Odesa priests’ appeal
“We are united in this big multinational Ukrainian family. We don't need to be rescued from anything”. pic.twitter.com/N1kZXoXXto
— MFA of Ukraine ?? (@MFA_Ukraine) March 19, 2022
We’re going to start tonight with a golden oldie: Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Everyone’s favorite expat American in Brazil and his fellow travelers are out and about in highest dudgeon over the fact that The NY Times was able to validate some of the emails that are alleged to have come from Hunter Biden’s one or three laptops or just one laptop plus a brand new hard drive abandoned at the Delaware strip mall computer repair store owned by a man who is legally blind. Whose story changed repeatedly, and who is close friends with the “Get Whitey” tape guy. Who just happened to interview him (I’m not linking to this, you can find it by keyword search), presenting one of the multiple versions of Mac Isaac’s recollection of events to the world.
The basic explanation that Mac Isaac presented is that after 18 months with the repaired machine or machines just sitting around he booted them up and read what was saved on them, as well as the Beau Biden Foundation sticker on one of them, which allowed him to determine that the laptop, laptops, and/or laptop and the hard drive belonged to Hunter Biden. And that the material on them was evidence of Hunter’s bad acts in Ukraine. Remember, the guy who is asserting that he did this is BLIND!!!! To the point that one of his former coworkers indicated he couldn’t see anything on a computer screen.
The material found by the blind guy on the laptops was, amazingly enough, being advertised as for sale in Ukraine, by Ukrainians and others tied to Russian intelligence an entire year before in 2019! Which was when they were first pitched to Rudy Giuliani for several million dollars. But because Giuliani couldn’t authenticate or corroborate them, he passed on the purchase. Also, Rudy Giuliani doesn’t have $5 million.
The expat king of the favela and his fellow travelers have been freaking out for a couple of days now because they claim the whole thing got buried in 2020 to protect President Biden, all the intelligence agencies – like all of them, everywhere, and anyone and everyone who has ever worked in one – were all in on it. As was Twitter, which wouldn’t let The NY Post, which hadn’t even tried to validate any of the material and was posting them as pdfs – ie dead documents with no metadata older than a day or two that would allow for third party corroboration – and wouldn’t allow anyone else to examine the originals or the hard drives they supposedly were on, which they got from Rudy Giuliani. Except everyone and their brother covered this at the time. This was so covered up and made to disappear that, apparently, The NY Times spent the past 18 months or so trying to see if they could corroborate any of the emails alleged to be Hunter Biden’s and then reported that they did validate some of them. So ignoring all that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? Because it was covered at the time. And at the time no one could actually verify anything and, recognizing just how things went down in 2016, as well as during Macron’s campaign in 2017, every responsible news organization and journalist behaved cautiously.
Among the things I wrote about this whole mess of insanity at the time was this:
The structure, if you will, of this type of operation is to hack for actual documents and photos and video and audio files, remove them, doctor some, fabricate others completely, and then dump them all together. This makes it impossible for someone, especially if they didn’t realize they were hacked, to assert that they are all forgeries. Because the forgeries and doctored materials are shuffled in with the legit materials. This was attempted by the Russians against Macron in 2017. This was also done against AG Lynch in 2016, which led to Comey being stupid in the most Comey way ever.
I would add that it is also why it becomes impossible to state that the materials being released are all fakes, because there are some outright fakes, some modified and partial fakes, and some actual real materials all bundled together. And remember, neither Giuliani nor The NY Post has provided anything that isn’t a pdf or a screen grab, so there’s no actual real metadata for you techie types reading this to analyze.
Am I surprised now to find that at least some of the emails that Giuliani got who knows where are legitimate? Not in the least. Because the hallmark of this type of operation, as we saw with the one directed at the Clinton campaign in 2016, at AG Loretta Lynch in 2016, and at French President Macron’s campaign in 2017 is to create fake, but authentic looking documents and/or images, doctor real documents and/or images, and then mix them in with the real documents and drop them out into the public domain by laundering them through reputable news outlets. At that point it becomes almost impossible to determine what is legitimate and what is fake or altered.
The attempt to turn this into the worst thing in the world ever just as President Biden is calmly and competently leading the US and working with our NATO and other allies and partners to support President Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s defense against Putin’s genocidal reinvasion of and war in Ukraine should not be surprising. It is always the same people, every single time and over and over and over again, who provide aid and comfort to whatever it is that Putin wants to achieve against the US, the EU member states, and the EU as a whole. No reasonable explanation is ever sufficient for these folks. No amount of having to suspend their disbelief is too much for them either. Which is why you have that chucklefuck Michael Tracy running around Poland trying to film video of trucks to prove that, apparently, the Polish military uses trucks. Who could have possibly imagined the horrors that the Polish military is inflicting on the world?
If you want to actually read or reread the reasonable explanations and debunkings, I posted them here, here, and here. With a slight addendum here because, apparently Giuliani never actually gave the hard drive or drives to The NY Post, which is further proof for those of us living in reality that The NY Post never did anything to validate it/them or the material on it they published.
Now that that stupidity is out of the way, a brief Saturday night update after the jump.
The Ukrainian’s have killed another Russian general officer. This one happened early this morning Ukraine time, so just after last night’s update went up.
Russian Lieutenant General Andrei Mordvichev was killed during fighting, Ukraine’s armed forces said Saturday in a statement on its Facebook page.
It said Mordvichev “the commander of the 8th All-Military Army of the Southern Military District of the Armed Forces,” was killed “as a result of fire damage.”
If you’re wondering why this might be happening, the reason is very simple. The Russian generals are forward and exposed because the Russian military communication system doesn’t seem to work. The Russians spent a ton of money on upgraded comms during the rebuild of their military. They don’t actually work. I’ve seen some reports that this is because despite being encrypted the system relies on cellular service and since the Russians took down a lot of cell towers on the way in, their state of the art encrypted comms system won’t work. I’ve seen other reports that don’t mention the cellular issue and just note the system didn’t work. Either way, the result is the Russians are actually relying on commercial unencrypted walkie talkie type radios and regular cell phones. The Ukrainians, of course, can and are listening to all of this. Because of this the Russian generals are not just circulating on the battlefield, they’re way more forward than they would normally be in order to provide command and control in the absence of working communications and, as a result, they are exposed. Especially as the Ukrainians can hear everything; they know where the generals and other commanders are and are targeting them.
The Russians claim that they have used an air launched hypersonic missile against a target in western Ukraine early this morning. I asked our own Zhena Gogolia to translate for me and voila!
Russian Troops Have Destroyed a Ukrainian Military Weapons Depot with “Dagger” Rockets
Ministry of Defense: For the first time Russia has used hypersonic “Dagger” rockets in Ukraine.
MOSCOW, March 19 — RIA News. For the first time since the beginning of the operation, the armed forces have used hypersonic “Dagger” rockets. The strike came against a Ukrainian military depot, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, has reported.
“On March 18, a major underground depot of Ukrainian military rockets and aviation weapons in the town [literally inhabited area] of Deliatin, Ivano-Frankovsk [in Ukrainian this would be Ivano-Frankivsk] Region was destroyed by a ‘Dagger’ aviation rocket system with hypersonic aeroballistic rockets,” he said.
The troops also used “Bastion” coastal rocket systems to destroy centers of Ukrainian military radio reconnaissance in the Odessa [Odesa] region.
In all, overnight Russian air-space forces struck 69 targets — four command centers, four anti-aircraft rocket systems, including three C-300 and one Buk M-1, one radar station for guidance and targeting, three installations of multiple rocket launchers, twelve depots of rocket-artillery weapons, and 43 locations with stores of military equipment.
In addition, Russian anti-aircraft defense shot down 12 Ukrainian drones [lit. pilotless thangs].
Since Feb. 24, Russian armed forces have been conducting a special military operation for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense declares [could also be “claims”] that the Russian air-space forces are striking only military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. There are casualties on both sides.
While CNN has validated Russia’s claims, there appears to be both more and less to Russia’s assertions than meet the eye. From The War Zone (wait for it, wait for it…):
The Russian Ministry of Defense released a video early Saturday that it claimed showed a Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile hitting a Ukrainian missile warehouse about 300 miles southwest of Kyiv. The strike, if it did occur, would represent both the first known use of the Kinzhal in combat and yet another Russian attack on facilities in western Ukraine near the country’s borders with multiple NATO members. But there are elements of Russia’s claims that don’t quite add up and the implications of the use of Kinzhal in the conflict are limited, regardless.
The MiG-31-launched Kh-47M2 “Kinzhal” or “Dagger” missile — which Russia claims can be conventionally or nuclear-armed — first emerged as one of Russia’s ‘super weapons’ unveiled in a fiery speech from Vladimir Putin in 2018. The War Zone was subsequently the first outlet to identify it as a modified Iskander-M tactical ballistic missile adapted for air-launch. The MiG-31’s ability to reach high-speed and high-altitude prior to release gives Kinzhal a major boost in range and speed over its ground-launched cousin. It also can modify its trajectory outside of a traditional ballistic arc. This and its speed make it challenging to intercept. It’s also worth noting that we still don’t know if it also packs a similar decoy-launching capability as the Iskander-M was recently revealed to possess, which could also help it penetrate air defenses.
The claimed target was an underground missile storage facility in Delyatyn, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. A quick check of maps shows the Delyatyn base on the north side of the Carpathian Mountains, close to Ukraine’s borders with Romania and Hungary. Delyatyn fits the bill for a missile or ammunition storage facility, with bunkers built into terrain and away from built-up civilian areas.
The War Zone hasn’t yet been able to geolocate the supposed target using commercial satellite imagery that matches what is seen in the video, which appears more like a large above-ground warehouse or barn. There’s also a distinct lack of secondary explosions as one would expect when rocket fuel and explosives cook-off. It’s still possible a Kinzhal hit the base, but the video is suspect at a minimum.
UPDATE: 5:20 PM EST—
We can now say for certain that the strike depicted happened nowhere near the western part of the country and not at some major military weapons storage area. It happened at a heavily bombarded rural area in the far eastern area of Ukraine.
In satellite imagery The War Zone obtained from Planet Labs, you can clearly see the farm featured in the video. It was partially destroyed by the time the image was taken, on March 12th, 2022, a week before this video was released and news of Kinzhal’s use was distributed:
This also answers our question as to the UAV’s presence above the target area. The anti-air threat is nothing in Ukraine’s east as it is in the west. This also calls into question, even more, why a missile of Kinzhal’s nature would be used on a target close to Russian territory and on what appears to be a farm’s barn or large chicken coup.
With all this in mind, it is very unlikely we are seeing a Kinzhal missile being used in the video. Whether or not one was used at all, we cannot answer that. Maybe there was another target somewhere, but this was not it.
We will continue to look into the matter and keep you updated as to what we find out.
Everybody clear now? Good, moving on.
By now you’ve probably seen the images of the Russian cosmonauts arriving on the ISS in space suits seeming to match the Ukrainian national colors.
Three Russian cosmonauts just launched to the International Space Station on a Russian rocket, from Kazakhstan. The color scheme of their space attire as they came aboard the station is rather striking. pic.twitter.com/A3fA7SAlPV
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) March 18, 2022
The symbolism and meaning of this has been pondered all day. From the statement the Russian team leader made that they simply had a lot of yellow material that needed using so that’s what they made this batch of flight suits out of to these are the colors of the cosmonauts alma mater. The last time a cosmonaut wore this color flight suit was in 2014 shortly after Russia had scarfed up Crimea and begun occupying the Donbas. My take is that these were supposed to be worn for the same reason now: to show off Russia’s amazing victory over Ukraine. 2022, however, did not go the way 2014 did.
Despite allowing some Ukrainians out of besieged cities through humanitarian corridors, the Russians are still jerking everyone around regarding relief for Mariupol.
⚡️Russian troops halt convoy of buses traveling to evacuate residents of Mariupol.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 20, 2022
The convoy was not allowed to enter the city limits and the drivers were not permitted to spend the night.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 20, 2022
Everything is still pretty much the same as yesterday. The Ukrainians are holding in the center of the country. The Russians are still occupying chunks of the south and east. Besieged cities are still being starved out.
More tomorrow.
Open thread!
SiubhanDuinne
The evil has no nationality.
The evil has no nationality.
The evil has no nationality.
This atheist found those religious leaders of different faiths incredibly moving.
Sanjeevs
https://mobile.twitter.com/MaxHanlon/status/1505300081305600007
Lapassionara
Thanks, Adam
bbleh
Honestly, I have no idea how you have the patience to respond to the Hunter Biden laptop thing yet again (again).
Plus I gotta say, first Hillary’s emails then Hunter’s laptop? How much are these writers getting paid? A little variety in the knucklehead conspiracy theories, please? Keep the rest of us entertained? Sheesh.
Mike in NC
PBS last week had a documentary called “Putin’s War” or something. Was not carried locally so I need to catch it online.
bbleh
… if you’re wondering why this might be happening …
And yes indeed I was, when I saw LTG. I thought, ok, either those Russians have got brass downstairs as well as upstairs, or there is something (else) majorly wrong.
I continue to be amazed at the results of the, ah, op-level testing of the rebuilt Russian military machine…
trollhattan
@bbleh: I like to think they’re being paid in ramen cups for swapping when they go to prison. Hey, a guy can dream, right?
The Moar You Know
This is my wheelhouse. That has legal meaning; it can’t even be admitted in a court of law or used as proof (or lack of proof) of anything. Not that it will matter.
Cameron
In re Hunter Biden, I didn’t know until I just read it here that Special Agent Whitey Tape was part of the program. Was it Thomas Pynchon who wrote that “paranoia is just the realization that everything is connected?” Maybe Hunter S. Thompson; I don’t remember.
Ken
@The Moar You Know: Hmm, so my brilliant idea of mailing some vile and immensely illegal porn to the FBI and claiming I found it on Rudy Giuliani’s laptop*… isn’t brilliant?
* I bought it at a garage sale and figured it was his when I spotted the “I ♥ NY” sticker and the initials “RG” scratched in the cover.
sdhays
Thanks, as always, for you efforts in educating us on these things, Adam!
I also want to put another plug out for Kamil Galeev. Every day he has fascinating long-read threads about Russia, both current and historic. I think Adam mentioned him yesterday (?) and others have mentioned him before. Lot’s of interesting information and compelling thoughts about the current situation.
bbleh
@Ken: … the initials “RG” scratched in the cover.
[in Adam West voice] Aha! Clearly fraudulent, because the actual Rudy Giuliani would have scratched “R … G … 9-11!“
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well, that’s typical.
Also, bleeding edge missiles seem a bit crazy expensive for this kind of stuff.
lashonharangue
Thanks Adam for all your efforts. Hope you feel better soon.
bbleh
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: One explanation I heard was that it was a combo operational test and showing off.
Otherwise, agree, and indeed my first thought was, “how much did THAT cost them?”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
With the Mariupol stuff, have the Russians decided they are the second coming of the Assyrian Empire with all the massacres and forced deportations?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@bbleh: Russians fronting in the hopes of drawing attention away from how much the rest of their military sucks?
Bill Arnold
This from the March 16, 2022 NYTimes piece, does not clearly say that the emails were validated as authentic; it can be interpreted as saying that the emails were authenticated as being part of the cache that prosecutors had examined, and deliberately written to be ambiguous along with rhetorical trickology/encouragement to prod people to misinterpret the statement.
Have there been clarifications by the NYTimes that they independently validated the emails?
Not a big deal; as you say vigorously, it’s the timing (and the people involved) that makes thoughtful people strongly suspect that this an overt pro-Russian/anti-Ukrainian/anti-Biden political operation. And emails are easy to capture, by compromising either sender or receiver (or both) email accounts or laptops somehow (e.g. phishing), or a quick imaging of an unattended (and not whole-drive encrypted) laptop in a hotel room in eastern Europe, or a few other ways.
prostratedragon
From The Lady from Shanghai, “a little tarrrrget practice”.
SpaceUnit
I have not read the full post yet, but I have a question.
How does one repair computers when one is blind? And please do not interpret my inquiry as an expression of disparagement or disrespect toward the visually impaired. That’s not it. I just want to know.
bbleh
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: desperate bureaucrats trying to convince VVP that the stories aren’t entirely true about corrupt military-industrial oligarchs stealing all the money and spending it on megayachts in Cyprus?
prostratedragon
@Mike in NC: I found it at pbs.org/frontline or something. Good for those who needed to be reminded (or told for the first time) that Putin is who many thought he was.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Reading your explanation of the Hunter Laptop sounds like the Russians suck ass at even these deceptions schemes, just their are useless idiots like Greenwald to do the hard for for them.
slybrarian
The cosmonauts’ flight suits being intended to celebrate a Russian victory makes more sense than it being some defiant gesture, given how long the lead up time for producing them would have been. I’m not sure I quite buy it given how few people knew the invasion was actually going to happen.
Adam, yesterday I saw a thread on Twitter from WarTakes wondering how long the West can keep up the flow of advanced weapons like the Javelin and NLAWs before the stockpiles start dropping so low that they have to stop. Do you have any insight into that?
bbleh
@SpaceUnit: I read he is legally blind, which can mean just extreeeemely nearsighted, not necessarily UNsighted.
dmsilev
Was there a tractor stored in the barn? If so, clearly a military target.
Also, apparently the chickens are revolting.
Jerzy Russian
@SpaceUnit: I had wondered this myself. The dude is “legally blind”, which could be taken to mean he has some sight. On the other hand, there was a quote from a co-worker that he could not see anything on a computer screen. If that is true, I find it hard to imagine how he can work on circuit boards, etc.
Marc
The presence of metadata allows a document to admitted to a court of law or used as proof of anything? I find that hard to believe, it’s trivially easy to forge valid-appearing metadata with some basic programming skills. The only way around that is using digitally signed documents, and even then it’s a question of just who has access to the associated private keys. That is my wheelhouse.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@bbleh: Yes, maybe. I am sort of the opinion all this shelling of cities is just so the Russian Generals can show little Vova charts that their army is hard at work on the problem.
The banality of evil.
Carlo Graziani
Thanks, Adam. I hope your sinus issues are cleared up. I know that’s no fun.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Laptops, replace the memory sims or hard drive, other wise it’s call up the manufacture for a RMA to send it in for repair.
In fact that I can speak professional is bullshit part of the story, if this laptop was water damaged like this guy claims he would have just sent to the manufacture service center for repair.
bbleh
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Thank all the relevant gods the US of A never had this kind of problem, say, in the Vietnam “conflict.”
Another Scott
They’re just blatantly stealing his headlines.
Cheers,
Scott.
bbleh
@Carlo Graziani: OTC nasal steroids are my friend! Although of course antibiotics are necessary for more serious cases.
Lyrebird
@SpaceUnit: There are plenty of blind people who program computers, so running network diagnostics and such would be par for the course.
Screen readers on their own don’t answer this:
but that doesn’t mean that particular person can’t do it. Might need help making sure which new chips are what.
There are blind people who are painters, so who knows!
The Hunter Biden smearing still stinks to high heaven.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@bbleh: Yes, it’s no like McNamara was just showing LBJ we were winning because of all the bombs dropped, or something.
Ksmiami
For the love of everything holy WHYTHEFUCK is anyone covering the BS Hunter Biden shit… we are at a precipice of WW3. What the fucking fuck NYT?
ruemara
Thank you, Adam. It’s been very annoying to read some of the stupidity on this.
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: No it’s Ken Vogel trying to have his cake and eat it to. He’s been pushing this garbage since October 2019. And I’m quite sure his source is Giuliani. But the weasel wording is because without metadata, there is no way for anyone to 100% verify anything unless they kept a copy of the e-mail. But usually what happens is because so much time has passed, the person asked to validate if an item is, indeed a real e-mail they sent or received, looks at it, says the addresses are right, and from memory it looks legit.
Chetan Murthy
This is interesting: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-03-18/secret-transfer-military-equipment-ukrainian-soldiers-5390190.html
I had thought that the key unmet need was for helping refugees and medical personnel. But it seems that the fighters need our help, too. I’ll look into this “Blue and Yellow”; maybe they’re the right ones, to send some money.
Adam L Silverman
@SpaceUnit: I have asked that question a lot since this guy came on the scene.
Adam L Silverman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Without Greenwald, who was the laundry for Manning and Snowden, the Russians would have had a lot less success over the past decade or so. Especially because Of what Greenwald helped Snowden give them
Adam L Silverman
@slybrarian: I do not.
Adam L Silverman
@bbleh: One of his coworkers stated at the time this all first was reported that he had to put his face up against a screen to read anything on it. So very blind.
Adam L Silverman
@Jerzy Russian: He owned/managed the shop. His coworkers did the actual work.
CaseyL
@Adam L Silverman: We have an extradition treaty with Brazil…
Sebastian
@bbleh:
When the Clarion Call sounded,
Calling all People of Good Will,
To Lean into the Spear,
In the Fight of Light against Dark,
They showed us who they are.
We need not know or talk more. They are with the Orcs.
Sebastian
@sdhays:
Yes, his thread of threads is amazing. He has a very humble Patreon going, I believe it should be boosted.
Jerzy Russian
@Adam L Silverman: That makes sense. I haven’t read all of those linked sources too closely since I cannot afford to lose any more IQ points.
bbleh
@Sebastian: lol I’ve taken to calling them orcs recently myself. Although maybe the original Elvish yrch is more satisfying to say.
Kalakal
@bbleh: I’ve taken to calling them droogs, Orcs is good though
NotMax
Because everyone drops off a laptop for repair, grants the shop carte blanche to do with it what they will and then takes a hike, right?
Whole thing reeks more than last month’s steamed shrimp.
wombat probability cloud
Late to the thread, but thank you Adam!
bbleh
@Kalakal: er … друг is “friend,” even “buddy,” unless I’m missing something …
Cameron
@Kalakal: Naughty little malchicks with cutthroat britvas?
Dan B
Thanks Adam. You write with intellectual rigor and emotional truth.
Gin & Tonic
@bbleh: It is, which is where Burgess got “droogs”
bbleh
@Adam L Silverman: oh to be clear, not saying that the whole thing isn’t an elaborate nothingburger — the chain of custody, the ambiguity about which machine and which data, his known affiliations with RW conspiracy theorists, yada yada — only that “blind” isn’t quite as dispositive as it might sound.
debbie
It kills me that the laptop is back again…
Adam, since I don’t see this in tonight’s update, can I assume it’s bogus?
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: If you go back and click on the links for the posts I did about this at the time, I go through and take the whole timeline apart and explain the improbabilities. Given who Mac Isaac is friends with – the guy pushing the whitey tape hoax – and who he is tight with, the senior members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which we can tie into the QAnon conspiracy mongering, the whole thing is clearly a set up. As I wrote at the time, I expect someone used the Pegasus hacking software to pull the information off his phone. This was then packaged with the fakes and altered info and was shopped in Ukraine to Giuliani and those working with him. When he couldn’t and wouldn’t cough up the money to buy it, it was then put onto a MacBook and dropped off at an obscure computer repair shop 20 minutes from an apple store in Delaware. A shop owned and run by a seriously visually impaired individual who just happened to be friends with a now disgraced former CIA officer who is friends with much more senior retired intelligence officials who belong to an organization involved with promoting and spreading the QAnon conspiracy and providing it legitimacy.
I don’t believe in coincidence.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
Interesting.
(via AVindman)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: No.I just forgot to include it. Unless you see if debunked somewhere, this is consistent with what I’ve seen reported about what Russia has been trying to do in the cities and towns they’ve occupied.
Adam L Silverman
@bbleh: I see your point.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Erdogan is going to finally have to pick a side. He should be incentivized to pick the correct one.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, should one of those Ukrainian drones happen to be in Rio, and hit fuckstick’s house, I wouldn’t be terribly discomfited.
Villago Delenda Est
I do believe in enemy action, though.
Sebastian
@Chetan Murthy:
If I read this correctly, pickup trucks are in absolutely high demand. The more offroad-y the better.
Can we organize something? Can we get on the phones and get a ship full of Toyotas or Fords over to Ukraine?
Kalakal
@bbleh: A Clockwork Orange. Burgess constructed a language called Nadsat for the street slang of his ultra violent delinquents. He used some Russian in it. Street gang members were called droogs.
ETA I see Gin&Tonic got there first
dimmsdale
@Chetan Murthy: the Yale historian Timothy Snyder has a Substack where he’s posted numerous Ukraine aid links. Here’s one of his posts with links to help the Ukrainian armed forces with protective gear, body armor, etc. If there’s a more trustworthy source for this kind of info than Tim Snyder I’d like to know about it.
Kalakal
@Cameron: Them lads
Sebastian
@bbleh:
Yrrch. We shall call them by their name.
different-church-lady
Hey morons, IT’S TOO LATE, BIDEN IS ALREADY PRESIDENT.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Damn. I hope someone can help them find their way back.
Adam, I don’t get to really read your posts until the next morning when you’re long gone, but I really appreciate your efforts here. Hate what they’re saying, but am very grateful for them.
Also, I’m worse than legally blind, but if I take my glasses off and stick my face right up to the computer’s insides, I could fix it quite easily. That photo of that guy is odd. He’s not wearing glasses, but I can tell his eyes are focused and seeing whoever’s taking the picture. I’ve seen pictures of me without glasses. I’m just generally staring at about the right place, nothing more.
different-church-lady
@SpaceUnit:
THE BITS ARE TOO SMALL TO SEE ANYWAY, DUMMY!
Sebastian
@Villago Delenda Est:
delk
I guess it’s a bit more probable than Hillary running a underground pizza pedophile ring.
different-church-lady
@Sebastian: It’s worked for James Bond for over 50 years.
Gin & Tonic
@Kalakal: They hung out at the Korova milk bar. Korova is cow in Russian and Ukrainian. Lots of that in the book.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: The whole thing is just weird. And I’m just stating here what was reported.
NotMax
@Adam L Silverman
So the strip mall shop, unlike the Apple store, has a stable genius bar?
//
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: And you’re quite welcome.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Also too:
Something something the NYTimes is garbage something something. – Baud
Wikipedia:
And there ya go!
Grr…,
Scott.
NotMax
@different-church-lady
And Caucasians are just too damn tall!
;)
Sebastian
@Adam L Silverman:
Erdogan has maneuvered himself into quite a pickle, hasn’t he? He joined the gallery of Putin-bros like Orban and Assad but now his arms industry is taking off while the rest of his economy is screwed due to his incompetency. He has flirted too much with Putin lately but he can already see that was probably a lost investment and he is wondering how to thread the needle to come back into the West without getting slapped left-right for the right-wing anti-democratic bullshit he has been pushing ever since.
He needs to find a way to exit the Putin/Russian playbook/franchise somehow. He could of course retire on some Grand Note, it’s hard to criticize him for the Orbanesque bullshit when he is no longer in power but glowing as Elder Statesman.
Kalakal
@Gin & Tonic: Heh, I missed that one. There’s an appendix in the book but thanks to the magic of the interweb I just found a Nadsat dictionary complete with origin of words. Oddly they missed Korova as well
https://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellpatke/en4241/nadsat%20dictionary.htm
oldster
Thanks, Adam. Useful and clarifying as always.
Uncle Cosmo
Tread lightly, VDE – when I made it abundantly clear some time back where I felt Green Waldo’s body deserved to be found, I was accused of being a “ghoul.” Then again, you’re not widely despised on this blog for having called out some of the regulars for some of their more idiotic statements, so maybe you’re OK.
bbleh
@Sebastian: ... has maneuvered himself into quite a pickle …
I’ve heard that said, but I didn’t know it was anatomically possible …
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
he picked the FSA, he picked the GNA, he picked Qatar, he wanted Patriots but because Israel was on the “outs” with Turkey at the time, he got a deal for S400’s because in many regards, Russia doesn’t really care who they sell weapons to and selling weapons is a big chunk of the Russian export economy.
bbleh
@Uncle Cosmo: I almost made a similar comment. As a mouthy type, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of state-sponsored assassination of policy critics.
sdhays
@delk: You left out the “best” part – in a pizza joint that didn’t even have a basement!
West of the Rockies
@Kalakal:
Morlocks also works.
bbleh
@different-church-lady: yeah I figure they must keep them in big bins — like one white and one black, just to keep it clear — and use tweezers or something.
bbleh
@sdhays: Ohh, didn’t have a basement, huh? Sounds awfully CONVENIENT. Have you BEEN there? HUH? How do you KNOW?
divF
@Sebastian: “He’s monologuing.” (from The Incredibles)
Jay
@bbleh:
for some, character assassination counts.
plus, is it really assassination if it’s just the facts and their own words?
Ken B
@dmsilev: Or maybe there was a kindergarden or maternity hospital fairly nearby that they were aiming at, and the missile works as well as their other equipment.
Mallard Filmore
@Sebastian:
YouTube channel “Joe Blogs” has some videos about Turkey’s problems:
“RUSSIA – TURKEY on Brink of COLLAPSE as WAR Causes OIL, GAS & FOOD Price Rises and Loss of TOURISM”
https://youtu.be/0jS-iMt_wbw
“TURKEY – UKRAINE Crisis Accelerates COLLAPSE in Turkey. LIRA Falls 5% and INFLATION now above 50%.”
https://youtu.be/SihI7qbGk54
and more at the channel.
Wyatt Salamanca
Adam,
Your posts are consistently brilliant, but this latest one is truly your best! Your analysis of the Hunter Biden saga is truly epic.
I can’t wait till your next post where you reveal the link between Hunter Biden’s laptop and the duplicate key to the ward room icebox and the three tramps under police escort near the Texas School Book Depository.
Sometime down the road, I’d love to buy you a beer at a Balloon Juice meetup in NYC.
Happy Spring/Vernal Equinox!
BeautifulPlumage
Rare UKR ATGC
Jay
@divF:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iRlh_w6uRds
Adam L Silverman
@Uncle Cosmo: I’m sure whomever called you a ghoul meant it in the best and most positive sense of the word.
Adam L Silverman
@Carlo Graziani: I’m not sure if I’m getting better. I certainly don’t feel as bad as I have been feeling, but I don’t feel normal either. ??♂️
bbleh
@Jay: ah, well, that’s different. Live by the sword, etc. But the drone thing …
Carlo Graziani
@Sebastian:
Well, Erdogan is kind of an interesting case. He’s not really cut from the same cloth as all the dickhead leaders that we spawned as discontents of our fat-and-happy post-Cold-war baccanal, in my opinion, or at least not entirely so. He has a foot in the Islamic ecumene, and part of his project is undoing Ataturk’s Westernization of Turkey while maintaining some kind of leadership role in the Islamic world, and a decisive influence in Middle Eastern affairs. There’s a parallel set of concerns there. It’s not that he isn’t an asshole. It’s just that I don’t think he gives as much of a shit about, say, Ukraine and Russia, as he does about Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
Adam L Silverman
@Sebastian: I would humbly like to request a patreon… ??
Another Scott
@BeautifulPlumage: Obligatory…
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@wombat probability cloud: You’re welcome.
Jay
Interesting thread about one aspect of logistics,
https://mobile.twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1505370275273183239?cxt=HHwWjsC4kcSSk-QpAAAA
Adam L Silverman
@oldster: You’re welcome.
Adam L Silverman
@Wyatt Salamanca: Thanks for the kind words.
BeautifulPlumage
@Another Scott: oh perfect!
Not a giant military cat, but a military cat:
https://mobile.twitter.com/giantcat9/status/1505166143019012107
Gretchen
There was never an explanation of why Biden, who lived in LA at the time, carried his broken computers on a plane to Delaware, rather than taking them to the Apple Store near his house. And once in Delaware, he voids the warranty by taking it to a no name strip mall repair place rather than an Apple Store there. Then doesn’t leave a name or a phone number, and never goes back for it. They didn’t put even minimal effort into making this make sense.
Adam L Silverman
@Carlo Graziani: Once the EU made it clear that no matter what happened, Turkey would not be admitted, Erdogan began to chart a new path. He began to lean heavily into the political Islam that his party stands for. And he decided that Turkey should be the regional hegemon.
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
Bactayar “diplomacy” has been working for Turkey from Azerbaijan to Ukraine, and not just Bactayar’s.
Germany is way behind on supplying Ukraine what they promised, Turkey is ahead of schedule.
yeah, he’s not a big fan of non-nationalist, inclusive democracy, but he’s less of a fan of Royalist Wood Chipper Kingdoms.
Adam L Silverman
@Gretchen: Tells you something about how they were estimating the professional ethics of the US news organizations and, especially, those reporters and news organizations that specialize in covering politics.
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: And yet they got one of the top news outlets and half of US politicians to buy it. Seems like their estimates weren’t all that far off.
Adam L Silverman
@Martin: Exactly.
Sebastian
@Adam L Silverman:
you should! I don’t believe Kamil is raking in the dough like our Beltway idiots.
Mallard Filmore
From https://democraticunderground.com/100216502794
title: “I know nothing of military hardware or weapons, but I’m guessing this is impressive?:”
twitter link: https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1505187324791074822
“Wut. Ukrainian troops in Luhansk region have managed to intercept a Tochka-U missile… with a FIM-92 Stinger. This is confirmed.”
I also know nothing of military hardware beyond “TANK”, “HELICOPTER”, “AIRPLANE”, “BIG GUN”.
Achrachno
@slybrarian: “Adam, yesterday I saw a thread on Twitter from WarTakes wondering how long the West can keep up the flow of advanced weapons like the Javelin and NLAWs before the stockpiles start dropping so low that they have to stop. Do you have any insight into that?”
I’m guessing the Russians will run out of armored vehicles before the supply of small missiles gets tight.
debbie
Another Scott
(via oryx…)
Grrr…,
Scott.
Jay
https://mobile.twitter.com/LostWeapons/status/1504697401138835457?cxt=HHwWgsCrlY2U4eEpAAAA
Jay
@Another Scott:
it is the Daily Torygraph, a source of Russian misinformation since 2002.
Martin
@Mallard Filmore: That’s a short range ballistic missile (range maybe 50 miles?) shot down by a Stinger. That’s not what a Stinger is supposed to be able to shoot down – it’s a small target and a fast moving one.
“The notion of
transwarp beamingdowning a ballistic missile with a Stinger is like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse.”Overstated, but that kind of thing.
piratedan
@Gretchen: kind of their MO isn’t it… you can draw a line from this to the Trump campaign reasoning to overturn the election to Q-Anon conspiracies, to all of the Project Veritas bullshit…. when it comes to these guys selling this shit, certain members of the media simply nod knowingly… then when we get detailed plans on how were going to do things on the Dem side, we get an outline of who will be taxed, expected revenues and how that will pay for the items wanted by a vast majority of the country and they’re willing and able to get into the weeds then and bleat about how one item in the big picture can be distorted and misinterpreted and to toss out everything because of their previous misrepresentation…
and then they accuse folks that doubt them of not dealing in good faith…..
piratedan
@Gretchen: kind of their MO isn’t it… you can draw a line from this to the Trump campaign reasoning to overturn the election to Q-Anon conspiracies, to all of the Project Veritas bullshit…. when it comes to these guys selling this shit, certain members of the media simply nod knowingly… then when we get detailed plans on how were going to do things on the Dem side, we get an outline of who will be taxed, expected revenues and how that will pay for the items wanted by a vast majority of the country and they’re willing and able to get into the weeds then and bleat about how one item in the big picture can be distorted and misinterpreted and to toss out everything because of their previous misrepresentation…
and then they accuse folks that doubt them of not dealing in good faith…..
Villago Delenda Est
@bbleh: He’s more than a “policy critic”. He’s an active agent for a despotic genocidal regime.
Jay
@Mallard Filmore:
Tochka’s have been downed by AAM’s before, so it’s possible, but not probable.
Chetan Murthy
@Uncle Cosmo: I don’t know how long ago that was, but …. as the danger to our Republic, to the Western Alliance, grows greater, as the period of danger grows longer and longer, I think we’re all learning to hate, to mutter imprecatory prayers, and to do so louder and louder. It is what it is. Nobody wanted to become like this, but when your society, your country, and your closest allies are getting attacked, literally attacked, hatred of those on the other side is normal and mere self-defense.
I for one wish only the best explosions on Griftwald.
P.S. reading about and seeing more and more evidence of worse and worse war crimes doesn’t help, either.
Martin
@Achrachno: There’s already at least 2 guided anti-armor weapons per armored vehicle that Russia possesses. I’m sure some are being used for unarmored vehicles in a pinch, but yeah, Russia will run out of vehicles long before we run out of missiles to take them down. I think we still have 30,000 more we can reach, either in the US or allies. Plus there’s all the other anti-armor weapons out there – NLAWs, etc.
I think the normal run rate for Javelins is a few thousand per year. I’m guessing that production is already being ramped up. That’s just going to be for backfilling. There’s no way Russia could build armored vehicles faster than we can make Javelins, even at the current production rate of Javelins.
Chetan Murthy
@Martin: So I understand (forget where I read it), the NLAWs are even more effective than Javelins, and half the price. From the text where I read it, that was … unexpected.
dimmsdale
@Chetan Murthy:
@dimmsdale: like an idiot, forgot to include the link to Timothy Snyder’s “help for Ukraine military” links. ARGH!
https://snyder.substack.com/p/helping-the-ukrainian-armed-forces?s=r
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Me, 8 years ago:
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Who wrote this: Steven Miller, The Proud Boys or Griftwald
Chetan Murthy
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Griftwald.
Redshift
@Bill Arnold:
Umm, is the NYT stating as fact that Hunter Biden left the laptop there? That’s how it reads, and the only part that’s presented as “appears” is whether the files are from it.
trollhattan
@debbie:
Love this so much!
trollhattan
@Martin:
Patriot batteries. That’s what they could really use.
James E Powell
@Gretchen:
That it makes no sense is very appealing to the conspiracy freaks. It’s like proof that something nefarious has occurred.
trollhattan
@Gretchen:
Isn’t that just what people do? I get my dryceaning done in Duluth; my Mexican takeout from Des Moines; my cars serviced in Brazilia; and my psychic support in Salt Lake City.
Calouste
@Martin: IIRC a main battle tank costs about $5 million, and a Javelin about $40,000. So it should be fairly easy for the Javelin side to outproduce the tank side. Also, it takes one person a few hours to learn how to effectively use a Javelin. I’d think it would take at least a few weeks, if not months, to learn how to effectively operate a tank.
Calouste
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Immigration wasn’t much of a concern in 1920s Germany, otherwise I’d say you were quoting Mein Kampf.
Sebastian
@Redshift:
Just smear them with the mark of the bloody hand. We know where they stand.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Jay:
I think that’d be more in the realm of character euthanasia rather than assassination.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Calouste: Also, you need at least two people, more likely three or four, to operate a tank. Driving the tank and shooting its gun are different jobs for different people inside the tank. Then there’s the tank commander who’s supposed to keep track of the surroundings and direct where the tank’s supposed to go and shoot.
Medicine Man
Yeah, Eff Greenwald. Dude’s a bloody crypto-fash.
bjacques
Kamil Galeev’s Twitter avatar looks like a homage to the famous painting by Caspar David Friedrich. I like that.
germy
Sebastian
@Medicine Man:
Word. Yrrch.
Geminid
I would like to see a good account of the strategy and decision-making in Trumps second Presidential campaign. I’m not sure if I’ll ever see one, though. I’m curious about the attempt to make the “revelations” from the laptop headline news. Trump’s team apparently thought they were going to blow Biden out of the water with them. But intead their torpedo just “porpoised” and sank to the bottom.
That was a close election. It wasn’t close as in, so close that the result was disputable, but rather, so close that a shift of less than 150,000 votes out of 150 million cast would have put three states in Trump’s win column and given him a second term. By soaking up campaign energy and messaging at a critical time in October, the laptop flop had an opportunity cost. None of the other arguments Trump and his team were making for his reelection were very good, but pushing any one them would have been better strategy than putting campaign eggs in the laptop basket.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: Eh. Not that simple. Javelin has a longer range – more in line with the maximum range of a tank. Gotta get a lot more up close and personal with an NLAW. Javelin also allows you to separate the targeting system from the rocket so you can fire it from behind cover. So if you have the time and means, you can set up from a position with the launcher mounted and stay back behind cover.
So, they kill tanks pretty much the same way, and can both take out basically the same tanks, but the Javelin costs a lot more and has a bit more flexibility and more range. So, tradeoffs.
The US has a lot of money, and we spend that money to make sure our guys can nuke a tank from a few miles away.
Martin
@Calouste: Yes, overall it’s a dynamic that favors the Javelin. I mean, with the exception of nukes, every weapon counter favors the counter over the weapon in terms of cost and manufacturability. So in order to stay ahead, you either need a dynamic where you can make the weapon much faster than the counter, or modify the weapon to negate the counter, or come up with a counter measure to the counter weapon. That’s why there’s so much variation in weapons here. It’s also why warfare has this habit of constantly escalating. You have a tank, we have an anti-tank weapon. You can either have way more tanks than you need, or add a weapon that counters the anti-tank weapon – a mortar, a helicopter, etc. We counter that weapon. You counter that counter to your weapon, and so on and so forth.
That’s also why nukes break the game. By and large they don’t have a counter, at least not a reliable enough one to risk it.
Martin
@germy: I hate that meme. If we had universal healthcare, we could afford even more weapons. It’s completely backward.
Ishiyama
I took it as irony (or black humor): our misplaced national priorities have a silver lining.
Juju
@dmsilev: Are you saying they were ugly or obnoxious chickens?
Chief Oshkosh
@bbleh: Right. And it’s a legal definition, not a medical definition:
https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/legally-blind-meaning
One could easily be an old-style watchmaker and be legally blind (with correctable near vision, for instance).
ETA: Doh! Already covered by many others…
J R in WV
@bbleh:
Yeah, me too, regarding policy critics.
But Glem isn’t a mere policy critic, he
isappears to be an employee of a hostile foreign power striving to destroy democracy in our nation. He assisted several spys to escape with all the sooper-secret data they could scrape off the NCA/CIA/Mil Spec databases they worked with.He gave up Reality Winner to the secret police when she attempted to be an anonymous whistle blower by publishing her data with all the metadata about whose lapltop it came from, or events to that effect.
A throughly rotten scumbag with a long history of nearly criminal acts out in public, and how know how many actually criminal acts in secret.
So fuck him, and his villa in Brazil.
Thanks again Adam for the work on all this security coverage!! I am instructing Cole to provide you with the B-J private aircraft to facilitate your investigations into what is really going on over there!! ;~)
Bill Arnold
@Redshift:
It’s deliberately ambiguous, and if pressed hard, they would call one an idiot for not parsing it as “a cache of files that appears (to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. )
Which is true; that is the ridiculous constructed story parts of the press ran with because it might help re-elect Trump.
Uncle Cosmo
One Jackal’s “policy critic” is another Jackal’s “traitor and fascist enabler.” I doubt many here would disagree with the notion that the world would be a better place if that sad sack of shit’s CHON and trace elements were returned to the environment for the benefit of some other life-form. (IMHO pond scum could make more productive use of them.)
I never suggested that removing him and his ilk from the playing field was a goal to be actively pursued more than devoutly hoped for. I guess I was a little too graphic for some tastes in describing where and how he deserves (IMO) to spend his last minutes on earth, hence “ghoul.”
(Cf. @Chetan Murthy, @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch, @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch, @Medicine Man, @J R in WV )
Another Scott
@Jay: Ah, thanks.
Still, it looks like (from JJ MacNab’s posts) that at least a few of these I-wanna-play-soldier guys wouldn’t be very helpful. And might well be dangerous.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sebastian
@trollhattan:
Already moving into Slovakia.
mwing
With the Hunter Biden thing, I’ve always guessed it might have gone something like this:
Team Giuliani gets some actual hacked emails.texts/whatevers from some device owned by Hunter Biden. (Contents basically uninteresting to anyone outside their family).
Presumably because the actual source was something like “bought from a guy in a hotel lobby in Ukraine”, team Giuliani decided they needed an innocent origin story for how they wound up with the stuff- so, the unlikely laptop-repair service story with an unlikely character at the center of it, presumably because he was willing.
After all, if you’re looking for an *innocent* origin story for how Giuliani would up with this stuff, the options are really very limited- “stumbled over a left-behind laptop” is one of very few choices.
I believe Hunter Biden said later that, during the period of time this was supposed to have happened, he was very far from sober, and while he doesn’t think he left his laptop in a random shop, he can’t remember a lot of things and so can’t categorically deny it.
The fake stuff added in was all about sex? I didn’t know that. That has nothing to do with what the right was even claiming about Hunter Biden?
Seems awfully lazy, like they couldn’t be bothered to do enough research to fake plausible emails about his actual business partners, so they just went right to the sex stuff?