the man what he wants. And the Welshman tells, in exceedingly graphic detail, what he wants while the sheep and the collie listen in horror, straining against their leads and praying Pop-Up Darwin will suddenly appear and gift them opposable thumbs, a cellphone, and a SIM card that actually works in fucking Wales, because those vowel-less cocksuckers have a totally different cell system than the rest of the UK. Shit, you try to make a call to anywhere in Gwfjhsrmflsslll, the first thing you notice is that numbers have apparently joined the vowels in being MIA, and you're trying to explain that you just want to make a call to London and the operator is speaking some language that'd scare the shit outta C'htulu and finally you just give up and hop back on the Ryanair flight to JFK while scanning constantly for Mig-29s.

Anyway, be happy.

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