RE: Russian lawmakers authorize Putin to use military force outside the country, Part II
02-22-2023, 04:52 PM (This post was last modified: 02-22-2023, 05:25 PM by Dartz.)
02-22-2023, 04:52 PM (This post was last modified: 02-22-2023, 05:25 PM by Dartz.)
365 Days into a 3 Day War
-Did anyone think we would be here at this point. Honestly?
-This was supposed to be a simmering forever war insurgency by now, not a boiling meat-grinder.
-Russia expected Ukraine to tip over like a rotten shed in a strong breeze. (They failed on Day one)
-The 'Collective West' (For want of a better term) seemed to agree, and has been steadily opening the taps as every success has proved Ukraine more and more viable.
-It's a cruelly rational way of providing support, when you think of it. Reinforce success seems to be the rule.
-The 'Perfidious Albion' has proved to be one of Ukraines greatest allies. (For now - they got their reputation for a reason)
-America has supplied a diarrhoettic flood of equipment. Most of it old. (For now - they flip on the breeze with every election)
-Germany has been roundly criticised for not opening the taps fast enough. (Perhaps unfairly, but the perception remains and will remain for a long time)
-Russian remains Ukraines biggest military donor.
-Russian tactics have not really changed since all the good trops got killed, along with those who trained them.
-They win positions simply by sending meat into them until the defenders finally tired and run out of ammunition.
-One group serves as a forlorn hope to run forward and try stun the defenders with grenades and thermobaric weapons.
-For them it's do or die - they'll be executed if they retreat
-Artillery keeps the defenders heads down.
-Small squads run forward with shovels, made of men who have been trained to do nothing but dig - hopefully, eventually, completing a new foxhole or trench that can be used as a launchpad for the next assault.
-The forlorn hope is rarely succesful. The artillery rarely has enough shells to keep the defenders heads down and the diggers make easy targets.
-Even if they are succesful, the death-rate is approaching Great War levels to do it. More often than not, everyone gets slaughtered and they try again.
-After months of pure meatgrinder, Bakhmut still has not fallen to the Russians
-Prigorzhins prize is proving Phyrric, even if it does eventually fall.
-Which it might not - his ongoing criticisms have cost him the favour of the Russian MoD.
-The ammo taps have been turned off. The Russian army has been keeping for itself.
-Is it possible they're running out of shootable ammo?
-Ukrainian soldiers are drowning in spent brass, and having to dig their trenches deeper to compensate.
-There is a real risk of running out of basic ammunition before Russia runs out of bodies.
- It takes the EU ten months to received a bullet after placing the order with the factory.
-Russian soldiers seem to have no sense of self-preservation.
-They drive over the wreckage of tanks and get killed by the same RPG gunner
-They drive around the tank that just exploded due to a mine and get killed
-They wander around, like zombies.
-They just... die
-Artillery and a willingness to just wreck the fuck out of everything remains Russia's biggest advantage.
-Sending advanced guided weapons against apartment blocks and civlian infrastructure in terror attacks.
-Because terror-bombing Civilians has proven to be so effective in the past. It just pisses them off.
-And it just expends weapons Russia may not have the ability to replace.
-At one point a nuclear missile was launched
-Whether a mistake, a decoy, or a reminder that they work isn't known.
-Fortunately, the warhead was a concrete block and not an actual nuclear weapon.
-Also - less advanced suicide drones have purchased from Iran to attack power and economic targets.
-Some loitering drones used to attack tanks.
-German-supplied air defenses are proving effective against Iranian drones.
- A big Russian Push has been expected in time for the 1st anniversary of the war.
- With what?
- Will China start to supply new toys to Russia?
- Or will they keep them for the coming invasion of Taiwan in 2025?
- There're suggestions China may be about to shit a Peace Plan out and has been talking to people.
- Any Russian offensive now will likely drown in mud. Just like last year.
- By the time they can go, they'll be facing upskilled, freshly trained and well rested Ukrainian troops with a massive equipment advantage.
- It seems Ukraine has been able to properly rotate, train and rest its units through ongoing defensive actions.
- So it turns out the last two weeks were the 'Big Push'
-EU Aid now to include ACTUAL tanks and not just IFV's.
-The Leopards have been unleased - both the original 1 (If they can find anyone who remembers how to drive them) and the more modern 2.
-Ukrainians. "It's like driving a Mercedes".
-A few Challengers are being sent from the UK
-Is it like driving a Morris Marina?
-America is to produce a special variant of the Abrams without the funky armour - because they will be attacked and destroyed and this has been a very publically videod war.
- Some new-build mobile command vehicles produced in Ukraine suggests a Big Push may be planned for when the toys arrive.
-Bradleys are already on the way
-The Germans are sending armoured bridges.
-This is going to look like 73 Easting all over again.
-Even older Western equipment is proving to be incredibly effective. Quality being a quantity all of its own.
-The question of whether fighter aircraft are to be supplied to Ukraine still remains.
-This isn't really an air war.
-Surface to air missiles have turned the skies into a no-mans land.
-President Biden Visited Kyiv to speak with President Zelensky.
-Russia informed hours before. Either to prevent an inadvertant missile attack, or daring them to try.
-In an alternate skein of History, President Trump visits Kiev to speak with President Putin.
-You know it would've worked out that way.
-Republicans predictably annoyed.
-Russia may have attempted an ICBM test
-It may have failed.
-The EU sanctions noose continues to tighten. Toilets are now among the sanctioned items list.
-The EU is slowly tightening the screws - as much as is possible with that Scutter-for-brains from Hungary spoilering it all.
-Slovakian foreign Minister tells him to fuck off.
-To Macron is a new verb in Ukraine. To take the middle route. To Vascillate. To 'Both sides have valid points'.
-EU forcing down price of Russian oil. It still has massive buying power.
-Russia thought it had a monopoly. The EU thought it had a monopsony.
-LNG tankers and a mild winter have given the EU the breathing space it needed. Fuel prices are almost back to normal.
-Something positive from Global Warming?
-The EU is back to its Herding Cats ways because - that's what it is at the end of the day.
-NATO countries are sending training cadres
-At time of writing, even Ireland is considering sending a training cadre of EoD specialists
-Homeless man in EU Parliament continues to critise the war and how the EU is prolonging it by supporting Ukraine.
-At least some Members of the EU Parliament have been funded by Russian-linked entities.
-We all know who they are
-The far right have reared their ugly head in Ireland. It's no longer limited to the idiots with anime avatars
-They've been blocking rush hour traffic in their dozens.
-Counter protests last weekend numbered in the thousands
-It's only a matter of time before they're ground beneath the wheels of history. Or an irate commuter.
-There is a serious problem finding accomodation for refugees.
-Tents have been used. Along with refit conference centres.
-The government have been slow paying hotels and resorts that've been housing them over a year.
-Par for the course. Do not attribute to malice what can be assigned to feckless incompetence.
-Belarus continues its 'Will they, wont they' approach to war
-They've said they'll join in only if they're attacked.
-Which everyone assumes will be an opening to a False flag in the near future.
-It's forcing Ukraine to guard the borders, just in case.
-Belarus was supposed to be nothing more than another Russian Republic by 2030
-Is Lukashenko the only dictator who'd rather serve in hell, than reign in the malebolges?
-Moldova has found evidence of a pro-Russian conspiracy to launch a coup and destabilise the government.
-A similar attempt in the US three years ago failed, but has left a lingering legacy and may not have been truly defeated.
-All Russia has to do is hold out until the next election.
-Russian troll farms are proving dangerous.
-Never before have people been able to take a peak at the horrors of war live and unfiltered.
-From day one, the war has been livestreamed across a thousand tik-toks. The first attacks were reported as traffic jams on google maps.
-One Russian Soldier is shot to death on the shitter. His wish for a magazine is answered in the cruellest way possible.
-A squad of Russians try to surrender. The last one has second thoughts and comes out fighting. He gets himself and his friends killed.
-One Ukrainian soldier in a trench. Fights like a CoD protagonist, downing a tank(fite-me) and half a dozen cannon-fodder mercenaries while his scared-stiff mate feeds him reloaded weapons from the safety of cover.
-Russian soldier kicked out of trenches. Ukrainian drone leads him to safety. His former friends get shelled.
-Russians soldiers writhing in agony drown face down in the slime at the bottom of their trench, too wounded to roll over and save themselves.
-So many crawling injured.
-Bakhmut looks like World War 1, sepia-toned with mud. And bodies.
-Russia insists American claims of crimes against Humanity are only meant to demonise it.
-With over 30,000 documented incidents of Russian warcrimes. If you didn't want to be demonised as a war criminal you shouldn't have done the war crimes.
-Wagner troopers may be surprised to find that - as mercenaries - technically they have minimal protections under the laws of war.
-Untangling this may keep the lads at The Hague employed for decades to come.
-Dail Eireann is hosting an exhibition of photographs taken in Bucha by Reuters journalists.
-School tours visit the building daily.
---------------------------------
What does endgame look like?
-A Maximal Ukraine victory involves a restoration of the former borders - from the 1990's. This may be unlikely, but not impossible. This'll put the bear back in its box for some time. Russia is ended as a world power. Putin likely goes out the window. China's a little more concerned about it's Taiwan plans. The EU can act smug. Western Weapon sales are through the roof. This may onky be likely if it gets done before America changes presidents. Russia will not be a pleasant place to live, and being Russian in 2025 will be something like being German in 1925.
-A Maximal Russian victory would've been everything falling over after three days and Europe going 'Fuck it'. This is no longer possible.
- A 'Tolerable' Russian Victory might be freezing the lines as they are today and drawing a new boarder. Wonder if this is what the Chinese peace plan is. The EU will look weak. America will just look flakey - especially if this happens after a change in Presidents. China's standing in the world goes up. Taiwan's about to get fucked. Putin secures his position. Probably unlikely. (An armistice for ten years ending)
- An unpallatable peace for all, might be the 2014 borders. Once wonders if this is where western support would begin to peter out. This might also be the Chinese plan Everyone has bled white, nothing has been gained. Politicians everywhere get crucified over the pointlessness of it all. All the material sent to war. All the money. All the bodies. Why did anyone bother? Unfinished business still lingers. China still invades Taiwan. Putin likely goes out the window and gets replaced by a loon. (Another armistice for ten years ending.)
- An imposed Ukrainian victory might be something between the 2014 borders and the original border. Maybe loosing Crimea or something. It's a dissatisfactory ending, which may allow Putin to retain some face, and Europe to retain some face and everyone to be glad that we now have peace in our time and Macron to gloat about how right he is. The sense of unfinished business still looms - and Ukraine will feel betrayed to the point that pro-Russian forces might start to use it as a 'Stab in the Back' myth. Putin may still go out the window. Eventually, countries will start dealing with Russia again, when the cost of weathering public outrage is outweighed by the opportunity for profit.
-In reality, the negotiations will probably become a trade of economic access and Hague pardons, for land, war criminals and reparations, and hinge on whatever the Ukrainian government can sell to its population.
-An Atomic Peace. Putin pushes the button (Attempt to) fry Kyiv as a demonstration of power and frustration. America and NATO retaliate conventionally to prove they don't need to go nuclear to utterly fuck 'em up. Putin sits back on his nuclear arsenal, knowing that to use them would be to invite an even greater retaliation and the end of his rule. He gets launched out a window anyway because he tried to start a Global Thermonuclear War and that is very bad for the grafters. Ukraine likely gets back to its 1990's borders, but it's not a victory of any sort.
-A peace of the chirping cockroaches. Putin pushes the button and fries Kyiv as a demonstration of power and frustration. America retaliates conventionally by sledghammering Russian forces to prove it doesn't need nukes to fuck 'em up. Russia retaliates on NATO nuclearly becuase it has fuckall left and can't back down now because it will be ENDED as a world power. NATO then frobs the knob because Fuck You. Global Thermonuclear holocaust. Unlikely - but not to the point that the possibility isn't affecting decision makers.
-It is the 21st century. For more than 2 Decades Vladimir Putin has ruled immoveable from his Golden throne. He is master of Russia by the apathy of millions and the master of a millions by the blight of propeganda. He is a rotting carcass writhing with cancer, sustained by the powers of chemotherapy and kleptomania. He is the ruler of a carrion-state for whome a thousand souls are sacrificed daily so that it may never truly die. To be a Russian in such times is to be one amongst declining millions. It is to live in the corruptest and most criminal regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of democracy and truth, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of peace and prosperity, for in the grim darkness of the near future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the nations, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of a thirsting military industrial complex. The Forever War Ending, with larged parts of Eastern and Southern Ukraine left a Red-Zone moonscape for generations to come, a steadily simmering conflict fuelled by the competing military-industrial complexes of China, Europe and the US that cannot truly overmatch the other for fear of triggering the Final War ending. Taiwan still fucked because America's focused elsewhere. Whatever victory, for anyone, is Phyrric. Any recovery may take decades.
-Did anyone think we would be here at this point. Honestly?
-This was supposed to be a simmering forever war insurgency by now, not a boiling meat-grinder.
-Russia expected Ukraine to tip over like a rotten shed in a strong breeze. (They failed on Day one)
-The 'Collective West' (For want of a better term) seemed to agree, and has been steadily opening the taps as every success has proved Ukraine more and more viable.
-It's a cruelly rational way of providing support, when you think of it. Reinforce success seems to be the rule.
-The 'Perfidious Albion' has proved to be one of Ukraines greatest allies. (For now - they got their reputation for a reason)
-America has supplied a diarrhoettic flood of equipment. Most of it old. (For now - they flip on the breeze with every election)
-Germany has been roundly criticised for not opening the taps fast enough. (Perhaps unfairly, but the perception remains and will remain for a long time)
-Russian remains Ukraines biggest military donor.
-Russian tactics have not really changed since all the good trops got killed, along with those who trained them.
-They win positions simply by sending meat into them until the defenders finally tired and run out of ammunition.
-One group serves as a forlorn hope to run forward and try stun the defenders with grenades and thermobaric weapons.
-For them it's do or die - they'll be executed if they retreat
-Artillery keeps the defenders heads down.
-Small squads run forward with shovels, made of men who have been trained to do nothing but dig - hopefully, eventually, completing a new foxhole or trench that can be used as a launchpad for the next assault.
-The forlorn hope is rarely succesful. The artillery rarely has enough shells to keep the defenders heads down and the diggers make easy targets.
-Even if they are succesful, the death-rate is approaching Great War levels to do it. More often than not, everyone gets slaughtered and they try again.
-After months of pure meatgrinder, Bakhmut still has not fallen to the Russians
-Prigorzhins prize is proving Phyrric, even if it does eventually fall.
-Which it might not - his ongoing criticisms have cost him the favour of the Russian MoD.
-The ammo taps have been turned off. The Russian army has been keeping for itself.
-Is it possible they're running out of shootable ammo?
-Ukrainian soldiers are drowning in spent brass, and having to dig their trenches deeper to compensate.
-There is a real risk of running out of basic ammunition before Russia runs out of bodies.
- It takes the EU ten months to received a bullet after placing the order with the factory.
-Russian soldiers seem to have no sense of self-preservation.
-They drive over the wreckage of tanks and get killed by the same RPG gunner
-They drive around the tank that just exploded due to a mine and get killed
-They wander around, like zombies.
-They just... die
-Artillery and a willingness to just wreck the fuck out of everything remains Russia's biggest advantage.
-Sending advanced guided weapons against apartment blocks and civlian infrastructure in terror attacks.
-Because terror-bombing Civilians has proven to be so effective in the past. It just pisses them off.
-And it just expends weapons Russia may not have the ability to replace.
-At one point a nuclear missile was launched
-Whether a mistake, a decoy, or a reminder that they work isn't known.
-Fortunately, the warhead was a concrete block and not an actual nuclear weapon.
-Also - less advanced suicide drones have purchased from Iran to attack power and economic targets.
-Some loitering drones used to attack tanks.
-German-supplied air defenses are proving effective against Iranian drones.
- A big Russian Push has been expected in time for the 1st anniversary of the war.
- With what?
- Will China start to supply new toys to Russia?
- Or will they keep them for the coming invasion of Taiwan in 2025?
- There're suggestions China may be about to shit a Peace Plan out and has been talking to people.
- Any Russian offensive now will likely drown in mud. Just like last year.
- By the time they can go, they'll be facing upskilled, freshly trained and well rested Ukrainian troops with a massive equipment advantage.
- It seems Ukraine has been able to properly rotate, train and rest its units through ongoing defensive actions.
- So it turns out the last two weeks were the 'Big Push'
-EU Aid now to include ACTUAL tanks and not just IFV's.
-The Leopards have been unleased - both the original 1 (If they can find anyone who remembers how to drive them) and the more modern 2.
-Ukrainians. "It's like driving a Mercedes".
-A few Challengers are being sent from the UK
-Is it like driving a Morris Marina?
-America is to produce a special variant of the Abrams without the funky armour - because they will be attacked and destroyed and this has been a very publically videod war.
- Some new-build mobile command vehicles produced in Ukraine suggests a Big Push may be planned for when the toys arrive.
-Bradleys are already on the way
-The Germans are sending armoured bridges.
-This is going to look like 73 Easting all over again.
-Even older Western equipment is proving to be incredibly effective. Quality being a quantity all of its own.
-The question of whether fighter aircraft are to be supplied to Ukraine still remains.
-This isn't really an air war.
-Surface to air missiles have turned the skies into a no-mans land.
-President Biden Visited Kyiv to speak with President Zelensky.
-Russia informed hours before. Either to prevent an inadvertant missile attack, or daring them to try.
-In an alternate skein of History, President Trump visits Kiev to speak with President Putin.
-You know it would've worked out that way.
-Republicans predictably annoyed.
-Russia may have attempted an ICBM test
-It may have failed.
-The EU sanctions noose continues to tighten. Toilets are now among the sanctioned items list.
-The EU is slowly tightening the screws - as much as is possible with that Scutter-for-brains from Hungary spoilering it all.
-Slovakian foreign Minister tells him to fuck off.
-To Macron is a new verb in Ukraine. To take the middle route. To Vascillate. To 'Both sides have valid points'.
-EU forcing down price of Russian oil. It still has massive buying power.
-Russia thought it had a monopoly. The EU thought it had a monopsony.
-LNG tankers and a mild winter have given the EU the breathing space it needed. Fuel prices are almost back to normal.
-Something positive from Global Warming?
-The EU is back to its Herding Cats ways because - that's what it is at the end of the day.
-NATO countries are sending training cadres
-At time of writing, even Ireland is considering sending a training cadre of EoD specialists
-Homeless man in EU Parliament continues to critise the war and how the EU is prolonging it by supporting Ukraine.
-At least some Members of the EU Parliament have been funded by Russian-linked entities.
-We all know who they are
-The far right have reared their ugly head in Ireland. It's no longer limited to the idiots with anime avatars
-They've been blocking rush hour traffic in their dozens.
-Counter protests last weekend numbered in the thousands
-It's only a matter of time before they're ground beneath the wheels of history. Or an irate commuter.
-There is a serious problem finding accomodation for refugees.
-Tents have been used. Along with refit conference centres.
-The government have been slow paying hotels and resorts that've been housing them over a year.
-Par for the course. Do not attribute to malice what can be assigned to feckless incompetence.
-Belarus continues its 'Will they, wont they' approach to war
-They've said they'll join in only if they're attacked.
-Which everyone assumes will be an opening to a False flag in the near future.
-It's forcing Ukraine to guard the borders, just in case.
-Belarus was supposed to be nothing more than another Russian Republic by 2030
-Is Lukashenko the only dictator who'd rather serve in hell, than reign in the malebolges?
-Moldova has found evidence of a pro-Russian conspiracy to launch a coup and destabilise the government.
-A similar attempt in the US three years ago failed, but has left a lingering legacy and may not have been truly defeated.
-All Russia has to do is hold out until the next election.
-Russian troll farms are proving dangerous.
-Never before have people been able to take a peak at the horrors of war live and unfiltered.
-From day one, the war has been livestreamed across a thousand tik-toks. The first attacks were reported as traffic jams on google maps.
-One Russian Soldier is shot to death on the shitter. His wish for a magazine is answered in the cruellest way possible.
-A squad of Russians try to surrender. The last one has second thoughts and comes out fighting. He gets himself and his friends killed.
-One Ukrainian soldier in a trench. Fights like a CoD protagonist, downing a tank(fite-me) and half a dozen cannon-fodder mercenaries while his scared-stiff mate feeds him reloaded weapons from the safety of cover.
-Russian soldier kicked out of trenches. Ukrainian drone leads him to safety. His former friends get shelled.
-Russians soldiers writhing in agony drown face down in the slime at the bottom of their trench, too wounded to roll over and save themselves.
-So many crawling injured.
-Bakhmut looks like World War 1, sepia-toned with mud. And bodies.
-Russia insists American claims of crimes against Humanity are only meant to demonise it.
-With over 30,000 documented incidents of Russian warcrimes. If you didn't want to be demonised as a war criminal you shouldn't have done the war crimes.
-Wagner troopers may be surprised to find that - as mercenaries - technically they have minimal protections under the laws of war.
-Untangling this may keep the lads at The Hague employed for decades to come.
-Dail Eireann is hosting an exhibition of photographs taken in Bucha by Reuters journalists.
-School tours visit the building daily.
---------------------------------
What does endgame look like?
-A Maximal Ukraine victory involves a restoration of the former borders - from the 1990's. This may be unlikely, but not impossible. This'll put the bear back in its box for some time. Russia is ended as a world power. Putin likely goes out the window. China's a little more concerned about it's Taiwan plans. The EU can act smug. Western Weapon sales are through the roof. This may onky be likely if it gets done before America changes presidents. Russia will not be a pleasant place to live, and being Russian in 2025 will be something like being German in 1925.
-A Maximal Russian victory would've been everything falling over after three days and Europe going 'Fuck it'. This is no longer possible.
- A 'Tolerable' Russian Victory might be freezing the lines as they are today and drawing a new boarder. Wonder if this is what the Chinese peace plan is. The EU will look weak. America will just look flakey - especially if this happens after a change in Presidents. China's standing in the world goes up. Taiwan's about to get fucked. Putin secures his position. Probably unlikely. (An armistice for ten years ending)
- An unpallatable peace for all, might be the 2014 borders. Once wonders if this is where western support would begin to peter out. This might also be the Chinese plan Everyone has bled white, nothing has been gained. Politicians everywhere get crucified over the pointlessness of it all. All the material sent to war. All the money. All the bodies. Why did anyone bother? Unfinished business still lingers. China still invades Taiwan. Putin likely goes out the window and gets replaced by a loon. (Another armistice for ten years ending.)
- An imposed Ukrainian victory might be something between the 2014 borders and the original border. Maybe loosing Crimea or something. It's a dissatisfactory ending, which may allow Putin to retain some face, and Europe to retain some face and everyone to be glad that we now have peace in our time and Macron to gloat about how right he is. The sense of unfinished business still looms - and Ukraine will feel betrayed to the point that pro-Russian forces might start to use it as a 'Stab in the Back' myth. Putin may still go out the window. Eventually, countries will start dealing with Russia again, when the cost of weathering public outrage is outweighed by the opportunity for profit.
-In reality, the negotiations will probably become a trade of economic access and Hague pardons, for land, war criminals and reparations, and hinge on whatever the Ukrainian government can sell to its population.
-An Atomic Peace. Putin pushes the button (Attempt to) fry Kyiv as a demonstration of power and frustration. America and NATO retaliate conventionally to prove they don't need to go nuclear to utterly fuck 'em up. Putin sits back on his nuclear arsenal, knowing that to use them would be to invite an even greater retaliation and the end of his rule. He gets launched out a window anyway because he tried to start a Global Thermonuclear War and that is very bad for the grafters. Ukraine likely gets back to its 1990's borders, but it's not a victory of any sort.
-A peace of the chirping cockroaches. Putin pushes the button and fries Kyiv as a demonstration of power and frustration. America retaliates conventionally by sledghammering Russian forces to prove it doesn't need nukes to fuck 'em up. Russia retaliates on NATO nuclearly becuase it has fuckall left and can't back down now because it will be ENDED as a world power. NATO then frobs the knob because Fuck You. Global Thermonuclear holocaust. Unlikely - but not to the point that the possibility isn't affecting decision makers.
-It is the 21st century. For more than 2 Decades Vladimir Putin has ruled immoveable from his Golden throne. He is master of Russia by the apathy of millions and the master of a millions by the blight of propeganda. He is a rotting carcass writhing with cancer, sustained by the powers of chemotherapy and kleptomania. He is the ruler of a carrion-state for whome a thousand souls are sacrificed daily so that it may never truly die. To be a Russian in such times is to be one amongst declining millions. It is to live in the corruptest and most criminal regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of democracy and truth, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of peace and prosperity, for in the grim darkness of the near future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the nations, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of a thirsting military industrial complex. The Forever War Ending, with larged parts of Eastern and Southern Ukraine left a Red-Zone moonscape for generations to come, a steadily simmering conflict fuelled by the competing military-industrial complexes of China, Europe and the US that cannot truly overmatch the other for fear of triggering the Final War ending. Taiwan still fucked because America's focused elsewhere. Whatever victory, for anyone, is Phyrric. Any recovery may take decades.
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.