Huckleberry

Amb Pifer noted that 🇷🇺 committed “to respect Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence and not use or threaten to use force against Ukraine.” Why would anyone trust 🇷🇺 in new negotiations? What could 🇷🇺 possibly offer that 🇷🇺 hasn’t already breached ?

@MalcontentmentT I think the F-111 used TFR.

TFR was developed in the 70s before every square inch of the planet had been scanned by Airbus for Google Maps and before GPS existed.

Excellent ! To me, I found three points particularly insightful. 1) They are aware of the Trump’s concern about the midterms . [ See my question below about this ] 2) This new generation rising through the IRGC is even more extreme / hardline [ more Principlist ? ] . 3) If Mojtaba Khamenei et. al. survives, at this point, they’re probably thinking “Of course they are going to go for a bomb, they don’t have much to lose” Regarding 1), how would their understanding of Trump’s concerns be reflected in their response and pace ? Drag out any potential future negotiation ? If not resolved, attempt to escalate in the region to get Trump to respond more favorably ?

Tonight on @cnn @AC360 with colleague former Deputy DNI Beth Sanner and host @andersoncooper discussing the latest on Iran

You’re absolutely right. Safety first. As you know, even if you’re on a slight hill, it’s important to make sure your car or truck doesn’t roll when you’re changing a tire. Q. So, what do you do if you don’t have regular Wheel-Chocks ? A. You use what you can find; in this case, we can use the Tates. We’ll wedge them under the tires as our make shift Tate-Chocks, so to speak. Importantly, when wedging a Tate under a wheel, make sure there is no gap between the wheel and a Tate. We don’t want to vehicles to move at all. 🛞 Safety Tip: Even with a parking brake, it’s a good safety practice to wedge a Tate under a couple of the tires before you jack the Truck or Car. Of course, you want to wedge a Tate on the downhill side of tires. If you’re jacking the front - wedge a Tate under each of the rear wheels If you’re jacking the rear - wedge a Tate under each the front wheels After the flat tire is removed, you can use the third weirdo, as a mini stand for the spare. It makes it easier to maneuver the spare in place and tighten the lug nuts. After the spare is fully secure, lower your truck or car, pull the two Tate-Chocks from under the tires and release them or stow them for the next time. Bottom line: Safety first, wedge Tates under tires before jacking. [ Of course, I’m joking and I would never use a Tate as a Chock, firstly they’re probably too small and secondly I only want whatever Justice has in store for them. ]

You have a flat tire.. who do you call?

I didn’t know this about him. Thanks for the insight. I did notice someone started changing his weakipedia page, in a very ham-fisted way, I think ( but not sure ) to reflect some talking point that he worked for the CIA. I kinda’ wonder if the Kremlin set him and his team up to get caught so they can discredit Ukraine. They could get a lot of mileage out of an American and Ukrainians getting in trouble for something.

OH JESUS NOT THIS GUY... AGAIN. He claims in interviews he served in the AFU but he joined my Legion battalion for ONE FRICKIN DAY to do a body recovery bc he told my Ukrainian CO he was an EOD specialist. He was not. I knew about his captivity in Libya, where he was let go; he didn't escape. He was trying to get guys to leave Ukraine for "ops" in Venezuela. Two got rolled up by Maduro/Russia IIRC. He is a mess seven ways to Sunday. This was inevitable. And NO he does not work for GUR.

Matthew Van Dyke has been arrested at Kolkata airport along with six Ukrainians . "Scanning his social media footage and mobile phone, officials have now found that VanDyke had previously been linked to numerous military conflicts" Duh. ndtv.com/india-news/con…

@NancyAFrench When I was a kid, one summer, my parents sent me to a camp for a couple weeks. There was one cot that folded in on itself, I was the newbie, I didn’t know about it. I’m fairly sure that graphic is an accurate depiction of me the first morning.

I'm making a slideshow for my Institute of Politics seminar, and I prompted the Canva AI to make a graphic of "game" (I wanted a stylized word) but this is what it created. Isn't this perplexing? What IS this? I would say wrong answers only but...

Well, that News Article says that when the Kenyan police busted the Ant Smuggler, they “recovered 1,000 unpackaged live ​garden ants, 113 live garden ants packaged in modified ​syringes, and 503 empty syringes.” So … um … I have questions. 1) Why is Ant Smuggling even a business ? 2) Why would anyone have 113 live garden ants packaged in modified ​syringes ? Why would anyone have one ( 1 ) live garden ant in a modified syringe ? Why is this a thing ? 3 ) How did this combination of live garden ants AND modified syringes come into being ? Here is what I think happened: There was some guy riding his bike down the street who had a bunch of live garden ants in his basket and there was ANOTHER guy riding his bike with a bunch of modified syringes in his basket. Coincidentally, they were on the same street, and they weren’t paying attention, and then CRASH ! The first guy, the ant owner, said, “You got your modified syringes over my live garden ants.” The second guy said, “No, you got your live garden ants in my modified syringes” They looked at each other, then laughed, became best friends and decided to go into the smuggling business together. NO. I don’t know if they really re-enacted a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Commercial. I just made that up. I have no idea why there are 113 live ( not dead ) garden ants in modified syringes . Well, that was my guess. Does anyone know ?

Damn. We need a new menu for next week. reuters.com/business/envir…

Excellent discussion. Of course he nails it, perfectly. - Yes, Ukraine needs to maintain positive diplomacy with Washington. - Yes, the current White House and the Kremlin want Europe weaker. - Yes, Trump has adopted the viewpoint that smaller states should be submissive [ This is the “Spheres of Influence” viewpoint which the Kremlin, like a used car salesman, has been trying to sell him, for years ] - Yes, Europe, needs to stay united and build stronger defense capabilities. [ Behind the scenes, White House operative Steve Bannon is trying to deconstruct the EU and NATO, the Kremlin is doing the same ]

Former Ukrainian FM Dmytro Kuleba: Trump sees Ukraine as an obstacle, not an asset. His worldview is that smaller nations should submit to great powers — which is why he is not looking for a strong Ukraine and expects a ceasefire through Ukraine’s concessions. 1/

Note, Steve Bannon is surprisingly aligned with Alexander Dugin. They both want the same outcome for Europe, they both want Europe to be weaker, to be broken apart even more , ( both the EU and NATO ) If you listen / read their corresponding rhetoric you’ll see aligned rhetoric, too, ( e.g. sovereignty of the state vs. multilateral alliances, ) As shown in the clip, they both use immigration as boogeyman in different ways. They like Victor Orban as a model of how their style of campaigns are successful. Do everything in your power to prevent their kind of manipulation.

yes. that's why:

You’re totally fine, I don’t think you come across like that, in the least. Regarding our capabilities… We completely botched our readiness and demining would most likely have resulted in lost ships and lost sailors. In January, we mothballed our workhorse ships that have been demining for decades with the expectation our new untested ships would take up the slack. Apparently, the new ones weren’t ready for prime time. See attached news article. hntrbrk.com/demining-hormu…

This isn’t having a go at Americans or American fellas But USA has the largest, most technologically advanced navy on the planet BY A MILE Occam’s Razor: Trump wants others to try to open the Hormuz Strait because IT’S TOO DANGEROUS FOR ANY NAVY TO DO

@Tazerface16 Even without checking the news and without stating a name in particular, I could probably say: “Someone flip-flopped on something.” We’d both know who that “someone” is and that he most likely really did flip-flop on something.

Been away for a bit. Anything new happening?

@SpoogemanGhost - This, a NVIDIA DGX Station GB300 🤩, should be your next workstation .

@ChrisO_wiki Excellent joke and I appreciate the relevance.

An old joke, newly relevant: A Finn and a Russian are fishing on opposite sides of a river along the border between their countries. The Finn pulls fish after fish out of the water, to the Russian's growing frustration. Finally, the Russian can't bear it any more and bursts out: "How come you're getting all the fish?" The Finn replies calmly: "It's because the fish on your side are too afraid to open their mouths."

I don’t always notice the float on a fishing line bobbing up and down, but it’s good when they take the bait. In this case, it tells me I probably hit a nerve. Purely a guess, but I’m going to assume the work was presented differently to Matthew and the rest of the team than what is being reported. Essentially, a trap with a potential goal to discredit Ukraine and Matthew. Also, it’s possible that the Kremlin may have generated some false evidence and then notified a few select buddies in country. Separate from the operation to trap the team, I’m fairly sure the Kremlin ( or proxies or someone aligned with the Kremlin ) seemed to edit his wiki page for a few reasons. I’m not going to say all of the reasons, because I don’t want the bad guys to improve, but there are a few telltale indicators.

Have you ever been absolutely sure someone was wrong on a critical work issue, but it turned out that it was you that didn’t have all the information and you jumped to conclusions ? That was me, today. Twice. Two separate issues, two separate teams. I apologized, took ownership of my mistakes, clarified it was on me, not them. That is, I clarified it was my fault for not fully understanding, I was the one that misunderstood, not them, and asked them to forgive my misunderstanding . I probably spent twice the time making sure everyone understood it was my misunderstanding than the time that I originally spent implying they were in the wrong. Not in a groveling way, but just in a low-key, matter-of-factly, sort of way. After that, we all moved on. Although embarrassing, there is one thing I appreciate about this morning. To two separate teams, I got to model taking ownership of my actions, mistakes and all. I’m sure they will continue to take ownership of their actions … and now, I hope, if they ever goof up, they’ll own it and not try to shift the blame elsewhere. Building and earning someone’s trust makes all the difference in the world. It takes a while to build that trust, but it can be gone in a mere moment. I don’t usually talk about my stuff too much, so if you read all of this, thanks for reading.

Oil certainly supports the dollars dominance, but it’s not the only thing. There needs to be alternatives. Thst is, there needs to be a huge enough market outside the US so other countries can shift to and away from US treasuries. For example if the EU had a truly unified fiscal system and issued true Eurobonds, that would probably weaken the dollar. On the other hand, Trump ( singlehandedly ) is doing everything in his power to weaken the dollar’s position. In the past, US stability was a big part of the draw. In the past countries could trust our legal institutions, our financial enforcement, and our security guarantees. Trump is nearly destroying all of those. Also, in general, everyone else is using US dollars so it’s had to quickly shift away. So, even if there was breakthrough in nuclear Fusion tomorrow and it was suddenly available to the world and oil stopped, the dollar would continue to be dominant . Nonetheless, it seems like Trump really wants to ruin the US, so we’ll see.

I’m a bit slow but just realised Electrification (solar, wind, hydro, wave power, battery storage, transportation electrification) Basically ends the petrodollar system, which is the biggest reason the dollar is the global reserve currency

I like these time lapses. Have you tried a post processing video stabilizer to keep the art in the middle perfectly still, but show the table ( and you ) move around the art a bit ? If you have tried it, what did you think ? Did it look like the table shifts back and forth, instead of the book ?

Watch my hands

@hissgoescobra @UnSubtleDesi That being said about the information ops, it might be different in regard to the whole program. Just speculating, I would not be surprised to learn that it was a set up from the beginning.

Well, someone just recently edited Matthew’s Wikipedia page , adding “spy” a few hours ago. It seems kinda’ ham-fisted. If it was the Kremlin, they used to be better at these things. Maybe the Kremlin ran out of experienced information ops folk, and they’re scrapping the bottom of the barrel, now. Hmmm … if it was the Kremlin, because they were so obvious, do they get volunteered to be part of the next Storm Z assault ?

The muted coverage by a large section of the Indian media on the NIA arrests is a bit baffling. This is arguably the biggest story right now. It’s not often that CIA operatives are arrested so publicly. What gives?

@Tazerface16 I think the Pineapple Apparel really pulled the whole event together. In general, I think competition in the marketplace is good as it helps everyone improve their game. So, this might be the extra nudge for Florida Man to up his game.

Florida Man about to lose top billing.

I understand that there may be a bill to address the “Brotherly Shove” / “Tush Push”, too. I heard some scuttlebutt that they may call the bill, “Tush”, for short. If true, did you have a hand in this or perhaps both hands in this, as a sponsor ? Also, are the votes going to be close ? Or is there enough cushion for the Tush ? Oh ! Just between us, I’ve heard there is an effort to organize a grass roots outreach campaign to virtually reach and virtually touch athletics fans of all kinds, regarding the Tush bill. I think the organizers are calling the outreach campaign ‘Touching Athletic Supporters for America’s Tush’ or something like that. Anyway, I thought you should know. Of course, I’m fully aware that by providing this insight, some may say I am pitching you a softball, so that you can knock it out of the park. Of course they’re wrong. We’re not talking baseball. No sirree, Bob. This is about America’s True Pastime. We are talking about Watching Television. Anyway, got to go, but one last thing: Even though I officially reside on the East Coast now, because your representation of the 54th is still important to me, I should be able to take some time off during election season to vote for you a few times. So, you can count on all of my votes, just like the last few times.

The quickest and easiest way for us to end the ridiculous NFL kickoff rule is through the #SaveAct