Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's simpler than that. Oil and gas are cheap - that is they don't require an additional investment in new energy infrastructure. Germany could have relied on LNG (from the USA) for less reliance on Russia, but building LNG infrastructure costs money. Also solar panels don't work as well in Europe as they do in California, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada. Alternative energy is getting there (Texas is a great example of this with wind and now solar), but it isn't quite the magic bullet.

    FYI, the middle east has plenty of capacity. Saudis are intentionally pumping less than their capacity. OPEC+Russia- cartel, ya know. They decided to cut production massively a little bit after 2020 to increase prices. This is what cartels do and why they are illegal within the USA. Evidently the Saudis are kinda pissed at us for a variety of reasons, e.g. coming down hard on MBS on journalist murder, not responding in force against Iran when Iran blew up oil fields with remote control airplanes, and generally not sucking on MBS' schlong, etc. Iraq oil production has been strong since 2016, 30-50% higher than it was before the invasions under W. Iraq has always been a small time producer anyway.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  2. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    I’m not saying green energy is a magic bullet, but diversifying our energy dependencies through a variety of sources, nuclear and green and oil and gas, would act as a bulwark against exactly that kind of cartel behavior.
     
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Well, the Germans got freaked out by nook-yoo-lar powah. They went to natural gas to be green, get away from coal. The problem is that natural gas in the EU comes from Russia. France is very happy with nuclear power and have managed it well.

    It can be argued that pursuing greener energy gave Putin a stronger hand.

    I mean, this is the EU, who are at the forefront of greener energy, done more than anyone else. I don't think they could have done more. I don't see Tony Stark's fusion reactor anywhere close.

    Ultimately energy demands are from people. Tell the folks in Calabasas, California to stop leasing new Mercedes, Porsches, and Telsas every three years. Or folks on this site to stop playing Cyberpunk on their GTX3090s. Or listening to music on their toobs amps that idle at hundreds of watts.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  4. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Maybe instead of arguing (or in addition to ;) ) we can all agree to pray for the people of Ukraine, and the soldiers on both sides, including the Russian soldiers, who have absolutely nothing to gain and everything to loose.

    Prayer doesn't have to be to a God, wishful thinking is just as good.
     
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  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Yes. All this is incredibly sad.
     
  6. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    Amen and Amen. I pray as a longtime member and subdeacon in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA.

    This guy gets it - the whole video is worth it but the few minutes beginning here is particularly insightful:

    edit: time info is not embedding, so skip to 24:45 for insight as to why we are failing when it comes to Russia & China

     
  7. nishan99

    nishan99 Friend

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    The only way out of this is from Russia itself, the oligarchs there. I hope the upcoming sanctions are heavy enough to piss them off and tip the table over Putin.

    Otherwise I don't see the west is stupid enough to do anything else than extreme sanctions. No one in their right mind would like to go to war with Russia, especially with a psycho like Putin.

    P.S.
    f**k the CCP whose beta testing all of this to annex Taiwan next.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  8. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    Well said. I've been watching footage of the invasion. Seeing wars in the Middle East for many years it's easy to detach, but Ukraine looks much more like home. So it feels so much more real. I think about how I would be feeling right now if tanks, assault helicopters, and fighter jets were attacking my local area. It's terrifying, and I feel for the people of Ukraine who's lives and home are being violated. It's a violent crime on a terrible scale.

    Still, I think it's healthy to discuss these things. We're living through a significant moment in history. Everyone's understanding of how we got here will grow in doing so.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  9. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    On the contrary, the only way out is for the west to see its fundamental strategic errors and change course. Russia is the rational grown up in the room, we are the fools.

    Not going to work, not the least of which is because the Russian's are prepared to suffer for their interests. Only decadent westerners believe that economics/prosperity/convenience trump everything else.

    Yep. We may be delusional when it comes to Russia, but China also has the fact that we have out-sourced our manufacturing base to them. Their holding all the cards...
     
  10. james444

    james444 Mad IEM modding wizard level 99

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    Personally, I think Mearsheimer overestimates the geostrategic aspect and underestimates Putin's ethnic-popular world view and historical revisionism as driving forces behind his actions towards Ukraine. However, the video is from 2015, and back then he couldn't have been aware of the article Putin has written in July 2021, ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“:

    http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

    The thoughts expressed in this article are eerily reminiscent of "Heim ins Reich" policy in Nazi Germany.

    The following summary of the Ukraine-Russia crisis is probably not as in-depth as Mearsheimer's, but I believe it's a more up-to-date and comprehensive one:

     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  11. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    I know if someone invaded my country, I'd be signing up for IED school. Many Russians probably even remember their own quagmire in Afghanistan. Hopefully with the support of the free world we can make Ukraine Russia's next Afghanistan.
     
  12. schnesim

    schnesim New

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    I wouldn't be surprised if it had less to do with world view but the fact that a former USSR state with a well working democracy is right at Putin's doorstep.
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    There will be no extreme sanctions. Already said: Russian won't be cut off from SWIFT. At least that's what I heard on the news a few hours ago. For those who do not know, SWIFT is the instrument for international money transfers. EU still needs gas from Russia. Russia will be more than happy to take the wire payment from the eastern EU countries and Germany via SWIFT. If the oligarchs bitch, then they will disappear.

    In many respects, Putin has already won. The only remaining part to be seen is how much a fight the Ukrainians can put up. It's possible the Ukrainians can put up a good fight, enough for a stalemate. I expected Russian troops to make more progress by now, but they haven't.

    But really, does any of this surprise any of you? It most certainly does not surprise me. Putin's unhinged derangement notwithstanding, the USA would be seriously pissed off if Canada were offered a possible Warsaw Pact membership in the future. The West won the Cold War, the USSR got dismembered, and the West stuck it's penis into the dismembered body parts like an El Lay douchbag. On the other hand, it appears every ex-Soviet state, at least those not run by strongmen, want absolutely nothing to do with Russia. And I'm all for self-determination.

    As for Taiwan, they need to get their shit together and be prepared to defend the island themselves instead of relying on the USA or hoping TMSC's 1nm process (and the threat to global supply chains) will keep them safe. There's always a price for freedom. The reason the Taliban won is because most Afghans were corrupt surrender monkeys. The Taliban was willing to fight for what they believed in (however screwed up we may think it is), so they won. There's only one kind of "diplomacy" that has really worked in human history.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  14. Pancakes

    Pancakes Friend

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    This right here is key. You guys remember the Cuban missile crisis? Soviet nukes right off the coast of Florida? Yeah, Putin doesn't want NATO military capability on his border either.

    Putin can stick a wirebrush up his ass as far as I'm concerned but simply calling him "unhinged" is simplifying things to the extreme.

    The only way I can see for this to have been prevented is by Ukraine signing some sort of agreement with both the East and West that it won't enter into military agreements with anyone. Which of course fucks Ukraine but now they may be fucked even worse.
     
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    That's what Putin asked for right? Guarantee of no NATO for Ukraine and arms restrictions to the west? And the West replied: f**k you Putin, we do what we want (more or less)
     
  16. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    It's a double edged sword in more than one respect. If they ban them they drive Putin closer to Xi.
     
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Also no gas for Europe, and many dead frozen old people. (And no more Porsches, Mercedes, and BMWs for people in living in Calabasas, CA)
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  18. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    I don't think Putin is unhinged. Some of his talking points sound like gibberish to us but the majority of his talking points are not aimed at us, they're aimed at his own people and the surrounding countries with shared backgrounds.
     
  19. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    Building country scale dependencies, developing assets via kompromat, disinformation, destabilisation, funneling money to right wing groups, lobbying political parties. Everything to tip the balance in their favour, so that they can do all that they can get away with.

    Nord Stream resulted in 500 helmets for Ukraine from Germany.

    Oligarchs doing their financial laundry in London, launching SLAPP cases against journalists, spending millions lobbying the Conservative party with dinners and tennis games resulted in token sanctions by the UK government. None of which were against UK based Russian Oligarchs.

    Putin isn't unhinged. He's the smartest person in the room, plays the long game, and has the right people by the balls. It's just that his goals and his boundaries don't align with modern western sensibilities.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2022
  20. nishan99

    nishan99 Friend

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    That's a dream.
    1) Russian and Ukrainian culture are much closer together.
    2) they mostly share the same belief system.
    3) 40-90% of Ukrainians already share the same language and a big chunk of those it's even their first language!.
    4) Ukraine doesn't have the same geographic advantages like Afghanistan. Open plains vs literal series of mountains. It's simply impossible to control what's going on those mountains. Just because you have control over Kabul does not mean you have control over Afghanistan which consist mainly of small towns spread across those mountains.


    Taliban won because they have the upper hand since 2017. It's the French surrender meme again, no blaming them. Plus the first three points mentioned above^. Taliban was much like the Afghans than what the west tried to impose but I guess it's not politically correct to call the whole people of Afghanistan terrorists.
     

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