171–180 of 285 posts
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Mostly techno stuff. Also, surprisingly, some really good flamenco guitar, and Arabic-inspired stuff. Some might be from former Russian nations, but some is straight from St. Petersburg. I’m not really in a position, at the moment, to find the various songs. I have a big library, and it takes a while to find stuff. I have very eclectic tastes.
s/former Russian/former Soviet/
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>Where’s that clarity come from? The opposite could be argued as well: those who’ve left are seeking safety and safety isn’t associated with risk taking. There are fewer risks in leaving Russia than in stayin in. It's not about safety, it's about agency. Because action > inaction. Staying put does not require anything, just making excuses why nothing can be done to either change things or move. The ones that stayed a…
It’s the second time you’re deliberately avoiding answering where else is your clarity about the second group come from, except from your imagining things. > It's not about safety, it's about agency. Because action > inaction. Staying put does not require anything, just making excuses why nothing can be done to either change things or move. When a person has an option to leave but decides otherwise, they exercise the…
"Biased simplification of reality" sounds like a description of essentially any opinion, we are all biased and reality is too complex to argue about without simplifications, so that's not a great argument. Anything outside of a few math formulas is a "biased simplification of reality".
I'm curious, what exactly are you arguing for? Do you really think that a loss of that million is insignificant and that the roskosmos/rosatom/rostech/etc will accomplish more than all the people that have left? If so, could you explain why you think that?
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Ukraine could hit the Crimean Bridge from territory they control today with ATACMS, which if kept inoperable would make supplying Crimea untenable. That's Ukrainian territory by international law, a valid military target, and minimal civilian casualties. The US should have given them examples for that single purpose long ago. It's not like Ukraine and Russia aren't already shooting SRBMs at each other.
The Kerch Strait Bridge is seen by Ukrainians as a gross national insult; its destruction would be a huge morale booster for Ukraine. I don't know how much reliance Russian forces in Crimea place on the bridge. It seems rather fragile to rely on that bridge to supply the entire peninsular. Crimea can be resupplied by sea; it has several ports, including a huge one at Sevastopol. However Crimea lacks its own water sup…
Or if they deploy their fleet regularly outside of the harbor... well, we saw how that last went when atmospheric conditions aligned against them.
My understanding is that the Dniepro to Crimea water canal was one of the reasons for the invasion. After Ukraine cut off water supply after Russia invaded Crimea (you could see the canal dried up on Google Maps satellite), they were having to spend $$$ to ensure the peninsula had enough fresh water.
You can see where it sources from the river too: https://www.google.com/maps/place/46.7177240,33.4085303
Which should already be in Ukrainian artillery range from the opposite bank, but I imagine it's hard to stop a gravity fed canal from flowing with artillery...
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You're right it could've been a lot greater however you should apply the same analysis towards the USA as well. If you're black you're all but barred from participating in the space program. This was only recently acknowledged in a Hollywood feel good movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures The space program was bootstrapped by Nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip I'm saying they achie…
That is a travesty and a loss for everyone, but you cannot compare those two things in good conscience. >All the while they were actively preventing 399 men from receiving the same treatments. And: >The emergent consensus among scholars is that, of the 14 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag camps and the 4 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag colonies from 1930 to 1953, roughly 1.5 to 1.7 million…
Again I am not trying to dismiss the crimes of the Soviet Union but I almost never see the same analysis applied to the US.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploit...
[2] https://www.newsweek.com/book-american-slavery-continued-unt...
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On the other hand, are we really comparing the leadership of Afghanistan and Iraq to Ukraine and deciding these things are the same? Last I checked, Ukraine hadn't invaded its neighbors, gassed ethnic minorities, or taken freedom from its entire female population. The US handled Afghanistan and Iraq poorly, and lied about reasons for going in, but there were actual underlying reasons. Ukraine is only being invaded be…
Actually, Ukraine was forcing an ethnic, language and religious cleansing on its people in the two regions that petitioned for sovereignty. Read about this several years ago before all this stuff blew up and propaganda made stuff murky. Their current leader was put in place by a coup. The old regime was corrupt but that doesn't mean the new one is better. Ukrain was already in a civil war.
IMHO, once military forces reach rough parity, civil wars should never be a justification for external involvement, because it always ends badly.
Internal problems need internal solutions.
If Russia and NATO had both stayed out of Ukraine, it would have been better for all Ukrainians. But we zoomed past the Rubicon on that when Crimea was invaded with actual Russian troops.
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On the other hand, are we really comparing the leadership of Afghanistan and Iraq to Ukraine and deciding these things are the same? Last I checked, Ukraine hadn't invaded its neighbors, gassed ethnic minorities, or taken freedom from its entire female population. The US handled Afghanistan and Iraq poorly, and lied about reasons for going in, but there were actual underlying reasons. Ukraine is only being invaded be…
Actually, Ukraine was forcing an ethnic, language and religious cleansing on its people in the two regions that petitioned for sovereignty. Read about this several years ago before all this stuff blew up and propaganda made stuff murky. Their current leader was put in place by a coup. The old regime was corrupt but that doesn't mean the new one is better. Ukrain was already in a civil war.
No you didn’t, since the allegation is directed at the post-Maidan Ukrainian government and there has been no time since that government existed that it has not been the target of intense Russian propaganda (and, also, war, the Russo-Ukrainian war having been launched by Russia as a direct and immediate response to the Maidan Revolution.)
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where the state governments aren't behaving any better than Putin This is an insane thing to say. He is devastating an entire country. There are 354,000 people dead already. What is your evidence? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-war-already-wit...
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where the state governments aren't behaving any better than Putin This is an insane thing to say. He is devastating an entire country. There are 354,000 people dead already. What is your evidence? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-war-already-wit...
I lived in a small Sanctuary city with double the crime rate than New York city which, in itself has skyrocketed. 1 in 143 chance of being victim of a violent crime besides the terrible stuff that goes on in the schools. Drug and Prostitution cartels run everything and get no jail time. Burglary statistic is 1 in 43. Shoplifting is a career. Nobody stops them from walking in and just taking because the state will jus…
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/chicago-blows-past-500-hom...
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Russia and US were political enemies. > Russians were considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. Russia and US stopped being political enemies. > I started to see amazing creativity come from Russia. Russia and US started being political enemies again. > Russians are considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. It's not really clear but I think I'm starting to see a pattern here.
Did I miss the memo where we invaded Canada or Mexico?
Canda:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Invasion_of_Quebe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=War_of_1812&usesk...
Mexico:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Mexic...
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Standards change though. I mean a lot of developed nations did atrocities a century or two ago but Russia is a bit behind the times.
I'm not sure if you count the US as developed or not, but in case you do, here are some highlights more recently than "a century or two ago": - Haditha massacre - Mahmudiyah rape and killings - Abu Ghraib prison - Enhanced interrogation techniques - Sơn Thắng massacre - Countless of others All by US officials and/or military members.