That is one *hell* of a freeze-frame: UPDATED

 AARRRGH, awesomeness, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire  No Responses »
May 012022
 

Horror footage shows moment Chechen commander killed while boasting about victories

He’s jabbering away, filming himself with his cell phone …

… when something comes zipping in and explodes right next to him. The moment of the explosion is not captured well, as you would expect with a millisecond-moment on a crappy cell phone… but what is caught – badly focused, motion-blurred, jarred, etc. – looks like we’re seeing this guys soul being sent directly to Hell:

Neato. A Chechen fighting for Russia to invade another country? Hell would seem an appropriate destination.

Note: I saw the video yesterday, but durned if I can find it again. Oh well.

UPDATE: link to the video after the break. I have also put three frames there… “normal,” “uh-oh” and “transporter malfunction.” Seriously: modern pseudo-Star Trek *loves* horrible things and horrible people; I’m surprised I haven’t seen horrible transporter screwups. If they decide to do such a thing, that third frame could serve as a template. A disturbing template.

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 Posted by at 7:11 pm

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 awesomeness, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., news, politics, russian empire, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
May 012022
 

Russians plunder $5M farm vehicles from Ukraine – to find they’ve been remotely disabled

Nothing locks up like a stolen $300,000 John Deere combine shipped by Russian invaders to Chechnya.

What would be best would be if these stolen vehicles could go on some sort of Killdozer rampage. Or just burn themselves up. But turning themselves into bricks is a nice start. Sure, the thieves will simply take them to a chop shop and make some money on the spare parts (something Russian farmers are going to need since doubtless John Deere customer support is likely thin on the ground in Russia these days), but they won’t do near as well as if they’d had functional equipment.

Maybe don’t steal things.

 Posted by at 6:23 pm

Even the little drones can do some damage

 aircraft, awesomeness, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 302022
 

This sort of thing is not new… I recall seeing drones like this being used like this in the middle east a few years ago. I imagine China is thrilled that they are unwittingly serving as arms dealers for the forces opposing Russia… and giving ideas to those who may soon have to face Chinese forces.

Also notice: that looked like it was, before the invasion, a pretty nice house. Russia will have one *hell* of a reconstruction bill when all this is done.

 

I suspect the bomb that was dropped was a fairly simple explosive, basically a hand grenade or small mortar round.For anti-infantry purposes, this works: the video shows one guy likely killed, another guy crawling away and then stopping, either injured or dead. What you *want* is a weapon that injures as many as possible, but not necessarily kills. The dead are dead… but the injured are costly liabilities, requiring resources and personnel to take care of.

But imagine if it was a shaped-charge warhead, perhaps taken from an RPG… and smuggled into a port city such as Sevastopol where cruise missiles are being loaded onto submarines. Poke a few holes in a surfaced and docked sub and boy, you might really make a mess. If you can penetrate the torpedo compartment (honestly, I suspect it would take a fairly massive warhead to do that, but who knows) or zap a cruise missile… scratch one sub, and block one dock.

 

An armor-penetrating bomb would be useful for taking out tanks like this one that spent a good long while destroying a building that apparently had a number of civilians sheltering in the basement:

 Posted by at 6:46 pm

China Wackiness

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 302022
 

The news out of China, in particular Shanghai, is just bizarre. The governments extraordinarily draconian lockdown just doesn’t make sense on the face of it. It seems nuts. But the video below presents a few theories that *do* make it make a bit of sense. The first is that Xi is simply stubborn, and that saving face – either of the man himself or of The Party – trumps reason. But the last theory is the most disturbing… and it seems pretty believable: the havoc and despair produced by these policies is intentional because it’s a test. If China invades Taiwan like Russia invaded Ukraine, the worlds response would be similar: an economic lockdown of China. How would China’s cities respond to suddenly no longer having income? When all the factories shut down and nobody is working, how bad will it have to get before the citizens rise up or die en masse? China is also hoarding food supplies as if they are preparing for something major.

Some people wonder why the West should give a damn about Ukraine. *This* is part of the reason why: if large dictatorships see that they can invade and conquer without meaningful pushback, they’ll do it again and again until they *do* get pushback.

 Posted by at 3:11 am

Battle Buggies

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, youtube  No Responses »
Apr 292022
 

The best of the Russian military seem to be getting smacked about by *farm* equipment. I saw these sort of vehicles all over rural Utah; they are great for tooling around farms, ranches, small towns. And now it seems like they’re great for mounting smallish anti-tank missile launchers and crew served machine guns and harassing million-dollar main battle tanks.

Ukrainian Battle Buggies Are Out To Kill Russian Tanks

They’re cheap, fast, maneuverable, cheap, maintainable/repairable and cheap. Being small, they’re probably a *little* hard to hit. And I’ve little doubt that rural Ukraine is as filled with them as rural Utah is.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:50 pm

WalMart scares Brit Journalist

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., humor, news, politics, weapons  No Responses »
Apr 292022
 

The uncomfortably-named “Padraig Belton” who works for the BBC came to the US and forgot that the US doesn’t have British power outlets, so he went to WalMart. He reported on twitter his findings.

The whole thread is just filled with comedy gold.

There are times when I really, REALLY miss Utah. Where the local grocery store sold ammo and magazines, but if I wanted pistols, shotguns and AR-15s I’d have to walk all the way next door to the Ace Hardware.

 Posted by at 10:10 am

Father of the year: runner-up

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., politics  No Responses »
Apr 272022
 

I wanted my son to reject masculine stereotypes. Then he fell in love with tractors

What kind of father wants his son to reject masculinity? A bad one. But at least in this case this weak man bends to his childs wishes and lets his son actually be a boy. This kid has an uphill battle to reach manhood with a father who is as strong as a damp Kleenex. The kid will very likely begin to assert his own power at some point, and if his parents aren’t able to impart the manly virtue of self control, we might wind up with yet another anti-social monster.

 

 

 Posted by at 11:45 pm

Ghostbusters 2016 post mortem

 AARRRGH, art, Forward!, Gah., history, humor, politics, science fiction, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 272022
 

Ghostbusters 2016 is a terrible film. Part of that is of course the toxic nature of the people responsible for it, but the film itself is crap regardless of the culture-eroding behavior of those responsible. If the universe was a good and just place, GB16 would be utterly forgotten by now… but here we are, in a world filled with famine and disease and earthquakes and Bernie Bros, so GB16 remains a blight on the ass of society. Fortunately, when it is discussed these days, it is largely discussed in terms of just how awful it is and what makes it awful. The following two-part video does a good job of breaking down the terrible decisions that led to that cinematic trainwreck. It is vastly more entertaining than the movie itself.

 Posted by at 3:13 pm
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