gehringer_2

It's a weird calculus. The war was fundamentally a political tool to maintain his domestic standing - so he has to maintain the fantasy that it remains cost free - at least to the Great Russian population. Ukraine has succeeded in making it very difficult for him to win the war without imposing more of exactly the kind of hardship in Russia that the was was supposed to distract from. OTOH, to lose the was removes the distraction from the level of hardship that he had to distract from in the 1st place. It would be sooo much more convenient if someone in the inner circle prepped a bullet with Vladdy's name on it. That seems medieval in 'modern' Europe, but since Putin has proven himself a medievalist in spades it would be that much more appropriate.

I don't believe the people around him would let him when it's a war of choice and not an existential threat - because the Generals would have to know, even if Putin doesn't, that if Russia does that in the service of pure war of aggression/expansion, they *will* face retaliation in kind.

you just *had* to post that didn't you? That should about guarantee we see it in about 5 yrs......

didn't think it would take long for that shoe to drop.

Cruel reality dosage for the day.

agreed. Not sure rules like this will be enough to put me off the MLB, but they are getting close.

so just to be perfectly crystal clear, I'm taking the news coming from Ukraine as unalloyed good news. I'm not selling any "don't poke the bear too hard" cards. That said, it seems that if the Ukrainian offensive consolidates the gains it is currently promising to make, it *has* to puncture the balloon of unreality Putin has inflated around himself - doesn't it? I mean, we are coming down to a real test of George Orwell's ultimate vision. Someone tweeted (so consider the source at your own risk) that some brave souls in St. Petersburg (the most European of all Russian cities) were calling for Putin's removal.

it's a little bit to cut down on the distance by an inch or two, which will make the steal very very marginally easier, but I think it's also partly additional safety - more room for both the runner and fielder to be on the base the rest of the time.

I believe it's an off-the-shelf consumer walkie-talkie

Of course the problem is that if you separated a nation out of Afghanistan based on Pashtun ethnicity, they would want their piece of Pakistan to go with it - and so it would go. There's hardly any end to the story once you start subdividing enclaves. The curious thing is that in Europe, centuries of warfare eventually did force ethnic separation, so by the 20th century things had calmed down in terms of ethnic wars (other than Yugoslavia) - which gave them the luxury of having ideological ones. (). In areas where the Ottomans or Mongols ruled, they had a different system where you had parallel ruling jurisdictions operating for different religious groups in the same geography. But once those old poly jurisdictional regimes collapsed, it left all kinds of people who didn't want to be ruled by each other in highly mixed geographies and the fallout still drives a lot of the conflict in places like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and to a degree Afghanistan.

And Putin is out there with his "If you don't start being nice to us we will just extend great Russian victory even further."🤷‍♀️

You'd think that after a few hundred years of this nonsense, they would by now have decided on a line between Tajikaganistan and Pashtunaganistan and called it a day.

Well, that didn't take long...... (For the Taliban to have a counter insurgency on their hands that is,......)

SoFi is actually small for a top B1G stadium, but I suppose it's better to have your team play to 70K full seats than 110K half empty ones. You'd think the 'rent' to use SoFi has to be a lot higher than at the Rose Bowl though.....

LOL - given last year's record, the Lions beating any team, any week will mean a lot.

The people in Pasedena hate the Rose Bowl as a stadium. I don't know if they still do it but in the past the city blockaded every single residential street around the stadium to completely prohibit anyone parking anywhere but a sanctioned lot on game day. If we did that in Ann Arbor you probably couldn't fill the stadium either!

the difference between Hillary winning and losing.

Three HRs by this yr's call-ups.

Is anyone else struck by the absurdity/unreality of Trevor's interview with Lester's father? Sure it's a 'feel good' story that the guy is getting his cup of coffee as reward for being a good MiLB solder, but does anyone seriously believe Lester has an MLB future, and that being the case isn't an interview like Trevor just did borderline emotion predation on the family?

Obviously you can't trust the picture you get from tweets and wire services in near real time, but even given that, there seems to be scant evidence of any Russian C&C capability to respond.

LOL - There's religion, there's tribalism, and there's money. 1 and 2 can always find a way to the back seat when it's time to take care of #3 and WTI under $85 this AM

The problem for Russia is gas. China and Asia can absorb Russia's oil and the market just shifts so that sanctioning countries get their oil from suppliers displaced from Asian sales - because an oil tanker from anywhere can go anywhere. But Russia's gas infrastructure points into Europe and that can't change very fast. They will be faced with the prospect of reducing oil production in fields that co-produce gas, or flaring off billions of $ in gas they can't sell.

our exuberance has proved irrational.

I could only see it if I had still had the heart to be watching. 😢

Well, that's a relief.