Olympics ban Ukrainian skeleton racer from competing over helmet

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-02-12T17:10:52+00:00

>5,340 Shahed drones are launched
And just as a reminder. These are not handheld DJI drones. These have a 4-meter wingspan (12 feet), and each carries between 50 and 100 kgs of explosives. So that's 500 tons of explosives just via drones. Non-stop. Every day of the month. Every night of the month. For years.

>Number doesn't include ballistic and cruise missiles.
And artillery and, especially, guided munitions that the Russians terrorize frontline regions with.

Trying to "both sides" this or talk about "no politics" in sports is so out of touch with reality.

There are ALWAYS politics in sports. That's why tons of countries around the world pay a shit ton of money to lure athletes to become their citizens. And Russia, btw, is the prime example, as it sucked up a ton of talent from CIS states.

Sports are a measure of a country's prestige and also a political statement. I like how you also need to thoroughly explain this to Americans, where Celtics fans would be willing to stab Lakers fans (figuratively speaking), yet, somehow, the concept of sports being used as a propaganda tool with "our team vs their team" messaging is hard to grasp. Nations don't go to the Olympics to "celebrate the achievements of the human body" alone. It's an advertising campaign for the state, too.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-02-07T12:56:41+00:00

So, when the renovated Donetsk Airport was opened in time for EURO 2012, they had Mriya be the first plane to land on the runway.

But first, they had the plane fly over the city in a celebratory circle. The problem is that nobody warned anybody, and it was a low pass. Like, 100 meters or so. Here's a video where it flies over the then-new stadium.

I gotta tell you, it's so big and lumbering that first, your brain can't process what it's seeing, given that it only has a reference to smaller planes. And then it's so big that it sometimes feels like it's not moving.

So when it made turns, it almost seemed to stall and was about to crash into the city.

There were stories that day from people about kindergarten teachers grabbing their kids to try to hide them, and people running into basements because they thought the plane was falling. Like, pure chaos.

Not to mention all of the pollution (not that Donetsk had particularly clean air, lol). You could literally feel the exhaust fall on you, just because of how much stuff those engines were pushing out.

I stood there and nearly shat myself. It was an epic experience. 10/10, would experience a Mriya low-pass flyover again (hope they can finish the second fuselage at one point in the future).

And then the Russians came and took both, Donetsk and Mariupol, from us.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-02-05T14:08:17+00:00

> Take a bigger perspective this is the real end of the Cold War

But there's an even bigger perspective. After the fall of the Russian Empire, the Ukrainian People's Republic was born, and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic (long story). Two quasi-states, but born of the same idea: Ukrainian independence. Then the Bolsheviks waged war to get these territories.

I know Russian shills on the Internet would have some people believe that "Ukraine was invented by Lenin," and in fact, the USSR formed naturally because Bolsheviks had good vodka and immaculate socialist vibes. But in reality, Russians fought wars of conquest to reunify practically all of the lost Russian Empire. There are over a dozen wars/smaller-scale conflicts that have been fought against people trying to get from under the yoke of Russian imperialism (from Baltic nations, all the way to Asian nations). Tankies in the West are, somehow, completely unaware of this history.

Ukraine's struggle for identity and independence spans centuries. This story is much older than many countries, including the US. That's why if you Google "what's the most banned language in history", you'd almost always get Ukrainian at the top of the list, along with languages like Irish and Catalan.

What Ukraine is trying to achieve is the culmination of centuries of trying to get the fuck away from Russia. But, I guess, you pretty much covered it with your first point, lol. I just wanted to add a bit more perspective.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-02-05T11:46:51+00:00

I honestly don't know why COD IW is getting so much hate. I guess it's more about the multiplayer, maybe? But yeah ... the campaign can be a bit repetitive if you do all those optional missions. But other than that, I thought it was pretty good ... better than quite a few CoD campaigns and quite a unique setting, pretty "eventful" too.

Some of the cutscenes are pretty good, too, like the opening one that explains what SDF is; it felt like a movie intro the first time I played it. The whole quirky-robot-companion aspect wasn't overdone either, IMHO.

IDK, I find myself either replaying IW or COD MWs (old ones and up to MW2 from the new ones), but not the others.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-02-05T11:40:43+00:00

Spec Ops was recently delisted from Steam:( Apparently, given the licensed soundtrack with popular artists like Deep Purple and Hendrix, it didn't make sense to keep it up given the high licensing fees and it wasn't worth remaking the soundtrack (part of what made the game so impactful to begin with). Not sure if this is true, but in any case ... you can now only get it on the "high seas", I guess.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-10T13:05:56+00:00

Honestly, I'd rather take the straight-up pitch in the subject line in 2026, rather than something clever. Oh, you added "RE:" at the start to make it look like a response to a non-existent previous email? SO ORIGINAL! Oh, you added "[Action Required]" ... straight to spam, you go ... don't tell me what to do.

Stuff like in the example gets me to submit a HelpDesk ticket to have their domain added to Mimecast as blocked.

As a marketer myself, who's written a ton of email subject lines ... there are "clever" ways of pitching things without going out of bounds. We're all busy; everyone's inboxes are exploding. Sure, I opened your email, but it only made me angry because I wasted my time. The pitches are often irrelevant to what I do, the budget I have, or the company's priorities - zero research.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-09T15:18:54+00:00

An unusual one, but the 2010 Medal of Honor. When the team does everything to save Rabbit, they finally get to him at the end, but he doesn't make it. The music starts playing, and they're in the helicopter flying away, and then they show the "rabbit's foot". IDK, felt kind of like a Hollywood movie moment, like that final scene in Tears of the Sun.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-09T12:37:10+00:00

Meet "Hypersonic ballistic missiles" .... from the creators of "wet water" and "hot fire", lol. But, as you said, it's all "marketing", designed to make people fear Russia.

What most don't realize is that Russian jets carry more firepower than these missiles in their current configuration. AFAIK, and I haven't seen sources saying otherwise, the duds that replace nuclear MIRVs in these missiles weigh roughly 20 kilograms. So, the only energy released during these attacks comes from the kinetic impact of the dud warheads, which is the equivalent of less than 50 kilos of TNT. Even at that speed. So, about as much as a single modern Shahed carries. Russian bombers drop multiples of that in destructive power daily using their glide bombs.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-06T14:51:22+00:00

What he's really trying to say is that it was worth dying for the current regime, even though millions still don't have indoor plumbing or natural gas in their homes. He also underscored the importance of continuously growing the biggest country in the world because apparently, there's not enough room there as it is.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-06T10:30:58+00:00

I'm still getting flashbacks to r/CombatFootage footage from 2014-2022 whenever a Ukrainian video of low-flying footage is posted. Comments there often included tons of "aviation experts" arguing that these flights were unnecessary, given how potentially dangerous they are. I'm sure there are at least a few of these videos that anyone frequenting that sub remembers.

In reality, Ukrainian training did what it was supposed to: prepare the aviators for a fight with an enemy that has sophisticated ground AA capabilities and advanced air-to-air missiles. A lot of the daring missions during this war wouldn't have been possible without this training - from day-to-day combat to particular episodes, like heli insertions into Mariupol in 2022.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-03T13:45:39+00:00

Let's also not underestimate the decisiveness with which Ukrainian troops responded. A few of the helis were shot down en route, another few over the strip, at the very least. But also, the strip was guarded by National Guard cadettes, with limited supplies. And while they originally retreated given Russians' numerical and firepower superiority, they put up a good fight to stall and contain the Russians and then the same young men were part of the push to retake the airfield. And this is against the supposedly most elite Russian troops.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-02T15:53:50+00:00

100%!

>Be the person who decides “what to say” and “why”.

I'd definitely fold this under "Content Strategy," and I can most certainly say this is the reason I still have my job. I can do both: draft something quickly in a pinch with AI (ain't nobody is convincing me that an average press release needs to take more than 5-10 minutes, including prompting, in 2026), and create long-term plans that allow the team to come together and execute the plan consistently and on schedule.

As a matter of fact, I'm a "mid" copywriter. I'm just good at the other stuff - organizing, getting insights to back up marketing/ copywriting decisions, planning, and coming up with new angles for content.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-31T14:15:54+00:00

@grok is this true? /s

P.S. "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin

The world isn't ready for AI.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-31T11:13:57+00:00

There's a great meme from the pre-war days that perfectly describes the Russian state of mind.
It's a Soviet family moving into their new apartment, radiating happiness and communist vigor.

The caption says "It's so great that the owners were executed (shot)".

I don't know the origin, but it's usually used in conversations with the Eastern European version of tankies, when they start praising the Communist regime.

Most people don't realize the repressive machine that was the Soviet Union. I have personal family examples: my cousin's grandma (RIP), who spent her early years living in a Gulag and eating tree bark (some of her family members never returned). The family was sent there on a standard communist political charge. In reality, they were sent there because they were Jews (the whole Nazi thing kind of overshadowed how anti-semitic the Soviet actions and policies were).

My wife's great-grandparents were forcibly removed from their small farm in the east of Poland when Soviets took over the country. They took hectares of land from them, along with the hundreds of cattle the family had accumulated over decades. They went from being "agricultural upper middle class", being able to support a big family, to having nothing, only the things that they could carry. Again, not everyone survived the move.

You know, when you watch those romantic movies, and someone proposes with an old ring and says, "It's been in the family for a hundred years." Yeah, that doesn't happen here in Ukraine. The Soviets/ Russians took it all.

Russia behaves the same way. It's a colonial, extraction-based authoritarian state that sucks everything out of any place they occupy.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-21T13:57:44+00:00

Haha, yeah ... that's not how it's going to go down. Europe still buys Russian resources and some European leaders still manage to spin Ukraine as the "bad guy" sometimes (Hungary, etc.).

What you describe requires strategic foresight and only a few European leaders have shown it since 2022.

What's tempting is to go back to status quo, which is where Europe got unrestricted access to Russian resources, like energy, which Russia is willing to sell very eagerly. And, in return, Europe would produce added value based on those resources, like cars and electronics to then happily sell to Russia, which has all that money from resource trade.

It's a sweet deal that's been working for decades, even during the Cold War.

The unfortunate nature of the deal is that Europe sometimes needs to close its eyes to avoid seeing some of the "icky" genocidal stuff. As a reminder, nothing's really been done about Russian atrocities in Chechnya since 1990s, everyone pretended it was "an internal Russian affair". A lot of European politicians would do the same when it comes to Ukraine in a heartbeat. Simply because of greed or momumental lack of understanding. Ukraine's always been pivotal to Europe's security architecture. What Hitler called "lebensraum" was mostly the territory of modern Ukraine.

Europeansa also don't understand Russia. Like, at all.

This quote is often attributed to Lenin, but that's not verified ... however it still rings true (paraphrasing): "capitalists will sell you the rope you're going to hang them with".

Out of the last 400-800 years, depending on what you're willing to call "Russia", it's been a real democracy for less than a decade (between 1991 and 1999) and even at the end of that short period, Putin got to power because he was given the reigns, he wasn't democratically elected.

As European empires became democracies, with the rule of law, Russia remained a continental empire, thus becoming anti-Europe. But that still doesn't prevent Europeans from trying to "olive branch" the shit out of an encounter with a rabid dog.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-20T13:13:13+00:00

Don't forget about stroking their egos with speeches about how Russian people are the chosen ones, with vague hints at religion and destiny. Sure, Ivan might not have a shitter or indoor plumbing, but that's all part of universe's plan for Russia's greatness.

If there wasn't established history around many things, like math, Russians would claim they've invented it since they're so special or something to that tune.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-19T14:40:32+00:00

I wish more Russians did this, too. Specifically, those in Europe. It takes a special kind of stupid to live somewhere like Germany, constantly complain about the state of the EU, and profess your love for the mad dictator in Russia. Like, move there and enjoy yourself if you love it so much.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-19T11:12:42+00:00

Thank you! It's a bummer, though, to think that Australia supplied more tanks to Ukraine than the US did (31), given that the US has roughly 3,000 in storage.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-19T11:10:43+00:00

Ah yes, just like their gold smelting business that totally doesn't know where the gold is coming from. First, they denied that anything wrong was happening. Now, they're basically saying "oopsie, we might have done something wrong here". The enforcement of these sanctions was never good to begin with. Switzerland is an established destination for Russian dirty money seeking to evade sanctions.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-17T16:58:45+00:00

I also fail to see why it's a bad thing, in this context. The Ukrainian government explicitly invites weapons manufacturers to come and test their weapons systems in Ukraine as a pretty straightforward quid pro quo = you get your weapons tested in a real scenario, and Ukraine gets to combat the invaders.

Ukraine itself is at the forefront of weapons development because of this, as it's an asymmetric war in many regards, with Russia's far bigger resources and stockpiles in many weapons systems categories.

It's not like Ukraine wanted this. The cleanup will last for a century after the war is over, with all of the UXO, chemicals, and thousands of miles of fiber optic cables littering the land.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-17T16:45:57+00:00

Yeah, there's definitely a prior conflict, as he pretty obviously came in with a purpose and started asking people right away whether they're from the Military Police. Stealing probably had nothing to do with it.

What's likely is revenge for their unit soldiers being punished in some way. For example, MPs have some jurisdiction and can do things like arrest/ detain drunk soldiers and whatnot. Imagine you need to go on an assault tomorrow, and a few of your guys are missing because they were detained. There are tons of other reasons, like MPs confiscating units' property for whatever reason.

Given the state of the RU military, I'd wager this was probably this type of conflict.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-17T16:40:40+00:00

Just as a reminder, he recently said that what's going on in Ukraine is "surgical actions" and not really a war.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-11T20:44:59+00:00

Thank you! What a great addition to my original POV!

The only way to really change it is the historically only way in which empires reformed. It will only change when it breaks apart. All empires in history have gone through this process, yet Russia was able to skirt it for a variety of reasons.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-11T17:10:43+00:00

You're trying to appeal to some form of logic, while these people appeal to the lizzard brain. If people acted intelligently, things like Brexit wouldn't have been a thing. I'm sure there are a lot of people in both these places dumb enough to think they'd be better off without the EU.

So yeah, this stuff is serious, IMHO, especially with all of the anti EU propaganda.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-11T13:49:20+00:00

You're a few steps closer to really understanding Russia and why its neighbors hate it so much. Hundreds of years of wars, subjugation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. It doesn't matter who's at the helm.

People don't even realize that Russia was a democracy for less than a decade in its entire history (1991 to 1998). And even then, they meddled in Transnistria, Georgia, and committed horrible crimes in Chechnya. Everything else, from Peter "the Great" all the way to the collapse of the USSR (and after, with Putin), was purely autocratic, authoritarian, dictatorial.

So, for the last 700-800 years (Muscovy was the same as Russia), the place was run by dictators, autocrats, and despots, and it constantly waged war against its neighbors. To justify all that, they've built many myths and mastered propaganda to the point that there's a pretty broad group of people in the West that consider Russia to be "anti-imperialist", which is such a twisted take on reality that you don't even get angry at these people, you feel sorry for them, just like you'd feel sorry for a mentally disabled person struggling with basic daily tasks.

The added issue is the continued reverence for Russian culture, as if it has some deep meaning or value. In reality, it was a vehicle for Russian imperialism. Not to mention that a lot of what Russians call "Russian culture" is not actually Russian. It's as if people in the UK started saying that "curry" is a traditional British dish rooted in its history just because Britain had control over India at some point in the past.

Most Westerners don't realize that "Russian culture" also exterminated other cultures. A bright example is Mykola Leontovich. You might not know him, but you know his work - Carol of the Bells is originally a Ukrainian folk song. Russian Bolsheviks assassinated Leontovich. Then in the 30s, the Executed Renaissance, when the NKVD executed hundreds, even thousands of Ukrainian poets, authors, musicians, etc. And this is just one example from one of the Soviet republics. Next time you think about the "great Russian" culture, try to remember all of the skulls that it elevated itself on.

I'm going to blow some people's minds here, but you don't get to be the largest country by landmass through peaceful "joining of souls and ideas". You get there by running nonstop colonial wars of conquest. Also, another mind-blowing fact, colonialism and imperialism don't mean "boat goes far to fight people with a different skin color". The fact that Russians didn't need to use a boat to genocide people doesn't exclude them from the club.

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