this was from monday, but i didnt see this round of aid posted on this comm

$60 billion, but its different this time in that they are going to use frozen Russian assets to partially fund it. this is actually a crazy move that flies in the face of the neoliberal rules-based international order. more than that, it’s sets a precedent for economic warfare. the US has seized assets from enemies during war, but the US is not at war with Russia. this is an egregious faux pas with deleterious consequences for the US (Russia doing the same to US-owned assets in Russia), but it may also mean the US intends to directly declare war against Russia (unlikely). what’s more likely is that the US strong-arms european allies to do this. ukraine simply doesn’t have the manpower to continue for much longer.

the article notes that this asset seizure is illegal. the author also hypothesizes that the US will force the EU to act similarly. this will lead to an even deeper rift between “the west” and Russia that will be near impossible to mend. this illegal asset forfeiture was enabled by bipartisan support (vote of 360-58 in the house). the global times agrees with this perspective

Putin will be visiting China soon, and Blinken just finished a 3-day visit that seemed rather unproductive and uneventful. blinken was tactless and the topics he brought up were the usual “China bad” drivel. among these topics was “concern” about China supporting Russia’s military industrial capacity

the US is also sending more of its troops as “military advisors”. so less than a quarter of this $60 billion is going to weapons for Ukraine, 11 billion is going toward the US troops, and the rest is to replenish the US weapon stockpile. $50 billion just handed over to the MIC. basically, they’re not sending enough for a counteroffensive, which is probably the best thing for ukrainians considering how much of a failure every single one of those has been.

the most “exciting” new toy ukraine is getting is the ATACMS (attack ‘em up real good). this missile system brings Crimea into range. however the US is running into problems meeting its goal of 100,000 shells per month by 2025. the deindustrialization of the US has consequences?!

discovered this guy tonight. he thinks he’s gonna be the next president of China but is campaigning in English on western social media. def not a psyop! /s

he says he’s gonna democratize China and his first action as president will be to apologize to the world for covid

“once China becomes a democratic country it will give american entrepreneurs and companies lots of opportunities in the Chinese market”

he “respects” the “special requests” of the LGBT community but will enact legislation to “protect the children”

ive been playing this game since 2011 when i was in middle school and im still coming back to it. im sinking hours into it after work while my puppy sleeps next to my desk and my gf is working evening shift. its such a cozy game and reminds me of when i spent all day after school playing MC and other games w friends. its not just nostalgia tho, its just such a cute game that can be whatever the player wants. after all this time, i still derive so much joy from exploring a new world, building a sprawling estate, spelunking, and even just mining. even tho MC doesnt track ur hours played, im certain its my most played game

just wanted to share that i love this game

chose Mint with Cinnamon DE bc its easy. its been a great experience so far and i dont think ill ever look back. Victoria 3 works and thats the only game ill care abt before TES 6 comes out

my last post abt her was when she was 4 months old https://hexbear.net/post/435569 . shes now 8 months and over 50 pounds! she has a much more developed personality now, shes so friendly and playful but can be sassy (prob her being a puppy, we are trying to train her but, both of us being first time puppy owners, we are still figuring it out). she takes up training really quickly tho, its just hard to get her to not bark and snap at us when she’s not getting non-stop attention

shes the best tho! i love her so much and try my best to spoil her w toys, treats, and playtime

trying for council republic by 1875

as soon as they stopped being marginalized, my trade unions formed the first fascist party. there's already a social democratic party led by the rural folk (that used to include the petite bourgeoisie) and a communist party led by the armed forces.

its especially weird considering the ideologies my the trade unions IG are proletarian, egalitarian, populist, anti-slavery, and socialist. how do they go fascist w that set of ideologies?!

oh well, they have half the clout of the communist party, and a quarter of the clout of the socdem party

i feel like i could have done a lot better if i didnt get lazy during the last 20 years and just let the automated private construction build whatever it wanted-- big mistake, it caused my GDP to plateau for the rest of the game.

other than that my game went very well, population was 200 million! literacy was lower than i wanted bc i constantly procrastinated university building. my population was overwhelmingly loyal and my taxes were at the lowest setting with zero consumption taxes and i still had 2.5M budget surplus. 1B in gold reserves and 2B in the investment pool. i couldnt find enough shit to spend money on lol

as you can see, i went heavy expansionist, leaving Mexico w like 4 states, taking most of central america, half of Colombia, and most of the Congo. call me a colonizer, but my standard of living is #1 in the world, and check out how drastic the SoL difference is between my African states and the rest of Africa

even the lower strata is "prosperous"!

the laws are cool too except i was in the process of enacting collectivized agriculture when the game ended. i ended slavery super early, like 1850 or smth

lol at the intelligentsia who are still clinging onto liberalism in a socialist state

doesnt matter since trade unions have 50% of the political clout. im pretty mad at the trade unions tho bc they wont join the Communist Party

on Thursday, Ukrainian forces "liberated" Robotyne, a village that had a population <500. according to Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, it took 10 brigades to take this village. thats anywhere from 20,000 to 35,000 soldiers needed to advance a small area of the front half a kilometer. to make matters worse for Ukraine, b points out that the positions taken by Ukrainian soldiers in Robotyne are troublesome. Ukrainian forces are about 300 feet lower than Russian forces. a considerable high ground makes Russian artillery more effective than Ukrainian artillery. it also makes any attempt by Ukraine to charge the line considerably more dangerous.

previously, b estimated that, due to the artillery superiority of Russia, Ukrainian casualties outweigh that of Russia by 10:1. this is made even worse by the substandard military medicine practiced by the Ukrainian forces. sometimes it takes 10 hours to transport Ukrainian soldiers from the front to a hospital. thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who were wounded are dying due to incompetence. their supplies are also of poor quality bc of corruption-- Volodymyr Prudnikov, the head of Ukraine’s Medical Forces Command’s procurement department payed his daughter-in-law's company 1.5 million british pounds for tactical medical kits; these kits, however, were much cheaper than promised and tourniquets from these kits have failed to hold pressure and have resulted in deaths.

while it takes several hours for Ukrainian medical evacuation, it takes Russian forces 10 minutes to apply first aid, and only an hour to reach field medical units.

this is truly a tragic conflict. it seems that the demons who rule NATO will prolong this war. on the bright side, NATO weapon stockpiles are being depleted and western manufacturing cant even begin to keep up with Russian manufacturing. Russia manufactures 2.5 million artillery shells a year, while the US produces 93,000. if the Pentagon meets its goal, the US will still only be producing 1 million shells per year by 2025