chenGOD

From wiki: We should note that this is de facto and not de jure. We should also note that after the annexation, Ukraine shut off the main source of water to Crimea, which is total BS. As a result, water rationing seems to be pretty standard: https://euromaidanpress.com/2020/12/17/water-severely-rationed-in-crimean-cities-after-all-attempts-to-solve-crisis-fail/ It seems Russia is unable to help, despite their "technological prowess". Here is also a good place to counter disinfo: https://uacrisis.org/en/hwag

In the last 20 minutes you've posted three times about him and nothing about the war. Do try and stay on topic. And please use the ignore function on him? That's what it's there for.

Knowing what is going on and having the means to do something about it without violating international law are two different things. EU has only itself to blame for that - the bureaucracy and technocracy on display at the EU parliament is staggering, and this comes from a Canadian, whose foreign minster recently said - "we are good at convening". A disconcerted EU is definitely in the interest of Russia and China, but not for the US - they want smooth trade and markets - at least most of the time, until they decide to elect nationalist dimbulbs like Trump.

Why are you still talking about him? Start posting information that you think is not disinformation and contributes to the debate? Everyone keeps talking about him - just stop? Yes - you are also old like I am. We all remember this: If this forum is able to be derailed by one poster who posts contrarian shit, we're in sad shape.

This is simply wrong, at least from a Canadian perspective. It's not the elite preventing the freezing of Russian oligarchs' assets in Canada, it is the enforcement capacity of all Canadian authorities with respect to sanctions. While the regulations do target a specific set of Russian actors, freezing orders must be made by the Governor General (currently Mary Simon - hardly one of the elite), and the process is convoluted. Enforcement authorities here have limited capacity to initiate investigations into sanctions violations. While a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry for corporations is an admirable goal (and Canada is working on developing that at a federal and provincial level), as well as a land ownership transparency registry (British Columbia has one), at a global level, who would be responsible for maintaining the registry? Who would verify the information is accurate and up-to-date? I know Piketty describes a number of private central repositories - but this would be funded by governments. Technically possible is a far stretch from implementable. To be clear - undoubtedly wealthy western elites would be impacted by this - but in Canada at least, they are not the ones preventing this from happening. Little disappointed in Piketty on this one.

ah lol, yes I see that now. Well now, steady on old chap, no need to act rashly.

That's not for us to say - and the people of Ukraine should have the most important input, as per the article I linked. The referendum was widely seen as illegal - mostly because of the part where they had Russian soldiers all over the place. The donbas situation was caused by Russian illegal annexation of Crimea, so again, Russia needs to withdraw.

Leading up to 2014-15, you had an awful government in power in Ukraine who had made friendly overtures to Russia, and then you had an illegitimate referendum in Crimea (after months and months of soft occupation by the Russians). Obama was nearing the end of his term as President, and the big European powers wanted nothing to with the situation in a meaningful sense, because of internal cluster-fuckery (UK), over-reliance on Russian natural gas (Germany), and general malaise (rest of Europe). No one wanted to start another war.

Not quite sure that's an appropriate use of the idiom here - not much adversity, no one is really emotional. I'm assuming they live in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, or possibly Myanmar - since those are countries that actually "disappear" journalists. Uh or you know, Russia could withdraw its troops (from all of Ukraine, including the Donbas and Crimea as the aggressor, Putin should resign in disgrace, and Russia should responsible for war reparations. This neutrality option is a massive red herring, and Russia will not hesitate to attack again. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-president-says-any-compromises-with-russia-will-require-referendum-2022-03-21/ I agree with the first - but there is value in that it makes it easier to recognize when you see it in the wild - if he's posting it, you can 99% be sure that it's not legitimate or is heavy on the weasel words. It's still not worth it to censor him. You can put him on ignore, that's quite easy to do.

I'm aware of the point, but I don't believe that he's capturing a lot of followers with his approach. I think it's literally impossible for the mod team to be more sublime than we already are. Unless you mean we should pass directly from the solid to the vapor state and condense back to solid form more frequently, in which case, please send the DMT to: moderators' clubhouse, watmm, usa.

Yes well, he's not posting in support of the Nazis, he's mostly just posting obviously disprovable russian propaganda. He's been at his internet schtick for years (see above analysis of his names), and there are always going to be one or two cranks on the boards. I don't think his end goal is to be a terrible awful person, and if things start to spiral out of control, we'll take care of it - but I think the mod team here (that's moderators - not a group of young dandys riding around on vespas) does ok with things? (obviously I'm biased in my opinion on that issue...)

As I've said - we try not to be to censorious here - there are some exceptions (rules - read - etc..) but while I agree that some of the material he posts (especially in this thread) is very egregious, it is not hate speech or breaking rules, so it wouldn't be just to censor it. Mostly the material he is posting here gets disproved very quickly.

A fanatastic graphic novel - Sienkiewicz's artwork is stunning in this. Even though it's an adaptation of the Lynch film, it's really well done and totally worth the time.

Sorry zkom - I'm just going to hijack your comment as the latest in the chain - this is not directed solely at you. If we could refrain from personal speculation on the poster and concentrate on their ideas and arguments (or lack thereof, as the case may be) I think it would be better for the community writ large. Lord knows I have my own thoughts on Zeff/Cyano/ilqx and disagree with many of things he posts, but I think I've managed (recently - maybe not so much in the past) to refrain from speculating on the individual's mental/personal state. Just something to keep in mind. Back to the atrocities being visited upon Ukraine by Russia:

I thought he directed like the first four or something? Show is getting weird as fuck now, it’s balancing on either being great or being “lost”

So are you going to post some links or…?

Where are you seeing this? Not that I’m a liberal, just curious. Where is this white washing.

I mean season 1 isn't finished yet - there's a new episode out today, with 3 more in the queue to wrap up S.1. Ben Stiller has directed a lot of interesting projects - not all of them great, but some notable standouts include "Reality Bites", "Tropic Thunder", "Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "The Cable Guy", "Heat Vision & Jack" and of course, "Zoolander". I think Aoife McArdle as the other director has to be given a lot of credit - "The You You Are (S.1E.4)" is a tremendous piece of film making. I haven't seen anything else she's done, but she's made three of the best episodes of the series so far.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Buyer-of-Pepe-the-Frog-NFT-files-US-500-000-lawsuit-after-creator-releases-identical-NFTs-for-free.608817.0.html the memes write themselves.

Yes just got the e-mail the other day on this, very excite!

To paraphrase Office Space - "Why should we have to change it, he's the one who sucks."

Who’s sitting and hoping? Certainly not the Ukrainian people. I guess useful idiots who think Putin has done nothing wrong and Ukraine should just accede to his demands might be sitting and hoping.

https://nypost.com/2017/07/31/is-outback-steakhouse-the-illuminati-twitter-investigates/

The PDF I attached earlier from Stephen Walt is a good read to go along with this video. I attach again.IR Theory Guide to Ukraine's War - (Walt - FP 2022).pdf

Echoing this so much. @maxwellsq