Russia/Ukraine conflict

[SageBrush]

He's a futurist and is paid for his opinions.

Which all too often means that he writes/presents well, and his opinions appeal to enough people willing to pay to hear their own opinions in an echo chamber.

Those who are +/- anti-EV are overwhelmingly some deep shade of AGW denialist. That places them firmly in the maroon category and/or the self-serving scum category. I'll look for expert opinion elsewhere.

 

[Unpilot]

Which all too often means that he writes/presents well, and his opinions appeal to enough people willing to pay to hear their own opinions in an echo chamber.

Those who are +/- anti-EV are overwhelmingly some deep shade of AGW denialist. That places them firmly in the maroon category and/or the self-serving scum category. I'll look for expert opinion elsewhere.

The YT video I linked to was full of inaccurate info but presented forcefully.

That is his trademark. False surety... opinions presented as fact.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

A piece of the puzzle of why there is a relatively large opposition in Germany against supporting UKR militarily?...

"Top German journalist received €600,000 from Putin ally, leak reveals​

Kate Connolly, Timo Schober, Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier
Tue 14 Nov 2023 17.00 CET

[...] A leading western journalist who has long been considered one of Germany’s top independent experts on Russia received at least €600,000 (£522,000) in undisclosed offshore payments from companies linked to an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, leaked files have revealed.

Hubert Seipel, an award-winning film-maker and author, was paid money in instalments, which documents suggest was to support his work on two books he wrote that chart Putin’s rise to power and offer portrayals described by many as sympathetic to the Russian president.

The case is one of the first linking an influential western journalist with significant payments in what could be seen by some as attempts by pro-Putin actors to secure positive coverage in the international media. [...]

One of the few journalists anywhere to have had direct and regular contact with the Russian leader, Seipel, who by his own admission has met Putin “nearly 100 times”, has acknowledged receiving money from accounts linked to the oligarch Alexei Mordashov, a steel and banking magnate placed under sanctions last year for his close ties to the Kremlin. [My u.] [..."

Top German journalist received €600,000 from Putin ally, leak reveals

Influential author and broadcaster Hubert Seipel received financial support for his work on two books described by many as sympathetic to Russian president

www.theguardian.com

 

[navguy12]

A piece of the puzzle of why there is a relatively large opposition in Germany against supporting UKR militarily?...

"Top German journalist received €600,000 from Putin ally, leak reveals​

Kate Connolly, Timo Schober, Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier
Tue 14 Nov 2023 17.00 CET

[...] A leading western journalist who has long been considered one of Germany’s top independent experts on Russia received at least €600,000 (£522,000) in undisclosed offshore payments from companies linked to an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, leaked files have revealed.

Hubert Seipel, an award-winning film-maker and author, was paid money in instalments, which documents suggest was to support his work on two books he wrote that chart Putin’s rise to power and offer portrayals described by many as sympathetic to the Russian president.

The case is one of the first linking an influential western journalist with significant payments in what could be seen by some as attempts by pro-Putin actors to secure positive coverage in the international media. [...]

One of the few journalists anywhere to have had direct and regular contact with the Russian leader, Seipel, who by his own admission has met Putin “nearly 100 times”, has acknowledged receiving money from accounts linked to the oligarch Alexei Mordashov, a steel and banking magnate placed under sanctions last year for his close ties to the Kremlin. [My u.] [..."

Top German journalist received €600,000 from Putin ally, leak reveals

Influential author and broadcaster Hubert Seipel received financial support for his work on two books described by many as sympathetic to Russian president

www.theguardian.com

This is reminding me of one of the chapters in the following book, where an independent film maker suddenly became a mouthpiece for Putin:

Freezing Order by Bill Browder review – life as a target of Putin

This incredible account of being framed by the Russian authorities – and the deadly fallout from fighting back – reads like a thriller

www.theguardian.com

 

[wdolson]

Ziehan is a professional doom and gloomer.
Not much in the way of good news..EVER from him.

He is also down on Tesla and EV's in general.
If you're a fan of Cherry picking...he is your guy.

I didn't watch the entire thing, but he thinks it will take a century to ramp up EV production? Henry Ford started mass production of cars in 1913, and about 300K cars were produced in the US that year. In 1941, just before the US entered WW II, the US made 3.5 million cars. That's more than an order of magnitude in 28 years.

I've always been skeptical of the claims EVs can be ramped up to replace all ICE in 10 years, but 20-25 is completely reasonable IMO. New materials need to be mined that aren't used in cars today, but the materials that are used in cars today were once mined. We recycle most of the metals in ICE cars because that market is in a steady state in the developed world. The vast majority of new cars in the developed world are replacing one that was junked. EVs don't have that advantage.

I thought the analysis of Zeihan I posted was pretty good because he did mention some upsides of Zeihan's analysis too. Zeihan may cherry pick his sources, but he does use real sources. There is some useful information there if you ignore his doom and gloom pontificating. China really does have some serious problems right now and they probably are facing some economic troubles in the next decade.

It could result in the CCP falling and China taking up some other form of government. Unlike Russia, China has a fairly large number of well educated people who either got educations in the west or lived in the west. There are also a lot of Chinese who have family members living in the west. China also has tried to absorb Hong Kong into the CCP universe, but it has resisted and wants to go back to the democratic rule it had inherited from the British.

Nobody knows for sure how things will shake out, but some form of democracy in China is more likely than it is in Russia. One advantage of democracies is they don't tend to go to war with one another.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1724427557016043668

https://twitter.com/x/status/1724458483255247242

All of those breaches have been done by Vladimir Putin. The Russians/Soviets did have a history of following agreements and treaties though sometimes cheating around the edges (which a lot of countries have done over the years).

For people like Putin, agreements are just things you do with "suckers" to buy time for your schemes to develop. Hitler did it. A certain person who was once president of the US did it too.

People like that should never be in any kind of power.

Good news on at least a few children rescued from the Russians. Unfortunately it's a few drops of water in an ocean. Maybe people who are advocating that the Ukrainians should sue for peace should think about the fate of those Ukrainians stuck under Russian occupation.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Guessing that many here will find this interesting. It allegedly reveals 'a few things' that was probably not publicly known before...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1724171496552063182

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

The Russian Dictator has allegedly started to worry about the future supply of serfs for meat wave attacks...

"It's time to stop orienting girls towards higher education and restricting their childbearing function. This caveman statement was issued by Margarita Pavlova, who is a member of the Federation Council."

But they misspelled Küche... 'Kinder, Küche, Kirche' is German for Children, Kitchen, Church...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1724453423905411095

 

[iPlug]

The Financial Times is reporting that Denmark will be tasked with inspecting and potentially blocking Russian oil tankers passing through its straights, under laws permitting littoral states to check vessels that might pose environmental threats.

60% of Russia's offshore oil exports transit through the Baltic Sea/Danish straits - 2mn barrels of crude (20% of Russian and 2% of world production).


Denmark could block Russian oil tankers from reaching markets

 

[madodel]

The Russian Dictator has allegedly started to worry about the future supply of serfs for meat wave attacks...

"It's time to stop orienting girls towards higher education and restricting their childbearing function. This caveman statement was issued by Margarita Pavlova, who is a member of the Federation Council."

But they misspelled Küche... 'Kinder, Küche, Kirche' is German for Children, Kitchen, Church...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1724453423905411095

Lebensborn - Forced Birth factories are what he needs to get the meat he needs to die for the Motherland.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

I wish I had something more positive to post. But unfortunately the Russian Dictator has started to use military grade tear gas/CS gas.

The tweet below is the start of a short thread that contains a video from one of the Russian Dictator's drones dropping a canister containing CS gas followed by regular grenades onto Ukrainian foxholes...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1724767612901482549

 

[navguy12]

I wish I had something more positive to post. But unfortunately the Russian Dictator has started to use military grade tear gas/CS gas.

The tweet below is the start of a short thread that contains a video from one of the Russian Dictator's drones dropping a canister containing CS gas followed by regular grenades onto Ukrainian foxholes...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1724767612901482549

Unable to see the tweet in your posts.

 

[Unclepaul]

In a perfect World, the Communists would be overthrown and Hong Kong becomes the new Capital. China reforms and become Democratic. The entire World would rejoice.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Unable to see the tweet in your posts.

It's from @AndrewPerpetua

As of now it's ~4h old.

 

[wdolson]

Lebensborn - Forced Birth factories are what he needs to get the meat he needs to die for the Motherland.

They didn't work for Germany and they won't work now. Increased manpower is something the Russians need today, not in 18 years. In 18 years Putin will almost certainly no longer be walking this earth and Russia could be a very different place.

I wish I had something more positive to post. But unfortunately the Russian Dictator has started to use military grade tear gas/CS gas.

The tweet below is the start of a short thread that contains a video from one of the Russian Dictator's drones dropping a canister containing CS gas followed by regular grenades onto Ukrainian foxholes...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1724767612901482549

The Ukrainians perfected using armed drones to drop grenades last year and the Russians were a bit slow to master this, but they are coming along. Time to start rushing gas masks to Ukraine. Fortunately Russia is just using an irritant and not something like sarin
.

In a perfect World, the Communists would be overthrown and Hong Kong becomes the new Capital. China reforms and become Democratic. The entire World would rejoice.

We can hope. There are a lot of ways things could change in China. Some would be improvements from our point of view and some wouldn't.

I've thought civil war in Russia was possible on the back of this war, but it's less likely in China. China did have a civil war more recently than Russia did, but China doesn't have the cultural fault lines Russia does. Russia has a majority of the population who don't see themselves as Russian in the same way those of Moscow and St Petersburg do. The people of those two major cities consider themselves Russian in the greater Russia sense as well as ethnically Russian. Most of the rest of the country sees themselves as Russian citizens, but ethnically something else.

Similar to the way Americans see themselves. Though seeing yourself as Irish-American or Italian-American doesn't put you at odds with the national government the same way it does in Russia. The Tartar-Russians, Siberian-Russians, etc. are conquered peoples who were forced to be Russian.

China is much more homogeneous in ethnic identity, though there are some minority groups who would break away from China if they could such as the Uyghurs and the Tibetans, but those really are minority groups in a country that predominantly identifies itself as Chinese. I haven't seen them in a while, but there were a couple of westerners who were living in China and they made videos about their motorcycle rides around the country. They got out with their families and now live in California.

After leaving they did a series of videos about Chinese culture. China is so culturally unified that most mainland Chinese can't conceive of people living outside China identifying as Chinese. They won't believe anyone who tells them there are people who identify as Chinese living in Singapore, Canada, the United States, or even Taiwan is Chinese.

China's cultural uniformity, which the CCP has encouraged and is probably more pronounced now than it was in the 1940s, reduces the chances of a civil war. Or at least one like the 1940s war. There might be some people vs the government violence, but if the CPP is falling apart, it would probably be short lived. An overthrow of the CCP might look more like the Maidan revolution in Ukraine than the last civil war in China.

 

[madodel]

NATO's Stoltenberg: Plans for Russian base on Georgian territory unacceptable

 

[JupiterMan]

I haven't seen them in a while, but there were a couple of westerners who were living in China and they made videos about their motorcycle rides around the country. They got out with their families and now live in California.

After leaving they did a series of videos about Chinese culture. China is so culturally unified that most mainland Chinese can't conceive of people living outside China identifying as Chinese. They won't believe anyone who tells them there are people who identify as Chinese living in Singapore, Canada, the United States, or even Taiwan is Chinese.

@serpentza and @laowhy86 on youtube

 

[SmokyPeat]

So much for the "stalemate" in the Ukrainian counter offensive. Troops have established a bridgehead on the East side of the Dnipro. Making a push toward Crimea.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/11/16/putin-russia-ukraine-war-crimea-soldiers-convicted-murders-pleitgen-pkg-ebof-vpx.cnn

 

[wdolson]

A history of Siberia. Some new information for me dovetailed with information I've seen from other sources

 

[madodel]

They didn't work for Germany and they won't work now. Increased manpower is something the Russians need today, not in 18 years. In 18 years Putin will almost certainly no longer be walking this earth and Russia could be a very different place.

I didn't say in the NAZI case it was successful, but they certainly expended resources on it, and not just in Germany, but wherever they could find ersatz Aryan-like females. As nuts as as Putler is, I wouldn't be surprised if something like this would be attempted since he knows his population is shrinking and so are his hordes of cannon fodder. Eventually he'll run out of prisoners and minorities to kill off in pointless meat wave assaults.

 

[iPlug]

In the latest Anders Puck Nielsen video out today, he discusses the Ukrainian foothold on the eastern side of the Dnipro River: