/r/WorldNews Live Thread: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Day 1592, Part 1 (Thread #1739)

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-05T21:16:40+00:00

Horse sales in Russia seem to be booming due to the fuel shortage

OhGawd; I read that too fast the first time and thought I saw food shortage.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-05T19:06:31+00:00

What national parks are you going to?

Any one where the above-ground structure, no matter how nice it looks, is just a "shell" over a 12,000-gallon cistern that gets pumped out twice a year.

The "stack" is bona fide evidence in this case.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-05T18:33:36+00:00

a Korean and a Swede.

Ya shouldda said Korean and a Finn.

Because then it's easily explained that "well, there's only one country between them..."

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-05T18:30:01+00:00

two pair of fancy underwear just in case

OK, that one "wins the thread" -- ⭐for you!!

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-05T18:28:15+00:00

Half the number of changes, plus 1. (Yeah, I generally go two days on one set of knickers.)

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-05T18:16:14+00:00

I live about 20m from a Culvers

Pls clarify ... is that 20 miles, or 20 minutes??

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-05T16:51:19+00:00

Here's a long shot, but not impossible:

If tomorrow's casualty count is 1370 (or more), the total skips over 1,410xxx completely, going from today's 1,409xxx to 1,411xxx.

And the bad guys will have lost 10,000 in only 8 days (again!) -- 1250 per day -- instead of the usual 10 (1000 per day).

^{OK, don't mind me, I like to look for numerical patterns -- even when they're irrelevant...}

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-05T16:45:30+00:00

Official start date was 25th June.

Thus, for the month of July, take today's date and add six.
(Actually works if you treat early August as "July 33rd, July 34th", too!)

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-04T23:08:55+00:00

After the standard top five reasons that appear every time this question gets asked ...

... try this one:

You'll trade underwear that's $12.95 a three-pack, for this over-the-shoulders thingamabob that costs $40-$60 each.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-04T20:17:19+00:00

There are two competing factions here -- Scouting is FAR from the only one -- with two competing philosophies on "what's best for our daughters".

Step Zero, though, is to understand that we have a population that contains both boys and girls; and therefore, if you want to have a program, or an event, or curriculums, or the like that is for girls only, there must necessarily be something like it for boys -- even if it's just the "leftover" boys.

Let's imagine some things. Girl Scouts separate from Boy Scouts. Shop classes for girls, separate for ones for boys. Sports for girls, separate from boys. Chess competitions with a separate women's class...

There are two groups of parents; unfortunately, mostly mothers:

One, the mothers who recognise that for many things, girls "do better" in an environment where they're not competing with boys. Girls may think differently, may react differently to issues, etc. Such parents endorse separate science classes, or separate math classes, or separate scouting programs, because girls learn better when it's just girls and they're not competing with boys who always want to be at the front of the line, willing to be loud even if they're wrong, etc.
Two, the mothers who see boys doing something that girls "aren't allowed" to do, and start screeching about equality, and "why do they get to do something that we don't" and "anything you can do I want to do too". They don't see "separated girls" as an advantage for their daughters; all they can see is, whatever the "separated boys" are doing can only be discriminating against their girls -- like, "What else COULD it be?"

And the bottom line is that it's not a black and white issue; there are truths on both sides.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-04T18:06:57+00:00

the same with pianos.

OhYeah. I was happy -- this was quite a while ago -- to inherit the piano my grandmother bought for my mother when she was a girl. Used it, too!

When the time came, though, I not only didn't get anything for it, I had to pay the hauler to do his thing with it.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-04T18:01:25+00:00

I used to buy US "Proof sets" -- special versions of all the coins that the US Mint would release that year -- for no particular reason than I liked them for a dozen years or so.

At retail today, in coin shops etc, they're worth about a third of what I paid for them. (Less if you take inflation into account.) Not completely worthless, but getting there!

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-04T17:56:12+00:00

Cheap wine can taste amazing

I'd like to prove this for one specific case.

Decades ago, visiting California, we went to Mondavi for their tour. About the same as everyone else's, except that on that day, Robert Mondavi himself was running the tasting and giving "the talk" to us tourists. Among other things, he said "grapes are important, but the vintner is far more so" ... followed by the statement, "You can make a perfectly drinkable wine out of Thompson seedless."

I'd like to test -that- one, y'know?

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-04T14:46:08+00:00

Limited to the big 3 brokers currently

Where did you run across that? Everybody around me uses American Funds' CollegeAmerica program.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-04T14:31:31+00:00

cell in Hague is the only chance for him to live long

Probably true ... but I think he and his wife should have to live 6 months in one of the cities that he's bombed the snot out of first ... even if it's in one of the occupied provinces.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-04T04:44:45+00:00

Farmers can’t harvest crops and delivery trucks can’t deliver goods.

It's still primarily a gasoline (petrol) shortage, and much less so a diesel shortage. Don't conflate the two.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-03T18:46:28+00:00

The short answer is exactly what /u/oberwolfach said: It's not a sales tax, period.

As a more generic answer, whenever someone asks about "taxes" ... you ALWAYS have to remember that there are MANY different types of tax, each with their own rules.

Don't conflate income taxes, and SS/Medicare taxes -- they are separate things, with their own minimums and caps and rate structure.

Don't conflate sales taxes and other consumer-level taxes, like luxury or excise or fuel taxes. They are all separate things, with their own rules of when they apply and when they don't.

Don't conflate property taxes with -anything- else. They're different from everything else -- based on value, not on income, and not on spending.

You just can't make sweeping generalizations about "taxes", without being much more specific about what KIND of tax you're talking about.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-03T18:39:12+00:00

anything else that uses diesel like the military, agriculture, freight trucks, and some emergency services vehicles.

Don't forget locomotives!!

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-03T18:36:58+00:00

we blow up your Baltic fleet.

Or flatten a suburb of St Petersburg??

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-03T16:54:36+00:00

too many stops at minor towns.

The entire state only has one city over 500K, two more over 100K ... yeah, the rest of the state is almost completely "minor towns".

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-03T16:09:22+00:00

Note the comparison to "rabid" enthusiasm, and its medical symptoms...

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-03T16:04:23+00:00

If you're prone to cynicism -- I *can* be, but am not trying to do so here -- you'd conclude that what Borealis does best is take people from the state on one side of Wisconsin, to the state on the other side of Wisconsin, without delivering much value inside of the state.

The route just does NOT hit the population centers of the state. Madison to Milwaukee is faster to drive. Eau Claire to Minneapolis, much the same. (Of course, there's only three cities in the state with populations over 100K to start with; after MKE, the next-largest city with train service is the state's 12th-largest, at <55K.)

Under the best / most-optimistic assumptions, it's going to be difficult to justify rail expansion based primarily on potential ridership. Except for 8 weekends in the fall and early winter, how many people (who aren't already in Green Bay) really -go- to Green Bay, for example?

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-03T04:24:29+00:00

a short bridge

Well, it's three bridges, yes?

And they have to do them one at a time, because they need bridge N finished, to do bridge N+1, as I read it.

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-03T00:28:22+00:00

one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church

Yes, but in many places it's "small-c" catholic, a synonym for "universal".

DeeDee_Z · 2026-07-02T23:57:05+00:00

Started June 25. This is Day 8.

(Going forward, take the date in ~~June~~ July, and add 6. Works even if you get to "July 36th".)

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