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AlexanderCA posted:So it's been a while since I've followed the Ukraine conflict. Back then it seemed Ukraine was relying on militia type forces to resist Russian aggression. Do they now use their conventional forces? And if so don't those forces have the mass to retake the east or are they held back by larger concerns of escalation? No, the Ukrainian army is garbage. It basically are those militia's. They don't have the money to even use what they have.
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Feb 26, 2016 18:46
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 11:14 |
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Trade with Russia is much much more important to Europe than the fate of Ukraine, a hopelessly corrupt and poor garbage country that makes Russia look like a diverse and efficient economy. Despite Russia billing this as an epic east vs west war they've been forced into, the west is mostly ignoring the entire situation. They have little to no interests at stake, why spend money or political capital in the area? The company that made S.T.A.L.K.E.R. went under years ago, Ukraine produces nothing the world gives a poo poo about and isn't a member of any alliance. No friends, nothing of value, and a violent possessive ex next door. Ukraine is hosed.
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Feb 26, 2016 22:50
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I want to see Alberta's wild rose party to start getting Putinist support for a "kudatah" after the west and their Saudi allies have destroyed their proud hole-based economy. Little green men coming over the arctic circle to help poor oppressed albertan's who have always been 2nd class citizens in Canada. An alliance of garbage countries with massive inferiority complexes hurt by low oil prices.
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Feb 28, 2016 02:10
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On the police TV shows I always see the good hero cops catch the bad guy but then the bad guy does some lawyer voodoo and suddenly the evidence is all thrown out. We need to empower cops to get the bad guys, like on the television programs.
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Mar 6, 2016 03:07
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Friendly Humour posted:I wonder how many death threats you get day by day Our big brown BM not only sticks his nose into Russia's business but also middle-east politics. A good mix of styles of death threats! Beheading or polonium?
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Mar 14, 2016 23:08
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My wife is going to Kiev on her own this time (I really don't enjoy visiting) in May and I'm pretty worried. I know Kiev should be fine, but I wish she could go without seeing her family every single year 
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Mar 29, 2016 17:15
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I don't understand why Poland is so anti-russia. Shouldn't they be lobbying to quit the EU and NATO so they can just become a lovely hyper-conservative religious dictatorship with Russia? Is it a catholic/orthodox thing? They seem to desperately want to become some sort of catholic russia.
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Apr 1, 2016 17:51
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Yeah I find it interesting the very different ways the Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians have gone despite their similar shared past. Poland has turned into a hyper-nationalistic catholic reactionary mess with an identity based around catholic values, gently caress russia, anything left of PiS is pissing on the graves of every Victim Of Communism. Hungary is a nationalistic reactionary mess of corruption and racism but just loves that Putin because only he can stand up to the SOROS (jew!!) run world leftist (jewish) conspiracy (jews) to destroy europe with their paid-off Muslim hoards. Meanwhiles the Czechs have a modestly functional democracy, an economy not totally strangled by corruption, are quite non-religious, don't knee-jerk associate leftism with Stalinism, and hate russia not just for historical reasons but as part of generally hating any lovely dictatorship with garbage human rights.
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Apr 1, 2016 20:36
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Grouchio posted:I just read an alternate timeline somewhere in which a Russian-Estonian bar-room brawl started WW3 between NATO and Russia and the majority of the urban western world went up in smoke. Next loving year. No that's pure clancytown. MAD ensures no one presses the button, on purpose anyways. We've come really loving close from false alarms and technical fucks ups though! Not sure if that helps you sleep better.
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Apr 2, 2016 05:37
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Crowsbeak posted:Yes it's a good idea to bully people for their beliefs. You know I think Iran has a good way to run itself. Yeah, Church bullied and forced people into their beliefs for hundreds of years then got a taste of their own medicine via some incredibly minor repression and rules that paled in comparison to how the existing centuries of religious brainwashing and social control were brutally forced and held in place. I'd say the lack of czech religiousness is maybe the one good outcome from the whole stupid soviet union. I wonder how much less hosed polish politics would be today if the catholic church had little to no influence in the country.
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Apr 2, 2016 21:26
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A Pale Horse posted:I don't know about Czechia but in Poland, the abortion law was the most liberal its ever been under the commies. Now it looks like its going to be the most restrictive since 1932. I'm not a huge fan of on demand abortion and actually like the Polish law the way it is now, but the Polish communists were certainly not near as conservative as the church on this issue. What's wrong with "on-demand" abortion?
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Apr 2, 2016 22:34
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I had some respect for Wikileaks but "GEORGE SOROS USA KKKAPITALIST CIA JEW FRONT!!!!" poo poo just sinks their credibility to zero. You'd think they'd be all excited about more people leaking information about the horrible elites that ruin the world and see them as allies. I didn't know wikileaks was idiotic enough to subscribe to the whole "USA = bad, so anyone who opposed the USA = GOOD". jew soros cia say putin bad? Proof putin GOOD!
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Apr 7, 2016 05:28
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Yeah I noticed the first things out of wikileaks when this panama poo poo went down made them sound really butt hurt that someone did a major "leak" without involving them. "Leaks were our idea! Original character do not steal!!!". It's really petty and made them out to be jealous little partisans. If wikileaks believes what they market them selves as they should be celebrating this whole thing. It's like a famine charity getting all mad that some other charity fed a bunch of people. "This food could have been better distributed if they had given it to us first, don't trust food paid for by SOROS"
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Apr 7, 2016 06:26
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Does anyone care about Brno's feelings though?
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Apr 14, 2016 19:08
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I got sick of calling it "The Czech Republic" every time and just shortened it to "Czech town" or "czechland" or of course Bohemia. Just call it bohemia you guys.
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Apr 15, 2016 22:15
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It's almost like authoritarians regimes have a huge boner for uniforms.
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May 1, 2016 00:21
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I hope Trump is elected president and it turns out he's way poorer than he brags about and has massive secret debts to Putin who then ends up controlling the US president.
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May 8, 2016 23:41
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Palpek posted:Considering Trump's stance on NATO involvement, the interests of his advisors and how much he likes Putin - him being elected might have grave consequences for Eastern Europe. Yeah I really worry for eastern europe and Ukraine if he's elected. Seems the sort of guy who would "respect" that eastern europe is putin's playground and putin earned it by being strong not weak like the europeans.
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May 9, 2016 19:08
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Listen, if the CIA or any other american agency paid for even a single protesters lunch, or provided a single marker to make a placard, or provided any sort of moral support or encouragement to even a single person, the entire popular movement is tainted and a CIA operation.
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Jun 21, 2016 23:37
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fishmech posted:What did they do? I've asked this specifically of people who go on about "CIA INVOLVED!!" and it's always something incredibly vague like "some of the protesters learned how to organize protests from the CIA!" or "The US government gave subtle encouragement to the protesters" like just vague moral support. They never realy have much to say about it being a fairly spontaneous mass event made up of mostly common people sick of their corrupt lovely government. You could say some of the current people in power now took advantage of this movement to further their own interests, and that the nebulous "the west" some how "supports" these politicians in some way. But it mostly boils down to "A thing that I don't like happened in Ukraine that was sort of over the country moving closer to the EU, so clearly western CIA plot" Were the protesters all CIA? Well no but... Were the organizers CIA? No but maybe a western government once said something encouraging about them! Were any of the new "junta" not existing democratically elected politicians some how installed by the CIA? Well no but... Basically a lot of people in the west including western media and politicians were sympathetic to the protesters protesting a corrupt government that was shooting them dead in a public square so clearly it's all cold war 2.0 western imperialism CIA PSY-OPS brainwashing that used HARP to mind-control people to all go to Maidan and become violent thugs who forced the legitimate government to fire on them in self-defense.
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Jun 22, 2016 02:10
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Nato and europe in general should do a massive rollout of nuclear power and switching over to electric and waste-heat (from the reactors, which will be conveniently located within cities!) hot water systems to both hit their climate change targets and to be able to tell russia to gently caress off with their lovely gas.
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Jul 4, 2016 04:56
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A Buttery Pastry posted:IIRC, political issues aside, there's kind of practical limit to how fast you can do this due to bottle necks in the production of reactor vessels. Though I'm thinking that's not the only bottle neck, if you want them to be safe. At this point, wind and solar are starting to mature to the point you could just use those plus heat pumps to take care of our power and heating needs anyway. Yeah that's working really great for germany.
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Jul 4, 2016 05:21
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This is probably better off in the energy thread. But I'd say an ignorance/political obstacle is probably easier to overcome than a technological obstacle with no answer in sight. Solar could be free, but without a way to cheaply and reliably store the energy they're never going to be useful for base load, just a supplement. Put all the money spend on "green energy" subsidies into nuclear PR to the public and maybe have a shot at saving the planet. Or go feel-good solar and wind and burn coal to power everything other than happy green feelings.
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Jul 5, 2016 00:22
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I just love that NATO has to be NATO / OTAN just for the french.
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Jul 8, 2016 19:53
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Do the French get fussy that outside of official events no one ever uses anything other than NATO? It would be great if every nato member pulled the same poo poo and the official nato logo ended up looking like a word jumble, but I guess no one else has such a linguistic chip on their shoulder other than the french. At least the French in europe don't demand bilingual stop signs like they do in Canada.
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Jul 8, 2016 23:22
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So my Russian in-laws who live in Ukraine want to move "back" to Russia because they feel like 2nd class citizens in Ukraine and don't have great job prospects. I have no idea why 2 retirement age people would want to move country for "job prospects" but it's all mostly emotional. The problem is, I'm never going to Russia, ever. The idea of traveling there scares the poo poo out of me, specially since I spend a lot of my time poo poo-talking Russia, it's church, and its various disgusting policies on the internet. I'm also vocally involved with some organizations and causes that would be flat out illegal in Russia. No I don't think the KGB is going grab me at the airport and send me off to some gulag for people who talk poo poo about russia or spread gay propaganda on the internet but they don't seem too far off from that either. I also wouldn't want my wife visiting Russia either, she's a Canadian citizen now but technically she still has Russian citizenship too and getting rid of it officially is hard. Her plan was just "never go to Russia ever again because gently caress Russia". She's also quite outspokenly anti-russia and anti-putin. We've tried to explain that if they move back to glorious russia they are never going to see me ever again, and seeing their daughter might be tough too. I'm certainly not sending over any grandkids either. They don't get it though, they see Russia as this nice stable motherland vs the war-torn nazi-sympathizing russian-hating Ukraine. They're shocked we'd rather visit them in Kiev than Russia or feel safer there.
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Jul 9, 2016 20:51
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They'd love to move here, but we can't afford to pay their rent and totally support them. They don't speak english and are retirement age so their job prospects are pretty much nil. I don't think we actually legally make enough money to sponsor them. All their family and support network is in Kiev. They both think of them selves as professionals and working retail or something would be below them, but they don't quite seem to understand that without fluent english they aren't going to even get retail jobs let alone anything else. There isn't exactly a huge Russian film industry in Canada, nor does my town have much if any of a russian-speaking community. I think they just aren't happy and think a move will fix everything. They've moved a lot in the past for similar reasons. They moved from Kiev to moscow for "opportunities" and then moved back to Kiev to become homeowners and be around their family but now hate being homeowners and hate Ukraine so want to move somewhere else and really the only other place they could move is back to Russia. They'd have slightly better pensions in Russia though so there's that at least. If we were rich I'd be happy to try to bring them over here, but I think they'd manage to be miserable here since their main complaint about Ukraine is feeling like outsiders and lack of friends and connections. But we're busy trying to pay our own rent.
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Jul 9, 2016 23:24
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Can we just give Poland to Russia since they want to turn into a lovely church backed conservative dictatorship?
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Jul 10, 2016 06:32
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Every single polish person I've met, even if they seem nice, always brought out some crazy antisemitism mixed with conspiracy theories. The few non jew-hating polish folk I met were all super catholic though and would rant about how global warming is a communist plot and how after the soviet union fell all the communists and their propagandists just became the environmental movement to continue their attack on personal freedom (ie capitalism). Anyone who is even slightly critical of any aspect of capitalism is some sort of cyrpto-soviet. Also poor people are poor because they are lazy, don't believe in god properly, and are probably communists. I'm sure there's some nice non-crazy polish people out there, I've just yet to have the lovely chance to meet them.
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Jul 12, 2016 16:32
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I can't wait for BM to uncover ironclad evidence of some new Russian operation or rebel atrocity because everyone involved posted their pokemon go finds. "Hey I found a rare pokemon in this mass grave me and my friends just dug PS here's our vehicle in the background, clear unit marks, and our passports" which of course would result in a snarky article from RT saying none of this can be taken as evidence because since when are children's video games used as in war crimes trials maybe BM should go back to his video games and let a real journalist investigate.
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Jul 14, 2016 15:32
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The rise of violent right wing nationalism in russia is ok because their violent racist thugs celebrate the winning side of WWII, the rise of violent right wing nationalism in post-soviet countries is bad because they celebrate the losing side of WWII. The violence and ideology don't matter, just which side they look back upon fondly.
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Jul 20, 2016 18:28
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Well that loving sucks. I guess if you're running a torrent site, don't travel to a country with US extradition.
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Jul 21, 2016 03:10
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Yes but you see the press went along with lies about the Iraq war and are all in the pocket of kkkorporations so america's press is also corrupt so no examples of Russian "propaganda" can be ignored.
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Aug 4, 2016 05:05
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If Russia full out invaded all their former warsaw pact holdings Germany would fall over them selves to excuse it and defend it, even offering up most of eastern germany (this would pass with a 90% referendum in bavaria). The entire thing would be blamed on NATO imperialism provoking poor russia and perhaps if Germany just totally disarmed and signed a treaty recognizing eastern europe as belonging forever to Russia it would finally make poor Putin feel safe. gently caress germany and especially gently caress the "german left"
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Aug 16, 2016 19:05
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Trump has always had a very Russian taste. Everything gold and tacky. It's what someone with no class thinks looks rich and classy. He'd probably do really well in Russia they eat that poo poo up.
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Aug 19, 2016 20:29
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Pizdec posted:Didn't Czechoslovakia get the same treatment with better results? I think I know 2 males without beards, and only because they can't grow them nicely.
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Aug 24, 2016 18:07
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ALso there's tons of overlap between Greens and rurals/peasant types. Fear of technology/change Fear that modern society doesn't understand or respect "the land", urban population just thinks their food and goods come from a store GMO's are scary Climate change is going to gently caress up farming Chemtrails and conspiracy theories I don't understand environmental science in the slightest but nature and green things are good and we need more of that At least where I live the local greens are sort of centre-right on a lot of economic issues, and their environmental policies are mostly based on emotion and optics rather than data. Lot of fear/mistrust of science and technology and a strong desire for society to "go back to the land" and solve problems with urban farming and a more agrarian economy. Cities are bad, density is bad, we need more rural living despite that being horrible for the environment, it "feels" more green so it's good. They also love to toss bones to conspiracy theorists. Maybe we need to take a look at 9/11, chemtrails, and vaccination. Also maybe abortion rights are a little too liberal you know?
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Sep 1, 2016 20:35
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If I was Putin I'd be doing exactly what he'd doing. Constantly bother and attack your enemies, do everything you can, no matter how petty and silly, to ferment disharmony amongst the enemy alliance. There are enough useful idiots in the US and Europe to possibly break up or weaken NATO or the EU in the long term. Maybe it's a small chance, but why not try to push that along? Fund right wing movements in those countries, hell fund left wing groups too if they're anti-US and anti-nato and love Russia. Just stir the pot, troll, and even actually go to war here and there if you know no one will really fight back. If there was no NATO Putin would absolutely be doing non-stop EU4 style fabricate claims then annex over and over until eastern europe was painted his colour and he was satisfied that his borders were pretty.
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Sep 21, 2016 23:21
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I'm assuming it was a large amount, like a van load of cheese. Here in Canada cheese smuggling is actually a big deal because Canada has insane cheese protectionism. The mafia in some places found it safer/more profitable to smuggle cheese rather than drugs, which they then sell to restaurants and food supply places. The price difference between what you pay in the US vs Canada for the same imported cheese is that much to make it viable for a large black market on cheese to exist.
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Sep 22, 2016 16:50
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I'm going to start calling poutine "cheese crime" now, thanks.
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Sep 22, 2016 22:20
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