vanusa

There is no "data", let alone primary data about these things.

The authoritarian nature of the governing system in Russia makes it nearly impossible to gather such data.

Is she suggesting that there is no conflict in Donbas for the last 8 years?

That is very clearly is not what she's saying.

She didn't accept that academics can have opinions.

Opinions are one thing. Her concern seems to be with the fact that otherwise intelligent and articulate colleagues can be so naïve -- and to some extent, willingly self-deluded -- about the utter insanity their government is currently perpetrating on a neighboring country.

If they stop being neutral soon enough they will stop being global.

Right, but then situations emerge when it is no longer possible to be neutral.

I'm still not sure if its normal or I'm below average quality.

You may be below average at interviewing, but that doesn't say anything about your value as an engineer (or whatever your profession is).

The two skill sets (interviewing, real work) have precious little overlap, practically speaking.

Care to elaborate?

So we invented this story that Russia was bent on aggression in Eastern Europe. Putin is interested in creating a greater Russia, or maybe even re-creating the Soviet Union.

There's no need to "invent" what Putin has very clearly told us in his public speeches. Recreating "historical Russia in the form of the Soviet Union" is the stated goal of what Mearsheimer apparently considers to be Putin's bold act of non-aggression this past week.

What a mindfuck. Only an intellectual can come up with argumentation like this.

https://archive.fo/R04Rn

Flagged for being probably unsubstantiated, and contradicted by other reports.

Obvious troll, as indicated by the inversion of the wording used in the title ("air offensive") into Putinspeak ("demilitarization").

Unfortunately we know all too well what will happen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1999%E2%80%9...

Beyond creepy.

And if this takes off -- we can be sure that the inevitable reduction in human staff (especially in stores in or near working class neighborhoods) is going to play really, really well for Amazon.

Whataboutism, basically.

I would encourage anyone trying to help to make their own decisions and research their own local laws.

And be aware also that if such a group is accessible to casual outsiders - it is almost certainly being surveilled and infiltrated.

Almost certainly they are aware of the risks, and the use of these channels is definitely not in accordance with standard operating procedure. That is, to be used only if there is really no alternative available.

Possibly of interest to this thread:

   Russian bank Tinkoff now offering to exchange rubles for dollars at a rate of 171 rubles per dollar.  It was 83 before the European/US announcement about targeting the Russian central bank. Currency market formally opens tomorrow. This is brutal.

So why should the 4-month future rate (30 percent) determine the spot more strongly than the 1-month rate (20 percent)? When the latter has 100x the volume?

If we define willingness to cram, cram, cram as "conscientiousness" - then sure.

The idea that this is a meaningful proxy for "ability to get things done" -- about that I'm not so sure.

The Russians assassinated the Chechen leader on his way to peace talks 26 years ago.

Assassinated he was, but he wasn't en route to peace talks at the time.

and then apply that information on-the-fly to questions they won't know in advance

But that's the whole point of LC grinding: to claw your way through enough of these problems until, lo and behold... there ends up being an 80 percent chance that any given "medium" problem thrown at you -- is one that you have in fact seen and worked on, already.

I'm just guessing at the 80 percent figure. But it seems pretty clear from the cult of LC grinding that one of the goals of this strategy is not just to learn general techniques for solving these problems -- but to get a significantly high percentage of these problems under your belt already, or nearly so.

While also learning to deploy the just the right grunts and moans and pauses to make your interviewer think you're seeing the problem for the first time, of course.

The table describes RUB futures - no the current RUB.

And the volume on these settles is quite small.

The BBC has a pre-prepared version of the Queen's obituary, for example.

Aside from obituaries, we were talking about.

I know Australian government departments regularly prepare media releases that never happen (from friends in those departments).

News agencies, we were talking about. Not public relations departments.

Locals throwing Molotov’s coctails on passing Russian vehicles

And not very effectively, as the video indicates.

Nobody "knew" what would happen.

Some had very strong hunches. But that's not the same as "knowing".

If he is completely deranged and wants to start a nuclear war he could’ve done so without sacrificing so many Russian troops.

It's not so much that he "wants to" start a nuclear war.

The concern is whether he may end up doing that anyway -- if the moment arrives when he is sufficiently cornered and feels he has nothing more to lose.

It should be noted that the Soviet Union ended up winning that war.

WP says "Most sources conclude that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland", acknowledging that some don't. And also offers the following tasty tidbit:

  "Commander Meretskov announced publicly that the Finnish campaign would take two weeks at the most. Soviet soldiers had even been warned not to cross the border into Sweden by mistake."

If you know of an analysis that (cogently) suggests otherwise, feel free to share it with us.

Because the statement it references is patently silly?

american tanks rolling over iraqi cars,

Empty cars, you mean.

The latest figure reported by Ukraine was they have killed 3500 Russians already.

My understanding was that this number was their claim for total casualties (meaning mostly WIA). And that this got lazily cut-and-pasted all over the place to mean KIA.

The source is needed for the commenter's claim that these toys are en route to the Azov Battalion specifically, obviously and of course.

Not for the suggestion that they might be headed to the Ukrainian MVD.

In the same way that obituaries are often drafted by newspapers in advance of a person's demise, the same is true of reactions to world events.

In totalitarian regimes (and those strongly on the spectrum of totalitarian), sure -- you can bet this happens all the time.

Otherwise? It's basically unheard of. Yes, it has happened as in the case of the Apollo mission (and in niche areas like sporting events) - but by no means does it happen "often".

Denying Belarus statehood is just silly.

That's what the term "vassal state" means. It doesn't "deny statehood", technically. What it indicates is that in practical terms, a state (or the regime running it) can become so dependent on the resources of a superior state (indeed owing its very existence to it) -- that it is fair to say that it is independent in name only.

Which pretty much describes the relationship of Belarus vis-a-vis Russia, after the events of 2020.