Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

I've read that one contributing factor has been the Russian military's reliance on the country's extensive rail system to move people and materiel rapidly across Russia. Great for domestic defense, but they haven't maintained the logistical support structure for large-scale operations outside their borders. Another factor is that their surveillance and intelligence-gathering capabilities don't seem to have kept pace with NATO's technology.

 

If Putin expected to impress the world with Russia's strength, it appears he's actually exposed its weaknesses.

[archer]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I've read that one contributing factor has been the Russian military's reliance on the country's extensive rail system to move people and materiel rapidly across Russia. Great for domestic defense, but they haven't maintained the logistical support structure for large-scale operations outside their borders.

 

Yeah, that appears to be the case. 

 

One interesting story from the last couple of days is that Russia's two military armored train now appear to be taking an active part in the fighting in Ukraine. They were used in Chechnya and again during the war against Georgia in 2008.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44620/a-russian-armored-train-has-joined-the-invasion-of-ukraine

 

It's a real mark of desperation to use them in Ukraine where they have no control over the countryside.

 

Men with simple hand tools can loosen a rail (or rails) enough to derail a train. No one's ever figured out how to armor a train enough to withstand derailment.

 

And I doubt they could withstand modern anti-tank weapons either.

[archer]

 

War never bothered me anyway....

[DShomshak]

Just heard on Marketplace: There's much talk of what stopping buying Russian oil and gas can do to the world economy. The disruption to the world's food supply may be greater and more damaging: Russia and Ukraine produce a fairly significant fraction of the world's wheat, and it's not so easy to replace or re-source crops that don't get planted. This could be very bad for some countries that are heavily dependent on imported food. (A news story I read elsewhere mentioned several countries in the Middle East.)

 

Less obvious, longer-term disruption: A hit to the world's neon supply. Between them, Russia and Ukraine produce a pretty big fraction of the world's neon. And no, this doesn't mean a looming shortage of beer logo signs. Neon signs account for only 1-2% of neon used. The application that may matter most? The powerful lasers used to etch circuit diagrams on silicon chips. As if the chip shortage weren't significant already.

 

Fortunately, the chip industry started stockpiling neon after the last disruption, when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. They have several months of neon on hand. China also started ramping up neon production then, and presumably may do so again. But it's just one more thing.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Pariah]

I'm a little surprised that we don't have solid state lasers that can do that, but that's not exactly my area of expertise. 

[Lord Liaden]

I guess the old ruby lasers are less efficient, or more costly, or something. But I always thought those red beams look 'way cooler than green.

[Starlord]

I'm also more of a phaser than disruptor fan myself....

[DShomshak]

The "excimer lasers" used in chip manufacture produce UV light. Visible light wavelengths aren't small enough to etch those teeny-weeny circuits.

 

Dean Shomshak

[unclevlad]

43 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

The "excimer lasers" used in chip manufacture produce UV light. Visible light wavelengths aren't small enough to etch those teeny-weeny circuits.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Yep.  Visible light was left behind several years ago...but so were excimer lasers, at least for the high-end chips.  Excimer lasers operate around 150-200 nm;  that's an order of magnitude too coarse.  The tech for modern chips uses extreme UV (EUV) lasers, at about 13 nm.  These are complex as all heck, HUGE, and use a LOT!!! of power.  For the geeks:
https://www.laserfocusworld.com/blogs/article/14039015/how-does-the-laser-technology-in-euv-lithography-work

 

Modern chip fabrication is insane.  Article mentions the price tag of one of these systems:  $120M.

[Joe Walsh]

Sadly, long gone are the days of hand-drawn chip layouts, when engineers would crawl around on a table, cutting out the photomask.

 

Quote

The story of the 6502 makes up the first chapter of Brian Bagnall's On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore. My favorite part of the description of the development of the 6502 is the actual chip layout. These days, you can't design and lay out a computer chip without a computer. An Intel Core 2 chip has hundreds of millions of transistors. The 6502 had 3,510, and an engineer—a person, not a computer—had to draw each one by hand to lay out the chip. Mainly it was a single engineer, Bill Mensch.

 

But it gets better. Once the layout was completed and double-checked—a process that meant months using a ruler!—it still had to be converted into a Rubylith photomask that would etch the right patterns onto the silicon. The photomask for the 6502 was the size of a large table—large enough that the engineers crawled around on top of it to perform the job of cutting the layout out of the mask, all the while being careful to wear clean socks with no holes, so that stray toenails didn't insert traces in the mask where they didn't belong.

 

[Sociotard]

Can anyone explain why the US can hand the Ukrainians thousands of Javelin missiles, but can't risk helping Poland gift its MiGs?

[Old Man]

23 minutes ago, Sociotard said:

Can anyone explain why the US can hand the Ukrainians thousands of Javelin missiles, but can't risk helping Poland gift its MiGs?

 

The U.S. is for some reason terrified of anything that Putin might perceive as a direct NATO vs. Russia attack, because that automatically triggers World War III® somehow.  I am not sure why a thirty year old Russian-built MiG counts more than a U.S. built Javelin.

 

Alternatively, the U.S. is terrified that Zelenskyy might do something unapproved with the MiGs, like attack supply lines or missile launchers on Russian soil, which he is eventually going to  have to do if he is serious about getting his country back.

 

Meanwhile the Russians are laying the internal propaganda to justify the use of chemical or tactical nuclear weapons, or else blow up a reactor.

[archer]

1 hour ago, Sociotard said:

Can anyone explain why the US can hand the Ukrainians thousands of Javelin missiles, but can't risk helping Poland gift its MiGs?

 

No one will be able to give you an answer which makes rational sense other than that the US is, very suddenly, afraid to have aircraft fry from a NATO airbase into contested Ukrainian airspace, whether its a NATO pilot doing it or a Ukrainian pilot.

 

Perhaps they just got cold feet, after a week of boasting about how they were putting together the deal.

 

Or perhaps Putin backchanneled something to them which makes them think he really will escalate if they do that one particular thing.

[Lord Liaden]

55 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

The U.S. is for some reason terrified of anything that Putin might perceive as a direct NATO vs. Russia attack, because that automatically triggers World War III® somehow.  I am not sure why a thirty year old Russian-built MiG counts more than a U.S. built Javelin.

 

Alternatively, the U.S. is terrified that Zelenskyy might do something unapproved with the MiGs, like attack supply lines or missile launchers on Russian soil, which he is eventually going to  have to do if he is serious about getting his country back.

 

Meanwhile the Russians are laying the internal propaganda to justify the use of chemical or tactical nuclear weapons, or else blow up a reactor.

 

Political commentary I was listening to today suggests that the provocative sticking points are threefold. One, Poland didn't consult with the United States before announcing the jet transfer to Ukraine, which leads directly to points two and three. Point two, the Poles want to use an airbase near their border with Ukraine to stage the aircraft transfer from. A base owned by the United States and used by NATO forces. Three, Poland wants to replace those Soviet-era fighters with far newer ones bought from the United States, which would of course enhance their air-combat capability if their border with Russia becomes a site of conflict.

 

None of these are probably a major problem alone, but collectively, in an already tense situation, they give people pause. VP Kamala Harris has been dispatched to Poland to try to clean up the situation. I expect they'll find a rationale to send those jets on their way before much longer.

[Cygnia]

To the surprise of no one...

 

United Arab Emirates Chooses Solidarity Between Oil Producers Over Military Allies

[Pariah]

Yet another argument for energy independence for the U.S. 

[archer]

5 minutes ago, Pariah said:

Yet another argument for energy independence for the U.S. 

 

The U.S. is now energy independent

Updated Feb 19, 2022

https://www.axios.com/us-energy-independent-petroleum-2982ed18-9110-4c31-ad67-82abe643f661.html

 

 

The oil industry stuff that I read in the run up to the war stated that it has been cheaper to purchase oil from Russia for refineries on the east coast (Georgia, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) than it's been to ship oil up from Houston.

 

So it's been more of a choice to purchase oil from Russia (due to cost) than a necessity.

 

.

[Joe Walsh]

Sounds like a job for Canadian crude.

[Cygnia]

Elsewhere...🤬

 

Kevin McCarthy Won't Punish Republicans Who Joined White Nationalist Conference

[archer]

 

 

Russia’s Central Bank has announced a new policy, allowing citizens with foreign currency accounts to withdraw up to $10,000 US until 9 September. Anything above that amount will have to be withdrawn in rubles at the market rate.

 

I have no idea why they think that'll work out. Everyone who has a significant amount of foreign currency accounts to withdraw are going to rush the banks to withdraw that money as quickly as possible before the central bank changes the policy again.

 

And they'll have to change the policy again because everyone will be rushing the banks.

 

Also

Head of the Central Bank of the Russia Elvira Nabiullina resigned, but Putin refused to allow her to.

https://translate.yandex.com/translate?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcensor.net%2Fua%2Fnews%2F3323249%2Fgolova_tsentrobanku_rf_nabiullina_podala_u_vidstavku_putin_vidmovyv&lang=uk-en

 

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UK government announces it intends to detain any Russian aircraft that enters UK airspace. (They were barred from UK airspace officially a couple of days ago but it's a step further to actively force them to the ground and detain them.)

 

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At least one humanitarian corridor stayed open long enough to evacuate a significant number of people (from Sumy). Russians fired into at least two others which were supposed to be open Kyiv and Mariupol. I don't have specific news about the other two, Chernihiv and Kharkiv (though if a significant number of civilians had managed to make it out of Kharkiv, I'd expect it to be big news).

 

====

 

Russia has been trying to cut a deal with India to sell it oil at a 25% discount off of the world price.

 

====

 

Russian’s delegation at peace talks with Ukraine “will not concede a single negotiating point,” reported a RIA news agency today.

 

In recent days, Russian negotiation points have included:

1) Ukraine ceding sovereignty of Crimea and those two breakaway provinces.

2) Compete disarmament of Ukraine.

3) Enshrining "we will never join NATO" into their constitution.

 

So it's a big "in your face" to pretend to negotiate while you're telling the country you're invading that you'll settle for nothing less than their complete disarmament.

 

====

 

Systems of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that were monitoring nuclear material at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine have stopped transmitting data, said the agency today, reported Reuters.

Yesterday, the same interruption of data was reported at the Chernobyl power plant (so the interruption appears to be deliberate).

 

At the Chernobyl plant, the Russians haven't allowed the staff any relief since it took over the plant more than a week ago. 

 

Yesterday, Russia cut off power to the plant which could eventually cause problems because new water to cool the nuclear material can't be pumped in.

 

====

 

WHO says the rate of attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities is rapidly increasing.

 

====

 

Russian stock market to remain closed at least until Friday.

 

====

 

UK's ministry of defense says Russia's ministry of defense has confirmed to them that Russia has used thermobaric weapons (fuel-air explosions) in Ukraine.

 

====

 

Ukraine’s government has banned exports of wheat, rye, barley, buckwheat, millet, sugar, salt, and meat until the end of this year.

 

Not that anyone with half a brain expected Ukraine to have a surplus for export this year. But since it's a major exporter of food to Europe and the Middle East, it shows you where we're at.

 

====

 

The Russian foreign ministry has claimed that its goals in Ukraine would be better achieved through talks and that it does not plan to overthrow the country’s government, reports Reuters.

 

Whew, that's a relief!

 

====

 

Warner media (HBO, Cinemax, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, CNN) along with the Discovery network's 15 channels (Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, Science Channel, Cooking Channel, Food Network, etc.) no longer broadcasting in Russia as of today.

 

At some point it's going to be impossible to hide the impact of the war from older Russians who get most of their information about what's going on by watching TV.

 

====

 

Temps in Kiev area dropping to as low as -20C today. Troops in that convoy stuck north of of the city are likely to be Russian popsicles inside rolling metal refrigerators.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-troops-convoy-freezing-death-b2031696.html

 

That's only -4F. But when you're in a vehicle with no fuel and with no ground insulation effect, it's much different than being in a house.

 

====

 

 

====

 

The Russian Ministry of Defense has supposedly posted this as well.

 

 

[Chris Goodwin]

3 hours ago, archer said:

 

So it's a big "in your face" to pretend to negotiate while you're telling the country you're invading that you'll settle for nothing less than their complete disarmament.

 

Further, it's not actually a negotiation if you're still shooting at the other party, and further, everyone knows your word is worthless.

[Pattern Ghost]

8 hours ago, Cygnia said:

Kevin McCarthy Won't Punish Republicans Who Joined White Nationalist Conference

 

Doesn't sound like he's got the whole McCarthy thing down pat.

[Ternaugh]

7 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Doesn't sound like he's got the whole McCarthy thing down pat.

 

Charlie or Joseph?

[Lord Liaden]

10 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Doesn't sound like he's got the whole McCarthy thing down pat.

 

If it's Joe, those are the "wrong" kind of extremists for him to be offended by.

[Matt the Bruins]

On 3/8/2022 at 6:46 AM, archer said:

A senior Defense official says the US has corroborated reports that the Russians are trying to recruit Syrians to fight in Ukraine. Earlier it had been alleged the Russians were offering Syrians the equivalent of a $300 bonus to come fight in Ukraine. (I would suppose that's a lot of money to a Syrian?)

It won't be soon if they're offering it in rubles.