TwinkleToes

Nation of cynical thieves who don’t even have a word of empathy eating themselves at the first hint of trouble? I’m shocked. SHOCKED.

Well - not that shocked.

I worked for one of the major dating sites about a decade ago. Let me assure you, that people act like debased hyperhormonal chimps in heat when they think nobody is watching. Oh, and by the way - someone is ALWAYS watching.

If you're a male who has some combination of a steady job, are remotely reliable, not drug or booze addled, have most of your teeth and hair and can tell a joke and hold a conversation - you're golden. It is UTTERLY unfair to ladies, but just being able to hold that low bar will get you much farther than you might think.

It's a strange dilemma - for a dating site to suceed, you have to protect the women. From the guys' perspective, it's shouting into the void, on the off chance you might EVER stand out enough to get a reply a week. From a woman's perspective, it's like the ozone layer protecting a constant bombardment of radiation and lethal rocks from space. A cornucopia of typically BAD CHOICES that manage to slip through the various cracks that the sites/apps put up to protect them.

But - the women ARE the site. If you have the WOMEN, then the men would follow you buck naked through the flaming tar pits of hell to get to them. But - the average male is a monosyllabic goblin with skeletons in his closet and bad intentions much more often than you'd think. It's why Bumble tried female-only communication initiation. The women on dating sites have an invisible shield tbey don't even realize exists around them to prevent bots, unsolicited dick pics, one word messages, repeat-offense harassers, and wide-net-casting quagmires who have more deeply held mysoginstic beliefs than they do good pick up lines.

".... and THAT'S why it's totally justified for me to have murdered thousands of my own citizens, rather than behave like a democratically elected leader".

So - systems check time.

Made yourself a global pariah

Destroyed your primary export market.

Pissed away your Soviet stockpile inheritance

Blew your 30 year war chest of blood oil/gas, leaving your future extraction reserves of only the harder, more expensive to get variety.

Made yourself the permanent junior vassal to China, to whom you can now never refuse any demand for resources or concessions.

Destroyed any wisp of diplomatic credibility you’d had since even Stalinist times.

Pissed away your irreplaceable war stockpiles of missiles, attack helicopters, advanced fighter bombers and AWACS planes. Oh, and - the entire Black Sea Fleet. And the use of the Sevastopol Harbor that hosted it.

And - 575,000 working and breeding age males. So far. For a country with brutal demographics way below replacement rates.

And for what? To be within visual range of territory you already controlled for a decade. Put this in perspective - so far in 2024, Russia have lost 180,000 casualties and masses of antiquated equipment, and taken the net sum of territory equivalent to the size of New York City.

And that’s to say NOTHING about what it would take to actually hold that ground long term with occupation forces and settlers despite a permanent insurrection of drones, snipers, IEDs, sabotage, assassinations, car bombs and other goodies that would keep your army bleeding indefinitely and make the American experience in Iraq seem like child’s play.

This has all been a GREAT idea.

Of the many ridiculous things Russia has done to humiliate and debase itself in this stupid vanity revenge project, making no provision at all for serious border defense may not be most manically immoral, but it may be the most militarily stupid.

For all their bluster about nukes - how are you going to use them exactly? On the Ukrainian territory you claim is yours, or on the Russian territory that is currently occupied by Ukraine.

They’re just so fucking stupid.

Capital punishment, by other means

Incompetence of their side is definitely a perpetual factor - but the excellent intelligence and satellite surveillance intel of the Ukrainians is the real cause here.

Read between the lines - this means the US is providing satellite intel inside Russia, of a moving target, in addition potentially to authorized use of HIMARS inside Russia along with that SitRep

Welp. Russia historically only responds to strength and their overall strategy has always been “keep dying in massive numbers until something big happens”. Usually that something is a crushing defeat that leads to revolution, but - they like to count their hits and ignore their misses. So - carry on.

Help a brother out. What is the significance of Lgov? There are likely soft targets all over Kursk. Is it a railway hub?

Rogan is the great litmus test for our society. He's what a stupid person thinks a smart person is, just like how Trump is what a moron thinks a rich, successful person is.

So obviously such a complete dope grifter for anyone with an IQ greater than their shoe size, and yet he serves a purpose by being the standard of who should bother to talk to in life. If anyone you know says "you know, Joe Rogan said something interesting the other day...", well - then you know you can nod politely, and ignore everything that person saiys going forward.

The problem is, everyone THINKS that they're the woman in this meme.

Is the real play here to try and make account sharing more difficult? Encourage more membership purchases?

Been a shopper there for 30 years - they're not a company that makes changes willy nilly. Even if you can get into the store without a card, you can't buy anything without one. Surely the cost of sneaky samplers isn't the main thrust of this.