Der Zeitgeist

We had a pretty great view near Dallas with very few clouds. We even saw the pinhole camera effects in the tree shadows and had the birds change their song during totality. It's hard to capture the change of light level in pictures or video because most cellphone cameras will try to brighten the scene up again, but I still got some nice shots.

The way the Great Houthi Scud Hunt is going so far, I doubt that. If Western militaries have trouble finding and taking out SSMs and AShMs in a country with almost no air defense for weeks, I don't think it would work much better in Europe.

1.: APS isn't really fielded in most units. 2, 3, 4: These might be more relevant than the Western audience tends to believe. Western doctrine still hasn't dealt with the ubiquity of micro-drones of all types on the battlefield, and is still working on the assumption that the US Air Force will just delete any air threats and provide complete interdiction deep into the enemy rear. I don't think this would work out that way for various reasons, and NATO would be well advised to see possible battlefields in the east like the Baltics as easily isolated islands that they will have to fight to get even into once hostilities start. One example: You only have to block this channel with mines or a scuttled ship to mostly cut off Lithuania from seaborne reinforcement.

We'll see. There are a lot of steps in the escalation ladder still to climb, and I doubt Iran is interested in open warfare in the North. I still see it as more of a tit-for-tat, albeit at higher intensity.

Israel just took out a couple of IRGC leadership figures in the Iranian consulate in Damascus. This is going to be interesting...

It's funny that even with five mRNA shots, they're still letting me enter the country though. I mean, I couldn't get more Commie if I tried. 😅

Oh noes! The Hunter Biden investigation squad think they found some disinformation, what should I do? 😊

Of course we did. Before each shutdown, Germany had weeks-long heated debates about how much distancing is required, if schools, shops or other things should be closed and so on. The Winter '20-'21 shutdown was delayed for weeks because the Kassenärzliche Bundesvereinigung circulated the Gassen-Papier that proposed alternative approaches to a Winter lockdown. The idea that there were no discussions about the best approach to take is just absurd. Just watch any TV talk show from 2020-2021.

I don't see any new truths here apart from the things we were already discussing years ago. Did the lockdowns have societal costs? Sure. Would it have been better not to have lockdowns and have a hundred thousand more people killed instead? I don't think so.

Apologize for what? That you took the vaccine and then spend the next 10 years whining about it? You know, if one of you dumbass antivaxxers would have had the consistency to really not be vaccinated because you think it's all bullshit, I might actually respect that. But you guys all took the vaccine as soon as it became available, just like everyone else, and now you're crying about it because George Soros or whatever. 😅

You know at this point I'd actually have preferred no lockdowns, mask or vaccine mandates just to be spared from dumbass takes like these.

I think the origin of that victory in three days idea was the article that RIA accidentally posted on 26. February 2022, announcing successful reintegration of Ukraine. https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html

So I guess cutting off ears doesn't cut it in terms of torture methods.

There may indeed be some political limitations to these strikes, as seeing Ukrainian cities in darkness tends to increase western military aid.

What seems fascinating to me is the complete and obvious chaos of the entire investigation. They aren't even pretending to have any kind of due process. Suspects being held by various random paramilitaries, filming alleged confessions with their cellphones and then posting everything to Telegram. It's just a complete farce, and they don't give a shit.

It's OK, he only needs to scream "Budanov sent me" while they cut off his other ear.

I don't understand why you're surprised about that now. Russia did its first large campaign against the Ukrainian energy grid last winter ('22-'23).

Of course he is. Stating the wrong kind of personal opinions could land him in prison, that's why he mostly quotes other sources.

Russians cut off one of the suspect's ears before stuffing it in his mouth during his arrest. https://t.me/boris_rozhin/117630

Meanwhile, Russian TV is deploying the deep fakes.

And he didn't even tell you yet how Kate got turbo cancer from her COVID vaccination. 😜

He didn't announce anything besides "retribution", which isn't coming any time soon since the Appeasement of the West Party always wins in the end, just as the Appeasement of Russia Party always wins over here. No Taurus for Ukraine, no Russian strikes on Ukrainian "decision-making centers", no retribution, only more body bags.

Sure sure, wake me up when World War 3 has started. You know exactly what's going to happen. It'll be a few days of Putin staying silent "considering his course of action", combined with increasingly crazy talk on Russian TV by your various propagandist media figures, then finally Putin giving some half-assed speech "reluctantly" agreeing to some of the demands of your war party leading to another wave of mobilized troops bleeding out in the trenches for the next year or so.

Canadian vatnik YouTube guy is putting on his shocked open mouth thumbnail face, so I guess things are especially serious. 😅