Ukrainian pro-Putin political parties suspended

 blather, Crazy, Forward!, history, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire  No Responses »
Mar 202022
 

Ukraine suspends 11 political parties with links to Russia

I’ve seen the usual suspects claiming that the fact that Zelenskiy suspended parties that support the destruction of Ukraine means he’s a fascist. Let’s look at a little bit of history. Prior to World War II, there was a political party in Britain called the “British Union of Fascists.” What happened when war broke out between fascist Germany and democratic Britain? Britain banned the BUF in 1940 and interred some 700 or more of it’s officials for the duration of the war. Was Churchill a fascist? Nope. Kind of a ruthless bastard to be sure, but hardly a fascist. When your nation is being attacked by a more powerful enemy, you fight them. And that means fighting their supporters within your own borders. During the Cold War, the United States – which is pretty unique in its determination to not ban much of *any* political party – still sicced the FBI on our own commies… and rightly so.

I’ve seen some commentator claim that Zelenskiy has banned all opposition parties. Untrue: unlike the US, where you’ve got the DemRep uniparty and virtually nothing else of any real consequence, Ukraine has a *lot* of parties. See the list on Wikipedia. The only ones that got banned are the pro-Russian parties. For a nation under martial law currently being ground underfoot by a massively larger military constantly carrying out war crime after war crime, this is a perfectly reasonable response to the situation. Is it the *American* response? No. The US did not ban the Commies during the Cold War; did not ban the fascists during WWII (they, unlike the commies, had the good graces to evaporate on their own when war broke out); the US didn’t even ban the Democrats when they started a Civil War. But everyone who is not the US  is not a fascist, despite what the lefties and the Putinfluffers will try to lead you to believe.

If the Cold War had gone differently, and “Red Dawn” or something like it had come to pass, it’s interesting to contemplate whether the US would have banned the communists.

 Posted by at 1:59 pm

The great thing about fascists…

 Crazy, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 182022
 

… is that they’re *efficient.* Witness Russian cops sweep in to take out opinions they don’t like… and opinions they think they might not like if allowed to be expressed.

This is so much like a Monty Python skit that I kinda wonder if maybe it is some sort of skit. But if so, it seems to be a pretty substantial one, with a large cast. The sign the first woman holds up says “two words.” Which I gather is an allusion to “no war,” sort of a Let’s Go Brandon euphemism that clearly doesn’t get past the censors over there.

 Posted by at 9:05 am

Purity of Essence

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., news, politics, russian empire, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 182022
 

Oh yeah. This is looking up.

Putin chillingly calls for ‘self-purification’ of Russia from ‘scum and traitors’

Going this far off the rails seems to indicate that the war isn’t exactly going to Putins plans. Yammering on about phantom Nazis and the like indicate an Antifa-like divorce from reality, which is just *awesome* to contemplate considering he’s got access to thousands of nukes.

 

 Posted by at 1:19 am

Z tank goes kerblooey

 awesomeness, Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., news, russian empire, weapons, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 162022
 

A remarkable video depicting the last moments of Russian tank, as seen from an overhead drone. The tank looks to take several anti-tank rockets… probably smaller, short-range types, but they eventually get the job done. It gets a track damaged by a hit, and as it backs up it sheds the track; one crewman (looks like the driver) escapes, rolls off the front and runs away. But he doesn’t get far before an exterior explosion (mortar?) knocks him down and sets him crawling. A few seconds later, some *stuff* comes flying into view and crashes down onto the road; at first I thought it was a body, but on review it just looks like… well, stuff. The camera switches view and it looks like there might have been a second tank to get trashed not far away, perhaps it exploded and tossed bits of junk into the earlier view. No infantry support is in evidence. The operation seems to be run on Stupid Mode.

This Special Military Operation sure seems to have one hell of  pricetag.

 Posted by at 4:27 pm

Gunsgunsguns

 Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, weapons, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 152022
 

Brandon Herrara goes through some of the firearms of the current conflict. Unsurprisingly, the Ukrainians are using some odd and presumably obsolete weapons; this should be expected from a small military being steamrolled. BUT: there are Russians equipped with 19th-century-designed Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifles. They are equipped with modern rifles set up for optics, but they don’t seem to actually *have* optics. If I was a Russian soldier, I’d be a little ticked off to be sent into battle with an incomplete firearm; I’d be a *lot* ticked off to be sent into battle with a bolt action rifle. Ukrainian soldiers on the whole seem better equipped than the Russians.

 

And Forgotten Weapons comments on a prior video…

 Posted by at 4:02 pm

Auto mechanics and convoys

 AARRRGH, awesomeness, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., news, politics, russian empire, weapons, wisdom, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 152022
 

Some videos of interest. First: Ukrainian auto mechanics are busy at work converting captured heavy machine guns from Russian armored vehicles into hand-held weapons to turn back onto the Russians:

Second, a video showing trashed Russian vehicles. *Lots* of trashed Russian vehicles. Turns out lining up your vehicles on roads is sometimes a terminally bad idea. And a lot of armored vehicles in a town, destroyed or abandoned.

 

And a tank battle in an urban environment without infantry support. The tank you see here is close enough to the cameraman that he could’ve just *walked* up to it and poured napalm onto it. If he’d had *any* sort of rocket propelled grenade or LAW he could have shot from the hip and bullseye’d that tank and turned it into a pyre. One wonders if the video cut off when it did because he reached for his handy anti-tank weapon for an *easy* kill.

I know a lot of people think that Putin is playing some 4D chess thing here, leading the Ukrainians into a false sense of hope. Well, maybe…  but if so, he’s taking his sweet time on springing the trap and in the mean time he’s squandering a hell of a lot of Russian lives with *stupid* tactics.  One would think that if these sort of videos were widely disseminated among the Russian populace, they’d be pissed off enough to actually do something. It would surprise me exactly none at all if the Russian military has lost more soldiers in the last two weeks in Ukraine than the United States military lost in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last twenty years.

 Posted by at 3:38 pm

Voltaire

 blather, Forward!, history, Hmm..., politics, russian empire, wisdom, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 152022
 

A quote has been floating around for a while, attributed to Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities.” Like a lot of pithy quotes attributed to historical figures, it’s close, but not quite right. The original line in French is:

“Certainement qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde, est en droit de vous rendre injuste.”

This was in “Collection des lettres sur les miracles” published in 1767, available to view on Google Books.  Google Translate renders the line as:

“Certainly who has the right to make you absurd has the right to make you unjust.”

Close, but not exactly the same. But the meaning is probably pretty much spot-on. A history of the quote and it’s slow mutation is HERE. Why do I bring it up now? Well, seems relevant on a number of fronts:

1) If you as a Russian soldier believe Putins nonsense about Ukraine developing bioweapons to wipe out the Russian people, he can get you to wipe out the nation of Ukraine.

2) If you can be made to believe that a .223 is a “high power rifle” round, or that a standard capacity magazine is  “high capacity magazine,” or that rifles in any way pose some terrible threat to society, then you can be made to support laws that empower tyrants, imprison regular folks and embolden violent criminals.

3) If you as a Star trek fan can be made to believe that Michael Burnham is a good character, that Star Trek Discovery is a well-written show, then you can be made to believe that Star Trek is garbage (see also Ghostbusters 2016, Disney Star Wars, and the forthcoming Amazon “Lord of the Rings” fan fiction), and accept garbage shows with garbage messages as quality worth emulating.

4) If you as an English person can be made to believe the England has always been highly multi-ethnic, or if you as a Scandianvian person can be made to believe that the Vikings/Norse were populated with Africans and that Jarl Haakon was a black woman, or if you as an American can be made to believe that Westerns have nothing to teach us but that Americans are awful people, then you can be made to tear your own cultures down and replace them with… what?

The less said about “Drag Queen Story Hour,” the better… and yet, wholly relevant to this quote.

 Posted by at 1:03 pm

Expanding on an idea

 art, blather, Hmm..., humor, models, news, politics, russian empire, youtube  No Responses »
Mar 142022
 

NOTE: I suspect the idea I had that I lay out below is not exclusive to me. I would hope that those who could make this sort of thing happen are already working on it. But just in case I somehow dreamed up something new, I present the following…

– – – –

Because why not, here’s an open suggestion regarding an idea from yesterday about Ukrainian model kits. As I said, I’d plunk down money I don’t need to to buy kits depicting scenes of Ukrainian farmers trundling off with Russian armor… assuming those kits were *Ukrainian* kits.

Right now, and likely for the foreseeable future, though, Ukrainian model kit companies are unlikely to be in any sort of position to do any such thing. In contrast, European, American and Japanese companies *are.* So… how about this: a company like, say, Revell, Monogram, Tamiya, *somebody,* that is in a good situation gets in touch with whatever they can of a Ukrainian company such as ICM, and they collaborate in whatever capacity they can. Revell gets going on setting up the molds and the initial production; the kits are sold as a joint venture until such time as the kit makes back whatever Revell spent, and then the following proceeds go to ICM. And when the nonsense is over and ICM can return to functionality, the molds are transferred to ICM in Ukraine. This would not be done to enrich Revell, but also not to drain their wallets; even if they don’t make a dime from the venture, even if they lose some, it should be good PR.

A secondary issue would be the rights involved. One of my favorite videos that I posted yesterday shows two John Deere tractors hauling off a Tor anti-aircraft armored vehicle. I suspect that John Deere would be amenable to having such a kit manufactured, if one isn’t already available of the tractors shown. As for the Russian tank, if someone complains about intellectual property, now would be the time to tell them to go ᛖᚪᛏ ᚪ ᛒᚪᚷ ᚩᚠ ᛞᛁᛣᚳᛋ, Ivan; Russia has declared that it’s ok to steal the IP from other countries, so *yours* is now fair game.

Russia Legalizes Video Game Piracy, and More

It so happens that I live within just a few miles – heck, within the blast radius of a Russian nuke – from John Deere headquarters.

More videos of interest (who could have ever guessed that TikTok would be useful?):

@fuzzysnakebee

#ukraine #donbas #Crimea #russia #kyiv #farmer #slavaukraine #istandwithukraine🇺🇦

♬ chrisklemens youre coming home with me – Chris Klemens

@primeministersimon

Another farmer takes yet another tank hostage #ukraine #russia #putin #tank #farmer #war

♬ original sound – Simoncali

And this one. Two bits of video, the first I’ve seen before, the second I haven’t; I don’t know what the witnesses are saying, but I love *how* they’re saying it:

@oldrowofficial

SOME FARMER JUST STOLE A TANK IN UKRAINE LMAOOOOOOOOO 😂😂😂 #ukraine #fyp #russia

♬ original sound – Old Row

 

 

 Posted by at 2:16 pm
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