The Junk Drawer

[Roger A. Shrubber]

The Guardian view on supplying cluster bombs: not just a 'difficult' decision, but the wrong one | Editorial

Editorial: The US is to transfer the devastating weapons to Ukraine. Kyiv is in a desperate struggle – but Joe Biden should not have approved this

www.theguardian.com

The guardian's whole editorial department can suck a horsedick.
Ukraine has HAD cluster munitions since the start of the war, and so has russia. Guess who has used ten times more, and not on their own territory?
Need a hint? it doesn't start with UKR or end with AINE.
They were running short, and needed ammo to fill a gap, so they got it. I'd give them more if they asked for it. They use it very carefully on their own territory, not indiscriminately in russia.

 

[CANON_Grow]

It was only a matter of time before this was going to happen. Die reinste Freude ist die Schadenfreude.

Two of the Worst Far-Right Groups Are Now Fighting Each Other

An online beef between the Proud Boys and neo-Nazi Active clubs is threatening to spill into real-world violence.

www.vice.com

“Whether they're Proud Boys or they're their Rose City Nationalists, they're all fucking idiots and they're their own worst enemies.”

 

[Lucky Luke]

“I came here because this government is demolishing, totally, democracy in Israel,” Eitan Galon, a doctor protesting on a road outside Jerusalem, told Agence France-Presse. “We will fight until the end,” he said, as police nearby used water cannon to disperse demonstrators."

Protests across Israel after parliament initially approves judicial overhaul bill

Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition wins first of three votes required for controversial changes to become law

www.theguardian.com

 

[Lucky Luke]

This is an interesting read.

Putin and Zelensky finally agree. Here's why that’s a bad thing.

In recent weeks, leaders in both Kyiv and Moscow have argued that the Minsk agreements are no longer worth the paper they're printed on.

responsiblestatecraft.org

"In 2019, Zelensky was elected in large part because his platform of making peace with Russia and signing the Minsk II Agreement won him the Russian-speaking vote in the south and east. But to fulfill his promise, Zelensky had to have the support of the U.S. He didn’t get it. Abandoned and under pressure, Zelensky refused to implement the agreement. The U.S. then failed to pressure him back onto the road of diplomacy."

"Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, told RS that “as for Minsk, neither the U.S. nor the EU put serious pressure on Kiev to fulfil its part of the agreement.” Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, agrees. Though the U.S. officially endorsed Minsk, Lieven told RS that “they did nothing to push Ukraine into actually implementing it.”

 

[Lucky Luke]

Blue are signatories (not yet ratified) and purple are parties to the convention.
Look who aren’t: the largest and most populous nations.

So no; not the vast majority.

View attachment 5307462

Who has not banned cluster bombs?

A convention banning the use of cluster bombs has been joined by more than 120 countries that agreed not to use, produce, transfer or stockpile the weapons and to clear them after they've been used. The United States, Russia and Ukraine are among those who have not signed on.3 days ago


There are 195 countries in the world today. This total comprises 193 countries that are member states of the United Nations and 2 countries that are non-member observer states: the Holy See and the State of Palestine.

Seems like the vast majority of countries to me.

But either way a horrible weapon that should not be used.

 

[cannabineer]

Who has not banned cluster bombs?

A convention banning the use of cluster bombs has been joined by more than 120 countries that agreed not to use, produce, transfer or stockpile the weapons and to clear them after they've been used. The United States, Russia and Ukraine are among those who have not signed on.3 days ago


There are 195 countries in the world today. This total comprises 193 countries that are member states of the United Nations and 2 countries that are non-member observer states: the Holy See and the State of Palestine.

Seems like the vast majority of countries to me.

But either way a horrible weapon that should not be used.

When you correct for the small population and economies of most of those nations, that vast majority evaporates. Look how small the purple area is on that map.

To illustrate, those 120 nations have the average weight of a goat, while the top five nations (China, Russia, India, US, Brazil) have the average weight of an Indian elephant. Five elephants weigh more than 120 goats.

To reduce your sentiment to its conclusion, there are no weapons that are not horrible. I’d hate to take a sword wound.

 

[Lucky Luke]

When you correct for the small population and economies of most of those nations, that vast majority evaporates. Look how small the purple area is on that map.

To illustrate, those 120 nations have the average weight of a goat, while the top five nations (China, Russia, India, US, Brazil) have the average weight of an Indian elephant. Five elephants weigh more than 120 goats.

To reduce your sentiment to its conclusion, there are no weapons that are not horrible. I’d hate to take a sword wound.

You are twisting what i said for some strange, unexplained reason.
I said vast amount of countries. Countries. Which BTW includes the majority of NATO countries and their partners.

Id rather take a sword wound than some young kid shaking a branch in 20 years time and having a bomb blow their face off.
These types of ordnance are normally paid to be removed by donations. Well they don't remove them they actually blow them up where they lie. So if its on a roof they blow the roof up. Not sure how the donations to detonate/remove them will work when you drop them on your own country.

The horrors of the past and present look to be continued in the future.
Laos is till not free of them and the death they bring.
Clearing Cluster Bombs In Laos

The HALO Trust
https://www.halotrust.org › ... › South Asia

Around 20,000 people—40 per cent of them children—have been killed or injured by cluster bombs or other unexploded items in Laos since the war ended.
When was that 1973?

And they were a Neutral country.
From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped 4 billion bombs on Laos. To this day, the country holds the dubious distinction of being the most heavily bombed neutral country.
Clean up efforts to rid the country of UXOs are under way, but at a painfully slow pace. The U.S. spent $17 million a day to drop the bombs, but contributed just $61 million between 1993 to 2012 to remove them. At the current rate of spending, it will take several thousand years before Lao soil is bomb-free. Having little choice, “the Lao people live with these numbers and statistics every day of their lives,” said Coates.

Legacies of War in Laos

US bombs dropped 40 years ago plague Laos today

asiasociety.org

 

[Lucky Luke]

Shit, your the only country in NATO who thinks they are great.
Merica!


"We have all of us, apart from the Americans, signed up to the convention which means we don't produce or stockpile or use these weapons. They are indiscriminate weapons, of course." -Lord Ricketts

Nato allies 'uncomfortable' with US plans to send Ukraine cluster bombs

The UK's first national security advisor and the shadow chancellor expressed concerns with plans to send cluster bombs to Ukraine.

www.forces.net

 

[Lucky Luke]

This is an interesting read.

Putin and Zelensky finally agree. Here's why that’s a bad thing.

In recent weeks, leaders in both Kyiv and Moscow have argued that the Minsk agreements are no longer worth the paper they're printed on.

responsiblestatecraft.org

"In 2019, Zelensky was elected in large part because his platform of making peace with Russia and signing the Minsk II Agreement won him the Russian-speaking vote in the south and east. But to fulfill his promise, Zelensky had to have the support of the U.S. He didn’t get it. Abandoned and under pressure, Zelensky refused to implement the agreement. The U.S. then failed to pressure him back onto the road of diplomacy."

"Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, told RS that “as for Minsk, neither the U.S. nor the EU put serious pressure on Kiev to fulfil its part of the agreement.” Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, agrees. Though the U.S. officially endorsed Minsk, Lieven told RS that “they did nothing to push Ukraine into actually implementing it.”

Next Ukrainian presidential election

← 2019

Opinion polls

Incumbent President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Servant of the People

The next Ukrainian presidential election shall be held, per the Constitution of Ukraine, on the last Sunday of March[1] of the fifth year of the incumbent President's term of office, in Spring 2024.




The first round is expected to take place on the last Sunday of March, which falls on 31 March 2024. If no candidate receives an absolute majority, the second round is expected to take place 3 weeks after the first, on 21 April 2024. These are the same days as the previous presidential election was held, on 31 March and 21 April 2019, respectively.[2][3] If a president's term in office ends prematurely, the election of a new president must take place within 90 days of the previous president's departure from office.[4][5]


This might be more interesting than the old white guy vs the old criminal white guy.

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

This is an interesting read.

Putin and Zelensky finally agree. Here's why that’s a bad thing.

In recent weeks, leaders in both Kyiv and Moscow have argued that the Minsk agreements are no longer worth the paper they're printed on.

responsiblestatecraft.org

"In 2019, Zelensky was elected in large part because his platform of making peace with Russia and signing the Minsk II Agreement won him the Russian-speaking vote in the south and east. But to fulfill his promise, Zelensky had to have the support of the U.S. He didn’t get it. Abandoned and under pressure, Zelensky refused to implement the agreement. The U.S. then failed to pressure him back onto the road of diplomacy."

"Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, told RS that “as for Minsk, neither the U.S. nor the EU put serious pressure on Kiev to fulfil its part of the agreement.” Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, agrees. Though the U.S. officially endorsed Minsk, Lieven told RS that “they did nothing to push Ukraine into actually implementing it.”

here's another interesting read, that implies that the minsk agreement was a pile of shit designed to give Ukraine some breathing room, and it was never intended to be taken seriously.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/22/ffci-d22.html
Here's another one that says we have no real responsibility, and the fault lies with russia.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/28/candace-owens/fact-checking-claims-nato-us-broke-agreement-again/
Here's another that flatly places the blame on putin...
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/has-putin-broken-the-minsk-agreement-what-the-recognition-of-donbas-region-means-for-russia-ukraine-peace-1474857

perhaps if you would look for stories that refute your claims, they wouldn't be so easy for others to find when you post the first story you find that supports your misinformed views.

If we're talking about who broke their end of an agreement, how about the Budapest agreement of 94? russia broke that like eggs for an omelet, and then the other signatories let Ukraine swing in the wind, undefended...

 

[cannabineer]

You are twisting what i said for some strange, unexplained reason.
I said vast amount of countries. Countries. Which BTW includes the majority of NATO countries and their partners.

Id rather take a sword wound than some young kid shaking a branch in 20 years time and having a bomb blow their face off.
These types of ordnance are normally paid to be removed by donations. Well they don't remove them they actually blow them up where they lie. So if its on a roof they blow the roof up. Not sure how the donations to detonate/remove them will work when you drop them on your own country.

The horrors of the past and present look to be continued in the future.
Laos is till not free of them and the death they bring.
Clearing Cluster Bombs In Laos
View attachment 5307468
The HALO Trust
https://www.halotrust.org › ... › South Asia

Around 20,000 people—40 per cent of them children—have been killed or injured by cluster bombs or other unexploded items in Laos since the war ended.
When was that 1973?

And they were a Neutral country.
From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped 4 billion bombs on Laos. To this day, the country holds the dubious distinction of being the most heavily bombed neutral country.
Clean up efforts to rid the country of UXOs are under way, but at a painfully slow pace. The U.S. spent $17 million a day to drop the bombs, but contributed just $61 million between 1993 to 2012 to remove them. At the current rate of spending, it will take several thousand years before Lao soil is bomb-free. Having little choice, “the Lao people live with these numbers and statistics every day of their lives,” said Coates.

Legacies of War in Laos

US bombs dropped 40 years ago plague Laos today

asiasociety.org

I’m untwisting it imo.

Your “vast majority of countries” implies a consequential power bloc. They’re not. A herd of goats does not dictate to even one elephant. Most of the world’s citizens live in territory that does not recognize the convention. You are ignoring that fact, because it shows that the convention is, with the exception of Canada and Australia, the thing of bit players. It’s aspirational.

What is more telling is that your objection is not grounded in reason but in sentiment. “They are horrible weapons”. That is naked emotioneering. I rebut that there are no weapons that are not horrible or repugnant, or that take no serious toll on noncombatants. There is no moral difference between the kid who finds a cluster dud or the kid who dies young from exposure to a defoliant or a lasting bullet wound. It’s a specious attempt to make a type of weapon bad enough to cross an artificial moral boundary.

There are too many arguments by sentiment in your position, and they should not go unexamined. Banning cluster munitions while combat helicopters or incendiaries are still operated is quixotic at best.

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679006422384902144

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679006422384902144

And that will kick off the first Butlerian Jihad....

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-07-12/China-launches-world-s-first-methalox-powered-rocket-1ln9icQTfEc/index.html

As much as we like to think China has no inovation of their own, they do pull stuff out of the hat, from time to time.

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

And that will kick off the first Butlerian Jihad....

Like earlier in the computer revolution office workers or those who work with information will be the first to go, then those who work with people online, then the creative arts and with humanoid robots the mechanics, maintenance workers and service jobs. The economic system will eventually need to change, technology tends to concentrate wealth and only the rich will be able to afford the robots and AI, thus concentrating it further. Economies are ecosystems and must be managed as such or there will be trouble eventually, for the rich! Our descenders will either live lives of recreation and luxury with few people working, or they will be seen as useless mouths to feed and warehouse by a tiny elite.

 

[Lucky Luke]

I’m untwisting it imo.

Your “vast majority of countries” implies a consequential power bloc. They’re not. A herd of goats does not dictate to even one elephant. Most of the world’s citizens live in territory that does not recognize the convention. You are ignoring that fact, because it shows that the convention is, with the exception of Canada and Australia, the thing of bit players. It’s aspirational.

No You are twisting it. Im talking countries and you want to talk population. You are being argumentative, which is fine but at least own it. Fact is the Vast majority of Countries do not agree with these horrible weapons. Including all of NATO countries bar one- Merica.


Back to your population is the same as countries twisted argument:
So all of NATO recognise it apart from America. Because America has more people then what the rest of NATO what NATO thinks doesn't matter?
Well that we can all agree on. America uses Nato like a dog wagging its tail.



"signatories to the treaty are obliged to discourage the use of cluster munitions up to and "including the imposition of penal sanctions to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited" under the convention.

That means Canada and its allies may be required to sanction Ukraine if the weapons get used. The Liberal government has already condemned Russia's use of the munitions during the full-scale invasion"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sweden-nato-cluster-munitions-ukraine-1.6902962

Disarmament and human rights groups have expressed outrage at the U.S. decision.
"The Biden administration's decision to transfer cluster munitions will contribute to the terrible casualties being suffered by Ukrainian civilians both immediately and for years to come. Russia and Ukraine's use of cluster munitions is adding to Ukraine's already massive contamination from explosive remnants and landmines," Paul Hannon of the Cluster Munition Coalition

 

[Lucky Luke]

If we're talking about who broke their end of an agreement,..

But why would someone who got elected on the promise of signing the Minsk agreement refuse to sign it?
Isn't that an escalation of tensions after 10 years of war that Ukraine and Europe didn't need?

 

[cannabineer]

No You are twisting it. Im talking countries and you want to talk population. You are being argumentative, which is fine but at least own it. Fact is the Vast majority of Countries do not agree with these horrible weapons. Including all of NATO countries bar one- Merica.


Back to your population is the same as countries twisted argument:
So all of NATO recognise it apart from America. Because America has more people then what the rest of NATO what NATO thinks doesn't matter?
Well that we can all agree on. America uses Nato like a dog wagging its tail.



"signatories to the treaty are obliged to discourage the use of cluster munitions up to and "including the imposition of penal sanctions to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited" under the convention.

That means Canada and its allies may be required to sanction Ukraine if the weapons get used. The Liberal government has already condemned Russia's use of the munitions during the full-scale invasion"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sweden-nato-cluster-munitions-ukraine-1.6902962

Disarmament and human rights groups have expressed outrage at the U.S. decision.
"The Biden administration's decision to transfer cluster munitions will contribute to the terrible casualties being suffered by Ukrainian civilians both immediately and for years to come. Russia and Ukraine's use of cluster munitions is adding to Ukraine's already massive contamination from explosive remnants and landmines," Paul Hannon of the Cluster Munition Coalition

I’m pointing out that in this instance country count is a self-servingly deceptive metric. I’ve laid out why. Make of it what you will.

To the red: false. Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania are in Nato but not in the cluster munitions convention.

To the green: no. The other countries, notably France, Germany and Britain, have a real say in Nato policy and actions.

It’s this combination of jesuitical arguments and an inaccurate rendition of fact, combined with the unrestrained display of a lot of passion in its place, that can make some of your posts less than satisfying in my opinion. I respond out of boredom.

 

[Lucky Luke]

To the red: false. Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania are in Nato but not in the cluster munitions convention.

To the green: no. The other countries, notably France, Germany and Britain, have a real say in Nato policy and actions.

It’s this combination of jesuitical arguments and an inaccurate rendition of fact, combined with the unrestrained display of a lot of passion in its place, that can make some of your posts less than satisfying in my opinion. I respond out of boredom.

Touche. That's some mighty fine company. Lets hope they are soon. Be good timing.
So that means you can get them into Ukraine with out them getting impounded in Germany, France and England. Nice.

Lets hope they do. Cluster bombs should not be used and they are against them. But they won't cause the dog wagged its tail.

Of cause you do..
How are cluster bombs dropped on your own territory that will take perhaps 100s of years to clear OK? How is it OK for America to give them to Ukraine?
I'm surprised your supportive of it TBH.

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

Meditation is an exercise that deals with both aspects of the self, and we can notice a bifurcation of consciousness when we train. The brain responds to this exercise by causing morphological, cognitive and behavioral changes. It works like any other exercise, and it takes about as long to get into "shape", cognitive changes are noticed by the subject and show up on MRI scans within about 8 weeks.

How the Brain Creates Your Physical Sense of Self

New insight comes from zapping a region, known as the anterior precuneus, that causes people to feel dissociated from their body

www.scientificamerican.com