Ne Moe Imya

The Ukrainians have been releasing the intercepts from Russians making calls back to their families and friends back in Russia. This literally made my blood run cold to listen to. The translation is correct, this is exactly what she says (though I don't think it's his wife, I think it's his girlfriend, from the way they speak):

Yes, that's him. He did apparently eventually make it to Mariupol, I think, but I don't think he was anywhere near the shooting. Chechens are known for posting crazy videos to Instagram and Youtube of their "battles," mostly showing them shooting hundreds of rounds into what appear to be empty apartment blocks. There are dozens of such videos on the internet if you seek them out, it's almost comical to watch.

The Chechen leader is one of the most evil people on the face of the earth today. It would be difficult to think of anyone worse (I mean, Putin or Kim Jong Un might be worse, but only because they have more power). Deranged would be putting it mildly.

Never thought I'd say this, but we need to get to halftime. Being shredded at the minute. TAA, Hendo, several others all over the place.

Actually, I find this a quite reasonable post and I agree with almost all of it. I just draw the line of balance between "believe everything" and "question everything" much further back than you do. I happen to think it's patently obvious that the level of Russian guilt FAR outweighs the level of Western or Ukrainian guilt in this war, and I find it quite irritating that you (and Pureblood and the others) insist on bringing up Ukrainian or Western problems or mistakes over and over as if they're comparable. But that doesn't mean I disagree with you entirely on whether we should trust authorities or not. I do think you're right that a certain level of questioning is wise and necessary for the species to flourish.

I don't think this is mad at all. There is definitely a category of person, and we all know a few, who take the whole thing of not questioning authority too far. But then there is another category who question EVERYTHING they're told, no matter how obvious it is. It used to be that the nutjobs on the "never question anything" end of the spectrum and the ones on the "question everything" end of the spectrum were just a small percentage of the population. Now, however, with the fractioning of human society through the internet and social media, we've seen them grow and grow, especially the "question everything" lot. It's what leads to the rise in conspiracy theorists and groups like QAnon, Flat Earthers, and now the "Ukraine is full of Nazis" crew as well. It's just human nature. Some people are going to question things they're told (which is a good instinct, overall), but this easily tips over into "if someone in authority tells me the sky is blue I'm going to assume they're lying" and it all falls apart.

5m for a player with a statistical profile in the Championship of a potential future star? This club is just so, so well run right now. Top to bottom, everyone pulling in the same direction. Long may it continue.

If you look at his underlying numbers, he's actually playing fine. Just a bit of a bad run of finishing, which is more or less luck. Look at it a different way - maybe Mo is clever enough to get all his bad finishing out of the way in games that don't really matter so he can score 10 goals in 14 games between now and the end of the season when his finishing reverts to the mean?

Let me ask you something. If an invading army show up to your town and the first thing they do is take everyone's cell phones and force you to open them, then check for photos and texts to the territorial defense, and then steal the phones and mail them back to Russia (there is loads of evidence for this online that even you would have to admit is pretty conclusive) ... do you really still think people, even if they did manage to hide a phone somehow, are going to sneak out of the basements they're hiding in while the troops take the neighbor out and tie him up and shoot him in the street and video it? We may see a few videos like this at some point, but there won't be many. But it doesn't matter, because anyone with a remotely objective bone in their body can see that the Russians are committing war crimes, even without such videos.

This is the equivalent of hearing a loud argument between the couple next door, walking into their house where the man who you know to be a violent drunk with a history of domestic violence is passed out in the bedroom in a stupor, the wife is sporting a massive bruise on her face, and saying "well, I'm not going to just blindly believe it could only have been him - maybe she walked into the wall?"

Exactly. The truth has been let loose, it is a lion, and it is defending itself. The vast majority of people can see the pictures, watch the videos, listen to the survivors, and it is clear what happened.

I wonder what the Putin apologists and the "just asking questions" crowd have to say about this article (translation here), posted by the Kremlin's official mouthpiece: This text goes on and on like this. It is crucially important to realise that Russia is essentially stating, for everyone to read, that they fully intend to force Ukraine to kneel, and that they are willing to commit mass crimes and violence against protestors to make it happen. The whole "we have to have an investigation into Bucha before we can say for certain what happened" is total and complete nonsense. Russia is admitting their crimes, and openly stating their intention to commit more of them, right out in the open! It's like reading Mein Kampf or something! I can't understand how anyone can read this and have the response "yeah, well, we shouldn't have expanded NATO" like that even partially justifies these monstrous practices and beliefs.

West Ham ... ... Arsenal Spurs ... ... ... ... ... ... United Don't think West Ham have much of a chance but it'd actually be rather refreshing if they were to somehow nick it. Arsenal wouldn't be that bad, actually, I don't think we'll be competing with them for anything significant any time soon. And it would be a crushing blow to United's hopes to rebuild something if they finish outside the CL places so that's my main hope, really.

As someone with a lot of experience in Russia, I sadly think this is spot on. Westerners I talk to about this seem to think that the problem is just Putin, as if "if we can just get rid of Putin then Russia can finally be a free country and return to the civilised world." And there is some truth to this - Putin is the one controlling the media, and he is the source of the propaganda about Ukrainians and Nazis. If we can imagine a world where he's no longer in power, it is reasonable to imagine that the truth could be told about Ukraine and change public opinion in Russia. However, this ignores the devastating effect that this propaganda has already had on Russians. I talk to people over there and I'm on social media with them, and I can see how they speak about the situation. Yes, there are many who are scared to post any criticism of the military or Putin, but there are many others, probably a majority, who genuinely believe that Nazis are a major part of Ukrainian society. Otherwise they would have welcomed the Russian troops who were there to set them free from fascism! *facepalm* You would probably be terrified if you knew how the average Russian speaks about Ukrainians these days. It's like going back to the 1930's and reading what Germans were saying about the Jews. If Putin, and the Russian military isn't stopped I can practically guarantee there will be the most dire consequences imaginable for any Ukrainians left alive in territory they control.

The two parts of your post I've bolded ARE 100% THE KEY ISSUE. There is zero chance, absolutely none, that giving in and giving away the Donbas or whatever, in exchange for a peace agreement and ceasefire, will actually lead to a lasting peace. Putin is a complete and total monster, and he is absolutely willing to lie through his teeth, knowingly, to get what he wants. If you can't see that by now, then I can't help you. So if you can't trust a word he says, and he's shown an obvious willingness to use violence to achieve his goals, then the very, very clear answer to this has to acknowledge that the only way justice or anything approaching it can happen is a complete and total defeat for Russia on the military battlefield. If Ukraine gives in and gives him what he wants, he will simply re-arm and do this all over again in a few years. Doing whatever we can to help Ukraine win this war is not war-mongering, it is actually the best thing we can do right now to prevent future wars, where Russia attacks, is stopped, takes another 100 km of Ukraine, and then signs a peace deal, only to do it again in a few years. Have you completely forgotten that Russia actually did exactly this in 2014 - attacked, won a portion of the Donbas, then sued for peace, and signed the Minsk peace agreement? Then, a few years later, when they had built up their military somewhat (and also misjudged the corresponding Ukrainian buildup), they said "the Minsk agreement doesn't apply," tore it up and attacked again? They will do this over and over again, committing war crimes each time, until Ukraine defeats them or is annihilated and cut up into pieces. This is not some unfounded speculation, it is happening in front of our eyes! There is a reason they showed up in Ukraine with mobile crematoria and 45,000 body bags - Putin is planning nothing less than the subjugation of the entire Ukrainian nation. He just underestimated their response.

Or this, from The Times: Link to article The things the Russian soldiers are doing in Ukraine are like WWII-style pure Gestapo evil. And yet I fully expect the usual suspects to be on here responding with how Ukraine needs to bend to Putin's will in order to "avoid further bloodshed."

Surely there's no chance we're giving him 20m/season until he's 34?! One would suspect there are a LOT of availability and goals bonuses included in that if so. That could be a real millstone around our necks otherwise in the last couple of years.

This thread on Twitter, translated from a 16 year old girl's journal from Mariupol, is pretty harrowing:

I remember reading a story about WWII about some Jews who smuggled evidence of the beginning stages of the Holocaust (not the ovens/death camps at that stage, it was mostly work camps and mass shootings and ghettos) out to the West and how they were totally ignored, or even decried as liars. I used to wonder how that happened. Now I read this thread and I see exactly how it happened. Putin has truly won, in a sense. He has gotten enough people to doubt the plainest of evidence of his criminality. All he needs is the slimmest of doubts, the idea that it's at least possible that someone could have faked a video or some photos or whatever, and there are those who will rush to his defense. Most of them are not truly evil, just contrarians who like to show their scepticism of the mass media or whatever, but it serves his purposes just the same. Of course, history is going to reveal what anyone with half a brain can already see to be true: the Russians have committed mass war crimes during this invasion, in Bucha and elsewhere.

Still amazed at the level of ignorance of history it takes to have this opinion. Astonishing. Are you basically arguing there's no such thing as a just war? That literally any level of oppression and evil is preferable to war? I mean, taking this argument, you'd say that the Allies should have just let the Nazis gas all the Jews, because in a pure numbers sense it was less suffering for the human race that way rather than firebombing a bunch of German citites. I just cannot understand how you would see what is going on in Ukraine and say "well, the most important thing isn't who wins, it's that it's over as quickly as possible so suffering is minimised."

I thought the same - I asked her three times if she was sure it was meant to be thrown out! Didn't really believe her until she showed me the Facebook post advertising that it was free to pick up (that had prompted her to drive over there in the first place to see if it was there). It was one of those new developments where every house is worth over a million dollars, probably some rich woman redoing her house and couldn't be bothered to resell the old furniture so just posted it online for free and put it out by the road.

Reminds me of a story. My Mrs. is a bit of a treasure hunter, she goes on Facebook Marketplace and finds old furniture for free/cheap, brings it home, fixes it up a bit and then sells it. More than makes back what she paid, not a huge money-maker but brings in a few hundred quid a month and she enjoys it. So that's all grand, but one day she found something really special. Apparently just sat on the side of the road wrapped in a quilt was a huge chest of drawers, so she picked it up. Come home to find it in the garage, took one look and said "you sure this was on the side of the road?" Couldn't believe it! The thing is genuine mahogany, pure hardwood, handmade dovetails, the lot. But then the argument started - she wanted to paint it white "as it would look really nice." I told her she was absolutely mental and that painting it would practically constitute a war crime. She came around to my way of thinking when I went online and found the same dresser for sale online for $8,000.

Call me sceptical, but a newspaper whose editor apparently doesn't know the difference between an agreement "in principal" and one "in principle" might not be the most professional and reliable source.

Apologies, double post.