If we could only manage to spend this much money on developing alternate energy sources.

Can't keep New Orleans down, although Nature keeps trying.

Interesting. There's a city in the US called New Orleans. It's always been pronounced new or-leenz' with emphasis on the last syllable. When a hurricane hit it, the media started calling it new or'-le-uns. Not sure why.

Budapest seems to be all turquoise and orange. Have you been to Ukraine?

:grin:

If you listen to a song called "Wonder" by Avoure and Hexlogic on Google music, it says "While you are listening to this track, my nation is dying under Russian attack"

:sad:

No public expression of joy. — Olivier5

Has that changed since the 1980s?

Because they might be arrested for speaking out in public?

Question answered. :up:

I think they can get to outside news via VPNs, but still, can you imagine trying to sort out the truth in that situation? With outside news sources saying your leader is straight lying about genocide and nazis. :grimace:

Well it's gone pretty badly if he had this in mind - having so many soldiers killed must be embarrasing.

At this point, I don't know what he may have in mind, with lowering population levels, a mismanaged economy, Russia does not look good. Having nukes is what sets them apart now. — Manuel

I don't know. I'm clueless about what Putin really thinks. I mean, we could guess that he didn't mean to lose 5 generals, but remember Stalin executed all of his most experienced generals before WW2. Russians are weird.

I haven't heard this mentioned too much, but I suspect that part of the reason why China is hesitant to call out Russia internationally, has to do with the issue of Taiwan.

If any issue sparked in that region of the world, Russia would back China as a thanks for this situation. — Manuel

Right. They're definitely best buds right now.

know and if they could do that significantly sooner, it might help, but they can't. I think this will be resolved far before year's end, thankfully — Baden

I don't think Russia will hold back oil from Germany because they need money. I think they'll make a deal.

If Russia continues to bomb Ukraine, it's somewhat safe to assume they still have more demands they want met, which aren't being given. Otherwise, it's pointless to continue this war. — Manuel

Putin said something before the invasion about using it to gain skills. IOW, he's using it to have his military learn how to do more of this.

This is in line with the goal of setting Russia as an equal to the US and China on the world stage.

Russia is probably going to end up dependant on China, though. Not its equal.

Energy minister... Robert Habeck... predicted “mass unemployment, poverty, people who can’t heat their homes, people who run out of petrol” if his country stopped using Russian oil and gas. — Baden

Habeck says Germany will aim for being weaned off Russian oil and gas by year's end

Oh. Okey doke. :up:

Amazing how people can get dirty on a message board, make it all personal, lie through their teeth to score a point, and still expect to be taken seriously when they complain about 'Western propaganda' and 'flag wavin — Olivier5

Very true.

Wouldn't waste your time with propaganda deniers on this thread though. That type of person simply cannot think beyond what their trusted media feeds them. — Baden

Stop being an Isaac.

I agree that CNN circa gulf War was a vehicle for American propaganda. They even had the secretary of state giving briefings.

I was talking about the present scene. It's a little different.

Maybe 'propaganda' is too emotive a term for some. But the basic definition is simply: "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view." — Baden

And clickbait is not an attempt to persuade or promote. It feeds off biases people already have. I put cable news sources in that category as well.

If a western government wanted to publish propaganda, they'd find their messaging diluted by floods of conflicting narratives, and this situation is amplified by widespread mistrust of the government (in the US anyway).

Since Putin's messaging can change on a dime, persuasion is obviously not his main concern.

For a lot of the misinformation in circulation right now, "propaganda" is not the right word.

So in what way is Western propaganda similar to Russian propaganda? — SophistiCat

Western misinformation is about a profit making media, less about government efforts to control the narrative. That's clickbait, not propaganda per se.

Putin's misinformation is a fog of lies. This is propaganda partly designed to confuse.

:up:

Drink up, the sun's going to explode one day.

India is likely to continue to import coking coal from Russia, Reuters reports. — Baden

People have to burn those hydrocarbons even if it pisses off Joe Biden. Dammit.

No, this is me:

@StreetlightX addresses the USA:

I don't think he's on the same page as most European leaders though who are more in control of their messaging — Baden

Maybe they aren't on the same paragraph, but they're standing together on the same sanctions page, which are geared toward squashing the Russian economy flat.

True, but old men are at a pretty high risk for suicide.

There's more of a sense of dread now? I'm guessing Russians feel that way, but I think there are a lot of young Chinese who feel the opposite: they want nuclear war. They've turned the US into an image of what keeps them down (when the opposite is actually true).

Anyway, I hope you're right. I don't want war at all.

It's possible it could happen again, but it in the same order.

Have you noticed that the 20th Century started with a pandemic and a world war?

Here it is.

Well, now I can't find it, so I guess consider it bullshit until I do.

My hope is that China is putting some pressure on them to gradually deescalate — Baden

I think they're going in the opposite direction. They're reaching out to countries who might want to create an anti-NATO alliance. This is how it becomes a global conflict. If you want to see the citation on that I'll look for it.

Europe might also put some background pressure on Zelensky to concede he's more or less lost that region to Russian puppet control. — Baden

I think Biden is actually leading the team right now and he wants to bruise Putin.

I would also love to see this end quickly, but the stars are saying it's going to continue and it has the potential to spread. This is partly about prying American fingers off global control.

And I've thought it through: no, this is not happening because of previous American aggression. That's bullshit. It's happening because the US is obviously in decline.

So we can't rely on Russian mission statements. It's hard to tell what they're trying to accomplish from observing them. I don't think it's supposed to be this complicated.

Are they jailing people for protesting for democracy? Because that would be a good sign, in a way.

Yes but even if one remains 'apolitical', one must live somewhere, and chose to stay there, under this regime, rather than emigrate over there under another. This is a choice one makes even if one is unconscious of it. — Olivier5

Up to a point. A constructivist would say that power is made up of little interactions all over the place. American influence is Coke sales and such.

So the US is withdrawing its influence from Russia pretty vigorously right now. Ironic?

Thing about being as unfair as you can possibly be, you get stuck in your own little echo chamber

chamber

chamber

To be neutral is to withdraw from the world. If that state is peppered with resentment, it's Nietzsche's slave morality in a nutshell.

You can be apolitical without any resentment, though. Or you can be complex and dwell in an amoral, anthropological state some of the time, and engage the world at other times.

But engaging the world at the level of significant power is apt to put you in the "dirty hands" category.

Look who's been studying a little climatology. :victory:

think it's quite rare for general to be killed. This many dead generals is far from good news from a military perspective — Manuel

True, but sometimes the best general is discovered in the middle of the war. That happened in the American Civil War. His name was Grant.

But if I were Ukrainian, I'd be cautious in assuming this means that "we will win". — Manuel

I think they would probably just like to get to a negotiation table. Putin will put that off as long as he can, I guess. He's a scumbag.

It is what it is.

That's an insane amount of generals. One is already pretty bad, 5 is a disaster. — Manuel

Supposedly they aren't used to this kind of warfare. It takes a while to get up to speed.