Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, September 9, 2022
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86 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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It’s 3 a f’n m! Why am I awake. Ah well. Today I found a piece of grist for the mill.
WTF, people??? Aren’t there more important things to be angry about? Is this really your best shot?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/rings-of-power-draws-racist-backlash-and-threats-but-amazon-and-frodo-stand-behind-it/ar-AA11BILM?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=df11f5fb0e18414a98ea4ed95cd08b52#image=AA10wFBl|2
ETA: Wow, this is disconcerting! It took almost five minutes and 3 page reloads for me to be able to highlight that subject line to paste in into my post.
Why? To keep me company of course.
I woke up at 3:30. I found “The Courier” in my wife’s movie queue. I didn’t know what to expect but with Benedict Cumberbatch I figured it couldn’t be all bad. It was actually pretty good. Well worth the watching.
eta: as to “Aren’t there more important things to be angry about?”, no. Nothing is more important than protecting the special place white people hold in society.
Poorest areas bear brunt of air pollution, US study shows
Just so I can say, “Feature, not a bug.”
A Virginia country club made a 9/11-themed menu. It was as awful as you’d imagine
Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina tied the NL/AL record for most games together by a pitching/catcher battery last night: 324. They’ve got a few more together in them, hopefully into October. And then, that will be it. Yadi retires after this season.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: One of the most common factors shared by those who are upset about Elves whose skin tone is a couple shades darker than milk is their ignorance of the actual lore and the world Tolkien crafted. Some goober was shitting all over Twitter about the Harfoots, apparently unaware of their place in the ancestral line of Hobbits, and of the fact Tolkien wrote them as darker-skinned.
But hey, racists gonna racist, and they’ll pitch their stupid fits over whatever presents itself.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: And that is a perfect example of teaching Critical Race Theory in our public schools. You’re going to see a lot more of it. The liberals want global power and will do anything, including dividing our country racially, to achieve their goals.
@Scott:
Good God. That is trashy.
@kit: Perhaps you misunderstand the story. The backlash is from people who want all the cast to be white. That’s not the result of CRT. That’s the result of, well, racist attitudes and using specific views of fictional materials to exclude persons of color from having acting jobs.
@Scott:
Perhaps schools should teach that is is ok not to monetize certain things.
WASF. Well, not me. I’ll be dead.
@OzarkHillbilly: Don’t worry–the president of my local electrical co-op wrote an editorial in this month’s co-op magazine that the science isn’t settled and that climate change is a refutable proposition based on some graph he googled.
Sigh.
First off: CRT is not being taught in the schools, unless you think teaching that black people have the same rights as white people but it wasn’t always that way is CRT. The rest of us call that United States history. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
2ndly: “The liberals want global power and will do anything,” Go look in the mirror. It was you and your fellow travelers who tried to steal an election and are working day and night to rig the next one. Not us. Unless you think insuring that all Americans are able to exercise their right to vote is “rigging an election.”
3rd, “including dividing our country racially, to achieve their goals.” Yes dividing the country racially by showing many races working together on a TV show. No, again that is what you and your fellow racist pos travelers want to do and are engaged in efforts to make it happen.
Lastly, you are an idiot.
@kit: @Steven L. Taylor: Good grief! I took it as sarcasm or mockery. I just can’t tell anymore.
@Kathy: Bite your tongue! There is nothing that shouldn’t be monetized, and the world belongs to those who can monetize most successfully. There’s probably a way to monetize anniversaries of 9/11; Freedom Flounder and 9-11 Oysters just aren’t the way. (Especially if you’re not actually serving the customers flounder, but sole instead.)
@Steven L. Taylor: GOPs are constantly complaining about Dem’s divisiveness and identity politics. Dems are really recognizing and trying counter the divisiveness and identity politics of Republicans. Who’s doing identity politics, the guys creating racial gerrymanders or the guys complaining about them? You want to end the divisions? Shut down FOX “News”.
@Steven L. Taylor: FWIW, I applaud the trend that I first noticed in British TV and has now started to spread to these shores: simply casting actors regardless of the “historical accuracy” of their skin color or disability, and making absolutely zero comment about the fact. We actually don’t want historical accuracy. Who wants to see Queen Elizabeth I pulling a greasy pheasant apart with her hands, or see bad teeth on King Arthur, or pox scars, or bulging tumors? We don’t want to show a genial and sympathetic boss casually slap an employee across the face or a noble knight start spewing blood libel. We don’t want accuracy in even less offensive things. When a courier races a message across Europe in the 13th century, do we have to put our whole story on hold because in reality it would have taken a month or more? Or that ships have to wait for convenient tides, or that there are months when a sailing vessel simply cannot go from point A to point B. In plain fact, creatives want to tell a story in the most effective way possible, not serve as meticulous historical reenactors. The zipper might not have been invented until the 20th century, but it is awful useful in a historical piece when you want the 19th century Lady of the Manor to seductively ease out of dress, rather than call her maid in and have our Handsome Rogue idle by as they spend the next fifteen minutes unbuttoning a hundred buttons and untying dozens of bows and stays and carefully unpinning her wig. Why should melanin or deafness be in a different category?
@Steven L. Taylor: My local electrical co-op used to print the same garbage but in the past couple years they have seen the light and are now singing a different tune. These days it is rare when the monthly *rag* doesn’t have an article on renewables/sustainable/upgrades to our infrastructure to prepare for the coming change.
** I actually enjoy reading it. It is a really upbeat read as they highlight local eateries and/or artists/crafts(wo)men in every issue. Their are recipes to try and little bits of Missouri history too. And they stay away from politics. Apparently they care about the DEMs in their neighborhoods too. What a concept!
@OzarkHillbilly: My wife and I are looking for our retirement home and one criteria is that it be in a place that is significantly above sea level and north of say, VA and east of the Mississippi. Climate change is a big motivator in all that. We can’t be the only ones thinking the same.
Not to mention the chastity belt called a “corset.”
@Scott: I also thought kit was being sarcastic. Haven’t they posted here before? I don’t remember them being a trumper.
@MarkedMan: If I didn’t know I’ll be dead in the next 10-15 years, I’d be exploring more northerly locations as well. Even if I were to survive longer, we won’t go anywhere anytime soon. I have 3 granddaughters in STL and my wife is very invested in them. We’d be invested in the other 1 (soon to be 2) as well but they are in NOLA. My NOLA son keeps talking about moving and I am sure the day will come but they moved down there so his wife could be with her family. I suspect it will take the direct hit of a hurricane to blow them northwards.
The Ukrainian counter offensive continues to gain momentum. Right now it appears Izyum is at extreme risk of encirclement, and the Russian defenses there are collapsing. Capturing Izyum would break an important supply route linking the north and south, adding days to Russian resupply missions.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1568230262231777280
@MarkedMan: I do not recall him, If he is being sarcastic, Kit has my apologies and my assurances that I will get my sarcasm meter re-calibrated.
@OzarkHillbilly:
We had that pretty much right at a year ago (today is actually the one year anniversary of my power coming back on after Ida) and they didn’t leave then, so … 😉
@Scott:
It is incredibly hard to tell these days, to be sure.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I tend to go over the top when I’m being sarcastic.
Then, too, you all know me and can likely easily tell.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I saw the same thing yesterday, but was hoping I’d mistakenly loaded The Onion or Andy Borowitz. Truly, wtf is wrong with people?
3.30? Wa! For some reason, both of us have been up half the night most of the week. Ugh!
So, when did the Buffalo Bills become an NFL team?
(that’s an example of over the top sarcasm, on two counts)
@Scott: That’s rather like the old story about the Titanic Bat Mitzvah. I don’t mean it was a massive celebration, though in fact it was. I mean it was literally themed on the movie Titanic:
Ok, please tell me this is a bad acid flashback. Someone? Please?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/netflix-teletubbies-reboot-tituss-burgess-1235213235/ – ‘Teletubbies’ Reboot With Tituss Burgess Set at Netflix
@Flat Earth Luddite: Can’t wait for the controversy over Tinky Winky to revive.
@Kylopod:
Now imagine what she’ll want for her wedding…
There was a gang shooting in Memorial Park in Uvalde, Texas. A juvenile is in custody. At least two were injured.
Haven’t those people suffered enough?
@Jon: No, no they didn’t. And afterwards I bought them a generator. Hmmmm…. Maybe I’m doing this wrong?
@CSK: It’s Texas. Of course the answer is “No.”
The whole is worth a read. Not too long either.
@CSK: The latest:
Two juveniles being treated in San Antonio hospitals after shooting at Uvalde Memorial Park
It is almost comforting that it was just an everyday gang shooting.
@Scott:
Geez, what a relief an assault rifle wasn’t used. Just a regular old gun.
In order for an apology to be successful and allow the parties involved to go forward in good faith it is necessary for the apologizer to allow the injured party to describe in length their injury. Perhaps repeating themselves. This is painful.
We’re sort of in the midst of doing an analogous thing with Black Americans, who actually feel it’s now worthwhile to describe how certain things have gone/are going.
One, as a white American, could look at this and say, “Well, I endorse that program, so I will do my part by (first and foremost) listening.”
Or one, as a white American, could reject the premise with the notion “I didn’t do anything wrong, or at least I had nothing to do with all those terrible things. So why do I have to listen to this stuff that is so painful and awful and blaming?”
Which is why those in the later paragraph see it as divisive. It does take work. It is hard. It’s worth it.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: guess you didn’t catch the 2977 reference. And does anyone else see the resemble to a waffle house menu in presentation.
If one is past a certain age, it is very hard to say that without being totally blinkered to reality. I know my whiteness brought me direct benefits on a number of occasions that rightfully belonged to other black men and did nothing about it one way or the other. I told myself, “This is just the way things are.”
That made me complicit.
OzarkHillbilly:
As writer Adam Serwer put it, in a sentence that will always be true of conservatives: The Cruelty is the Point.
@Mikey: Yep.
@Mikey:
I think Serwer made it clear that it’s Trump and his supporters who relish cruelty, not conservatives in general.
I recall reading that article when it was first published. It’s excellent.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
@Mikey:
@kit:
As you friendly neighbourhood Tolkien uber-geek, let me say there is zero reason from Tolkien’s writings to get balky about dark skinned elves or dwarves.
Elves are written as having multiple ancestors from the “Awakening”; similarly the “Seven Fathers” (and one assumes, Six Mothers – not seven for a reason 🙂 ) of the Dwarves.
None are specified as to skin tone.
As to Hobbits, Tolkien explicitly refers to the Harfoots as being “browner of skin”.
And, IMO, given his academic background, almost certainly had in mind some (since discarded) ideas in the prehistoric anthropology of Britain of the pre-Celtic “Little Dark People”.
That term may also be familiar to those of you who have read Rosemary Sutcliffe’s novels of ancient Britain (and if you haven’t, you damn well should, ASAP).
Although, the Numenoreans, if they get included, definitely should be “white” with some very significant, definite exceptions.
(I shall be annoyed if they do tell the “tale of Numenor” and leave this out)
Those being the Druath, whose description by Tolkien shouts “sorta Polynesian!”; the “Fourth House”.
Who left Numenor when it started on the road to becoming an empire.
The other “Three Houses”, Beorians, Hadorians, Haladrim, are pretty explicitly pasty of persuasion.
And I seem to recall (this may be a mistaken memory; it’s 20 odd years since I read the relevant stuff in the Letters etc) that Tolkien referred to the Numenoreans coming to conceive of themselves as racially superior (in moral terms) to the men of Middle Earth, as being part of their corruption and road to destruction.
And IIRC when he was writing sketches for his abortive “time travel” novel he toyed with writing something from the point of view of a boy of the coastlands of Middle Earth whose homeland was being occupied by Numenoreans.
Also the Numenorean Emperor Ar-Pharazon; the one man who could make Sauron and all the Nazgul soil their underwear.
Anyway, if you going to cause bodily harm to the writers of Rings of Power,oit shouldbe for a good reason.
Namely, completely wrecking the whole story of Galadriel; and even more, the story of her brother Finrod, which in turn screws the Silmarillion, should they ever decide to film that.
Grrr!
“Ah well,” saith the scriptwriter, “sufficient unto the day be the retconning thereof.”
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
@Mikey:
@kit:
As you friendly neighbourhood Tolkien uber-geek, let me say there is zero reason from Tolkien’s writings to get balky about dark skinned elves or dwarves.
Elves are written as having multiple ancestors from the “Awakening”; similarly the “Seven Fathers” (and one assumes, Six Mothers – not seven for a reason 🙂 ) of the Dwarves.
None are specified as to skin tone.
As to Hobbits, Tolkien explicitly refers to the Harfoots as being “browner of skin”.
And, IMO, given his academic background, almost certainly had in mind some (since discarded) ideas in the prehistoric anthropology of Britain of the pre-Celtic “Little Dark People”.
That term may also be familiar to those of you who have read Rosemary Sutcliffe’s novels of ancient Britain (and if you haven’t, you damn well should, ASAP).
Although, the Numenoreans, if they get included, definitely should be “white” with some very significant, definite exceptions.
(I shall be annoyed if they do tell the “tale of Numenor” and leave this out)
Those being the Druath, whose description by Tolkien shouts “sorta Polynesian!”; the “Fourth House”.
Who left Numenor when it started on the road to becoming an empire.
The other “Three Houses”, Beorians, Hadorians, Haladrim, are pretty explicitly pasty of persuasion.
And I seem to recall (this may be a mistaken memory; it’s 20 odd years since I read the relevant stuff in the Letters etc) that Tolkien referred to the Numenoreans coming to conceive of themselves as racially superior (in moral terms) to the men of Middle Earth, as being part of their corruption and road to destruction.
And IIRC when he was writing sketches for his abortive “time travel” novel he toyed with writing something from the point of view of a boy of the coastlands of Middle Earth whose homeland was being occupied by Numenoreans.
Also, worth getting on film the Numenorean Emperor Ar-Pharazon; the one man who could make Sauron and all the Nazgul soil their underwear.
Anyway, if you going to cause bodily harm to the writers of Rings of Power,oit shouldbe for a good reason.
Namely, completely wrecking the whole story of Galadriel; and even more, the story of her brother Finrod, which in turn screws the Silmarillion, should they ever decide to film that.
Grrr!
“Ah well,” saith the scriptwriter, “sufficient unto the day be the retconning thereof.”
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
@Mikey:
@kit:
As you friendly neighbourhood Tolkien uber-geek, let me say there is zero reason from Tolkien’s writings to get balky about dark skinned elves or dwarves.
Elves are written as having multiple ancestors from the “Awakening”; similarly the “Seven Fathers” (and one assumes, Six Mothers – not seven for a reason 🙂 ) of the Dwarves.
None are specified as to skin tone.
As to Hobbits, Tolkien explicitly refers to the Harfoots as being “browner of skin”.
And, IMO, given his academic background, almost certainly had in mind some (since discarded) ideas in the prehistoric anthropology of Britain of the pre-Celtic “Little Dark People”.
That term may also be familiar to those of you who have read Rosemary Sutcliffe’s novels of ancient Britain (and if you haven’t, you damn well should, ASAP).
Although, the Numenoreans, if they get included, definitely should be “white” with some very significant, definite exceptions.
(I shall be annoyed if they do tell the “tale of Numenor” and leave this out)
Those being the Druath, whose description by Tolkien shouts “sorta Polynesian!”; the “Fourth House”.
Who left Numenor when it started on the road to becoming an empire.
The other “Three Houses”, Beorians, Hadorians, Haladrim, are pretty explicitly pasty of persuasion.
And I seem to recall (this may be a mistaken memory; it’s 20 odd years since I read the relevant stuff in the Letters etc) that Tolkien referred to the Numenoreans coming to conceive of themselves as racially superior (in moral terms) to the men of Middle Earth, as being part of their corruption and road to destruction.
And IIRC when he was writing sketches for his abortive “time travel” novel he toyed with writing something from the point of view of a boy of the coastlands of Middle Earth whose homeland was being occupied by Numenoreans.
Also, worth getting on film the Numenorean Emperor Ar-Pharazon; the one man who could make Sauron and all the Nazgul soil their underwear.
Anyway, if you going to cause bodily harm to the writers of Rings of Power,oit shouldbe for a good reason.
Namely, completely wrecking the whole story of Galadriel; and even more, the story of her brother Finrod, which in turn screws the Silmarillion, should they ever decide to film that.
Grrr!
“Ah well,” saith the scriptwriter, “sufficient unto the day be the retconning thereof.”
@Sleeping Dog:
That’s one reason I don’t shoot weddings. Only thing worse than bridzilla is multiple mothers-in-law, IMO.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I can imagine. I have a number of musician friends and none will play wedding, the only exception being if either the bride or groom are already friends with members of the band. It all gets too weird.
There is a reason that particular photographers and musicians make wedding a career, they can alternately tune out the noise or summon enough authority to stifle the demands.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
I recall when Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson were married, suddenly some brides wanted a fanfare when they emerged from the church. A cop acquaintance of mine whose daughter’s wedding was upcoming staggered into the office one morning and exclaimed: “Jesus, now she wants trumpets.”
Question: if you have a piece of beef that’s too big for what you want to cook, what’s the better option:
1) Cut off the excess and freeze it.
2) Cook the whole thing and freeze the excess.
@Steven L. Taylor: True, but I saw after reading his comment that I needed my [CRT Trigger Warning] label just the same.
@OzarkHillbilly: “k teaching that black people have the same rights as white people but it wasn’t always that way is CRT.”
Of course it’s CRT. The whole lie about blacks having the same rights? What else are ya gonna call it? 😉
@Kathy:
I’d cut off the excess and freeze it before cooking.
@CSK: I second that.
@Flat Earth Luddite: @Scott: Eh-oh!
@CSK: Makes ALL the difference, indeedie doo.
@Thomm: It’s not that I didn’t catch it (though I wouldn’t have without reading the article as my experience of that event was pretty visceral and short), I just didn’t choose that one. Don’t have Waffle Houses in my part of the US, so it would be a hard notice for me.
(There was a Waffle House in Spokane, but it wasn’t part of the national chain.)
@CSK: @Steven L. Taylor: As a lover of leftovers, I would say it depends on the size of the meat If what you’ve got is 2-3 times what you can eat in one sitting, cook it all and freeze the left overs. Meals ready to eat.
If however, it’s a 10lb brisket or…. What a minute, lets make it a roast… Cook up only what you can eat.
@CSK: You mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc_nOX7sGmw
@Kathy:
I’d incline to (1) freeze excess in advance.
BUT it depends crucially on what you are doing with it.
Roasting whole, definitely freeze the excess uncooked.
Chopping or mincing for, say, casserole/stew, chili, ragu bolognaise, or similar, then freezing the result may be better.
Ready to hand ragu or chili is never a bad idea.
@Kathy: I prefer cook the whole thing and freeze the excess so I have something for another day that only needs heating up.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Yeah, something like that.
Why in heck did my Tolkien nerdery get posted twice?
One Edit to rule them all,
One Edit to confuse them,
One Edit to fail to work,
And in the darkness annoy them.
@JohnSF: Don’t be messing with the edit function. You don’t want to piss it off.
@OzarkHillbilly:
We loves the edit function, we do, my preciousss.
We want’s it, we must have it, give to uss.
To all who replied, I’m cooking shredded beef in green salsa.
I can freeze the plain shredded beef, or a portion of the beef and salsa mix (I tend to favor freezing the latter if I cook the whole thing).
@Kathy:
Stumps me.
Outside my repertoire.
Depends on how well salsa freezes, maybe?
Or shredded beef, for that matter.
I’d suspect it might get a bit too mushy; but never done it.
Pork, yes; lamb, yes; beef nope (brisket I presume?)
Suspect I’d go back to default: freeze raw.
re. @Neil Hudelson:
I’ve not generally followed the details of the daily war, much of the time, more looking at the larger picture, which has been only slowly evolved IMO (basically Russia outmatched since March)
But just caught up on this, after some messages from friends.
Bloody! Hell!
Quote that sums it up:
And though Kharhiv is catching the headlines also:
– on the Kherson salient n.w. of the Dipro, Ukraine is also continuing to both pulverise the rear and infiltrate the front of Russian positions
– some Russian attempts at counter-attacks on the mid Donbas front have been hammered
– some evidence of Ukrainian operations developing in the area between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk
This could, might, maybe, turn into debacle for Russia on an Ardennes 1940 scale; there may be 50,000 or more(!) Russian troops cut off on the wrong side of the Dnipro and in the developing Izyum “pocket”.
And even more: Ukraine has already cut heavy supply routes to trans-Dnipro.
May now be in position to do the same over a large section of NE; and possibly centre of the southern salient; and to cripple Russian support for its recent central Donbas gains.
This is remarkable.
What in hell was Russia doing with defensive line in the NW that it should collapse like this???
@JohnSF: I don’t know Kathy’s taste in beef, but brisket smokes and grills well enough so that I’d look more toward chuck or short ribs for shredded beef.
Unless she’s talking about machine shredded beef, in which case I’m too far over my skis to know what people use. I’m more a pulled pork and the like guy.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: But I can’t imagine getting a good result from (re?)freezing raw shredded beef, but Kathy probably knows that it works if it does.
@JohnSF:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Cuts of beef are wildly different here. Add that I mostly don’t know what part of the cow the cuts come from, well, we may as well not bother.
Salsa freezes well. I’ve frozen lots of dishes, often when I make too much of one, and almost all fare well. The exception are cooked potatoes. After thawing and reheating, they wind up like potato-flavored sponges. Some where I’ve used tomato sauce kind of de-emulsify after thawing, but can be fixed by stirring. Meatloaf tends to come off the freezer just fine.
I read that they took a whole lot of troops from there to reinforce their position around Kherson. Not that it did them any good.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I’m more roast pork loin, or shoulder, or belly, with crackling.
MUST. HAVE. CRACKLING!
As for beef, if mincing (grinding in Americanese) I only do that with braising steak (chuck I think for you folks) for making ragu, chili, steak hache, or burgers.
Steak hache is great if you like fillet steak (ish), but don’t like the price.
Classic French bistro recipe, with bearnaise, frites, and salad.
Hmm, just decided whats for dinner tomorrow!
🙂
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yes. But even so, this is quite remarkable.
Where the hell is their rapid response air power?
Theatre artillery?
When the other way around, Ukrainians managed to fight them to a standstill repeatedly on the Donbas Line, or else to pull back to secondary or tertiary positions while delaying.
Even the French army in 1940 could say, OK we were hit where no one could expect it or see the Wehrmacht coming.
This is just incredible, epic, f@ckuppery!
And this is truly incredible.
There are currently 55,000 Russian troops on the Vostok Exercises in the far east with China.
Vladdy boy: “See, Xi! Much powah!”
Xi: “Yep. Great. Brilliant.”
*aside to aide*
“Fifty percent minimum haircut on the oil. And get me von der Leyen on speed dial!”
I read something about that too. I don’t recall the particulars but it was a combination of on the ground and burnt to a crisp and on the ground to keep from being burnt to a crisp. The meaning being that the Ukrainians have very good anti aircraft defenses that the RUS just can’t quite figure out how to get around.
Sorry I can’t be more specific.
ETA As far as Theatre artillery, I am sure you have also read that RUS is now getting shells from N Korea. Pretty sure they aren’t getting the good stuff from NK.
ETA2:Ukrainians managed to fight them…
The Ukrainians have the benefit of western intelligence. Over the years I haven’t had much good to say about WI but in this case it sure seems to be superior to whatever the GBU is offering up.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Random theory with no evidence. Could Russian artillery found out they are getting NK shells are are refusing/too afraid to use them do to quality concerns?
This makes sense to me in that a lot of Western intelligence is/was directed at what the Russians/Europeans are doing. Lots of practice there.
@JohnSF: FWIW, Chuck Pfarrer is one of the people I follow on Ukraine, and lately he’s a first look most days.
@OzarkHillbilly:
In some ways that’s a rhetorical question.
There have been indications for some time about issues; and also about what’s been supplied from the West (StarStreak baby! Also, suspicion that Rapier may be butting in).
Plus German, Norwegian, and French stuff.
Hell, basically every country inn Europe is joining the f’Russia pile on.
But; you’d expect a full-on line breach to call in whatever they had and: “Go forth to die for Vlad and country!”
Nope.
It really is a total, head-to-toe, grade A, no holds barred, no cliche left unused, pooch poking. Cambodian temple sculpture.
I want to clarify that my criticism of western Intel is mostly concerning the absolute clusterpucks that were Afghanistan and Iraq. How much was Intel and how much was the Bush admin cherry picking and using pretzel logic? I don’t pretend to know. From what I’ve read I think it was far more the latter but have heard little from those on the intel side to back up my intuitions.
@JohnSF: Yeah, I expect the # of RUS willing to die for the glorification of dear leader is rapidly dwindling at this point.
@Kathy: Resident expert on what cuts of beef come from which part of the cow, and the best way to cook them, at your service. 😛
I think you can freeze an extra half of a roast you bought from the store if you think you bought too much for one sitting, but it’s also just as easy to cook the whole dang thing with seasonings, if you are looking for an easy addition to another meal you might want to cook later. I have many packages of seasoned, cooked roast beef depending on whether I want a stew, tacos, or beef and noodles.
@Jax:
At Casa Luddite, SWMBO & daughter like to do garlic steak bites and invite Cracker & neighbors over. Leftovers feed us for days, aus juice cooks down to gravy. When I can, I’ll do a pot roast, ditto. Often I’ll score a pork roast, leftovers wind up in soup pot. Green salsa? I’m so there!