I’ve always figured that a Molotov cocktail would be minimally useful against an armored vehicle. Sure, it’s liquid fire, but it’s not that much when you consider it’s spread over perhaps several square years of several inches of steel armor.
But then there’ s *this:*
Reasonably certain it got a little warm in there.
UPDATE: Original video removed for some reason. Why? Dunno. One possibility: like so many videos and photos… *maybe* it’s not actually from the current conflict, but from something else. Hard to tell. However, here’s a copy:
So what do you do when the initial blasts of World War III (technically, World War V… WWIII being the Cold War, WWIV being the war with the Jihadis) kick off on the other side of the planet and there’s nothing you can do about it one way or the other? Memes.
Air Traffic Control: Avoid the area – there's a war on! Air India: LEEEEEROOOOYYYYY JEEEENKINNNNS!!! pic.twitter.com/VaBbgvxEDs
Given current events, perhaps buying model kits is not the top priority… but if it *is,* now might be the time (if it’s not already too late). In recent years, Russian and Ukrainian model kit companies have done a fine job of producing unusual subjects and high quality kits, and sometimes both at the same time… but now, it’s safe to assume that for the time being nothing will be coming out of Ukraine, and the only things coming out of Russia will be via expensive back channels.
Examples available from Amazon (remember, if you buy *anything* after going through these links, I’ll get a pittance, so if you want to support this blog, here’s a way to do it):
Ukranian company “Mikro-Mir” produced a surprising range of submarine model kits in 1/350 scale, 1/144 scale and even 1/35 scale. You can click on this link to see the wider subjects, or here are a few specific kits that might be of interest (just text links to save space; as of this typing, they are listed as available):
A Russian kit company with a really good reputation for quality is Zvezda Models, which has a wide range of armor and aircraft, military and civilian. Really far too many to link to, but here are a few of interest:
Also Ukrainian is the company Amodel. They have a bunch of different aircraft kits, but these two might be of particular interest:
And under the circumstances, the German Revell AN-225 might be of interest, because that plane, even if at this very moment it’s intact, is almost certainly doomed. If fighting doesn’t damage/destroy it, when the Russians are eventually driven out they will either steal the plane or wreck it.
You know what the biggest roadblocks to converting to this or that religion usually are? The people pushing that religion the hardest. Take this Very Special Episode for example:
So I tried to log it to make another post, and was met with not a login page, but a string of error messages. Yet another call to tech support… and it seemed to clear up, kinda randomly.
Joy.
So, as always, if the blog vanishes *again,* I ain’t dead, it’s just technomages screwing with the machine spirit. If the blog vanishes for more than a short time in the future, check my (gah) Twitter for any updates or complaints or whines.
A few days ago Amazon plopped one of the most cringe-worthy videos I’ve ever seen onto YouTube. It *claimed* to be a video of four “superfans” of The Lord of the Rings reacting to the new trailer for “The Rings of Power,” and it was just astonishingly painful to watch. Basically they are everything wrong with modern woke corporate “fandom,” demonstrating a lack of understanding just what the frak Tolkein was on about in favor of unhinged “influencer” nonsense. These four Brits exemplify the soy-boy, alphabet-people hipster cliches, with one “guy” hoping that Sauron will appear in the series and be “hot” so he can dream about “fixing him.” You can *smell* their parents disappointment through the screen.
If you *must* watch it, here is:
Lest you think that Amazon UK just happened to randomly stumble across the four least credible, least serious fans of Tolkein, it turns out that Amazon did the same nonsense for several other countries. The *same* nonsense.
Despite the scripted, woke nature of this “round table” of genetic defectives, some important truths slipped out. The four UK “superfans” consist of one seemingly ethnically British person and three non-ethnic-Brits; a seemingly unlikely ratio in the land of JRR Tolkein. But the point is raised that they are *thrilled* to finally be “represented” in the Tolkein universe. And yet… they claim to have been fans *before* this series. Thus they were fans of white dwarves and white elves and white hobbit, as Tolkein described them. They didn’t actually need “representation” to be fans. They were fans (if they really were fans, and not just paid actors) of the story, characters and world that Tolkein created. They weren’t fans of the story, characters and world created by an Amazon algorithm.
Given the scripted nature of this atrocity, this is how Amazon wants to portray their little project. It’s not an accident. This is what Amazon thinks of Tolkein, his works and those who have actually been fans of them for years and decades.
If Amazon really wanted to produce a quality product that respected Tolkein and the fandom, they’d have a “roundtable” with acknowledged scholars and long-term fans. This group of people would, theoretically, be able to say “why, yes, it looks like it really respects Tolkein and I approve.” The fact that Amazon has no such offering tells you a lot.
Shrug.
Maybe in fifteen, twenty years, Elon Musk will have bought the rights to LotR and the Silmarillion, and will produce a *proper* multi-year projects covering the First and Second Ages. We can only hope, cuz this thing fills me with STD-levels of basement-level expectations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Donetsk and Luhansk, two territories in Ukraine on which Russia has laid claim for years. He did so under the guise of “peacekeeping,” even as he made clear that he did not accept the basic premise of Ukrainian sovereignty.
