“Life in Russia is always difficult.”

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, wisdom, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 062022
 

The hope among many is that the sanctions on Russia will cause the Russian people, or business class, or military, or *somebody* to pull their thumbs out and give Putin the boot. And it’s starting to look like those sanctions are really making a mess of sizable chunks of the Russian economy and daily life. but… as has been noted here and elsewhere, many, MANY times… Russians are kinda used to trouble. No boom today. boom tomorrow. Always boom tomorrow. Consequently, if the Russian government can adequately spin this mess as being the fault of EEEEVIL westerners, rather than their our bad behavior, chances are pretty good that the Russian people will simply muddle through as they’ve always done. The effects of sanctions are hardly likely to make things worse in Russia than they were during the Soviet years, at leas after the initial confusion settles down, and Russians lived under communism for 70 years without overthrowing their dictators.

Some relevant videos on the subject. The first one is the source of the title of the post:

The next one, if the translation is to be believed (I don’t speak Russian beyond “blyat” and “suka,” so for all I know they’re actually debating the merits of Cardi B vs. Justin Bieber), is some rather brave soul doing vox pop in Russia, showing locals photos of the attacks in Ukraine. A distressing number think – or at least express – that Putin is doing the right thing. Disturbing that the dangerhaired girl is on the side of right and reason here…

 Posted by at 5:29 pm

Pretty sure this is part of why Putin chose *now*…

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, Worldwreckers, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 042022
 

And this was *Texas.*

How much did Mom, Dad and the taxpayers have to pay to send these lunatics to university?

An explanation of this extrusion of Clown World into reality:

 

 Posted by at 8:58 pm

Yup, been there

 AARRRGH, humor, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 042022
 

 

I feel like that now. An eBay auction for a B-70 document I’d hoped to win with an initial bid of something like $36 just went for nearly $700. *My* $700 as it turns out. Even though it was crowdfunded, those last few seconds of the auction were stress inducing.

 Posted by at 10:41 am

WTF: Russians reportedly shelling a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., news, nukes, politics, russian empire, Worldwreckers, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 032022
 

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant on fire after Russian attack

A spokesman for Europe’s largest nuclear plant says the facility is on fire after Russia attacked the power station in the southern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar.

“We demand that they stop the heavy weapons fire,” Andriy Tuz, spokesperson for the plant in Enerhodar, said in a video posted on Telegram. “There is a real threat of nuclear danger in the biggest atomic energy station in Europe.” Tuz told Ukrainian television that it is urgent to stop the fighting to put out the flames.

From the AP:

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant on fire after shelling

Firefighters cannot get near the fire because they are being shot at, Tuz said.

A government official told The Associated Press that elevated levels of radiation were detected near the site of the plant, which provides about 25% of Ukraine’s power generation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been publicly released.

This map might prove useful:

https://www.windfinder.com/#5/47.0252/47.3730

Shows current wind directions. At the moment, the winds in the region of the reactor under attack are circling around a region in north-eastern Ukraine, then seemingly drifting south-east over Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran. If the reactor pops, the Caspian Sea is likely to get trashed. Tomorrow the wins is to be more generally easterly, but Saturday the wind will come down from the north and then hang a right straight over Greece. From then on it looks like the region of Greece and Turkey will get a constant flow from the area of the reactor.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 7:06 pm

And there’s confirmation that the Russians trashed the Mriya

 AARRRGH, aircraft, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., history, news, politics, russian empire, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 032022
 

UPDATE: A better look, courtesy Russian state TV:

—————

Here it is, on fire. You can see the blue, yellow and white nose laying cocked at an angle.

Good job on deNazyfying the Antonov 225. Bah.

 Posted by at 4:19 pm

“Layman’s Terms”

 AARRRGH, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 032022
 

“Ukraine is a country…”

One can argue whether VP Harris is a moron or not. But it’s pretty clear that she thinks that the people listening to her are at the very least monstrously ignorant. Of course, the possibility exists that she may be right: the interviewers seem thrilled to have her, and thus the listeners stand a fair chance of being like-minded; to be thrilled to be graced with the presence or “wisdom” of anyone from this Administration would be indicative of ignorance at the very least.

 

The full interview, if you want to subject yourself to it:

 Posted by at 12:06 pm

“And it exploded”

 AARRRGH, awesomeness, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, weapons, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 022022
 

Based on the timing, seems like they were about 1.7 miles from the second detonation. That kind of light from that far away probably indicates a pretty sporty explosion… thermobaric bomb of great magnitude, or a hit on an ammo dump. One person suggests the first explosion was nuclear; I would *guess* that the yellow-orange nature of the flash would argue almost immediately for a chemical explosion. A nuclear one – at least one measured in the kiloton range and beyond – should be white, perhaps blue-tinged, like a welding arc. If you see *that* kind of flash light up the sky… well, go perpendicular to the wind, then turn into the wind and get out of the fallout zone.

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 11:42 pm

SLS, Orion: Nope. We can’t afford them.

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., I'm from the government, Meh., news, projects, rockets, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Mar 022022
 

Finally, we know production costs for SLS and Orion, and they’re wild

…the operational costs alone for a single Artemis launch—for just the rocket, Orion spacecraft, and ground systems—will total $4.1 billion.

…$2.2 billion to build a single SLS rocket, $568 million for ground systems, $1 billion for an Orion spacecraft, and $300 million to the European Space Agency for Orion’s Service Module.

…NASA will spend $93 billion from 2012 to 2025 on the Artemis program.

Gosh, If Only there was some alternative launch vehicle program that we could turn to that could potentially launch at a rate higher than once a year and at vastly lower cost…

 Posted by at 7:41 pm
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