Base32

So why the Avatar. Are you Venetian? Or is this some sort of Virtue Signaling?

They used the Ukraine phone network to issue orders. Its how Ukraine was able to geolocate positions. https://global.espreso.tv/russian-forces-using-ukrainian-mobile-networks-for-gprs-navigation-kharkiv-official https://insidetowers.com/russia-using-cell-towers-to-guide-drone-attacks-in-ukraine/ https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/23/europe/russia-smartphone-ukraine-war-intl https://taskandpurpose.com/news/russia-ukraine-cell-phones-track-combat/ I wouldn't put it past the Russians to be stupid. They could have gotten hold of any number of free full sized Chinese pickups, but ordered Dodges?? You can't remove the ECU from a 2023+ vehicle and expect to have it running.

https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-father-detained-ice-weeks-decades-old-marijuana-charge/ https://assets1.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2025/08/26/fc4e47d6-f179-4297-8762-b27a75c8c128/thumbnail/620x349/cd4057c6aa3fba3d4a5a58681a12371f/heath-family-castle-rock.jpg# There wil be many on this forum who will pronounce that this is good. I'm very much anti-narcotics, so I do have a cetain sympathy with this position. Anyone who has had a history, with or without criminal conviction, should at the very least, face extended supervision if in the company of children. Frankly, I don't trust these people. Many will disagree with this position, either on the grounds that drug users deserve, like sex offenders and others, eventual forgiveness, or believe that ingesting narcotic substances is a perfectly fine activity. They will try and debate, no doubt, using weasel words, citing supposed research papers that their addled brains cannot comprehend. Inconsequential to me. I note; Once a drug fiend, always a drug fiend. He says he's done everything except Ice, so obviously used to be a crack smoker, heroin, and is still an habitual alcohol user. Drug fiends often claim to be reformed, but I would never trust them which seems to be the position of the federal authorities here. And maybe on this ocasion they are right, and should extend such scrutiny to any American who has a history of drug use. I will be blunt. People who admit casually to current or past drug use are like dog <deleted> to me, to be avoided. If they are a past user, I suspect their moral choices in life are poor, and they are in no postion to lecture others about moral choices. They have a record of lousy choices. If an ex user who boasts about it, I suspect they are just a moment from reaching for that pipe or needle.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/federal-agents-arrest-firefighters-working-on-wa-wildfire/

Americans might be surprised what's on sale at the Bisley gun fair, including the availability of long mags and prices.

I wonder when there will be the first shoot out between ICE agents, who aren't in uniform, and an armed citizen? There is also the issue about federalising the National Guard. It was James Madison who argued that an armed militia was necessary to keep in check a federal government. In Pre-Revolutionary America, there were so-called Patriot militias. The British and Loyalists attempted to disarm them, but were met with resistance, citing the Bill of Rights. As the new Republic was emerging, following riots, it became clear they needed an army to maintain order. after the Continental Army disbanded and went home. The price of the US Army was the 2nd Amendment. The current DHS head previously said this

Its worth repeating that Stellantis has denied selling Russia these Ram trucks. Its also worth noting that these trucks are equipped with Uconnect and a telematics package. They need a GPS option to be activated to be tracked. However, since 2021, the system allows over the air updates. In other words, they could be bricked and potentially tracked. Generally this would need cooperation with Stellantis. Besides over the air updates (so corrupt code could be sent to brick the ECU), the system supports remote starting, locking and unlocking (that would be funny, drone operators locked out of the truck). What makes it tricky is the system uses AT&T/Verizon LTE bands, which aren't available in Russia. However, if the trucks seen are actually European spec, the system is different, and can operate in Ukraine. The Kyiv Independant thinks these trucks were sold through Dubai, as US spec grey imports https://kyivindependent.com/investigation-american-trucks-equipped-with-russias-shahed-stile-attack-drones-who-sold-cars/ But I see a truck with a rectangular, not square, front tag. UAE spec Dodge truck UAE-spec vehicles are usually built for Middle Eastern LTE bands, which include: Band 3 (1800 MHz) Band 7 (2600 MHz) Band 20 (800 MHz) Band 1 (2100 MHz) in some areas Russian LTE networks generally use Bands 3, 7, 20, and 1 — so UAE-spec telematics modems are much more likely to connect to Russian carriers than U.S.-spec ones. European-spec trucks are also compatible, but UAE-spec trucks may even have firmware optimized for roaming in regions like the Middle East and nearby CIS countries.

Anti-semitic post. What has his faith go to do with things? Would you have remarked "Bill Browder is a Catholic/Protestant/Muslim/Hindu" etc? I think not. His religion matters you you, and you associate that faith with financial criminality. Do you want to talk about Zelensky's religion while you are at it. I hope Admin take a closer look at this post of your, plus a few others.

Same street where a few weeks ago a local man stabbed to death a new qualified female postdoc from Zimbabwae https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4eq9yelk5o Little girl walks around an area, in the evening, tooled up with a hatchet, weeks after a black woman was stabbed to death, and you think that's ok. What's the bet this child is of the feral sort. I don't care that you have owned a business in the past, that you are a Scots, or what so-called "connections" you think you have, you have lost any sense of right and wrong. Or you are just an effing troll on a wind up. My brother was 12 when he was stabbed in a park by a feral kid, for no reason whatsoever. He survived. So go do one for encouraging children to carry blades. You call it "child resistance". I call it NED Scottish parents in a city well known for areas of deep social deprication, probably off their face on crack and blow. The kid probably had foetal alcohol syndrome on account of her Ma being off her tits on tramp juice and meths every night. The girl was picked up after threatening the brother and sister who filmed here in the St Ann Lane area. I lived for a long while in the Glasgae East End. Utter <deleted> hole. Rab C Nesbitt was a documentary. Parts of Dundee are supposedly worse. These two girls had gone "missing" a month ago at a shopping centre in the City. A month later, wondering around a park in the evening with a hatchet. 3-2-1, social services will be looking at this. https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/5298827/missing-dundee-sisters-wellgate-shopping-centre/

Quite early on, Russia started to strip hospitals in the Rostov area of doctors and paramedics to form combat medical brigades. Russian military medicine is in a decrepit state. Before the war, Russia had quite a thriving private healthcare sector. That sector has all but disappeared. Russa is dependant of imports of about 80% of its medicines and 90% of its medical equipment. And the main sources were from Germany and the US. The export of medical supplies is not subject to sanction, except for certain spare parts that have both a dual purpose use and US IP. This includes medical and dental lasers. Russia can probably get away with less bariatric surgery, contouring and amazing teeth. However, a weakened Ruble and increased shipping costs wiped out the private sector, and has impacted state healthcare spending (and now they are reducing that budget). To an extent, Western medicines can be substituted for Chinese and Indian generics; they are just as good. The difference will be there is less choice, so treatment of patients will worsen. The same cannot be said for medical devices. One thing doctors don't like is having some bureaucrat tell them how to treat their patients. During COVID, bureaucrats around the world came up with amazing new ventilator designs. James Dyson was going to completely revolutionise the design. Ford was going scale up, WW2 style, production. Babcock headed a military like consortium made up of the finest mids from the aerospace, car and motorsport industries to design and produce the sten gun of ventilators. All for nothing. No doctor worth his salt was going to hook up his patients to a machine designed on a fagpacket by a hair dryer maker. They wanted more of the same. In America, the American President proudly accepted the Russian donation of Russian ventilators for the hard pressed citizens of his home town. The ventilators went from airport straight to the scrapyard. The machines were not FDA approved, different voltage requirements and all the controls were in Russian. In Russia, some bright spark thought they should daisy chain respiratory equipment to make it go further. The result was an oxygen leak completely immolated a whole ward of COVID victims. Years ago, Putin instituted a Buy Russian campaign on public bodies, including hospitals. All the orders and tenders are a matter of public record. Didn't make the slightest bit of difference. When the war started, they identified 4000 types of critical equipment that were wholly imported. Putin challenged Russian industry to come up with the goods. They failed. Now Western equipment is coming in through Kazakhstan, and they are paying double. So that healthcare budget isn't going as far. More surgeries are being canceled due tp equipment malfunctions and shortages. Waiting times are extending, or whole types of surgery/treatment are no longer on offer. No shortage of opiates though for those cancer patients told there is no treatment inside Russia.

All very well, but again, you are being less that even handed The Russian government recently installed a replica of a monument to Stalin on the Moscow Undrground. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/15/moscow-metro-installs-replica-of-stalin-monument-a89089 He deliberately starved up to 7 million Ukrainians to death https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2023-0051/ Overall, Stalin is responsble for the deaths of upto 20 million Soviet citizens. Its no surprise that a mystery "Pole" (who knows where he's from. We all have personas here) pops up just as negotiations between between Ukraine and Russia may start. The Russian position is clear. Its unchanged. The Americans are claiming two major cncessions; they now recognise that Ukraine has a right to exist, and they no longer want to install a puppet leader. On the Ukrainian side there is the question of land, though its likely that Ukraine is more wedded to the idea of not conceding sovereignty (in the same way that Cyprus will not recognise Northern Cyprus, the Golan Heights are still officially Syrian), rather than necessarily seeking to use military means to eject the Russian occupation force. Other lines are NATO membership, or not NATO membership (suggestings of "Article 5 like protections" indicates whoever came up with that has no idea how Article 4/5 work), and EU membership. The Russians, being as thick as pig <deleted>, don't seem to understand this idea of independance, because they think they have the right of veto on Ukraine's external relations. The question of EU membership has come up because of the comments of the Polish Polish Deputy Prime Minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, who has said the Poland will veto Ukraine's application to join the EU until it concedes that the Volyn tragedy as a genocide' The Bots and others, on cue, seized upon these words, and attempt to justify Bucha and other places on the grounds of a bellum iustum, which is perverse considering Russia refuses to acknowledge the Holodomor as genocide. Russia says it wasn't genocide, because Stalin also killed Kazkhs. The Romani will be relieved to learn they weren't the victims of genocide because the Nazis also killed Jews. The Deputy PM was fully aware how Russia and its "friends" would use this. Of course there is a difference in opinion between the Polish Prime Minister and his cabinet and the newly elected Polish President. But I think its more likely that Ukraine will acknowledge the past (though Bandera himself wasn't actually a Ukrainian citize. It seems his story was of a messy period following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which saw Easten Galicia become independant Western Ukrainian People Republic, before a war with Poland saw it annexed by Poland (Russia; take note as you send Ukrainians into internal exile). Zelensky in 2023 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66150790 Clearly, there is a lot of Polish-Ukrainian cooperation going on through the exhumation of victims. Russia and its friends, cynically exploiting them. Russia has lots more blood on its hands, but its friend refuse to acknowledge this, or minimise it, such as Lavrov's comments (curious, as reputedly, he is a Buddhist convert). https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/08/25/7527788/ https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7784/Artykul/3570365,ukraine’s-acting-culture-chief-to-attend-burials-of-poles-exhumed-in-puzhnyky https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7785/Artykul/3536316,poland-gets-green-light-from-ukraine-for-more-wwii-exhumation-work

You said you are a Trotskyist and Corbyn supporter. You are a communist.

Or doesn't have control of his Cabinet. Back in May, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/order-by-hegseth-cancel-ukraine-weapons-caught-white-house-off-guard-2025-05-06/

While you are at it spending all day on Chat GPT5 and maxing out your free daily quote, check the numbers for Russian retirees in Thailand. I know you won't because West Bad, East Good, Four legs good, two legs bad, and all that.

Is the data accurate? The system is not just checking activity in the US, but activity outside of the US. Decisions are being rendered based on foreign criminal records that may or may not be accurate. Also indicates the reach of the US into the lives of people around the world.

Educashun is important.

Dr Li Wenliang You were addressing me because you were quoting me. You got caught out plagiarising. Why are you suddenly using American spelling? I think you are using Chat GPT to generate responses on the forum. You've used ChatGPT to develop a rhetorical style. When you cite CHatGPT, you have to make sure you actually check the secondary sources used. ChatGPT will give a response that you want to hear. Its how it works. My role is developing AI tools. Even our own tool I am catching out frequently lying (making up sources), and despite firewalls, breaking through those firewalls to retrieve illegal sources. it will present our own data as someone elses at times. You made up a fact. The Western tanks were never claimed to be, using your curious Nazi euphemism, "Wunderwaffen" (straight out of the Commie play book, accuse the other side of being Nazis). They have held the line. Challenger 2 losses have been minimal, but not that many were deployed, so its pure fantasy on your part that they were going to change the whole war as you define it. They have changed things because Ukraine is still in the fight. Without the Western equipment, your favourite commie puppet would be installed in Kyiv by now. You've focused on 50 year old Leopards, 30 year old Abrahms and 40 year old Bradleys because you were likely metaphorically knocking one out looking at videos of Moscow trophies. Thats war for you. Things get busted. Not all new stuff. This is remarkable: As usual, you focus on what you perceive to be Western faults and weaknesses and deliberately don't consider Russian losses. Never evenhanded. And while you are displaying cod military knowledge based on lurking on ARSE, the F16 is nearly 50 years old. Hardly cutting edge. Russian MBT losses range between 4,000 and 10,000. Before 2022, Russia had about 3500 in active service and up to 10,000 in storage; in storage means anything that is read to go at a moment's notice to something that is little more than a gate guardian. Even if Russia was to get going every single rotton hulk in their inventory, that's 28% losses, compared to Leopard losses of about 20% (the Leopard being the most numerous Western vehicle). In your head, you must think that Leopard must mean cutting edge tech. No; about 80% of those sent were Leopard 1A5s. The Leopard 1 entered service in 1965, about the same time as the Chieftain tank and the T64. The A5 was the final early 80s upgrade. its an old tank, more than holding its own against your revered T90s, evidenced by the superior survival rate. I wouldn't write off MBTs. They were written off before, only to be needed in Iraq. In a previous life I was involved in UORs in Iraq/Afghanistan. Mater artium necessitas. War has always been responses to threats, and counter responses. You have no idea about how innovative we are. Communists can't understand initiative and individualism; they see it as a threat. During COVID, the innovation and individualism of doctors at UCL, working with a certain F1 team in Woking literally saved millions of lives (one of the great heroic stories). Russia meanwhile managed to murn an entire COVID ward to death. Storm Shadow deployment in Ukrainel the innovation there was the work carried by lads and lasses of the Royal Navy. You are sadly out of date if you think the drones being used now are $500 drones. At the beginning of the war, maybe, not now. Shahed drones are about $350,000 each, Lancets are about $35,000. A lot cheaper than a MBT, but these drones are not actually destroying the Western tanks; they are damaging them, immobilising them. Generally the immobilised tanks, if not recovered, are destroyed by old fashioned 152mm artillary. Russian tanks are susceptible to turret attacks due to the autoloader storing ammo in the turret. Your mates at ARRSE will point that out, or maybe not when they find out you are a Trot Unilateralist (an assumption, your sort always was, you lot were wanting the West to surrender in the early 80s, because you believe the numbers in the WP forces). 15 years ago the British Army was deploying autonomous ammunition carriers, over the wall chuckable drones, beach mine clearing drones etc. You fail to address China's demographic crisis. The population is now in terminal decline, and there is little that can be done about it, as the die was cast 40 years ago. It means increasingly China is impacted by a rapidly aging population, far more quickly aging than the West (remember, Chinese society is extremely racist; Chinese nationality is reserved for han Chinese. When Hong Kong was returned to China, non-Chinese Hong Kongers (mostly Indian, Malay descent) were denied passports). I'm forecasting surgeries to start declining in about 10 years, because more people will be too infirm to survive invasive surgery. Its already hitting Chinese army recruitment targets, so they have to depend on more tech to make up the shortfall. But because they are Communist, they are ham strung in their ability to innovate. You know why COVID became a mess; because of Communist bureaucacy and anti-individualism. It was a young doctor in Wuhan, in 2019, who started seeing the first odd respiratory cases, and recognised what was happening. He implored his bosses to do something, but they dismissed him out of and, and threatened to prosecute him for political crimes. He stayed on in the hospital, and literally worked himself to death. Dr Li Wenliang was 34. You are in awe of Russia, and attack Europe's very existance, while falsely promoting your remainer credentials (you said thst you are a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, who, when he wasn't supporting terrorism, was a leading member of the Anti-Europe movement right from the 1970s). Russian has a much shakier future. Its demographics are appalling, which might have been one of Putin's motivations. Germany wanted land, Russia needs people (and notably you use the term "slavic civil war", highlighting you support Russia's contention that Ukraine is not a real country. Civil wars only happen within a state. Russia and its supporters repeatedly Ukraine's right to exist). You probably won't watch, because it will offend your Idealised Soviet Homeland sensibilities, but Youtuber Vasya in the Hay illestrates just how poor rural Russians are. Your hero Putin has expended so much treasure in Ukraine, and ruined his own country, yet all you bang on about is Russian ultimate victory and the unstoppable Chinese Communists. China is still Communist, but because you are a Communist, you still can't admit to yourself that such a system is rotten and doomed to fail. You frame things as being between US and China, but that's not true. It would be China versus most of the so-called Free World.

No one thinks that, and its not happening. You don't understand the meaning of "unfettrd" (sic) "Unfettered", if you grasp the meaning of the word, would suggest there are zero policies pertaining to illegal immigration, which is complete <deleted>. You might well think that those policies don't go far enough, but if you admit to that, you would be forced to admit that your charge that the UK is experiencing "unfettered illegal immigration". The reality is your generation doesn't like immigration, legal or otherwise. And that dislike has been weaponised by politicians and grifters. The UK and other economies, never recovered from the banking crisis. At the moment, we are lucky there isn't another Hitler on the scene, who took grievances, and had those directed at scapegoats. Hitler was a remarkable man, an evil man, but a man possessed of charisma and guile. I'll know you'll want to respond, but there is no point. Your use of the lazy term "progressive woke sheeple" indicates no intention to debate like an adult. So I will be blocking you. You will lilely block me. It doesn't matter. This is just a web forum, an insignificant one full of underachieving individuals.

He's a decent person, but its a different time. His grandmother came to the throne after the sudden death of her father from cancer. We can speculate what cancer Charles has, but likely its the cancer you die with, rather than from. Likely he will ascend the throne in his late 40s, but its a different world from that of Elizabeth. A lot more is known about him than the young Queen. The reason Queen Elizabeth is remembered as an excellent Monarch is because of her steadiness, and her ability to embody the nation. Her son is rather different, but not in a bad way. He is much more opinionated, but that's reflective of the age; we are all now much more opinionated than Elizabeth's time. Its easy to forget how much cap doffing there was in the past. As a result, the Queen was much more neutral with her governments, but that's more reflective of her generation. Charles won't get that much of a chance to interact with different governments. William will, and as a Millenial Monarch, he is bound to be much more opinionated. As a result, he will be naturally more devisive, as not everyone will agree. His father holds strong opinions on the environment, that his sons share, naturally. William has involved himself in Homelessness, Mental Health, Childhood Development and Poverty, and Humanitarianism. He has recently expressed an opinion urging the end to the war in Gaza which was quite contentious, but typical for his generation. In American terms, he is a progressive, and as such, that is less likely to unify the nation. But we don't know what nation there will be when he becomes King. Its highly likely there won't be a United Kingdom. In which case, he will face entirely different challenges to his Grandmother, who came to the throne when the country had just gone through a communal, unifying event. So whatever qualities made her an excellent monarch likely will not apply to William. If he becomes am excellent monarch, it will be due to different, not yet identified qualities. The Queen presided over the end of Empire. At the end of her reign, the Queen was less relevant to that former Empire compared to the start, but her personal qualities ensured a fraternal relationship. William's challenge, if he presides over a disintegrating UK, is whether the emerging nations maintain a fraternal relationship with each other, or will it be more like the Republic of Ireland following independance, where that relationship was riven with suspicion and at time hostility. William's role might well be guiding the monarchy to constitutional irrelevance, so it doesn't matter whether George is an excellent monarch or not.

What FDR wanted was irrelevant, as he was dead. US policy was all over the place. It enthusiastically supported Indian independance, was less effusive about Malaya and actively pushed against th British leaving Hong Kong. In Indo China, Truman was a hige supporter of France reasserting control. After Dien Bien Phu, they stepped to support the quasi-colonial adminstration in the South rather than allowing full self determination by Vietnam. The US did play hardball though with the Netherlands over Indonesia, threatening to cut off Marshall Aid. And thr US only granted independance to the Philippines when it felt confident the country would remain within the US sphere of influence. In Korea, the US talked about decolonising Korea from Japanese rule, but in reality, it carved up the country with the USSR, without much say from the Koreans. In Taiwan, Roosevelt back the idea of the island moving from the control of one colonial power, Japan, to abother, China. The US took control of many Japanese former colonies across the Pacific, used the sites for bomb testing, and only gave independance in the 80s and 90s. So, the US was anti-Colonial if the Colonial powers were European. Their concerns for Asia were little to do with championing the people of the Continent.

Not true https://kyivindependent.com/38-percent-ukrainians-territorial-concessions/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp348ygjgy3o https://news.gallup.com/poll/653495/half-ukrainians-quick-negotiated-end-war.aspx https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/03/19/ukrainian-opposition-is-increasingly-critical-of-the-zelensky-administration_6634789_4.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/23/ukraine-protests-zelensky-losing-support/ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/world/europe/pro-russia-politicians-ukraine-trump.html

The chance of relaxed conditions, the work release she now gets. Maxwell also holds British citizensip, so there is the possiblity of being transferred to the UK to serve her sentence, through a treaty agreement. A similar agreement is in place with France, which she is also a citizen of.

"View of Russian male and female models wearing examples of Soviet fashion including furs outside the USSR National Exhibition at Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London on 22nd May 1979. (Photo by United News/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)" When our friend was happily attending this Exhibition, while he was queuing with this sad line up, he would have been aware of the silent protestors over in Warwick Road, directly opposite the ticket office at Earls Court. Relevant to the current discussion as I think someone who has admitted such a callous disregard of human rights has disqualified themselves from a discussion about basically Russia's expansionist invasion of its neighbours.

An inconsistant policy given just a few days ago.