It doesn’t look good for the Russian military in Ukraine. Better-supplied and -motivated Ukrainian troops are pushing-back Russian forces even in Donbas— Moscow’s more modest pivot objective after failing to take Kyiv. What gives? Could Ukraine actually win this war? Could Russia actually lose? Or could Putin even be deposed by a coup?
Probably not.
That’s because, while everyone outside of Moscow was gloating over Russia’s lack of military success, Putin was quietly playing his asshole card.
Yes, his asshole card.
Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy said last week that Russia has kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian civilians and is holding them hostage in Russian prison camps. “Ukrainians from these camps—the survivors—are sent further into the occupied territories and to Russia. The facts of deportation of our citizens to the Russian boondocks, to Siberia, even to Vladivostok are recorded. They also deport children hoping that they will forget where their home is and where they are from. And they are from Ukraine,” Zalenskyy said.
Speaking to Chinese media yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that more than a million Ukrainians are now in Russia. Another estimate says the total number of Ukrainian civilian and military prisoners is 1.3 million.
And Putin has no intention of giving back any of them.
The Ukrainians already speak Russian, Russia was already suffering depopulation, so Putin can easily absorb the new refugees as he’ll call them.
Here’s the new quid pro quo. Whatever Ukraine demands, Putin can now threaten not tactical nukes, but just holding hostage forever a million Ukrainians.
Of course the Ukrainian military also hold tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, but Putin doesn’t give a damn about them. So there is no balance of terror.
What will the mothers of Ukraine and Europe say to this?
If Ukraine uses frozen Russian funds to rebuild after the war, Putin will just keep the kids. He’ll use the kids and their mothers against Ukraine, against NATO, against everyone. And there’s a fair chance he’ll get away with it, too, because no (non-Russian) politician wants to be held responsible for losing a million hearts and minds.
While nobody was really looking, Russia grabbed Ukraine by the balls.
This is all illegal under international law, of course, but then so was raping and killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure as the Russians have done since the war began. Putin doesn’t care about that, either.
Putin doesn’t need to be seen as even remotely good. In fact at this point he’s seeking to be seen as entirely bad — insane even — because that’s his last chance for pulling-out what he can call a W.
This is one bad man against the world and the world appears to be losing.
If the CIA happens to have a tiny bomb embedded in Putin’s skull now would be a good time to set it off. If there are Kremlin IOUs that can be called-in, call them in. If NATO has a plan for destroying in place half the Russian Army overnight while rescuing all those Ukrainian mothers and children, it’s time for NATO to move.
Otherwise it only gets worse from here. And Putin wins from Stalin the all-time asshole award.
Maybe that was the plan all along…
> The Ukrainians already speak Russian.
That’s as accurate as “Brazilians already speak Portuguese”. That is, not entirely false, but surely not entirely true.
I think, I hope I will be wrong, in the end Ukraine will loose its territorial integrity. Actually it already did in 2014 with Crimea occupation and annexation by Russia. Only they will have to loose also Dombass and probably all the sea facing territories, Odessa included. Why? Simply because Putin can technically destroy all Ukrainian cities, one by one with airborne bombs (no land soldiers needed) and, as Bob said, by deporting (or killing fwim to him) not just 1 but several millions of Ukrainians as they are doing it right now. And Putin can afford doing it for another 6 to 12 months, as long as China and Europe pays their commodities bills.
The end can even be that Ukraine will become just a geographic name.
I hope I am wrong.
Quote: “Simply because Putin can technically destroy all Ukrainian cities, one by one with airborne bombs (no land soldiers needed)”
This is incorrect. Russia cannot destroy “all Ukrainian cities” with airborne bombs. They do not have air superiority (they just lost another Su-35 yesterday!) and have run out of precision-guided munitions anyway, so the best they can do is fly really high and drop dumb bombs, which cause minimal damage. The only city they managed to destroy, Mariuipol, took literally two months to fall after being completely surrounded by Russian forces for that long.
For a better understanding of the tactical situation, I would recommend looking at: https://liveuamap.com/
Maybe others know more about this than I do. But from the start I thought that Putin’s intent was to clear Ukraine of Ukrainians and resettle it with Russians. Making war on civilians was the intent, not a side effect.
With that said, the hostages are gone, short of invading Russia they will never come back. And if Ukraine invaded Putin would just have the hostages eliminated. I think there is a good chance that even if a deal is struck, as soon as Putin gets something of what he wants the hostages are eliminated.
And given some of the hostages could pledge loyalty to Russia and then become deep cover freedom fighters (terrorists), Putin cannot rely on the hostages either and feeding them will become a burden too.
The only hope for the hostages I can see is if a reasonable Russian takes over after Putin is removed and tries to normalize relations with Europe, but most think that is impossible.
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Interesting. (This is really just so the first comment isnt some crybaby moaning on about some Minecraft server)
It happens sometimes. 😉
I mean, yeah, why would anyone expect Cringely to be responsible for his own words and actions at this point? That would be crazy.
A short history of Mineserver:
2015
September 29: Mineserver announced
October 21: Mineserver Kickstarter campaign closes
December 14: “All these Mineservers will ship this week”
2016
January 28: “Better late than never! 425 units burned in and ready to go”
March 17: “Sorry to have gone so long without an update. We won’t do THAT again.”
November 10: “We’ll finally start shipping the week after Thanksgiving.” LAST POST EVER ON KICKSTARTER
2017
May 22: “This is our 25th update on the Mineserver project. That’s a lot of updates for people who don’t do enough updates.
May 22: “The pitch must have worked, because we’ve found just enough investors to move on to the next level, which is shipping our current orders.”
2018
May 21: “Every supporter will get their Mineserver before the end of the year.”
2019
January 28: “We have a good product and a great marketing plan… if it weren’t for those darned pitchforks.”
2020
January 23: “So unless YOU want to step up, that means I will have to earn the matching money on my own, which is what I have been trying to do with my other startup, Eldorado Space.”
2021
January 15: “The last of these prediction columns will be an update on my Mineserver project that, but that will be 7-10 days from now.”
March 21: “My next column will be, believe it or not, a book review, which is something I don’t do very often but this book is important. And the column after that will be my long awaited Mineserver update.”
August 20: Posts Book Review.
September 10: Reposts 9/11 post from 2001.
2022
March 7: Posts ridiculous, nonsensical, fantasy scenario about a massive airlift to Ukraine.
March 22: Posts poorly thought-out prediction that Putin won’t nuke Ukraine.
March 28: Posts utterly insane prediction that Ukraine will win the war with $10 laser pointers.
May 19: Posts equally insane prediction that Russia will win the war because they took hostages.
Nobody gives a shit, Jeremy. Give it up already
a) People do, and b) never.
A fool and his money…
388 “fools” pledged their money for a Mineserver in 2015, but I was not among them.
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Practically none of them even want their money back at this point. The prevailing sentiment is as follows:
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[Backer comment]: “Acknowledgement would even be nice at this point. I mean acknowledgement other than backhanded references in spaces outside of Kickstarter.”
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It’s not asking a lot. All they want is one tiny “sorry, I failed” from Bob on the Kickstarter page. It would take no time at all for him to do and cost him no money.
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The reason why he is seemingly incapable of doing this one tiny thing is left as an exercise for the reader.
Suzie Alcatrez —
While there may be some truth to the adage “A fool and his money are soon parted”, it is irrelevant here. The majority of backers of Crookely’s Kickstarter project were *not* fools. Instead, they evaluated the risk based on the reputation of the person doing the project and the likelihood of success. It was not rocket surgery; it was basically a Raspberry Pi-like SBC pre-configured to run a Minecraft server.
Unfortunately, Crookely failed to follow through on his obligations: keeping his backers informed about the progress of the project.
Unfortunately for fans of his scribblings here, he abandoned the Kickstarter platform and began writing about it here, resulting in backers showing up here to ask for an accounting in the comments. If that bothers you, encourage Crookely to return to the Kickstarter website and post updates there; most of the backers here would gladly abandon this site were he to do so.
But to simply say “A fool and his money…” is both disingenuous and shows a complete lack of understanding of the issue being commented on. Given that that seems to be Crookely’s MO these days, I’m not surprised that his supporters follow the same playbook.
Jeremy, Roger –
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How about a fool and his attention? Life is short. Has your jihad against Cringely led to any single result over the past, what 8 years? Is this worth the amount of time you’ve invested – the one thing you can never get back?
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Life is short. You’ve made your point. The dead horse is beaten so uniformly even the DNA is a homogenous mixture of atoms. Congratulations, you’ve won! You can move on with your life.
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Please. For your own sake.
@Matthew I actually very much give a shit and I didn’t even back the project, so don’t claim to speak for everyone. Bob continues to promise ON THIS SITE (not Kickstarter) that more updates will come [here] but they never do. Color me intrigued.
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Will he ever follow through on his promise or is he just stringing everyone along while dragging his family’s name through the mud? As a father, I cannot understand how anyone could ever use their children as a shield and not just man up and come clean, so this whole tale has me completely engaged, even if I have no skin in the game.
Interesting.
Some years back, a gentleman knocked on my door. He was having an issue with the HOA. He wanted to store his boat on his property and the Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions would not allow it. So, he went door to door trying to gin up enough support to have it put on a ballot. He complained to me that paying for storage elsewhere was unworkable, mainly because people kept breaking into the facility and stealing stuff. I showed him little sympathy.
I had even less when he invoked how important the boat was to his children. He liked to drag his little critters out on the weekends, he said.
Yeah, right.
I never signed his doo-dad. I never voted on it at a meeting. But I believe he acquired enough support to get what he wanted. Along with the additional cost of building a structure on his property in order to house it. And that structure had to pass the Architectural Committee. As well as County Code. I hope he’s happy. Especially now that his children have grown up and moved away.
“Nobody gives a shit”
Demonstrably untrue. The very comment you replied to proves you wrong. What you really mean is “Nobody I care about (me) gives a shit.”
Quite right. Only nobodies give a shit.
Including you apparently.
Yes, it has led to a result. Because of the commentary that kept people aware of the situation, Cringely was reported to his insurance company for possible fraud in trying to recoup money for phantom MineServers when his house(allegedly) caught on fire.
Or……. over a million insurgents inside Russia ?
Ukrainians already started doing that in occupied territories:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/may/22/russia-ukraine-war-zelenskiy-says-only-diplomacy-can-end-war-polish-president-to-address-ukraine-parliament-in-kyiv-live?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-628a73d08f08e35126babe65#block-628a73d08f08e35126babe65
10m ago
13.59
The Moscow-installed mayor of Enerhodar, a southern city of Ukraine and the location of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, was wounded in an explosion Sunday, AFP is reporting.
Andrey Shevchik was appointed mayor of Enerhodar after Russian troops took control of the city and the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
“We have accurate confirmation that during the explosion the self-proclaimed head of the ‘people’s administration’ Shevchik and his bodyguards were injured,” Dmytro Orlov, the elected mayor of Enerhodar, said on Telegram.
Orlov said that they were in hospital “with injuries of varying severity”, but nobody else was injured in the blast. Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Shevchik was in intensive care.
[…] I Cringely ☛ Putin plays his asshole card […]
IDK.
It occurred to me this morning after reading about Biden re-establishing ties with CUBA that maybe he (BIDEN) should pull a PUTIN and invade and annex CUBA. I mean, now that there’s a precedent.
May we live in interesting times!
I agree with Cringely. I’ve been thinking about hostages and human bargaining-chips too. War is a nasty business. Malevolent people in positions of power make it a despicable one as well.
Certainly Vladimir Putin is performing badly but he’s probably not alone in running Russia so any aggression towards him would probably not help. This whole event is terrible but at least Putin doesn’t appear to be planning to rename the Ukraine to be “Texas” after he moves the Russian boarder further south. His terrible actions are nothing new in our world are they?
I am hoping that in a few thousand years we may start to see intelligent life on this planet, these days we’re just seeing grown-up monkeys running around and hitting each other.
Er, okay.
I mean, just over a month ago you were saying that Ukraine would magically win the war with laser pointers.
Now you’re saying Russia will magically win the war with Ukrainian hostages.
Ukraine is in a war for its very existence, for the survival of all their people. If anything, the hostages make them fight harder. They know what is at stake if they lose. Their entire country will be made hostage. Why would that be any kind of bargaining chip for Putin? It wouldn’t.
If you want to know how the war in Ukraine is actually going, I would recommend not listening to half-demented retired 1980s computer gossip columnists.
One thing you could do would be to watch what the Russians themselves are saying, to themselves, on their own propaganda channel:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61484222
“Military analyst & retired colonel Mikhail Khodarenok tells anchor Olga Skabeyeva “the situation for us will clearly get worse…we’re in total geopolitical isolation…the situation is not normal.””
Comment . . .
https://12ft.io/newsletters.theatlantic.com/peacefield/628410120a81280021a42fd1/russia-ukraine-war-outcome-changing/
Never mind.
@Gnarfle, while the Atlantic article is effectively paywalled, there is a link where the author goes on TV to discuss the article, and it’s fairly informative, as he answers some questions about his article from the hosts:
https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/tom-nichols-three-signs-putin-may-be-reassessing-his-plans-140472389599
Basically, his three reasons for thinking that Putin may be reevaluating his plans in Ukraine are as follows:
1. Putin gave a very muted public speech on May 9th, and did not call for all-out war or even conscription.
2. Russia has reopened communication lines with US ambassadors, even though discussions are still stalled.
3. Russia allowed a retired General to go on national TV and express deep concerns about how the war is going (this is the same incident described in the article from the BBC I linked above)
None of us can accurately predict how the war will end. But already Russia has failed to achieve its main strategic objective (the capture of Kiev and installation of a puppet government) and the current stalemate does not work in Russia’s favor as time goes on and foreign military aid to Ukraine increases.
If anyone wants a decent view of the Ukraine conflict I recommend watching Youtubes interviewing General Ben Hodges. (Filter on videos >20 minutes for the good stuff.) He’s ex Supreme Commander of NATO Europe and knows what he is talking about. He also has a lovely sense of humour.
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Also watch videos by Perun. He’s done an entire series breaking down different aspects of the conflict. He has a degree specialising in military economics or something like that and makes Powerpoint slides exciting. I discovered him after watching a video by The Chieftain on the relevance of tanks to modern combat.
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Meanwhile I have been watching a video by Yuliia Paievska. Inspiring story. Brave lady. Read on for the story of the Angels of Taira.
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https://apnews.com/article/mariupol-medic-body-camera-036cf9f28180e9525760d68bddbe4ee4
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https://apnews.com/article/ukrainian-medic-documents-war-614419610413
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Embedded video. (Content warning.)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9AW1_YyAhQ
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Youtube video direct link. (Content warning.)
Thanks for the links to General Hodges and Taira. Good stuff.
What you don’t understand is that it’s not Putin that’s doing the war it’s CCCP ideology!!!
I can start this war in the 1960’s when Andropov saw that Russian Orthodox religion could be controlled by the state as the Church of England is.
In the breakup of CCCP in 1991 the Ukrainian Orthodox churches were given to the Russian Orthodox church controlled by Kirill an Andropov appointee.
CCCP needs the east of Ukraine for free CCCP movement without other governments, because it has Sub bases there and is the only 365 day port in CCCP.
CCCP Policy to full fill control of client states.
In 1946 all non ethnic people in CCCP controlled states were returned to their national enthnicities.
In 1991 there was a movement in the interregnum when all politicians were communist to populate new states with Russian Comrades. The Baltic states have 25% Russians. Russians went to east Ukraine. And even in USA there are sleeper cells waiting to be activated.
In the early part of the war Russians demonstrated for CCCP in Germany (1.5 Million Russians in Germany.
All this means that in many states in the West there are 5 columns.
The movement of Ukrainians deep into Russia means the the east is free to have Russia do Hitlerian Lebensraum policy and eventually make it Russian.
This is just modern usage of the colonisation doctrine of all states, including USA.
The only way to stop this is to destroy Russia!!
Russian Orthodox Kirill has now proclaimed Putin the Antichrist fighter supreme.
When will the USA Baptist proclaim Trump the harbinger of Jesus second coming and demand total acceptance.
As the economic-social-weather stresses increase so too the fanaticism of the all knowing religious.
I just saw this emerging trend and extrapolated it. Zelenskyy is worried about these hostages because he has no power to change anything. Running Russia out of tanks and ammunition — even running Russia physically out of Ukraine — won’t bring back the hostages. Only taking the war all the way to Moscow would go that, but NATO won’t make that happen. So Putin preserves some world power based purely on his domestic situation, which is unassailable. It is a weasel move but typical KGB, don’t you think?
We wondered how to build Putin an off-ramp when all along he was building one on his own.
Zelenskyy is worried about the hostages because they are his own countrymen, his own people, and he is a leader and a human being. He’s pointing out the kidnappings so that more people understand the evils that Russia is willing to perform in order to prosecute their insane war, and therefore gain more support for Ukraine’s war effort. Judging by the recent increase in funding bills from the US and EU, what he’s doing is working.
“Extrapolating” this “emerging trend” reminds me of what Disco Stu kept doing on the Simpsons (“If these trends continue…. hey!”) It’s simplistic and naive, but then again this is hardly a change of form for you.
Winning the war against the Russian war machine and expelling them from the Ukraine borders won’t bring back the hostages, no. But it will prevent any more hostages from being taken.
Following your argument, is Ukraine is supposed to surrender so that they get their hostages back? Do you really think anyone believes that Putin would actually return them at that point, and not just commit more genocide on the Ukraine population? So why would Ukraine do it?
The hostages that are already taken are gone. They’re essentially casualties of war.
It shouldn’t be so hard to explain this to you.
Stay in your lane. Whinging about minecraft servers. Your one domain of expertise.
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion, random anonymous person with nothing to say.
Forget the Ukrainians in Russia. Expel the Russians in Ukraine. Germany soon after the Russian demonstrations at start of war banned all Russian & Ukrainian Flags in all demonstrations following the first.
I’m going to say something I didn’t expect. Trump banned immigrants – well in the New World Order ban Ideological Immigrants.
Who are they – Muslims Chinese Russians and Wokes!!
In the Post Climate debacle there will be everyman for himself. Food in the next 6 months will make Inflation now a minor irritation. Ukrainian war will exacerbate it.
It has always been thus.
Every man for himself and God against all.
The Problem is not Russia but the West. Idiots running the West believe bullshit and woke mythology. This denial of reality in Climate and other areas* will make the 2030 the worst ever for all humans.
I cannot make idiots change so do as the Prepars do!
* Muslims in every country. Russians Everywhere. Wokes in America. Even Republicans in America! (Lets not forget the Criminal Democratic Party for Clinton in 2016)
Climate change denial in the West is an ongoing problem, but to blame the West while ignoring Russia’s role in creating the climate issues by selling a major source of the fossil fuels driving climate change (oil and natural gas) is ridiculous.
Even Russia’s desire to get Ukraine’s land back under its belt is possibly being driven by the recent fossil fuel finds off the coast of Crimea and in eastern Ukraine (Donbas, etc.) They don’t want the Ukraine to compete against them on the global fossil fuels market.
Russia is the asshole here – not American SUVs, Chinese coal-fired plants, oligarch yachts, Al Gore private plane flights, etc.
There’s enough assholery to go around.
The first step in being an asshole is to ensure that everything is someone else’s problem.
You are right on this one Gnarfle. That above is completely idiotic post. Basically instead of killers for all dead people that are shot he blames gun manufacturers/dealers. They sell because there is demand for it and goods sold are just used the wrong way. You can use gun to shoot turkey or deer in season when it is allowed and get some food – same with crude oil. Products made from crude oil:
These petroleum products include gasoline, distillates such as diesel fuel and heating oil, jet fuel, petrochemical feedstocks, waxes, lubricating oils, and asphalt.
With CCCP’s war going badly Orthodox Krill is following the Party line and saying that those who die for the motherland will go directly to heaven. Only one religion spouts the same line – Islam.
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Many years ago a local newspaper had aphorisms in the business section on business, and I read them and found many from Arabia of ancient origin.
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It was then that I discovered the best advertising line for a religion. Die for Islam and Allah will give you 72 virgins. The problem being that after 72 days you have no virgins for eternity!! If Allah was intelligent she would have given the man memory loss daily and made the woman a new virgin each day. Happiness for ever!!
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USA TV Evangelicals have a similar statement “Give me money and God will look after you”
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Such are the man made inducements of religion!!
Mark Stephen’s (aka Cringely) hasn’t heard of “Russification”. Kaliningrad Oblast was annexed by Russia. Under Stalin the local population was moved out and Russians moved in. This and work camps is pretty standard Stalinism. Putin is pulling the same strategy with Ukraine i.e. the complete destruction of a culture and occupation by Russian speaking and Russia aligned people. It’s also the same tactic used to destabalise territories he wants to occupy with puppet leaders and fake referendums and annexation.
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Ben Hodges has a few things to say about Putin’s kidnapping of Ukrainians. They’re not a lever for anything. Not only do you not reward a monster but there are far higher stakes at play. This is about preserving the rules based international order versus collapsing into a Russified world where might is right and repressive strongmen hold their people in a state of terror. That is not a world you want to live in. The death rate globally on the long march to such a dark world would climb into the millions and potentially billions.
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The only off ramp for Putin is to end the war and withdraw to Ukraine’s original borders and, yes, this does mean Russia leaving Crimea.
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Russia is in deep freeze until they have reformed as a country. Sanctions, and isolation and exclusion from international affairs are staying until then.
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Mark Stephen’s (aka Cringely) really needs to stop embarrassing himself and not only that stop insulting his readers intelligence with mentally retarded clickbait.
Quote “Russia is in deep freeze until they have reformed as a country “
What an Idiot!! Russia IS a deep freeze – just ask the French Germans & Russians.
The reason for the war is my quote “ CCCP needs the east of Ukraine for free CCCP movement without other governments, because it has Sub bases there and is the only 365 day port in CCCP. “ above
You’re so keen on you tube look up the sub base that was in CCCP Territory but is now in Ukrainian.
And see how much land they have given back to countries. You idiot the very next day after selling Alaska they wanted it back.
And you think sanctions will work! What a Dickhead! India China Turkey and Hungary all are want what CCCP has to sell ( Cheaply) and will keep CCCP going forever!!
“will keep CCCP going forever!!”
Proof
North Korea has Atomic Bombs Makes $100 better than the USA. AND Steals billions from American Companies and has sanctions. But CCCP & China keeps it going!!
Makes me wonder about all the monkeypox being found in so many countries. They just declared a case in NY was through community spread, not because he visited Africa. Murderous Sociopath card?
Remember when articles here used to be about technology? Instead of sounding like half-baked twitter rants?
Pepperidge Farm remembers… 🙂
And we thank you for your support.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-U4MuAPi3Y
Ben Hodges: “Putin’s War: Military Strategies to Implement Deterrence and Readiness”
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Putin’s attack on Ukraine is a litmus test for the transatlantic alliance’s resilience in both economic and military terms. What is an appropriate response to the Russian aggression? Along with economic sanctions, the Western world and in particular NATO will need to review its military capabilities and strategies to implement both deterrence and to assert readiness in the face of further Russian aggression.
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Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former Allied Land Command of the United States Army Europe, will analyze in a discussion with Dr. Meike Zwingenberger, executive director of the Bavarian Center for Transatlantic Relations at Amerikahaus, the current military policies that can be effective in containing Putin’s imperialist efforts in Ukraine and potentially elsewhere.
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I could stop laughing when Ben Hodges described Putin’s situation of thinking he would have a rose petal lined parade of an easy victory turning into discovering he had handcuffed himself to a dead body. It’s not just what he said but how he said and the surprise. I’m still laughing a day later.
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Ukrainian comedy has taken off big time since the war started.
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How do you know Russian soldiers are thick? The bullets go through one ear and out the other.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb_spyqwVXY
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Flipping heck I need to lose weight. I used to be as skinny as her. I put on weight over the pandemic!
I agree that the Ukrainian citizens that are being held by Russia will be used as a bargaining chip by Russia.
I think we will get a feel for how that may work out when the prisoners of war from the Mariupol steel plant Azovstal are handled in exchange for Russian POWs held by Ukraine. That will be a significant insight of how Putin plans to deal with such things in the future.
I’m guessing nothing significant in regard to POW exchanges will occur until Ukraine has completed securing the northern “axis” near the Ukranian city of Kharkiv . After Ukraine does that, I’m guessing Ukraine will bomb and destroy railway and highway bridges around the Russian city of Belgorod (where Ukraine bombed a fuel depot with its helicopters a few weeks ago).
My understanding is that Ukraine is preparing to perform at the southern “axis” near the Ukranian city of Mykolaiv what they have almost completed at the northern “axis”.
At the point that Ukraine has control of both ends of the conflict area in eastern Ukraine (north and south), I predict that there will be a significant POW exchange and then a long, protracted period of a Russian defensive posture in the current area of conflict in eastern and south-eastern Ukraine.
Wolverines!
NATO Meeting:
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https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_156840.htm
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CSTO Meeting:
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https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202205/1265802.shtml
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Interesting contrast! They had to space themselves out to make the room look full. Notice also how Putin manages to place himself at the head of a round table. A comically BIG round table.
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https://gandhara.rferl.org/a/csto-sco-afghan-situation/31421532.html
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What a line up!
Here’s some insight into how the twilight columns of Robert X. Cringely are written:
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“Speaking to Chinese media yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that more than a million Ukrainians are now in Russia. Another estimate says the total number of Ukrainian civilian and military prisoners is 1.3 million. And Putin has no intention of giving back any of them.”
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“Yesterday” was actually April 30, meaning this post was written nearly a month ago. Here’s one story, you can find it published almost anywhere on April 30 or May 1, when it was actually “news” and appeared on the AP and Reuters feed:
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https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/more-1-million-people-evacuated-ukraine-russia-feb-24-lavrov-2657331
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Since Cringely is not following this issue particularly closely, he wouldn’t be aware that Lavrov said “one million” after Zelensky and the Ukrainians claimed “550,000” Ukrainians had been “exfiltrated” to Russia. Lavrov’s claim was to say no, there have been many MORE refugees taken into Russia. He is referring in part to people from Donetsk and Luhansk. The attentive reader will remember (and perhaps Cringely did back on April 30) that just before the start of the war Russia began “evacuating” civilians from Donetsk and Luhansk. Here’s a story from the Guardian on February 20 describing these people:
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/20/donbas-ukraine-evacuees-face-uncertain-future-in-russia
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Why are they arguing over the numbers? It’s because of a controversy that Cringely doesn’t even mention and probably isn’t aware of: the Red Cross was then being C R I T I C I Z E D for working with refugees in Russia, with the Ukrainians claiming they were assisting Russians kidnapping their citizens via a new Red Cross office opened in Rostov. Here is that story:
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https://cepa.org/supping-with-the-kremlin-devil-the-red-cross-dilemma/
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Here is more on the accusation and the response:
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https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220421-red-cross-denies-kyiv-s-accusation-of-working-in-concert-with-moscow
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The entire thrust of Cringely’s article is – like his laser pointers taking out tanks – a flight of his own fancy, like he read paragraphs of different news stories and made up everything to connect them together. It’s not his dumbest column on Ukraine, or even his most egregious one. Just the latest.
Maybe Bob and Bruce Willis can trade stories about their glory days. If they can remember them.
Well they’ve both done some terrible things for the benefit of their children, though Bruce actually did give people the movies they paid for.
Touché!
That’s not how you spell “headshot”
This pattern of decline isn’t unfamiliar. A prominent govt executive leaves office, has a few good years on the lecture track, sells his/her still-somewhat-fresh Rolodex connections to some cushy private corporation, and then retreats into the formerly-relevant sidelines. Ditto with athletes. Ditto with [most] Hollywood celebs.
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I posit that it’s hard to re-enter the technology circuit once you’ve exited it. A few individuals, like Marc Andreessen, have somewhat-successful “second” and “third chapters.” Some parlay the experience into adjacent entrepreneurial careers. Others enjoy dignified fade-outs as generalized industry commentators, akin to, I dunno, George Foreman or Teddy Atlas.
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What if you’re not one of those famed few? You go from secondary/tertiary participant “in the room with” Steve Jobs, to still-somewhat-connected journalist, to Statler & Waldorf balcony pundit, to… something which lurks just off-stage, unseen and unfulfilled, seeking fads upon which to jump. Such as 3-D fabrication. Or next-generation WiFi. Or aerospace. Or nouveau chic crowdfunding. Or Ajit-Pai-laser-pointer spaghetti at wall.
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I’m not unsympathetic to the need for attention, and/or relevance. But this has gotten ridiculous.
You make a valid point.
The woman who became my wife had worked at various accounting positions at various companies for a number of years. She finally landed at the same company where I worked. She essentially worked herself into a position that is hard to define. She was not the Assistant Controller. But she worked with the Controller on various special projects. I don’t think she had a title.
Later, after that company merged with another, and later was absorbed into yet another, she found work as a Controller. Still in property management, though. When that company was absorbed into another company, she couldn’t find a job.
Until someone hired her to work in CONSTRUCTION ACCOUNTING. The rumor is that once you get involved in CONSTRUCTION ACCOUNTING, you’ll never work in REAL ACCOUNTING ever again. And I believe it.
Contractors don’t wanna know from accounting. “Just gimme my money so I can get back to constructing buildings!”
The problem is this . . . there is a protocol for getting things done. Everyone thinks they should be the exception to that protocol. And they will bitch and moan and whine and wheedle and then finally give in and follow the protocol. And after wasting everyone’s time and resources, they’ll do the exact same thing the next time they bid on a contract.
I copied the following from a commentary thread on the Register . . .
(… as our contract paid a percentage of the overall final cost …
No wonder such infrastructure projects always go over budget and way past their
schedule.)
This might have some bearing on the previous un-scheduled rant.
Excellent – you nailed it.
I still read Jean-Louis Gassée’s column. Remember him?
It’s sad that you described my career. I guess it’s normal.
JLG played a major role in the Theranos scandal because he did what Cringely (among many others) don’t bother to do anymore: journalism.
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https://mondaynote.com/theranos-trouble-a-first-person-account-1690b827539f
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That post alone in comparison to the fare here is Pultizer-level material.
> But this has gotten ridiculous.
> But this has gotten ridiculous.
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Ecclesiastes, is that you?
Russia is a rogue nation led by a paranoid megalomaniacal pirate. Their previous paranoid megalomaniac had a political philosphy. This one doesn’t. He’s just Trump on meth. Before the Tsars were established, Russians were xenophobic river pirates. Plus ça change. Putin has not much longer to live, I think, so his plans may well come to naught. Who would continue on his insane path once he’s dead and buried? One may well ask what is power anyway? And the answer is: it’s the ability to have others commit multiple murders for you with no consequences for you or for them. Sorry, ICC. The Sword of Damocles is made of styrofoam in the modern world.
CNN overdose?
So, military prisoners are being exchanged. But, the subject of Cringely’s post is civilian POWs.
New details on the story about the defenders of Zmiinyi (Snake) Island, who refused to surrender to the russians on the first day of the war. On February 24, a small garrison of 13 servicemen refused calls from a russian ship for it to surrender, telling the warship to “go **** yourself”. The phrase said by a state border guardsman back then was published and became world-famous. Especially considering the further fate of that warship.
Today, on May 23, the Ministry of Internal Affairs claimed that the serviceman of the Zmiinyi Island garrison who said the words was released from russian captivity, Defense Express reports. The name of this person has not been disclosed yet.
His direct commander said the border guard serviceman was in captivity for a month and a half, and has been freed just recently.
You’ve managed to interest me.
I haven’t checked in in a while so maybe I missed it but… wasn’t there supposed to be a Mineserver update posted?
“The last of these prediction columns will be an update on my Mineserver project that, but that will be 7-10 days from now. You’ll just have to wait for it, because that story is still in some flux.”
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Bob Cringely, January 2021
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That’s some long-lasting flux, indeed.
His soldering iron takes a long time to heat up.
I can’t believe Netflix would do this without consulting the leading expert on Three Mile Island, I hope someone is fired for this:
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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19757508/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt
Thanks for posting that link. I just finished watching the show (it’s only four episodes) and… holy shit. There was a lot more to the Three Mile Island story than I knew about. It was unsettling.
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I’d recommend watching it all the way through.
Thanks for the tip, I hadn’t watched it yet, just saw it in a list of new documentaries, and will check it out.
“Thanks for the tip!”
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That’s what SHE said.
Thanks for posting that link.
https://tasinmazhaber.com/
There are no Great Men (for any meaning of “great”). Putin is less existent than most. Every individual asshole is (A) dispensible and (B) backed up by a wedge of his national polity — not necessarily a majority, but one big enough (for several different meanings of “big”) to strike for power. Knock out the asshole — “decapitate the regime”, as the magical-thinking prescription goes — and a new figurehead will be found at once; just as, if the cost of any target is raised to prohibitiveness (by whatever means), another target is immediately swapped in.
It makes me wonder why monkeypox is widespread in so many countries. They recently announced that a case in New York was disseminated by the community, not because he visited Africa. Murderous Sociopath playing card?
Bob and many commenters here have been huffing too much Western corporate media propaganda.
So what propaganda should we be listening to instead? Russian propaganda? Like many of that country’s institutions, it’s not functioning too well lately.
HistoryLegends channel on YT is balanced and fact-based with good historical perspective.
https://youtu.be/0nKidMrwhME
First: I’ve read news of Russian advances in the East on The Guardian, NYT, NBC and several other places in the last 24 hours alone.
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Second: Those sources are getting the news, not doodling on a map based upon the news those “Western propaganda sources” COLLECT FOR HIM. We currently have a massive deficit of fact gathering and a disgusting abundance of “analysis” by guys sitting in their boxers with a laptop.
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Third: You could at least go through Telegram or R&U Videos, which are the sources he’s using for the “Russian perspective” in order to monetize them. Even Patrick Lancaster, Graham Phillips or the other myriad Anglo-Americans wandering around offer more, because at least they’re wandering around rather than trying to come up with the most punchable YouTube Thumbnail Face.
Western corporate media only started reporting about Ukrainian losses in the last 24 hours, as you admit, when there was no choice when it was obvious that Ukraine is entering panic mode. It was obvious from the beginning of this conflict that Russia would eventually grind Ukraine out but the Western corporate media reported ridiculous propaganda until they just couldn’t anymore. In retrospect, thus far, History Legends has been much more truthful and accurate than Western corporate media in analysis. Another great channel if you understand a fair amount of German is from the Austrian military, which of course is not a part of NATO:
https://youtu.be/UcQ9-asg8gg
The situation for Ukraine is increasingly bleak but the US and its corporate media puppets will push the fight until the last Ukrainian is dead. Shameful.
Bro, going on about how all the SHEEPLE are eating propaganda and then posting some YouTuber sitting in his bedroom as a counterpoint is not very persuasive.
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There’s tons of war footage and shit posted every day, if you were actually digging deep to get to it that’d be different – might not be right, but at least I could respect the effort. This is effortless.
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“Western corporate media only started reporting about Ukrainian losses in the last 24 hours, as you admit”
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lol I admit no such thing. Did you know that you’ve phrased this in such a way that I only have to post ONE link to prove you wrong? I’ll take the extra credit of posting one nearly a MONTH old that proves your lies:
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https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/ukraine-troops-retreat-from-popasna-luhansk-governor-confirms
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Next time you come to a knife fight, bring something sharper than your dull wit.
Wait a minute… Are you talking about Vladimir Putin or Denis Leary? This blog is so confusing.
Since a number of retired IBMers work here, would be interested to get their feedback on this:
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https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/30/ibm_retirement_clubs/
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Kind of interesting to me the company still funded this in 2021 or even 2020 as that fraternity feeling seems to have been long gone for awhile.
Yes, I agree. The corporate culture that was social as well as business is long gone. My department was assigned harassment training in 1979. It was clear to me then that I would never date anyone who was an employee of my corporate employer. Things had changed.
I continued to participate in corporate golf tournaments, softball leagues, etc for many years. I took my fiancé (future wife) to a corporate annual picnic and a corporate annual Christmas party. Those type of functions ceased existence decades ago.
I think maybe the last thing that vaguely resembled a corporate social activity was a project-team-building event I organized at a major league baseball game. I was later admonished for my venue selection because one of the players on the team had been involved in a racially insensitive situation.
If you are involYes, I agree. The corporate culture that was social as well as business is long gone. My department was assigned harassment training in 1979. It was clear to me then that I would never date anyone who was an employee of my corporate employer. Things had changed.
I continued to participate in corporate golf tournaments, softball leagues, etc for many years. I took my fiancé (future wife) to a corporate annual picnic and a corporate annual Christmas party. Those type of functions ceased existence decades ago.
I think maybe the last thing that vaguely resembled a corporate social activity was a project-team-building event I organized at a major league baseball game. I was later admonished for my venue selection because one of the players on the team had been involved in a racially insensitive situation.
If you are involved in business organizational processes today – you need to keep employee activity to an absolute minimuved in business organizational processes today – you need to keep employee activity to an absolute minimum and focus directly on business execution.
> IBM Retired Clubs…
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There’s a lot of sad history here. IBM forcibly converted their longstanding pension plans to lump sums in ~2003, grandfathering only a tiny subset of old-timers. (This action was legally contested, in 2004 and 2006. Courts found in favor of the company both times.)
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In ~2012 (and, honestly, for years prior), IBM started resource-pruning in earnest — retroactively changing yearly review ratings, cutting skill-deficient staff to 80% or 90% pay while giving them a six-month ultimatum, scrutinizing expense reports with a fine-toothed comb for mileage deviations or questionable line-items — an impressive portion of its targets being those approaching the “29-year bridge to pension” or “28.5-year plus FMLA/vacation bridge to pension,” etc.
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Many will point to Gerstner as the man who cheapened IBM, but these nip-tuck profit via cutback actions were all squarely Sam Palmisano — who, on Obama’s first day in office, sat down for a face-to-face discussion on “IBM’s new patented algorithms analyzing optimal domestic-to-outsource ratios,” “phased resource actions less likely to generate trigger discrimination claims,” “to remain compliant with the WARN Act,” etc. Yes, all mega-sized corporations use different business yardsticks, but this is all kinda revolting.
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Oh flipping heck.People still moaning about the IBM thing? If you haven’t noticed there’s been this whole neo-liberalism, and outsourcing, and LEAN, and JIT, and deregulation, breaching of the post-war settlement, crushing of unions, increases of lifespans, more women playing an active role in the job market, younger people staying longer in full time education, and globalisation thing happening over the past few decades.
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I didn’t know how the US was such a hotbed of harassment cases until I posted a picture on Instagram for feedback. The first comment from a man? “Bait”. I’m, like, what?? Then someone explained all the sex pest allegations you lot have to field.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoMvvKuw2oQ
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Very interesting!
“Oh flipping heck.People still moaning about the IBM thing? If you haven’t noticed there’s been this whole neo-liberalism, and outsourcing, and LEAN, and JIT, and deregulation, breaching of the post-war settlement, crushing of unions, increases of lifespans, more women playing an active role in the job market, younger people staying longer in full time education, and globalisation thing happening over the past few decades.”
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… which, idk, makes it just a little fucking weird that the company WAS STILL PAYING FOR THIS SHIT IN 2022 HUH.
I’m not against corporate enlightenment. I do find though that IBM types banging on about the good old days does irritate. It’s usually men (and we all know men have an empathy bypass) and they never contextualise things. It’s always about them all time. Do you know how boring that is?
In the UK back in the day enlightened capitalists invested in their workers pay and conditions. They were the great reformers and all part of a movement to do away with the evils of exploitation and poverty. The author, Dickens, was horrified by poverty and the state of many poor peoples existence.
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In earlier times the Elizabethan poor laws obligated local parishes to give money or food to those who could not afford to eat. For the first time in British history it became unlawful to allow anyone to starve to death.
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https://theconversation.com/how-elizabethan-law-once-protected-the-poor-from-the-high-cost-of-living-and-led-to-unrivalled-economic-prosperity-183392
How Elizabethan law once protected the poor from the high cost of living – and led to unrivalled economic prosperity
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https://www.waterstones.com/book/after-the-virus/hilary-cooper/simon-szreter/9781009005203
After the Virus: Lessons from the Past for a Better Future (Paperback)
Hilary Cooper (author), Simon Szreter (author)
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To say we’re going backwards under the Tories is an understatement.
Though Russia being so much powerful, Still Ukraine has not been conquered and it really shows that being small doesn’t mean that you are weak. Their courage has made Putin mad that now he is trying every way possible to win over Ukraine even if he has to play dirty.
Putin never said the goal is to “conquer jewkraine”, that’s a typical kike media misinterpretation you are pushing here like an obedient NPC cuck you are.
Bored shitless…
BBB.
Bored Beyond Belief!
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There is a development in CCCP politics that is becoming apparent. The first sign of it was the May Day parade in Red Square. It was the old CCCP red flag. And recently that flag appeared in east Ukraine. This coupled with the placement of Atomic Bombs in Belarus is a sign of Putin’s ambitions!
The restoration of CCCP!!!
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This is how I know you are clueless Bob / Mark. You pump for the globalist criminals that brought us all the false flag operations of the 20th century plus the C00f pysop and now Ukraine – which cured c00f interestingly enough.
If you only had the autists lust for pure unvarnished truth. But no.
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Hey, cringely clown, how’s it feel being so wrong on jewkraine? How will you cope when that nazi hellhole finally implodes for good?
And where’s the minecrap server, you cheap swindler?
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