Experts associated with the Federation of American Scientists, along with economists from the Marx Institute at Karolinska University in Sweden, have issued a study showing that Ukraine’s post-war economy stands to experience explosive growth from an unexpected boon: Cluster Munitions.
While initially controversial, the decision by NATO nations to supply cluster bombs to fortify the fight for democracy in Ukraine will have a tremendous effect, not only on Ukraine’s ability to kill masses of Russian troops, tanks, and collateral, but on Ukraine’s post-war economy.
“One of the most important things in recovering from an unjust war of aggression is to ensure that the economy is rebuilt,” said Nobel Prize Winning economist Paul Krugman. “People need quality employment so that they can continue to feed their families when they return to the burned-out husks of their former homes and towns. Rebuilding the tax base is of primary importance for a recovering state.”
Krugman and fellow pundits say that many people will be employed to seek out, collect, and make safe the thousands of unexploded cluster bomblets that will litter the Ukrainian landscape following the inevitable victory of Ukrainian forces over Russian aggression. “Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians will be able to pitch in to make their country livable again, and get paid handsomely in the process, while experiencing only a moderate increase in their chances of death or dismemberment.”
“Let a thousand flowers bloom, bursting forth new economic growth in Ukraine!,” said President Vlyodymyrrrrrrr Zielanskyiy. “Build Back Better,” agreed US President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., pointing out that Ukrainian glaziers will also be in high demand. “Broken windows equals more honest work and good pay for Ukranian families.”
Boom! Headshot? Nope, bomblets!
Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom
It’s a mad world
That’s the Way the World Goes Round – John Prine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZogciFl-udY
The Happy Enchilada song!* 😃
*”It’s a happy enchilada, think you’re gonna drown.”/misheard lyrics
OT: Smithville heat index yesterday was 122F.
These are the humanitarian kind of cluster bombs we are giving the Ukrainians. Not the evil war-crime sort that the Russians will probably shot back at them in response.
It’s ok to punch a Nazi, and it’s ok to cluster bomb a Russian.
It’s been reported (your grain of salt, sir) that the Russians have been using cluster munitions for awhile now.
So have the ukes.
Us too. We found as-yet-unexploded ones scattered in numerous places in Vietnam. Pain in the ass to get rid of when we found them, and they caused many injuries to civilians for years.
People in Laos are still getting blown up.
I meant in Ukraine.
I really didn’t like the headline that popped up in my newsfeed about how the Ukraine was using the cluster bombs “effectively”.
…for some values of “effective.”
Cluster bombs of tolerance, peace and love.
Ruv and Peesu!
This excellent program can be made better and more effective if America buys back all recovered unexploded bomblets. How does $250k each sound?
A bargain, since we pay more than that per bomblet when we buy them new.
That’s the Bee, right db? Right? Right?
SugarFree isn’t the only brilliant satirist here. Just saying.
wait… Satire?
Depends on the timeline you are in at the moment.
awwww, shucks
This is funny but depressing at the same time.
Aren’t a lot of the areas in which they are fighting pretty good ag areas? How will this not fuck up food production? Do they want people to starve?
Oh.
That second video is *chef’s kiss*
Thanks db!
They’re ensuring centuries of bountiful iron harvest to rival the harvests of Northern France and Belgium.
Salting the mines
Wait? I thought you said ‘Assaulting the Mimes’.
Do you know a good place to wait out the Belgian statute of limitations?
::hides high school yearbooks::
A mime is a terrible thing to waste.
Iron Harvest you say?
Scythe was supposed to be an alternate history, not a prediction of our future!
“By the Waters of Babylon” beat “Iron Harvest” by decades.
Forgive if I’ve told the story before…
In the ’91 Gulf War, my battalion did a fair bit of moving around in Kuwait. First thing we’d do in a new position before sunset was walk around marking every unexploded bomblet with glow sticks. There were always at least a few and we didn’t want to stumble into one at night.
That was in open desert within days of them being dropped. It would be a nightmare in grassland, brush, or woods.
Yep. That stuff gets everywhere like glitter in a workshop.
So are you saying we should use cluster glitter bombs?
That would be LBGTQ+ friendly.
Given the direction the Pentagon has been headed as of late wouldn’t rule out that we’re sending all the material we have to clearing the warehouses for glitter bombs.
Once we were following our LT through the Iraqi desert at night somewhere near the Jordanian border and he told us “According to the Blue Force Tracker*, there is supposed to be a road here.”
The next morning the locals told us that was a “No Go Area” due to all the unexploded ordinance.
*GPS for Humvees that also tracks other friendlies.
During 1.5 years of war in Ukraine, I’ve been wondering what crazy stuff the combatants have been digging up from WW II.
“That was in open desert within days of them being dropped. It would be a nightmare in grassland, brush, or woods.”
No shit.
The Iraqi desert supposedly increased the incidence of UXOs because the sand was soft.
“Truck in the open. DPICM in effect”
Maybe – there are many types of this stuff so I could see that for armor piercing.
They look like lawn dart with a big grenade on the nose. If there is a cross wind or the concussion of the other bomblets, some will just land sideways and not explode. Now you have an armed shaped charges with impact fuses laying around.
The clanking piece of bomb shell as a mic drop was irresistible.
A bargain, since we pay more than that per bomblet when we buy them new.
“Only dropped once.”
Paging Monsieur Basitat. Frederic Bastiat to the white courtesy phone.
What’s a few broken windows amongst friends?
Meanwhile in the Seattle war zone.
El Salvador style fix incoming.
Just like the cartels at the border. If you let criminals run the show, the criminals will run the show.
A week ago? How is this not all over the national news?
Wut?
No, no it does not. You Morons.
A camp coup?
I can see how that might get some people upset. Also, these are the richest mofoing homeless people I’ve ever heard of.
$80K don’t go very far in Seattle.
Barely covers first and last month and the pet deposit.
“The state gave the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) $50-million last year to house people who are living around the freeways. Those funds have established 280 units of housing so far”
“We can’t solve homelessness. There’s too much money in it!”
$178K per housing unit. A smallish shipping container is 8×20, and would be ample to house a person or two. You can buy one converted to housing for around $25,000.
https://compact.homes/bunkhouse-container-home
*shakes head*
$25k? There’s no way to squeeze all the no show jobs, no work jobs, and kickbacks on that.
The Swiss chalet is adorbs.
Tiny house-like lodging are probably not allowed by some zoning code.
*lodgings* (I really do know grammar.)
These guys on youtube talk about cool shit they buy on the “jungle site”. How the fuck do they manage to find it, other than by accident?
Forgot to mention how Ukraine and Russia are going to have tons of new athletes at the Paralympics.
Damn!
while experiencing only a moderate increase in their chances of death or dismemberment.
So lay waste the country with mines and cluster munitions?
I knew I’d see Krugman’s name!! 🤣
I peeked. LOL
My favorite is Dr. Evelyn 🤣
Not entirely sure this is a fake article.
It all seems like the logical conclusion to what the idiots have been saying for years.
I know. This could actually publish in a paper.
db should submit it to The Economist
I is more believable than the “Dog Park Patriarchy” article that actually got scientifically published.
Could be a white paper written by the State Department.
Rough two minutes.
Another 28 Billion should fix it.
I hate watching that stuff. Most of those vehicles had stopped moving. Hopefully their crews go out and ran the hell away.
It looked like they all ditched after the first one.
Jesus fucking Christ. What’s with all the techno music? A bunch of people are being killed and maimed. For what? Leave the god-damn sound track off you fucking ghouls. Now my day is ruined.
Anybody got some cute puppy pics to quell the bile?
I had the sound off and only got through a couple seconds.
Here you go.
My other idiot
Awww, floofy.
Pup on a Glock
https://ibb.co/kx03Fgg
Lol. Sorry.
Here’s my girl.
Ah, much better, thanks!
Ron – First, assume a spherical fluff ball.
KK – Not sure we should arming them; Dogs are probably good, but don’t let a cat get its paws on weaponry.
Kota interrogates a baby robin.
If my dog was that close to a bird, the carnage would not be soothing to PutridMeat.
Not the one in my avatar, new new dog.
Daisy is a full blown murder dog, but luckily for the wildlife she is a bad hunter.
She immediately takes off at full speed barking the whole way.
Even so she has killed 2 birds, 1 squirrel, 2 baby geese, and a mole.
So is our big dumb one. Or he was before he lost some steps. A number of lizards, a couple of smaller snakes, a pretty good sized racer snake, and his trophy – a Gila Monster. He was on his way to taking out a big bull snake when I intervened, thinking it was a rattler (the coloring/pattern is really close to a diamondback).
A squirrel would be dead. But she’s very chill about birds.
And actually, I’m not sure if the squirrel would be dead. She likes to bark and give a half-hearted chase, But I don’t know if she has it in her to actually kill anything.
She’s a cutie. What breed(s)?
Half American Bulldog
1/4 Greyhound
1/4 Black (maybe Chocolate) Lab
Nobel Prize Winning economist Paul Krugman.
I was waiting for him to make an appearance!
The FBI paid me a visit this morning. One of them flashed a badge just like the movies. They showed me a picture of the oil-cooled computer I built. They said a “concerned citizen” was worried it was a bomb and tipped them off. I suspect someone at the office of the congress critter I wrote to is the culprit.
Well, so now I’ve been handcuffed and interrogated by NSA special agents and questioned by the FBI. If I can get the CIA to talk to me, I’ll have the Alex Jones triple word score.
Lists just to keep track of all the lists you are on.
Out of curiosity, how did they get a picture of your computer?
You know that since we’re adjacent to you via Glib, you got us all put on another list.
How do you think the NSA discovered him in the first place?
Because I used to work there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqMM_wYm37Q
I avoided this place for a long time for that exact reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3poKUuvtyM
It was cool place to work, and I did not encounter any moral dilemmas on the job.
I suspect someone at the congress critter office I emailed tipped them off. On the plus side, my discharge upgrade packet finally has a case number 2 years after I submitted it.
Too bad there isn’t some feisty civil rights lawyer willing to let you flash their card at the feebs pro bono.
Can you prove you weren’t in DC on Jan 6?
“Cool brass, man. You know it’s a crime to impersonate a federal agent, right?” *closes door*
They said they were FBI at the door, and when I invited them in, one flashed his badge. It looked real, and the pic they showed me of my own computer was proof enough for me. The closest FBI office to me is probably in Atlanta. That’s at least a 3-hour drive away.
Were they just trying to game the milage reimbursement? Or did they want to visit something in your town on the government dime?
It’s small town. Aside from a modest state park, there’s not much to do or see here. The tallest building is the water tower.
If the water tower isn’t the tallest building in town, you’re going to have crappy water pressure.
What was the letter about?
I asked my congress critter to look into my discharge upgrade appeal and my NSA application.
Oh, you think Congress is supposed to have some oversight on the bureaucracy. No wonder you got them spun up.
My dad’s theory is that what got their attention is that I used the word “boogaloo” in the blog post about my oil-cooled computer.
Political stunt man
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) in an op-ed published Tuesday called on President Biden to “order the immediate removal” of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) razor wire and buoy obstructions in the Rio Grande.
“It’s time for President Biden to step up,” wrote O’Rourke, a prominent Texan Democrat who lost his bid to unseat Abbot as governor in 2022.
O’Rourke ran an unsuccessful campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz (R) in 2018 and for president in 2020, but he dropped out of the Democratic primary race to endorse Biden.
In his New York Times opinion piece, the former lawmaker sharply rebuked Abbott for what he called his “political stunts” and for Operation Lone Star, which O’Rourke described as Abbott’s “dangerous, illegal and ineffective border mission.”
——-
“I know that President Biden is a good man who has the ability to tackle conflict head-on by leading with moral clarity. … And to his credit, the president has taken steps to undo some of the most harmful elements of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies,” O’Rourke wrote.
“But he has also imposed new asylum restrictions that cut off access to protection for far too many, while leaving thousands more to wait for weeks or months in squalid tent camps in Mexican border towns, where they suffer alarming rates of kidnapping, sexual assault or worse,” he added.
The Texas Democrat argued Biden must prioritize doing more to stop Abbott from defying federal law. O’Rourke praised the Justice Department’s lawsuit filed Monday calling on Abbott to remove the “dangerous” barriers in the Rio Grande, but he noted the governor has made clear he would not comply.
Beto should go drown himself in the Rio Grande to prove how dangerous it is.
At least this keeps him from endorsing pedophiles.
Wait, maybe he just endorsed another one.
This is the most bizarre fight. “The border is not open! We are in control of the border!” Also, “You need to remove any barriers to people crossing the border!”
The bright orange barrier in the river that can be seen a mile away. Total crime against humanity.
Also, according to O’Rourke, the “ineffective” barrier that must be taken down right away, presumably because people are getting stuck on the south side of it.
the governor has made clear he would not comply.
Good. We need more defiance between/among governments in the US. And the feds really need to learn their place.
Good.
“President Biden, I don’t answer to you, I answer to the citizens of Texas who elected me.”
“Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) in an op-ed published Tuesday called on President Biden to “order the immediate removal” of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) razor wire and buoy obstructions in the Rio Grande.”
The governor should couch it as protecting environmentally sensitive areas of the rio grande, nothing to do with immigration.
Easily done, too. Just show pictures of all the garbage the illegals leave everywhere.
a prominent Texan Democrat who lost
That is his specialty.
I am glad he made that statement demanding removal. Given Beto’s record, that guarantees it will never happen.
Yes. Just like with the granddaughter he won’t acknowledge. Such good, much moral.
The complete lack of self-awareness is breathtaking.
They showed me a picture of the oil-cooled computer I built. They said a “concerned citizen” was worried it was a bomb and tipped them off.
“It’s not really a bomb. It’s more of an incendiary device.”
When I explained why the cooling pool had mineral oil and copper to act as a heat sink, he said something about mineral oil having a high specific heat. So at least one of them had some kind chemistry or engineering background.
It’s ridiculous you had to explain it. The FBI’s loaded with computer geeks who have seen plenty of project where some guy built an oil-cooled ‘puter. The fact that some other idiot didn’t know that isn’t really surprising. The feds should have sent him a note back telling him he’s an idiot.
Yeah, there’s a reason why FBI gets called Famous But Incompetent.
My dad’s theory is that what got their attention is that I used the word “boogaloo” in the blog post about my oil-cooled computer.
Were you also wearing a Hawaiian shirt and flashing an OK sign?
Neither in the blog post nor when they met me. I had on a black wife beater and Army pt shorts. I gave them my business card, which I quickly realized was unnecessary, as they know my name, address, etc.
Those mean ole Rethuglicans are just trying to take out a nice, moderate family man who’s only crime was being so nice, moderate and family oriented.
Claire McCaskill told former Biden White House Spokesperson Jen Psaki, “They’re going to keep doing what they’re doing. They’re going to try to indict a father for loving his son who has been addicted to drugs and/or alcohol without evidence of the father doing anything other than loving that son.”
Can the father explain where his five houses and collection of sports cars came from? I don’t think he paid for all of that with love.
A pimp’s love is different from that of a square.
That’s pretty much on the mark. Joe didn’t care about his son’s drug and hooker addictions as long as the money flowed in and it wasn’t damaging him politically.
Smart investments.
I know about the Corvette. Any other BIden classic cars that anyone here knows about?
Drug addiction is a hell of a thing. Some addicts alienate their families and become homeless, others create an intricate system of shell companies and bank accounts and accept bribe money from foreign countries. Who are we to judge?
By all accounts, Hunter was the bread winner of the family. Sure, it’s only because he was trading on his father’s name, but…a dollar is a dollar, right?
Hunter 2024?
Prospective employer: Please name one of the job applicant’s weaknesses.
Claire McCaskill, job reference: He just works too damn hard. He gets really attached to work.
NEWMAN: (peering at bottle label) What is this ‘MI, ten cents’?
KRAMER: That’s Michigan. In Michigan you get ten cents.
NEWMAN: Ten cents!?
KRAMER: Yeah.
NEWMAN: Wait a minute. You mean you get five cents here, and ten cents there. You could round up bottles here and run ’em out to Michigan for the difference.
KRAMER: No, it doesn’t work.
NEWMAN: What d’you mean it doesn’t work? You get enough bottles together…
KRAMER: Yeah, you overload your inventory and you blow your margins on gasoline. Trust me, it doesn’t work.
JERRY: (re-entering) Hey, you’re not talking that Michigan deposit bottle scam again, are you?
KRAMER: No, no, I’m off that.
NEWMAN: You tried it?
KRAMER: Oh yeah. Every which way. Couldn’t crunch the numbers. It drove me crazy.
One family pocketed $7.6 million by taking cans and bottles from Arizona and recycling them in California. That’s fraud, prosecutors say.
Well, Arizona is closer to Commiefornia than NYC is to Michigan. I assume they’re close to the border.
How is it a felony? Is there actually a law on the books that says you have to obtain the recyclable material in CA? And don’t they want to help Gaia? That family should get a medal.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is something in the law that says the items had to be purchased in CA. It’s never enforced because it’s never at a scale that matters.
No one reads the articles.
There was an article?
That’s fraud, prosecutors say.
Surely, they have a compelling argument to support this claim.
On the Bankman-Fried stuff from the lynx, he’s smart but not smart enough to keep his mouth shut or stop growing his ask. I’m going on record now that he that he didn’t commit suicide or die in a botched robbery.
Smart people who gain power and wealth quickly believe they are immune to the laws that the rest of us have to obey both personally and professionally. This causes them to run off at the mouth.
They are generally correct, but there are exceptions such as SBF… Dude just keeps digging himself into a hole.
“…And all that police found were the curly hairs from the top of his head. Next up, local girl finds lost cat…”
A successful robbery on the other hand…
Other completely innocuous ways he could die:
A polyamorous rival
Bahamian cultural mistake
Bad batch of nootropics
I mean he could hang himself and shoot himself with an invisible shotgun at the same time.
Tragic scooter accident
Contaminated hair product
Spoiled avocado toast
Srsly, it’s an embarrassment of riches.
There must be 50 ways to (suspiciously) kill yourself.
Electrostim session gone terribly wrong
SenDep pod sealed a bit too well
Coconut falling out of a palm tree
Running full-tilt into a wall that you painted a tunnel on
Having your face blown off because you convinced a dimwitted hunter it was duck season
Getting your face blown off because a rabbit stuck his fingers in the barrels of your shotgun right before you pulled the trigger
Wait… you lot are just listing off Final Destination deaths, aren’t you?
Two actual cases I know of, both solo:
Driving into a bridge abutment
Effecting* a fire while parked on dry grass
*I don’t remember how exactly
Leftists doing leftist stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL5vMCXcfQ4
Let’s talk about the drawbacks of 30-year mortgages without considering how inflation affects things.
Trigger Warning: Asians who can’t do math
Nothing wrong with a 30 year mortgage. There is something wrong with constantly refinancing into a 30 year mortgage.
Yes.
I refinanced my 30 year mortgage once for a lower rate. In the process replaced it with a 15 year with a lower rate, but my payment actually went up a bit under $10 a month!
I should be done in less than a year.
When I went from a 15 to a 10, the clerk at the title company held things up while she investigated the “mistake” of my payment going up. When someone in the office set her straight she cam back to me and said “I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”
I guess she will just divorce her way to an early retirement.
We went from a 30 to a 15, then a 15 to a 10. Payments went up a bit each time. Total payoff dropped 100k.
“Nothing wrong with a 30 year mortgage.”
They are the way to go if you want to pay more to the bank for your house than to the previous owner.
I stopped paying extra on my 30 year while the bank is paying savings greater than my mortgage amount.
If things drop back down, I will start paying extra again.
Although, regardless of interest rates, my retirement plan involves paying the house off entirely before I give my notice.
My retirement spreadsheet has a mortgage page, so that it can add in the current amount owed to the amount calculated that I need.
Right now, to give my 2 weeks notice, it says I need $2.65MM. I don’t have that. The expected target date, right now, is 11/27/2037. My goal is summer of 2034.
Sucker! We’ll all be dead from climate change by then.
They can also be a tool to make your mandatory monthly payment as low as possible if your plan is to usually put extra principle on it and pay it off early anyway. That way if you have to do something different for some time in there, the required outlay is lower.
I was tempted to refinance my 15 back to a 30 when rates were stupid low (friend has a 30 @ 2.5%).
I was 2.75% in SC. We locked our rate in CO on 12/31/2021 at 3.25%.
Which I was worried about it at the time, but it looks like genious now.
The only valid point? Don’t buy more more home than you can afford.
And that’s the way the ball bounces.
In Japan, which bans dual custody, a table tennis star refuses to hand back her son to her ex
Most people with a clue and spouse who remains a Japanese citizen know that this is a distinct possibility. If you and your spouse (or ex-spouse) have any issues when he or she goes home with the kid(s) you might want to think twice…
If the table tennis thing doesn’t work out, I hear there’s good money to be made administering paddlings.
Yes.
(Awesome and not war-related)
That IS therapy for men.
If it’s therapy, why are you throwing wrenches?
/my wife
Exercise!
Expected example link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZXHsNqkDI4
https://apnews.com/article/native-american-boarding-school-lost-cemetery-search-c213435515b92745d49a94426c5d2492
“An archeological dig for a lost children’s cemetery near the Nebraska site of a former Native American boarding school has ended after two weeks — and no remains were found.”
Did that stop the grift?
“Dave Williams, the state’s archeologist, said the team searching near the former Genoa Indian Industrial School plans to meet on Zoom with representatives of 40 tribes across the U.S. next week to determine next steps.”
Of course not!
I haven’t followed closely but the kerfuffle in Canada yielded somewhere between jack and shit.
Well, except for a shit ton of burned and vandalized churches. Mission accomplished, grifting faux-commies!
The linked article says this:
It links to this:
They dug and found nothing, I think?
So they are shockingly acting like it’s 100% verified.
I’m not sure they did any digging. But even if they did, how does it compare to the death rate at the same time and place for other people? Go to an old cemetery anywhere and you will find a remarkable number of kids’ graves. Times were tough.
They lost the cemetery? Where is the last place they put it?
Under some guy’s house. They moved the cemetery but left the bodies.
“They’re here!”
He who speaks through forked tongue.
To further atone for wrecking PMs day:
An unbearable nice video.
no video. just the steam engine tweet.
Fuck.
Try, try again.
After watching that, I am pretty sure he just wanted it to shut up so he could eat lunch.
Too bad for the bear. Every crow in the neighborhood is going to caw at him all day forever now.
This footage shows Vali, a bear at the Budapest Zoo, pulling a drowning crow out of the water and then turning his attention back to his lunch of fruits and vegetables
Whether it is a crow or a raven is just a matter of a pinion.
I think you might have come down with Corvid
Regardless, it would have been goulash of him to watch that bird die.
Crows can’t swim… news you can use?
Search “WW1 Ordnance” on YouTube and you’ll lots of videos like this.
https://youtu.be/YNIBE64CAgs
“No one learns the lesson.”
Amen, titanium-balled French guy.
Thanks, mikey! That was really good.
When I was stationed at FT Irwin, some young soldier blew off some toes kicking a mortar round left over from the ’50s that got turned up by passing tanks.
Somewhere in the Brown-Debnam Pass, for those in the know.
Free Ross.
Seriously.
😿