riggerrob

The sad thing is that those North Korean soldiers will be purely cannon-fodder. They can never go home again because they might tell family and friends about the high standard of living in Ukraine. Any stories that under-mine faith in the Supreme Leader of North Korea will be quickly crushed. Compare this with Soviet soldiers who conquered Berlin at the end of World War 2. Because they had seen the luxurious living standards of Berliners - compared with the average Russian peasant. From Stalin's perspective it was better for those soldiers to die in battle. Surviving soldiers got diverted to Siberia for a few years.

Peter Zeihan and some generals.

Blame that on management and manifest.

Many strategists believe that Mr. Poutine's latest military adventures are ploys to re-capture the Polish Gap (near Warsaw) and the Bessarabian Gap (Carpathian Mountains Southwest of Odesa). The rest of Ukraine is needed for defense-in-depth. I seriously doubt if Mr. Poutine really cares about de-nazifying Ukraine.

russia was small a thousand years ago ... just a few forest villages surrounding Moscow. Too bad Moscow is located on the North European Plain which extends from Northern France all the way to the Ural Mountains, with few defensible rivers of mountains. Over the last thousand years Moscow has been over-run by Swedes, Lithuanians, Poles, Germans, French, Mongols, Huns, Sythians, etc. more times than anyone can count. That is why Moscow is paranoid. All of their later conquests were to provide strategic depth to their defenses. The current invasion of Ukraine is all about the Russian Army regaining control of the Bessarabian Gap in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. The Russian Army need to control the Bessarabian Gap to prevent another invasion by Muslim Turks. Ukraine just happens to the be on the road towards the Carpathian Mountains.

Hot enough to melt the surface of nylon risers. If you jump partially-melted risers long enough, they will eventually fail. Statistically they are most likely to fail during opening shock. In the worst case scenario, they fail during your last turn onto final approach. No need to take a well-understood risk. Budget the money to replace tandem risers every 300 to 600 jumps.

Granted, we do need to listen to minority opinions. BUT! I draw the line at political violence.

The scariest thing is when fascists and communists go full circle and meet at the bottom. Then they both look like violent thugs who oppress anyone not playing their tune. I fear the current generation of "antifa" as much as I fear Hitler's Brown Shirts or Mussolini's Black Shirts or any version of Russian secret police.

Back when I moved to California - in 1992 - I read a thick book called "Cadillac Desert"' 'which spelled out the folly of Colorado River water rationing. The start of the problem was issuing more "water rights" than there were gallons in the river .... it got worse from there. After 6 years, I concluded that it was foolish for white men - like me - to live in a desert. Now I live in a rain forest ... er ... rain forest 6 months out of the year. It is raining cats and dogs today.

There is a fine line dividing freedom of speech from slander or hate speech. Sadly, few people these days understand the difference or have the maturity to keep their public comments short of slander or hate speech.

Find a wing-suit coach and work your way through all the possible skills on your current suit before you buy a second suit. The same syllabus applies to down-sizing canopies.

Amusing that you mention "common clay" as the term also came up while reading Nancy Isenberg's book "White Trash." "Clay eaters" was a derogatory term referring to poor whites who lived in swampy areas of the USA's Southern States. Some of those poor people were in the habit of eating clay to compensate for poor diets. A disadvantage is that some types of intestinal worm eggs can lay dormant in clay for years. Eating clay to compensate for a vitamin B12 deficiency created another problem: intestinal worms.

Poorly-informed hill-billies. See Nancy Isenberg's book: " White Trash, the 400 year old untold history of Class in America."

Most of us atheists, agnostics and skeptics have seen too many false prophets. Even mainstream Muslims will tell you that Hams, Hezbollah, al Queda, Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban, Boko Haram, etc. are not true Muslims because they follow false prophets. Other Muslims will tell you that the oil-rich Gulf States follow false profits (pun intended). We don't even need to go into the Shia/Suuni schism to see false prophets. See the book "The Unit" by Adam Gamal.

That arrest could not have happened to a nicer person! Hah! Hah!