MicroB

Pointless destruction, but this how this old WW2 vet spent VE day

I don't think either of them are Russians. Their posts are beyond parody.

Hmm. Letters of Last Resort, Misha. Russia spends about $10bn a year maintaining its nuclear arsenal. America spends $100bn a year doing the same; 10x more per warhead. This is just the basic maintenance. The UK spends about $5bn maintaining 200 warheads. France is about the same. China spends $12bn maintaining an arsenal of 600 warheads. Pakistan spends a $1bn a year looking after their 170 warheads. Basically, Russia spends sweet FA making sure their nukes will: 1. Work 2. Won't fizzle on launch 3. Won't go off with a bang prematurely 4. Aren't actually nicked and for sale in a Grozny car boot sale. Of course, even if only 10% of warheads work, that will ruin someone's day, but your hopes to wipe out Europe, expressed with your predictable juvenile glee (why mention it, unless its really what you want) won't be fulfilled. But you are full of it. You claim to be the son of a Russian "military man" (they all are "military men" thanks to conscription), but have enough familiarity with British 90s culture to know who Roger Mellie, Student Grant, Terry F**kwit and Big Vern were. You're more fake than Jordan's backside, and full of the same stuff. Like Zmisha, your are a created persona.

Everyone might have a price. You are the second person on this forum to suggest the price to betray your country is $1 million If you rationalise it, its a really bad deal. In Danish Denmark, if you develop cancer, the Danish health service will take care of you. In America, that $1m is gone. And the rest. Those suggesting $1m really are like the fictious Dr Evil in their understanding of the value of money. Possibly because this forum is skewed towards middle aged to elderly men, driven to living in Thailand because of a low cost of living. Yeah, to that lot, one million of anything sounds like a lot.. $1m doesn't get you that spectacular an annuity. Its ok, but not life changing. So, without casting offensive stereotypes about the Danes, what is your personal threshold to betray your country? £30 million might be mine. Electronic transfer. No suitcase needed. Or another way, how much is your vote worth. You make it sound that you can be brought. You think American citizenship is worth $1m. The American President thinks its worth $5m, just another citizenship for sale.

The aircraft carrier known as the United Kingdom made it possible.

The Soviet deaths include 1 million shot by their own side, and 1 million perishing in the GULAG. And remember, Soviet deaths, not Russian deaths.

He was stupid. Stalin wondered in 1940-41 why Germany wasn't delivering on its side of the trade deal, little realising that Germany was using Soviet raw material to equip an army to invade his country.

I guess the feeling would be similar to when Stalin saw the light. It doesn't mean Churchill became an ardent Stalinist. And he lacks the gumption to take such a decision himself. It will be down to some men in green laying down the facts to a startled old and obese man that Putin is not his friend.

Stalin's mob never gives credit to the British hardware that kept the USSR in the fight after Stalin had killed most of his generals. Your statement deliberately ignores our allies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere, in order to give a pro-Soviet Russia spin to the war. Stalin enabled Germany's invasion of Poland, France and other countries, and enabled Nazi bombing of Britain. In 1939, the USSR and Germany signed a trade agreement that resulted in the USSR exporting massive amounts of raw material that Germany turned into tanks, planes, guns and bombs that were used to kill Londoners. And supplied the oil to power the tanks that Blitzkrieged into France. Stalin enabled Hitler to start WW2. The Soviet exports to Germany became supercharged once the UK declared war. Stalin even allowed the Germans to build a U-boat base near Murmansk that enabled Germany to evade any blockade the British might have tried in repetition of WW1. It was America and Britain that essentially stopped Germany taking Moscow, and Stalin becoming but a footnote. Russia takes credit. Less than half of Soviet losses were from the Russian SSR. A large number of the military losses were down to military incompetance thanks to the purges in the 1930s. I don't give them a pat on the back for being idiots.

Maybe he meant Putin organising a mass macarama, thereby disturbing all the old boys. Or Putin and Kim Jong Un having a snog, with tongues.

Given the average income of a Greenlander is higheer than the income of the average American, I guess the price for an American to become, say, Chinese, is even lower. $1 million really isn't that much in 2025. I know it seems like a lot when you are subsisting on 2 bottles of Chang, half a bottle of Hong Thong and a bowl of rice a day, but its not really. And you are suggesting the US should spend $24 billion in bribes, plus mining costs, to secure a supply of not rare rare earths, where the total global demand will be $8bn tops. Essentially, you are suggesting theft. Most Americans are not, by instinct, thieves and murderers. The valuation of Greenland is more like $2.7 trillion. Excluding the oil and gas. https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/pricing-greenland-the-essence-of-the-deal/ In order to offer 66% of Greenlanders a fair price for their land (the % necessary for you to steal a referendum), American taxpayers will need to come up with $32 million per bribed Eskimo. And that's a bargain, because you are getting the oil and gas for free.

https://www.propublica.org/article/cfpb-gavin-kliger-doge-conflict-of-interest-consumer-financial-protection-bureau A Department of Government Efficiency aide at the nation’s consumer watchdog agency was told by ethics attorneys that he held $715,000 in stock in companies that employees are forbidden from owning — and was advised not to participate in any actions that could benefit him personally, according to a person familiar with the warning. But days later, court records show, Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old software engineer who has been detailed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since early March, went ahead and participated in mass layoffs at the agency anyway, including the firings of the ethics lawyers who had warned him.

Aging in this photo

Would you sell your mother?

Someone going to tell JAG? I think you meant 57 million baht or HK $.

$1m is about what it took for the British to get Benedict Arnold to become a traitor. Ames took $2.5m to become a traitor. By the sounds of it, most Americans, at least those living in Thailand, would quite happily become a Mao suit wearing, little red booking waving member of the Red Army for price of an apartment in London. They must need the money it seems. How much do they want to perform in a donkey show? $20 should cover it. They won't be the donkey. Greenland since 2009 has Home Rule. They voted to have legislation where they retain full voting rights in the Danish Parliament. For independance, they need to hold a referendum, securing 66% of the vote, AND secure the support of the Danish Parliament. The Referendum will not be a Yes/No question, because the choices are 4-fold; stay with Denmark with voting rights, become an independent state with full voting rights, become a vassal state of the US with no voting rights (aka unincorporated territory) or become a state with full voting rights. Not only that, you have the issue of overcoming the 1917 Treaty between the US and Denmark, where it was agreed to give the United Kingdom the right of first refusal if the question of sovereignty ever came up. So you have to come up with a number for 66% of Greenlanders to go to the grave as traitors. Everyone has a price. For Americans, the price to become a raging member of the Red Hoard is $1m. Plus you have to bribe the Danish Parliamnet. then bribe the UK. Someone in the forum thinks $1000,000x56,000= $56,000,000. Not really. $56 billion not $56 million. And thats not including getting anything out of the ground. And then you find out the consultants bigged up the numbers. The global market for rare earths is about $4 billion. Its going to rise to about $8 billion in 10 years time. This is what Amazon spends on its Cloud computing services. The 2035 Rare Earths market in 10 years time will be worth about the same as the combined angle grinder and door bell market. Rare earth metals are not rare. This illustrates the sheer financial idiocy of those suggesting paying Greenlanders $1million. They are so much smitten with American Lebensraum, they forget America is a capitalist nation with corporations. They forget that Greenland sells mining licences. They forget that its public British and American mining companies who hold these licences. They forget that companies acquire other companies all the time.

Or Canadian ports to do rather well offloading those Chinese built container ships, then for the load to be trucked to railheads into the US. Won't avoid tariffs, but certainly avoids the barmy ship fees. Seattle will lose out, and it might finish off Tacoma as a viable port.

How can the US afford a military, nuclear weapons, space exploration etc when it has homeless and starving people. What benefits were there to the US by sending someone to the moon? I think it can be argued that the NASA programme has brought immense benefits to the US economy in a way that, say, if Russia landed on the moon, would not exist. Much of the India space program is aimed at better communications and better weather forecasting, vital if it wants to be independant of the 3 super powers. Why does the UK need FDI? Its a rich country. It doesn't need American, Japanese, German, Korean money... Why did the UK need American help in 1941. It ran an entire empire, outnumbering Germany. Why does the US need UK help, through the Chagos, Ascension, Menwith Hill etc. When the UK entered India, I believe India, in terms of GDP, was the richest spot on the planet. We robbed it. The UK gives overseas aid for the same reason you pop money in the tin for that Poppy. To derive a benefit. Aid doesn't go to the Indian government. The Indian government funds its space program. Aid, as you call it, goes to Indian companies and NGOs. Given that, and the UK has economic problems, do you believe that government should seize the assets of all charities, and foreign investments into companies, because this is money that the government should be using to fix problems. If there are no charities, then taxes can be raised. Mony to India creates jobs in the UK. Between 2016 and 2021, £2.3 bn went to India. £1bn of that is in investments in business, with a health return on that investment. A lot goes to churches, so nothing to do with the UK government, but maybe you are a atheist or muslim. Others goes to NGOs, which, if you are not sure what that stands for, means Non-Governmental Organisation. In India, these NGOs act to primarily promote British government policies, such as the freedom to train and recruit doctors in India exclusively for the UK. The Indian government's view has been to try and ban foreign interferance in Indian NGOs, but in a lawful manner. British organisations are constantly looking to get around this. But they are using your precious money. Your view, that's been fed to you, is that money goes to India out of generosity. The Indian view is different; they see it as a legacy of colonialism, and the British trying to impose their will on India. The truth, as ever, is somewhere in between. And £2.3bn is about 0.066% of Indian GDP. Its very little, but MPs like to scream how big it is, to makke out the UK matters. The current government is justifying its effective shuttering of the independant school sector, because it will raise £1.5 billion. Which sounds like a very very big number to dimwits, But it will barely cover half a teacher per school. Mere theatre played out to get you angry and agitated, and voting for them. Same as the idiots who believed £350m per week to the NHS.

I regularly work in India. The changes in the last 10 years are quite significant, but there is still enormous levels of poverty. The caste system entrenches this. Britain could have left India in 1947 at the same level of economic development as Australia and Canada. I would say development in India does not proceed in the same way as the West. There are leaps and bounds. 10 years ago, my driver would be in a battered Indica (a surprisingly robust little car, that can take a beating), in a sea of mostly motorbikes. Now, he drives a smart looking Toyota SUV. There are still a lot of motorbikes, but now the cars are new, and increasingly prestige brands. The taxi rank at the airport are no longer Ambassadors (though, I haven't seen one of these for 10 years now), but rows of new electric MGs. The monorail that looked for years like a shonky bit of half finished crumbling concrete, is now looking quite 21st Century. But the buses are still heaps, there are still cows in the roads, and the pariah dogs look unhealthily skinny, unlike the fat soi dogs. The key metric for India though is the rate of urbanisation. In the west, about 85-90% of us like in cities and towns. Chian is about 30% now. In 10 years time, China will be about 80% urban. India is also about 30% urban. In 10 years time, they will still be 30% urban. What that means is that 70% of the population still don't have access to modern amentities we take for granted, like a hospital. I suspect its largely unsolveable.

But, America and the UK both have serious problems with homelessness, and even pockets of malnutrition among kids. Grannies lie on trollies in hospital corridors. Ex-soldiers apparently living like tramps selling matches on street corders. We have all these Indian doctors and nurses taking care of our sick. Using this logic, should the MOD and DoD be defunded until all these issues are sorted out? Close down NASA, quit subsidising SpaceX etc. Its about soft power. The Indian government told us to stop sending them aid in 2015. Aid goes to India, but not to the government. But about 45% of that "aid" is actually investments in Indian industry. I suppose the UK also sends aid to the US on the same basis.

https://economynext.com/pakistan-and-india-have-been-fighting-for-centuries-trump-claims-219406/#modal-one If you think about it, America has been fighting for almost 2000 years. 1981 years to be precise, maybe longer, depending on what kind of American you are (measuring from Claudius, and what he did). Dramatic representation of English-speaking proto-Americans fighting circa 180AD. I hope it's actually not the case that America had only "just heard about it", but in fact had been monitoring and anticipating Indian preparations for weeks, because isn't that's what Space Force is for?

Tackiness grinds my gears. On top of turning the Oval Office into a golden boudoir, it seems the golden accessories come from Chyna, tariff paid. As the Miami Russki says, Gold is Best.

https://news.sky.com/story/pete-hegseths-order-to-cancel-weapons-to-ukraine-caught-white-house-off-guard-says-report-13362950 Sounds like a "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" style of government (famously, when Kin Henry II muttered these words, 4 knights took that as a direct order to murder Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The knights, realising afterwards they had screwed up, went on the lam to Scotland).

LEATHILITY? A marine in drag

I thought it was Kylie and Jean Claude