Warning: Once the first one pops open, it's addictive. I almost gave it up because I bought the cheapest one I could find (Third from the left) and it turned out to be the hardest of all the ones pictured. If you want to give it try, get a cheap set of picks, a simple masterlock, and jump on YouTube. The first pick set I bought came with a clear lock so you could see the tumbler/pin setup and easily visualize what is going on during the pick. I bought a deadbolt the other day to give it a try. It's more difficult because it has an extra pin in it. After about 5 or 10 sessions of about 10 minutes each, I opened it. I bought another one last week at a liquidation store, brand new Schlage in the box, for 5 bucks. I've only tried it for a few minutes, but it's still locked and next on my list.
Corruption and undue influence cuts across both systems. This is more or less unavoidable human nature. The key difference in the communist system, all industry is nationalized and owned by the state! The govt can’t distribute what it doesn’t own. Those Russian oligarchs didn’t “found” their company or build anything from the ground up, they were literally handed control and ownership of previous Soviet state controlled industry. Given the scope of their wealth, it’s obvious they were also given outsized % of the shares vs. whatever pittance was “allowed” to go to individuals or even institutional investors. Yes, it’s gross that in our system we have guys rewarding themselves $10’s or even $100’s of millions despite apparent incompetence. We have corrupt actors pouring hundreds of millions into politics. We have shady govt contracts and rarely see takedowns for corruption. There’s definitely a bit of an old boys club, but this still pales in comparison to the situation with these Russian oligarchs. At least most of our billionaire oligarchs legitimately build something innovative, these Russian guys basically just loot the state of resources and nothing more.
Like any five year old, saying no is the most terriblest thing that you can do to Russia. And setting up a defensive posture is practically saying no to what Russia wants to do.
I remember a doonesbury cartoon where Reagan is getting credited with the military budget increase that Russia tried to match and it toppled the soviet union. The punchline was Reagan asking "Am I that smart."
They are small potatoes compared to us. Most of their oligarchs own fossil fuel interests, transportation stuff, natural resources etc. But yeah, they didnt make Facebook or whatever. That seems a point in their favor though lol. We have the GDP of well, the USA, they have an economy the size of middling European states like Italy. We are 100% more dangerous to the world than Russia is. But having our kind of power, means you dont have to be wrong about anything, even when you are, like Iraq or helping crash the world economy.
Your neighbor is crazy so you get a big dog for the yard to keep him on his side. Your crazy neighbor gets increasingly paranoid the dog is going to jump the fence and attack him so he attacks the dog with a poisoned umbrella.
I will never understand the Putin Apologist's in their belief that Putin's right to destroy Western Democracy's world wide should supersede our right to protect Western Democracy's world wide.
Why do we have the Monroe Doctrine in place? The answer is the same. Your view is certainly the mainstream one, but it certainly has not prevented war in Ukraine. You can argue of course that it would've happened anyway, so we can just agree to disagree here. I also can't argue against it if you're willing to accept the consequences of promoting liberal democracy around the world no matter the cost. I think it's cost us a lot since the fall of the USSR and that it isn't worth it, but if you do then that's just a difference in opinion. I also think China is not "just" an economic competitor, but rather that it's "also" an economic competitor, which makes it a far greater threat than the Soviet Union ever was. With that said, I agree that China is a lesser threat when it comes to invasions (except for Taiwan) as well as the spread of alternative political systems than the Soviets. I don't much care about those things though, as you can probably tell. I think their economic might will be able to threaten our financial dominance and in turn our wealth much more so than the Soviets, and that it allows them much more staying power than the Soviets, hence my view of them as a greater threat. Whichever industry they've moved up into, ours have been hollowed out. Only some Americans have felt some pain from it, and it's already causing social issues here, but as they move up into the cutting edge, we will all start to feel it.
Don’t underestimate the disinformation campaign that we let slip to Soviet spies that we had the workable StarWars defense system. Russia went bankrupt trying to create the System that we had (even though it never actually worked)
Yep, that old Russian paranoia after being invaded by Napoleon, then Hitler. None of which is any justifies what they are doing to Ukraine.
From CNN live "CIA director: Chinese president "unsettled" by Russian invasion of Ukraine Chinese President Xi Jinping is “unsettled” by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in part because “his own intelligence doesn’t appear to have told him what was going to happen,” CIA Director Bill Burns told the US Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. Chinese leadership is also concerned because of “the reputational damage that China suffers by association with the ugliness of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine” and “the economic consequences at a time when growth rates in China are lower than they’ve been in 30 years,” according to Burns."
Can you PM me with a link to a “cheap” set of picks? I’m curious how this hobby would set me back. lol Okay, back to your regularly scheduled Ukraine War thread.
This could go here or the energy thread...but : "EU foreign policy chief says Putin "failed" in his belief that "he was going to conquer Ukraine" From CNN's Joseph Ataman and Xiaofei Xu in Paris European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin “believed he was going to conquer Ukraine” but “he failed.” “He believed he was going to divide us; he failed. He believed that he was going to weaken the transatlantic relationship and he failed. Now he has to stop,” he added while speaking to reporters while entering a summit of EU leaders in France’s Versailles. Borrell said after European countries reduce dependency on Russian energy exports, “we will be much safer. Have to spend less gas, use less gas, the climate requires that. For once, geopolitics and climate go together.”"
On my feed...Anonymous hacks Russian Federal agency, releases 360,000 documents. They hacks Roskomnadzor the agency responsible for monitoring/censoring media. Looks like a tweet but I don't have twitter so...
NY Times column by Tom Friedman Opinion | Putin Has No Good Way Out, and That Really Scares Me Essentially, Friedman is predicting defeat for Russia in Ukraine with the only question being whether Putin decides to minimize his losses and concedes with a face saving compromise (my words not Friedman's) or decides to fight an extended war resulting in a defeat and the deaths of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians (again my words).
Not to you, but it's up to you. It's up to the Russians to decide whether the threat of another invasion from the west, with western Ukrainians' backing (they sided with Hitler during WWII), is real or not. What's up to us is to decide how WE respond to their actions based on their threat perception, not how THEY perceive the threat. Look at it in reverse, Russians think their invasion is defensive in nature, and that it doesn't present a threat to the US and Western Europe. Do we care about what they think their threat level to us is?
