"The 1980's are calling to ask for their foreign policy back."

That's silly.

Europe eschews central forced air heating and cooling. Mini split systems are all they use other than radiant heat. We don't market those (Asia does).

There's no market for US systems.

Besides, all our stuff is made in Mexico and China.

It feels as though you've made my case for me here. Conservatism, dogmatism, unwillingness to accept new ideas, none of these things can be laid at the feet of appeasement. Nor can the depression which necessitated a total shift in economic priorities.

Nonetheless these things led to a situation where Britain (and yes, the US) were unready to fight Hitlers war machine.

I don't believe Chamberlain was a fool, though clearly he was no war leader. Buying us that time and holding back, especially given the geographical advantages we had made it possible to not only weather the storm but also blunt the German assault and build a land army which could contend.

Your case seems to be more that it was not the optimal strategy or policy, which may well be true, but no one made that claim.

I claimed it worked, not that other more desirable timeliness were impossible. With hindsight many things were possible but it is unfair to project that on the players of the day while had to deal with the chaotic realities, personal agendas, limited knowledge or foresight and assorted uncertainties rather than analysing in retrospect.

I wish these "long but good read" threads were just blog posts.

Yeah. Best I can do:

There better have been a fucking wink after this:

Its a total of 26 planes, MiG-29s.

New reality show "Repo Man: Ukraine"

Seems Twitter's decided to make it easier for folks in places like Russia to access the site.

And surprise it will all be gone before they get there. They learned that one from Bush and Cheney.

I like mine better, Ive been posting that they won last week and Trump is being installed as interim leader until elections are held.

That's fairly rad for Twitter.

Strengthened internally, weakened externally. In Saddam's case, fatally.

Saddam had no nukes. Internally is the only way Putin will go.

Putin's end is definitely more likely to be the ol' "shot in the head by one of his lieutenants" version than the "taken into custody by U.S. Marines" variety.

I was thinking more "mauled by his starving warbear" myself.

Nah, he'll fall out of a window.

I can recall reading about how during WWII, a college professor suggested that the Allies target ball-bearing factories in Germany as a way to end the war quicker. After all, if you don't have ball-bearings, a whole lot of your shit can't work. So the Allies did this, but it didn't seem to have the desired effect, as the German war machine kept cranking out equipment. After the war, the Allies discovered a few things: 1.) The Germans were down to a single ball-bearing plant by the end of the war. 2.) The Germans stopped making a lot of repairs to things like buildings because if they didn't patch holes in things like the roofs, Allied forces wouldn't bomb the buildings again, even though the equipment in the building was largely intact. 3.) That in exchange for not being invaded, the Swiss agreed to supply the Germans with ball-bearings.

Regime change is a bad bet. I don't think it will happen, but I could be wrong.

Another reason why Russian soldiers should carry sunflower seeds in their pockets.

Note that as of 2.5 hours later, this thread is still going, so if you read it before now, read it again.

EDIT: 9:30 PST, thread is finished.

Polonium 210 is the favoured method I believe.

You'd think in the face of a massive invasion they might, y'know, use it...

I keep watching the russian covoys expecting @Jenee and @Uncle Albert to be fucking in their broke dick vehicles.