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Nothing like as miserable as having your home bombed and having to sleep in the subway. People in the USA are fortunate in having no social/institutional memory of these things, unlike in Europe.

You know, I didn't think the west's resistance would be so successful. I really thought this would be over in two weeks. But now it's going on three weeks, and while Russia is making progress, Ukraine has become a dumpster fire of Russia's failed ambitions and glaring weaknesses. Russian generals are being killed left and right. Ukrainians are making off with tanks and armored personnel carriers. Ukranian drone operators are having a field day againt Russian armor, and it looks like the Russians don't have a clue as to how to stop them. And closer to home for Putin the shit is hitting the fan. Russia barely mananged to not default on an international loan payment recently. That means that Putin has perhaps a month before the next payment comes due, and he is under trememdous pressure to have a success and end this before then. And that means that when he gets to the barganing table, his position is greatly weakened. Any deal that lets him claim a victory is going to look better and better to him. It's looking like Ukraine may be able to retain their autonomy, something that didn't look possible three weeks ago. And much of that is due to the cooperation of the west to boycott Russian goods. Sure. it's making gas prices higher and making life miserable for Americans. But it's working. And if we can win this "war" - or even just get Ukraine a partial win at the truce table - that 'pain at the pump' will be more than worth it. A victory of this sort without a single US soldier dying? Without an open Russia/NATO conflict? That's huge. Good for us, and for all the other countries who honored the boycotts, supplied military aid to the Ukraine and did not fall to the temptation of cheap Russian oil.

I was reading an article in the NYT Magazine about the future of democracy in the US; the panel included a couple of liberals, a couple of conservatives, and a couple of academics (yes, they tend liberal). The conservatives were just fine with the description of the Republican Party ad being the problem. Not conservatism, not even the party as it used to be, but as it is now. Link For those with access, it’s a good article My thought is that the party has discovered a way to increase power; it’s a short-term solution, but the fact that power (like money), tends to follow those who already have it, is enough, and will sustain them. Personally, I think that bypasses the notion that parties should be reflections of the times and people, not drivers. Wendy P.

Dog pile on aisle 4!!!! Come on. Both parties have their share of dumbshits and pockets of cult-like behaviors, but that doesn't make everyone in the party bad. What about Spencer Cox?

Me too. In fact, we share a 529, which is a tax-exempt college savings account where we deposit money for them, invest it, and it grows TAX FREE! Did you see that? We are DODGING TAXES on college savings! Refusing to pay taxes! Not paying our fair share on the college funds! Guess I will never be able to run for any federal office. And as if that wasn't enough, I even have a laptop that they use!

Now the previous POTUS has been asked what he would do if he were still President: 'Well what I would do, is I would -- we would -- we have tremendous military capability. And what we can do without planes, to be honest with you, without 44-year-old jets, what we can do is enormous, and we should be doing it and we should be helping them to survive and they’re doing an amazing job,' he said. Now remember, you voted for those coherent thoughts, but are upset that the current VP doesn't meet your coherency standards. Explain to me again how you are objectively reviewing this....

IMO the Russian conscripts have little motivation to pursue war. Hence the abandoned vehicles, tanks etc. Pilots are the senior officer core and they get paid far more. As such likely have greater motivations. The generals are leading from the front because Russian military doctrine is entirely top down flow of orders. Junior officers have no latitude to act independently of orders. Not meaning that the generals have to be on the front lines. But they draft the overall plan. Which must be followed. When problems arise they likely want to go to the front to see what the hold up is. To direct individual units. Western philosophy is to empower lieutenants to act. To take the initiative when maneuver for gain presents itself. The Ukrainian forces have adopted this leadership model. Which when combined with better weapons results in better success.

Typical Republican MO: make a lot of smoke, then claim there must be fire. Also the smoke is from peeing on hot sauna rocks.

Thats a good summation of the facts. Russia is currently earning about a billion USD a day in its oil and gas exports. In the short term this is unavoidable and will likely prevent short term default. Perhaps even prevent default on external debt all together. Russia has internal payments to pensioners, military personnel etc. But those payments are in deflated rubles. Russian companies with external debt in USD may be SOL. The current brain drain of those who are afraid of Putin's clampdown. Who are now fleeing Russia are other casualties of Putin's actions. About four years ago in these forums I stated that Nord Stream 2 should be cancelled. Due to the risks to the west arising from that dependence. The risks that a very dangerous Putin could morph into. Now its war but at least the west has responded vigorously. The turmoil in energy markets has led to a spike in EV sales and demand. It will drive conservation and renewables in the EU. Hopefully aggressive new production elsewhere doesn't shortchange environmental conservation.

Yes, but conversely the effects also destroy market value. Just ask the snowsports industry, for example. I guess it's not a black/white situation - my analogy was on the extreme end, but there's a continuum between "completely relying on the free market" to "completely centrally managed by the government". I'd say that the government needs to be more involved, by setting policy, legislation, AND providing funding. While free markets are quite efficient, they also result in Nash equilibria which makes them extremely short-sighted.

A final note - the actual quote is "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." That's essential liberties vs a little temporary safety. The right to free speech is an essential liberty. The right to not wear a mask in a NICU (or in a OR, or in public during a pandemic) is not. The right to life is an essential liberty. The right to go to your favorite bar at any age (or during a pandemic) is not. The right to worship as you please is an essential liberty. Even the right to refuse a vaccination is an essential liberty. However, the right to refuse a vaccination - and then experience absolutely no consequences - is not.

If you watch some of "history legends'" videos on www.youtube.com you will realize that much of what is being done today - in South Eastern Ukraine - is merely unfinished business left over from 2014. Russia/Soviet Union only controlled Crimea for a couple of hundred years because they needed an ice-free port for international trade. During that period, large numbers of Russian-speaking sailors were posted to Sebastapol and many retired there, producing a Russian-speaking majority. When the USSR collapsed economically in 1989, they were too poor to retain large bureaucracies in many of the 'stans, Balkans, Ukraine, etc. so wrote an odd sort of co-government with Keeve. While Crimea has a marvellously warm climate - by Russian standards - it is also a dry climate and Crimean farmers depended upon water pumped in from the Dneiper River hundreds of kilometers to the North. After the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea, Ukrainians dumped hundreds of tons of concrete rubble in the North Crimean Canal. They later build a proper concrete dam to completely close water exports to Crimea. During the first day (24 February 2022) of the current invasion, Russian troops reached the shores of the Dneiper river, due north of Crimea. Then they made a big show of dynamiting the rubble dam. It will probably take them months to completely restore water flow to Crimea, maybe not even in time for the 2022 farming season. Meanwhile, fighting continues around Mariupol to clear a land link from Russia to Crimea. The invasion of Northern Ukraine is more of a political issue, with more resistance than expected. Mind you, Russian troops still needed to schedule re-fueling stops on the outskirts of Keeve before they could capture the capital city. The slow an messy fighting around Keeve and Kharkov makes us wonder if that is just a smokescreen for Russia's real goals. Finally, if Russians continue their invasion Northwards along the Dneiper River, they may force the Ukrainian Army to retreat from Eastern Ukraine rather than risk encirclement. One possible bad conclusion sees the new Ukrainian/Russian border along the Dneiper River. Peace negotiations are stumbling forward at an awkward pace. Some of the Russian demands are ridiculous, but others are doable. For example, Ukraine can cheerfully agree to Russian demands to root out all "fascists" in Ukraine. Since the Ukrainian President Zelinski is from a Jewish family, and most Ukrainian families have miserable memories of the German Fascist occupation during World War 2. This looks easy on paper, but the devil is in the details because the Russian definition of "fascist" really means "anti-Mr. Poutine." If Ukraine are smart, they will insist on judges from the Hague monitoring the "de-fascism" process in Ukraine. At the least, Ukraine will lose the Russian-speaking majority provinces in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, but retain the ice-free port of Odessa. Ukraine will also lose control of the North Crimean Canal and some of the shoreline of the Dnieper River. One miserable compromise is losing all territories East of the Dnieper River. The worst case scenario sees Ukraine reverting to being the puppet state of Russia that she has been on-and-off for hundreds of years.

But what about captured Russians? Can they declare them as dependents?

the damaged discs in my neck agree with you I like my canopy... ...it lets me down.