Reading about this family just reminds me of this:

Son of the Norwegian crown prince. You’ll be unsuprised to learn that he stands accused of many sexual assaults.

Not even this dirtbag likes Elon.

I dunno how much I buy that. America’s been going fasc for most of my adult life. Under Bush we had the patriot act, “enhanced interrogation,” “extraordinary rendition,” etc. Sure we didn’t have masked brownshirts pulling people off the streets (of America) yet but everyone could see where it was all going and people were incredibly upset.

The Putin and Xi-loving tankie seems to be an artifact of the internet. It’s the meme-internet trajectory of “haha” to “ha ha only serious” to “seriously.” It’s a way to revel in the base pleasures of the malevolent thug without having to be Pro-trump, Pro-America or Zionist.

That’s the funniest thing. Like, if you were an original Hungary-era tankie, at least you could say “the Soviet Union is the leader of the worldwide Communist movement, I believe what the SU says about itself.” But Putin’s Russia is explicitly not Communist or Socialist in any way. Putin’s ideology is inconsistent but his public statements are all basically imperial or “blood and soil” nationalism. How do they twist this guy into being a “comrade?”

Hexbear tankies really are something incredible. I’ve been around left-wing politics most of my life and in the real world I’ve met like one or two people actually like them. Difficult to understand where they all came from. I’m thinking maybe it’s a r/Pyongyang where it started as a joke and then they started taking it seriously.

I think this is a good sign at least that Ukraine has successfully stabilized the front and Putin sees no opportunities for advance. This was not something that was on the table this winter.

Musk is switching sides in this war because he needs his puppet to get a win.

There even isn’t much panic about being caught on the street to be conscripted

Because Russia hasn’t mobilized besides the “partial mobilization” in 2022. The question is why. One theory is that they don’t need to. The other theory is that they can’t. I live in the US and remember the Iraq war. In 2004 one of the biggest things going around was that Bush was going to start conscription.

But if he were to have attempted mobilization the support for the war in the US would have instantly collapsed so instead he tried various things to fill the ranks like using mercenaries, “backdoor drafts” via stoploss, activating national guard, etc. And in the end, let’s be honest, the US lost both of Bush’s wars.

It’s easy to look at the side of a war of attrition where you have more information and say that they’re losing because you don’t have as much information on the other side. Russia has every reason to present itself as still having massive reserves to call upon because it helps their case.

Many people thought that Germany was on the cusp of winning WWI during the spring offensive in 1918.

That being said I think Ukraine’s situation isn’t great. I was surprised at the seeming depth of the Russia’s reserves. They have been sustaining incredible losses for the last year almost, and yet continue to advance. During previous phases of the war we saw them overextend themselves and then have to retreat against Ukrainian advances.

Russia’s reserves are finite both in terms of manpower and equipment. They are demonstrating strain in both categories and will presumably start to have sustainment issues soon. If Ukraine can hold together and stop the advance then presumably the next phase would be a negotiated peace hopefully. There’s always a chance that some shoe could drop though. Putin could die or get overthrown, the west could withdraw all support, China could start providing blank-check support to Russia, Russia could successfully go into full-mobilization mode.

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The wedge already exists. The Trump people started leaking that Elon is a seagull less than 3 days after the election. The problem is that Elon paid for Trump’s victory and he’s continuing to throw money around. Trump knows this and it’s why he keeps appointing Elon’s goons to the administration (beginning with JD Vance and continuing with David Sachs and all the other VC).

Next time they pick a patsy for a guy with distinctive eyebrows they should find a guy with the same eyebrows.

Tesla is the new BMW and nobody’s using those buttons.

You’d probably have to lie between them instead of just looking at a photo, to assess if it’s still possible.

Clearly they were put there with the intention of making it difficult/uncomfortable to lie down on the subway vent. If they were installed incompetently that doesn’t make them unhostile though, it just makes them ineffective for their obviously intended purpose.

TBH I think it was always clear that he was going to be at least somewhat right-coded given that he was so competent with firearms.

I personally don’t care what he thinks about pronouns or whatever, unlike Rittenhouse or that subway guy he actually went after one of America’s true villains. The right wing violence in this country finally found a legitimate target.

Biden takes his pardons very seriously. He would never pardon someone who stands accused of serious crimes.

/s

To the extent that he wasn’t a criminal it’s only because our government is too corrupt to make his actions illegal.

He wanted to kill King James. Regicide is always based.

I dropped it here but didn’t get any traction, maybe because I didn’t describe it well enough:

https://midwest.social/post/20162538

The “all in” podcast is hosted by four goulish Silicon Valley VC assholes. The audience is mostly simps but it’s an entertaining listen just to see how out-of-touch and self-absorbed they are.