If UKR breaks through and reaches the Sea of Azov then Crimea rapidly becomes indefensible. The Kerch bridge would be in range for bombardment and would quickly be made unusuable. Russia would have to ferry in supplies by sea and, long term, Crimeas water supplies were cut off when the Russians blew the damn on the reservoir that supplies it.
To end a war, both sides need to feel that concluding the conflict is preferable to pushing forward. That presents, in the Ukrainian context, a very high bar for the war’s conclusion:
-The Ukrainians are profoundly motivated to prosecute the war. They wish to liberate the rest of their territory, they generally feel they have “right” on their side and their military strength is increasing as time marches on and aid from the west continues to flow in. Moreover, they are, slowly, retaking territory from the Russians. They are not motivated to stop at this point.
-The Russians are not at all motivated to prosecute the war but, in the Russian context, the decision making lies in Putin’s hands and Putin is profoundly motivated to continue it because ending it in a manner that appears as a loss to his countrymen could very well end his grasp on power. Putin is neither young nor healthy so the fallout of this conflict will, most likely, be the defining element of his legacy. Russia has obliterated its conventional military strength and long-term economic prospects on the farmlands of Ukraine. Putin clearly doesn’t think that the terrain and peoples he’s seized merits what his country has paid for it (he’d be right) and he knows that the accounting will occur once the war ends. So, he puts off the end of the war and hopes he can pour enough blood into the conflict to prologue it beyond the wests patience to support the Ukrainians which, he tells himself, is the only reason the Ukrainians haven’t capitulated to him outright.
The war continues because neither side is willing to let it end. The Ukrainians because they cannot countenance letting it end like this and because they believe they can win- Putin because he likely cannot survive letting it end like this and because enduring is his only remaining play. We, in the West, could end it, only in theory, by ending all support for Ukraine but Russia is so mauled now that, even if we cut the Ukrainians off, the likely outcome would be an incredibly grinding, brutal conflict that’d make the current one look like child’s play.
I suppose it depends on what one means when one says "winning". Was Russia "Winning" when it invaded Ukraine and was securing territory and communities while the Ukrainians fought a rearguard action? If they were winning at that time then, by that same definition, Ukraine is "winning" now as it is re-securing territory and it is the Russians who are fighting and falling back.
I'm old enough to remember the kind of harassment and threats that the right used to be able to throw around en masse against every flavor of the LGBT+ skittles jar with either the tacit approval or indifference of the majority of the population. What the right can muster up now is a quivering feeble shadow of that former power. But, on the plus side, they have social media to amplify every outrage.
The tiny size of the Trans population is part of its appeal. The right discovered, to their horror, that gays were too numerous and too advantageously scattered through the population to make good scapegoats once they came out of the closet en masse. Trans is an easier target and is demographically much less likely to be related to the angry old men and frightened old ladies who fund their campaigns.
Yes, and it bears noting that no one hates the idea of defunding the police more than the minority residents of crime impacted communities. When we well meaning liberals talk about ending prison and law enforcement as we know it, resident of those communities don't think for even an instant that comfortable liberals will be accepting their neighborhoods overflowing with crime and homeless encampments.
Their coalition is somewhat less fractured and very geographically well positioned. If the left aped the GOP's tactics the GOP would have a permanent super majority.
Well that's heresy Saul! It is left identarian cannon that hyper liberal identity politics is favored by minority groups more than anyone else. The idea that identarian nostrums are principally the domain of white liberals would send Robin Diangelo straight to her fainting couch.
But, yeah, I suspect most interest groups across the electorate wish they could just ditch their squish fellow travellers and win an overwhelming electoral victory based on adhering strenuously to their first principles. They never could, probably never will, be able to.
It's not a threat. But it's a useful distraction that finds cachet with an influenceable voter pool and that the left has not yet embraced an answer to it that disarms it with said voter pool.
I mean it's already a well known fact that a very large portion of active voters simply vote party line and pay little more attention to politics than that. That is, in fact, one of the selling points of parties. Dislodging those voters takes a lot. More, I suspect, than it takes to activate non-voters into voting against/for a party. I don't see much point in decrying it.
I didn't expect much from the debate but a collection of movement in polls that doesn't even exceed the margin of error managed to go under my already low bar of expectation.
That Douthat piece rankled me a bit because he writes it as if he thinks that anyone on the Democratic side of the partisan gulf has any power at all to influence when the fishing trial date is set. IANAL but my understanding is none of them do. So a mistake by whom?
The interesting thing about this is if Trump is the nominee and he loses even 10% of the right wing vote then he's cooked. Not only cooked but in near landslide loss territory unless the lost votes end up concentrated in urban areas.
Don't forget the pattern recognition bias in evolution. We're pattern finding biased animals. Even when our pattern recognizing ancestors were wrong about the rustling leaves or oddly moving grass all they suffered was a momentary adrenaline spike and looking foolish. All our distance ancestors (or rather the unsuccessful siblings of our actual ancestors) who didn't pattern recognize got eaten by predators.
The upside: intuition, discovery, nice religion and their ilk.
The downside: bad religion, conspiracy theories and their ilk.
Hmmm I don't know that I have an escapade story but I'm an import so I have only had a dozen fairs or so. Younger me didn't properly appreciate the state fair.
But I heartily approve of your excellent taste in fairs.
Very slightly spoilerish:
A) It’s enormously lower stakes than cultist simulator. In the former you’re an ambitious aspirant seeking to accrue power and storm the gates of the heavens itself with hidden lore and relics of power. In Book of Hours you’re not quite a state functionary but you’re basically an NGO employee and, while you deal in hidden lore and relics of power your goal is to catalogue and store them, and occasionally helpfully reference them for various visitors.
B) It’s deliciously charming and clunkily obtuse. It has that same “discover the mechanic” element as Cultist Simulator but you’re also basically inheriting the sprawling estate that is a legacy of what can only be described as a long line of occult hoarders. The estate is huge, every room is packed full of… stuff… and all the stuff can be examined to get, at a minimum, juicy fun tidbits of lore and, sometimes, powerful repeatable game mechanic elements.
C) The game will treat you best if you act like a librarian. You will want to maintain a spreadsheet. You will want to organize the clutter. I have a room full of food I offer guests to buff them up. I have a room full of drink for the same. I have a room for my tools of power. I have a room for fishin, candles. I have a room for MY KITTY (he purrs)!
D) The mechanic is very square around the edges. You zoom and scroll back and forth over the board occasionally looking for things you need. It’s best to think of it as a bit like RPing. You are this odd hermit scholar who runs, wild haired, back and forth through your sprawling, stuff filled estate looking for that exact rock or candle or what have you to take back to your endless pouring over odd tomes. You occasionally emerge from seclusion to do odd jobs or lure visitors to your house to deck them out in odds and ends and then send them into a room to shoo spectral snakes out the window so you have more room to keep your books.
I think it’s brilliant. The music is nice and the sound effects are good- especially the ambient weather (which is, itself, an important mechanic). If you like Cultist Simulator you’ll find this both less gruelling but also much more “work” than the original. And if you liked the CS world building then you’ll LOVE the world building here. 5/5 strongly recommended.
I heartily endorse this message. State fairs rock.
The Twin Cities have the largest State Fair in the country. Now, some wags may point out that Texas allegedly has a larger one on paper but I would retort that said fair also is amalgamated with a rodeo and a football game and thus is dirty pool. Texans would, no doubt, disagree (they’d be wrong).
Anyhow, husband and I always go opening day which is a Thursday and has both discounted tickets and smaller crowds than the rest of the fair days. Also the staff is absolutely fresh as are the products and food. Trust me, it’s the best time to go and well worth taking a day off to do so.
The milkshakes at the MN state fair are insane. They taste almost like butter- they’re so rich! Likewise the grilled corn is nuts- the kernels are so big you can sink your teeth into them and barely reach the cob. Where the fish do they get that corn?!?
I’d also strongly recommend the fair coupon book. At our fair it costs 5 bucks and if you use 2 coupons from it (trust me, you will, odds are you’ll use a dozen and turn a fat net gain) you’ll have made that back plus it serves as an impromptu guide around the whole fair.
On “Don’t Look Now But Ukraine is Winning”
If UKR breaks through and reaches the Sea of Azov then Crimea rapidly becomes indefensible. The Kerch bridge would be in range for bombardment and would quickly be made unusuable. Russia would have to ferry in supplies by sea and, long term, Crimeas water supplies were cut off when the Russians blew the damn on the reservoir that supplies it.
"
To end a war, both sides need to feel that concluding the conflict is preferable to pushing forward. That presents, in the Ukrainian context, a very high bar for the war’s conclusion:
-The Ukrainians are profoundly motivated to prosecute the war. They wish to liberate the rest of their territory, they generally feel they have “right” on their side and their military strength is increasing as time marches on and aid from the west continues to flow in. Moreover, they are, slowly, retaking territory from the Russians. They are not motivated to stop at this point.
-The Russians are not at all motivated to prosecute the war but, in the Russian context, the decision making lies in Putin’s hands and Putin is profoundly motivated to continue it because ending it in a manner that appears as a loss to his countrymen could very well end his grasp on power. Putin is neither young nor healthy so the fallout of this conflict will, most likely, be the defining element of his legacy. Russia has obliterated its conventional military strength and long-term economic prospects on the farmlands of Ukraine. Putin clearly doesn’t think that the terrain and peoples he’s seized merits what his country has paid for it (he’d be right) and he knows that the accounting will occur once the war ends. So, he puts off the end of the war and hopes he can pour enough blood into the conflict to prologue it beyond the wests patience to support the Ukrainians which, he tells himself, is the only reason the Ukrainians haven’t capitulated to him outright.
The war continues because neither side is willing to let it end. The Ukrainians because they cannot countenance letting it end like this and because they believe they can win- Putin because he likely cannot survive letting it end like this and because enduring is his only remaining play. We, in the West, could end it, only in theory, by ending all support for Ukraine but Russia is so mauled now that, even if we cut the Ukrainians off, the likely outcome would be an incredibly grinding, brutal conflict that’d make the current one look like child’s play.
"
I suppose it depends on what one means when one says "winning". Was Russia "Winning" when it invaded Ukraine and was securing territory and communities while the Ukrainians fought a rearguard action? If they were winning at that time then, by that same definition, Ukraine is "winning" now as it is re-securing territory and it is the Russians who are fighting and falling back.
"
How does one go bankrupt? Slowly, then all at once. The same, I suspect, will apply to Russia's military rollback.
On “The Brand is the Point: Voting Against Your Interests to Stay in Your Tribe”
I'm old enough to remember the kind of harassment and threats that the right used to be able to throw around en masse against every flavor of the LGBT+ skittles jar with either the tacit approval or indifference of the majority of the population. What the right can muster up now is a quivering feeble shadow of that former power. But, on the plus side, they have social media to amplify every outrage.
"
Then this confirms the right isn't widely fascist since they've been moving down and in rather than up and out over the decades.
"
Maybe reductive but probably true too.
"
The tiny size of the Trans population is part of its appeal. The right discovered, to their horror, that gays were too numerous and too advantageously scattered through the population to make good scapegoats once they came out of the closet en masse. Trans is an easier target and is demographically much less likely to be related to the angry old men and frightened old ladies who fund their campaigns.
"
Yes, and it bears noting that no one hates the idea of defunding the police more than the minority residents of crime impacted communities. When we well meaning liberals talk about ending prison and law enforcement as we know it, resident of those communities don't think for even an instant that comfortable liberals will be accepting their neighborhoods overflowing with crime and homeless encampments.
"
Their coalition is somewhat less fractured and very geographically well positioned. If the left aped the GOP's tactics the GOP would have a permanent super majority.
"
Well that's heresy Saul! It is left identarian cannon that hyper liberal identity politics is favored by minority groups more than anyone else. The idea that identarian nostrums are principally the domain of white liberals would send Robin Diangelo straight to her fainting couch.
But, yeah, I suspect most interest groups across the electorate wish they could just ditch their squish fellow travellers and win an overwhelming electoral victory based on adhering strenuously to their first principles. They never could, probably never will, be able to.
"
In red strongholds like yours it's not really relevant or important. The strategy is aimed more at swing states.
"
It's not a threat. But it's a useful distraction that finds cachet with an influenceable voter pool and that the left has not yet embraced an answer to it that disarms it with said voter pool.
"
I mean it's already a well known fact that a very large portion of active voters simply vote party line and pay little more attention to politics than that. That is, in fact, one of the selling points of parties. Dislodging those voters takes a lot. More, I suspect, than it takes to activate non-voters into voting against/for a party. I don't see much point in decrying it.
On “I’m Worried About the Gadsden Flag Kid”
Cosign.
On “How to Make People Care About Democratic Achievements”
Absolutely that's a significant consideration. It's not a simple system.
"
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111
On “The State of the Republican Primary”
I didn't expect much from the debate but a collection of movement in polls that doesn't even exceed the margin of error managed to go under my already low bar of expectation.
That Douthat piece rankled me a bit because he writes it as if he thinks that anyone on the Democratic side of the partisan gulf has any power at all to influence when the fishing trial date is set. IANAL but my understanding is none of them do. So a mistake by whom?
The interesting thing about this is if Trump is the nominee and he loses even 10% of the right wing vote then he's cooked. Not only cooked but in near landslide loss territory unless the lost votes end up concentrated in urban areas.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/28/2023”
Don't forget the pattern recognition bias in evolution. We're pattern finding biased animals. Even when our pattern recognizing ancestors were wrong about the rustling leaves or oddly moving grass all they suffered was a momentary adrenaline spike and looking foolish. All our distance ancestors (or rather the unsuccessful siblings of our actual ancestors) who didn't pattern recognize got eaten by predators.
The upside: intuition, discovery, nice religion and their ilk.
The downside: bad religion, conspiracy theories and their ilk.
"
It is simple selection bias.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Doing the Fair”
Hmmm I don't know that I have an escapade story but I'm an import so I have only had a dozen fairs or so. Younger me didn't properly appreciate the state fair.
But I heartily approve of your excellent taste in fairs.
"
Very slightly spoilerish:
A) It’s enormously lower stakes than cultist simulator. In the former you’re an ambitious aspirant seeking to accrue power and storm the gates of the heavens itself with hidden lore and relics of power. In Book of Hours you’re not quite a state functionary but you’re basically an NGO employee and, while you deal in hidden lore and relics of power your goal is to catalogue and store them, and occasionally helpfully reference them for various visitors.
B) It’s deliciously charming and clunkily obtuse. It has that same “discover the mechanic” element as Cultist Simulator but you’re also basically inheriting the sprawling estate that is a legacy of what can only be described as a long line of occult hoarders. The estate is huge, every room is packed full of… stuff… and all the stuff can be examined to get, at a minimum, juicy fun tidbits of lore and, sometimes, powerful repeatable game mechanic elements.
C) The game will treat you best if you act like a librarian. You will want to maintain a spreadsheet. You will want to organize the clutter. I have a room full of food I offer guests to buff them up. I have a room full of drink for the same. I have a room for my tools of power. I have a room for fishin, candles. I have a room for MY KITTY (he purrs)!
D) The mechanic is very square around the edges. You zoom and scroll back and forth over the board occasionally looking for things you need. It’s best to think of it as a bit like RPing. You are this odd hermit scholar who runs, wild haired, back and forth through your sprawling, stuff filled estate looking for that exact rock or candle or what have you to take back to your endless pouring over odd tomes. You occasionally emerge from seclusion to do odd jobs or lure visitors to your house to deck them out in odds and ends and then send them into a room to shoo spectral snakes out the window so you have more room to keep your books.
I think it’s brilliant. The music is nice and the sound effects are good- especially the ambient weather (which is, itself, an important mechanic). If you like Cultist Simulator you’ll find this both less gruelling but also much more “work” than the original. And if you liked the CS world building then you’ll LOVE the world building here. 5/5 strongly recommended.
On “How to Make People Care About Democratic Achievements”
Of course not. Their JOB is to be working this.If Biden was polling at 95% I'd want them scrambling for that missing 5%.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Doing the Fair”
I am entirely lost in Book of Hours.
"
I heartily endorse this message. State fairs rock.
The Twin Cities have the largest State Fair in the country. Now, some wags may point out that Texas allegedly has a larger one on paper but I would retort that said fair also is amalgamated with a rodeo and a football game and thus is dirty pool. Texans would, no doubt, disagree (they’d be wrong).
Anyhow, husband and I always go opening day which is a Thursday and has both discounted tickets and smaller crowds than the rest of the fair days. Also the staff is absolutely fresh as are the products and food. Trust me, it’s the best time to go and well worth taking a day off to do so.
The milkshakes at the MN state fair are insane. They taste almost like butter- they’re so rich! Likewise the grilled corn is nuts- the kernels are so big you can sink your teeth into them and barely reach the cob. Where the fish do they get that corn?!?
I’d also strongly recommend the fair coupon book. At our fair it costs 5 bucks and if you use 2 coupons from it (trust me, you will, odds are you’ll use a dozen and turn a fat net gain) you’ll have made that back plus it serves as an impromptu guide around the whole fair.