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The Russian invasion of Ukraine (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter rettucs
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happens constantly: bike shedding
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every government body
I used to work with a lad who was very reserved, and he told me he'd talk shit about people that were causing problems or he didn't like in the papers he submitted, except he'd encode his shit talking into DNA sequence.
So if you took his papers, took the DNA, and decoded it to the single letter protein code, you'd find out who was pissing him off that month.
I think he had loads of shit to talk for one journal cover (which was just a picture of loads of bases in the background), so I had to help him with his effort.
Ah, the nucleic option.
Guanine outta that lads. This is very base humour
There’s no joke like a science joke…
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A timely reminder
Explain this to me: The likes of Estonia have a right to be their own country with their own way of running their own country. They have a right to it. I guess I picked Estonia because every Estonian I've ever met has been really strange. But that's their business.
If Estonia were left on their own, they'd be screwed by Russia. or maybe China. they'd have no back-up.
So NATO is there to make sure that small nations can do what they do the way they want to do it. Because DEMOCRACY. It ain't a perfect system, but Putin's thing is worse.
I get that it's a big circle that eventually meets itself in the end. I guess the protection of small nations is why NATO exists. Elucidate pls thx.
If Estonia were left on their own, they'd be screwed by Russia. or maybe China. they'd have no back-up.
So NATO is there to make sure that small nations can do what they do the way they want to do it. Because DEMOCRACY. It ain't a perfect system, but Putin's thing is worse.
I get that it's a big circle that eventually meets itself in the end. I guess the protection of small nations is why NATO exists. Elucidate pls thx.
I'm listening to the news here, and I find that everyone on the radio seems lacsadical and accepting that war will happen. They don't seem to care. It's very odd.
I should say, I was in Russia working when they went into Donetsk and Luhansk. The news coverage from RT and the BBC World Service was so different, even though they were showing the same videos. They just edited them differently. Basically, it made them all look like lying pricks.
I was really worried, no one else cared. The other Irish passport holder was like "don't worry seanc, these lads are fucked but we'll stroll through with our Irish passports in the air, shouting "Who's coming for a pint lads".
I should say, I was in Russia working when they went into Donetsk and Luhansk. The news coverage from RT and the BBC World Service was so different, even though they were showing the same videos. They just edited them differently. Basically, it made them all look like lying pricks.
I was really worried, no one else cared. The other Irish passport holder was like "don't worry seanc, these lads are fucked but we'll stroll through with our Irish passports in the air, shouting "Who's coming for a pint lads".
Latvia would be at much bigger risk from Russian invasion by dint of having a significant ethnic Russian minority from the USSR days but sure I can see why smaller countries on the periphery of Russia might want to be included under the collective security umbrella of NATO. However, it is interesting to note that neither Finland (fought two wars with Soviet Union as part of broader WWII) nor Sweden are members, while the likes of Portugal, completely safe from any conventional attack from the Russian bear, is.
I think part of the problem is that Russia fought a very bloody, essentially existential war still within living memory and rightly or wrongly never wants to get caught with its pants down again geopolitically. You'd think having an arsenal of nuclear weapons would suffice in this regard but seemingly not.
It boggles my mind that the country with the largest land area and vast natural resources and a decent sized population isn't prospering more than it currently does. The various conflict loci in Russia's Near Abroad all seem to centre on relatively small populations of ethnic Russians, Abhkazia, Donetsk, South Ossetia, Transnistria etc. I assume some aspect of the sabre rattling is in order to quell internal disquiet at the state of the country.
The Yanks, European Armies and the Russians were at pains not to step on each other's mickeys in Syria. I think the potential cost of a direct US/Russia conflict is too high so like you say the Russians will have to have plausible deniability or gamble on Sleepy Joe not wishing to go nuclear.
Dunno when I posted this or what the source was but found it and thought it vaguely relevant.
But then, isn't Portugal, to use your good example, just showing that the non-neutral Western lot will support each other, no matter how small, or how odd we find each other? And that's what NATO supports.
You're right about the existential threat. It is in the mindset of even the most level headed of Russians I've met. I guess it's like when Irish people of a certain age flinch when the Brits are mentioned.
Still makes no sense to me, because as you said Russia is huge and has nukes. But that is how they are.
Finland? They're their own thing
You're right about the existential threat. It is in the mindset of even the most level headed of Russians I've met. I guess it's like when Irish people of a certain age flinch when the Brits are mentioned.
Still makes no sense to me, because as you said Russia is huge and has nukes. But that is how they are.
Finland? They're their own thing
I'd happily support a united Ireland developing its own nuclear weapon, just one. It's all we'd need.
I don't know a huge amount about Portugal's investment in the NATO project so I'm probably talking out of my hole here but the reality of world militaries is that the US can and will project anywhere it wants to that has a non-hostile government. That is, Portugal's investment may well be minimal.
The US spends mindboggling amounts on the latest military trinkets while swathes of their people live in privation. Yet they basically called it quits on quelling one of the least advanced (materially) countries on the planet.
I'm not a Putin booster but like if you want to start adding up the bodies, US/UK stilll "win" in the 21st century against Russian aggression.
Cormcolash
Well-Known Member
Portugal's investment in NATO is sweet fuck all, because every other country that isn't the US has fuck all investment in NATO compared to the US. NATO is literally just the US in disguise. The only other country that has anything worthwhile in NATO that isn't the US is, surprise surprise... the Brits. And the Brits have absolutely fuck all compared to the US too. The French and Germans have fairly token NATO contributions, nothing special there.
The whole sabre rattling from Russia is all about Putin creating distractions internally because he has lost most of his support from the population, because too many people are just fed up with him being in charge for so long. That's also why he's so interested in supporting other strong-men governments like Belarus these days, it's much easier to bring attention to shit going on right around Russia's borders now. Funny enough it's basically the exact same thing Biden and Boris are doing, this Ukraine shit is a great distraction from their own disappearing domestic support. I doubt anything much will come of it all, it seems now that the Yanks are just trying to build up as much shit there as possible in the hope that the Russians will somehow fall for it, which isn't going to happen.
There is a certain element of 'protecting Russian interests' in neighbouring countries, these are semi-justified in terms of ethnically Russian populations living around border areas in former Soviet states. The Latvian example above being a good one, there's a very large percentage of ethnic Russians in Latvia. The Russians do like to claim they are protecting Russian populations in these situations. The semi-justifiable element of it is that if you actually gave for instance Donestk and Luhansk a vote on joining Russia or staying in Ukraine, they'd probably be off to Russia in the morning. There's vague similarities with for example the Scottish independence vote, look at the lengths the Tories went to to make sure the Scottish would vote to stay in the UK. The staying part of the EU was the biggest lie by far there, and the main reason that I'd expect the Scottish to vote to leave if they get to run that vote again. The point being that "Ukrainian democracy" (which lest we forget for the last 10-ish years has largely consisted of Western powers supporting a lot of self-proclaimed Nazis) isn't very democratic when the country tells the two Eastern regions to go fuck themselves if they think they can have any kind of self-determination. It's about the same as the Spanish democracy that throws Catalan politicians in jail and chases them all over Europe when Catalonia votes for self-determination.
Anyway sure don't we now have some fuckheads over here calling for more investment in the military in Ireland. And pretending like it would somehow do us any fucking good at all for anything - cause guess what, it really really wouldn't.
They're saying like we should have what 7 or 8 naval vessels (which are joke size boats compared to a real navy anyway, I don't even think any of our boats are frigate size; these boats are pea shooters compared to any actual navy). 1 Russian sub could sink that entire 'fleet' in half an hour, no fuckin problemo. The only thing these boats are useful for is anti-smuggling sort of shit against boats that don't have guns.
They're saying we should have 4-12 fighter jets. It's pure fucking LOL. You'd need at least 100 top-rate fighter jets to have any remote chance of even holding off the Brits if they decided to get anywhere serious about shit. And guess how your 100 jets would do against a full-scale Russian air attack? Russia has around 300 Su-27 jets (that's just one of their strike jets), good luck with your 4-12 lads.
Fucking morons in this country thinking that having a few more boats and some jets has any fucking effect on anything except for draining the fucking coffers for fuck all reason (except giving free money to arms companies of course).
So yeah lets stick 3 billion into absolutely fuck all, cool, sure you could build another Children's Hospital with that. Well, maybe 2/3 of another Children's Hospital, I suppose.
And I haven't even mentioned the question of "Who the fuck would even want to bother having a go at Ireland anyway, apart from the fucking Brits again?"
The whole sabre rattling from Russia is all about Putin creating distractions internally because he has lost most of his support from the population, because too many people are just fed up with him being in charge for so long. That's also why he's so interested in supporting other strong-men governments like Belarus these days, it's much easier to bring attention to shit going on right around Russia's borders now. Funny enough it's basically the exact same thing Biden and Boris are doing, this Ukraine shit is a great distraction from their own disappearing domestic support. I doubt anything much will come of it all, it seems now that the Yanks are just trying to build up as much shit there as possible in the hope that the Russians will somehow fall for it, which isn't going to happen.
There is a certain element of 'protecting Russian interests' in neighbouring countries, these are semi-justified in terms of ethnically Russian populations living around border areas in former Soviet states. The Latvian example above being a good one, there's a very large percentage of ethnic Russians in Latvia. The Russians do like to claim they are protecting Russian populations in these situations. The semi-justifiable element of it is that if you actually gave for instance Donestk and Luhansk a vote on joining Russia or staying in Ukraine, they'd probably be off to Russia in the morning. There's vague similarities with for example the Scottish independence vote, look at the lengths the Tories went to to make sure the Scottish would vote to stay in the UK. The staying part of the EU was the biggest lie by far there, and the main reason that I'd expect the Scottish to vote to leave if they get to run that vote again. The point being that "Ukrainian democracy" (which lest we forget for the last 10-ish years has largely consisted of Western powers supporting a lot of self-proclaimed Nazis) isn't very democratic when the country tells the two Eastern regions to go fuck themselves if they think they can have any kind of self-determination. It's about the same as the Spanish democracy that throws Catalan politicians in jail and chases them all over Europe when Catalonia votes for self-determination.
Anyway sure don't we now have some fuckheads over here calling for more investment in the military in Ireland. And pretending like it would somehow do us any fucking good at all for anything - cause guess what, it really really wouldn't.
They're saying like we should have what 7 or 8 naval vessels (which are joke size boats compared to a real navy anyway, I don't even think any of our boats are frigate size; these boats are pea shooters compared to any actual navy). 1 Russian sub could sink that entire 'fleet' in half an hour, no fuckin problemo. The only thing these boats are useful for is anti-smuggling sort of shit against boats that don't have guns.
They're saying we should have 4-12 fighter jets. It's pure fucking LOL. You'd need at least 100 top-rate fighter jets to have any remote chance of even holding off the Brits if they decided to get anywhere serious about shit. And guess how your 100 jets would do against a full-scale Russian air attack? Russia has around 300 Su-27 jets (that's just one of their strike jets), good luck with your 4-12 lads.
Fucking morons in this country thinking that having a few more boats and some jets has any fucking effect on anything except for draining the fucking coffers for fuck all reason (except giving free money to arms companies of course).
So yeah lets stick 3 billion into absolutely fuck all, cool, sure you could build another Children's Hospital with that. Well, maybe 2/3 of another Children's Hospital, I suppose.
And I haven't even mentioned the question of "Who the fuck would even want to bother having a go at Ireland anyway, apart from the fucking Brits again?"
hard to disagree with any of that. I am almost certain Putin isn't even thinking of invading Ukraine.
my favourite historical Ukrainian is Nestor Makhno. He had a hit in the 1920's with Anarchy in the Ukraine
hoary old pub chat, but i have once or twice heard the claim that killary harbour and possibly killybegs have nukes from both sides aimed on them - strategically placed deep water harbours.
A Ukrainian Sociologist Explains Why Everything You Know About Ukraine Is Probably Wrong
The Ukraine crisis is extremely complex and little understood. Sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko explains the crisis’s origins, the fictions that surround it, and why war is still far from inevitable.
jacobinmag.com
the british empire was just a self-evidently logical arrangement for creating greater prosperity throughout the king’s realms.
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