Billy_T wrote:

ZN, Off topic: Just tried to post a new thread on the latest IPCC climate report. Stuck in moderation. May be the report/link is a pdf.

On it.

wv wrote:

I had my doubts I’d ever see it again. I’ve been savoring vids of the 3 game stretch — Bucs, 49ers, Bengals. I just cant imagine any other Super Bowl winner came ‘that’ close to losing 3 times in a row.   It was uncanny.  Or somethin.  If you watch those games, the tension ‘still’ lingers, they were so razor-close.   w v

Back in the days when Seattle had a top team and was going to superbowls, I remember the times the Rams lost to them, and each time, it was because a Seattle player made a play. Earl Thomas, Russell Wilson, Sherman, Wagoner…it was always somebody. I kept saying in game chats “Seattle just makes plays when they have to against the Rams.”

And that’s exactly what the 2021 Rams became in their final stretch. They just made plays at key turning points. Plays that will actually be immortal as times go along. Like 4th and 1 on their own 30 in the final minutes down by 4 and they give it to Kupp on a jet sweep? 😯 And Kupp is stopped dead to rights but he cuts like a premier RB and gets the yards.

Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out what all our differences/positions are on all this.   The way you just laid your view out, NATO/US has zero culpability in the Russian Invasion, and you think its “nonsense” for Putin to think of NATO as a threat.

I did explain that stance though. As I see it, no one in their right mind believes that NATO is an aggressive force capable of using military might to acquire territory. NATO is not going to invade anyone. And that’s regardless what you think of NATO.

Putin, on the other hand, sees NATO as threatening his own aggressive interests in re-acquiring the lost portions of the old USSR’s eastern European empire. Not that different from Serbia trying to grab what it could from the collapse of Yugoslavia. Russia is not threatened by NATO. Russian imperial expansion is threatened by NATO.

I honestly believe that all stands to reason and in fact, to me, it seems like it is completely obvious. Anyway. What Putin “sees as a threat” is of no interest to me, except that it explains his pathologies as a right-wing dictator. To me, it’s like a domestic abuser who believes people calling him on his violence means they are aggressively threatening to harm an innocent person.

You know you’re getting old when not a single member of the Legion of Boom is on an NFL team pic.twitter.com/iNuzqRwKru

— NFL Memes (@NFL_Memes) February 27, 2022

wv wrote:

Why do YOU think he invaded?

From what I am piecing together (in between actually trying to get work done for my real-world job)? Putin believes in re-acquring the former Soviet empire. The longer he waits on the Ukraine, the deeper its ties to NATO. Now he can act like he believes NATO is a threat to him, but that’s obviously nonsense–NATO was never going to launch an aggressive war against Russia. But NATO solidarity and membership can limit Russian imperial ambitions in the region.

This is not an exact analogy but a proximate one–Ukraine in a lot of ways is to Putin what the Sandinistas were to Reagon.

His whole thing about Ukraine not really being a nation gives it away. He’s saying, you stole from us, we’re just taking it back.  (Once again my ethnic history is that I am Ukrainian…my grandparents could barely speak English…and this idea that Ukraine has no authentic national history is ludicrous.)

Anyway. It is beyond crazy that we have a situation in Europe where a massive global power actually launches a WW2 style invasion of a neighboring state. It happened with Serbia in relation to its neigboring states but that was of course on a smaller scale so isn’t the “wtf” level news that this is. It’s a similar dynamic, though–the break up of Yugoslavia led to aggressive military conflicts. This is the same thing, the break up of the USSR, but just on a bigger scale.

from https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2022/02/27/rams-nfl-draft-depth-daniel-jeremiah-quote/?taid=621bace2ed681a0001a1525c&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=twitter

Everyone talks about the star-studded roster that the Los Angeles Rams assembled en route to their Super Bowl title, but that team was much more than a collection of big names. In the Super Bowl alone, they got contributions out of Brycen Hopkins, Nick Scott, Darious Williams, A’Shawn Robinson, Greg Gaines and Ernest Jones.

Of course, Matthew Stafford, Jalen Ramsey, Aaron Donald, Von Miller, Cooper Kupp and Odell Beckham Jr. helped the Rams get to the big game, but throughout the season, their excellent depth was on full display.

Gaines, Scott, Hopkins, Kupp, David Edwards, Rob Havenstein, Tyler Higbee and Jordan Fuller were all drafted outside the first round, showing how much value there is in the mid-to-late rounds of the draft. Daniel Jeremiah of NFL Network mentioned exactly that during his pre-draft conference call, pointing out how the Rams are an example of the importance of depth in a draft class.

…

“So I think a lot of people have kind of looked at the top of this draft and have their thoughts about whether or not it stacks up with previous years, but I would just say kind of as I’m going through this process and watching all these guys and then paying attention through the postseason and seeing the Rams win the Super Bowl, I think the discussion about the Rams being a superstar team is obviously very valid, but I think if you look at that team and who some of their key players are and the home run picks they’ve had outside the first round to help really build the nucleus of that team, it shows you the importance of depth in a draft,” Jeremiah said. “I think this is a really good depth draft, especially when you get into the second, third, fourth round. There’s a lot of quality there, a lot of starters.”

I ain’t arguing uniforms with anyone but nothing can beat this lol that old school shit for life! 💙💛 pic.twitter.com/yuQ9xAL8E6

— C (@Chrispyyy_95) February 27, 2022

wv wrote:

This article basically sums up the wv view.

Whether or not nazis or neo-nazis are involved in Ukrainian government and policies (which is demonstrably false) goes to the heart of the Putin narrative, which some on the left (speaking as a leftist) are (at least initially) buying into.

I think that article has several interesting points. With this group of posters here, we’re going to have a great collection of articles. People are better off reading this thread then virtually any other source on the net.

But I do think that article doesn’t really address a key issue. Ukraine has a right to national indepdendence and Russsia has no right to forcefully deny that through military invasion. Sometimes things are as simple as that.

Speaking as someone who opposed virtually every war the USA has fought in in his lifetime.

Max Berger @maxberger

I’m not sure most American voters realize the heroic Ukrainian president everyone is praising is the exact same guy Donald Trump was impeached for trying to extort.

Billy_T wrote:

To state the obvious: there are a lot of competing versions of events in Ukraine right now

Just someone from a different discussion group: