He/Him

Sneaking all around the fediverse.

Also at [email protected] [email protected]

  • 877 Posts
  • 550 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: October 4th, 2023

help-circle
  • Ukrainian losses in the east are well documented. From another article today in the Kyiv Independent:

    Russia has captured 1,146 square kilometers (442 square miles) in Ukraine since Aug. 6, about a quarter more than in the first seven months of the year, the media outlet said. The Russian military also advanced by 200 square kilometers (77 square miles) over the past week, Bloomberg reported.

    As Russia makes gains on the battlefield, Ukrainian officials are growing more despondent about the future course of the war, according to one official close to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office who spoke to Bloomberg.

    ~~

    31,000 Ukrainian KIA, with Russia’s estimated KIA ranging from 100k to 200k.

    There aren’t official public Ukrainian stats on this. There are various estimates. The US estimates about 70K. An anonymous Ukrainian official told the WSJ it was 80K last month. I can’t tell where their 57K comes from, but it’s a bit lower than most estimates. It’s definitely not an outlandish number though.

    I’m assuming your 31K is from a public statement from Zelensky in February. Here’s another Kyiv Independent article that examines that public statement about casualties – and the difficulty of getting accurate information. Even in March they said that estimate was “significantly lower than some recent estimates published by sources outside the government in the absence of official data.” And that was more than 8 months ago.




































  • Unprecedented? Maybe? But unexpected? You’d have to have been deluded to think Iran was just going to take it.

    You’ve sort of set that up as either that reaction or no reaction. Everyone expected a reaction. Iran and Israel have been at this a long time. Israel expected a reaction similar to their past actions. And they’ve always avoided direct confrontation. I don’t think I saw anyone predicting that response from Iran before it happened.

    No it definitely was. The first attack from Iran from a few months back was done pretty politely.

    I’m just skeptical of that. I think their second attack was similar to the first but with less lead time and better weaponry – an amped up version of their initial message which was basically, “don’t fuck with us.”

    The main reason I’m skeptical is that I don’t think Iran wants war right now. They had even initially said that Hezbollah was going to responsible for the response. That led to internal debate that was won by more hard line voices. But this really couldn’t be a worse time for war for Iran. They’re probably weaker right now than they’ve ever been. Their economy is terrible and the public hates the government. Their unpopularity led to civil unrest that they violently suppressed, which restored order but increased public dislike of the government. The domestic picture is not rosy right now.

    On top of that, their game plan in conflict is to be backed up by their proxies, primarily Hezbollah. That plan is in tatters now. Hamas has probably lost about 75% of their fighters. They’re in no position to be a major threat at the moment. Hezbollah has been weakened and is relatively disorganized compared to a few months ago. They had near absolute trust in Nasrallah and they probably can’t be certain that whoever replaces him will share his level of commitment. The Houthis are further away and are the least reliable of the three. Finally, Iran doesn’t have to lose to lose. Any diminishment of Iran is a relative strengthening of Saudi Arabia that shifts the balance of power in the region.

    All of that taken together leads me to think their intention was to put an exclamation mark on their previous message and not dare Israel to go to war with them.


  • Iran’s response was literally unprecedented. No one could have reasonably expected them to react that way based on their past behaviour.

    The point though, is that Israel miscalculated. They saw that attack as similar to past actions they’d taken. They didn’t see it as an escalation and, most importantly, they didn’t think Iran would see it that way. They were extremely wrong. Similarly, though based on much less information, I suspect that Iran’s most recent attack wasn’t intended as a massive escalation but as coming right up to the line without crossing it. More saying “we are deadly fucking serious.” It wasn’t taken that way.

    The larger point is that two sides that don’t talk to each other making estimates of reactions to violent responses is dangerous as fuck.




  • No it doesn’t.

    Raw milk is illegal in Canada. Raw milk cheese is legal everywhere in Canada as long as it’s aged at least 60 days. Though in Quebec, higher risk younger unpasteurized cheese is also legal. Unpasteurized cheese is also ubiquitous - available just about anywhere you can buy cheese. Anyone buying high end cheese is probably eating it without realizing it.

    I think people mix up young and aged raw milk cheese. Aged 60+ days, the risks of pasteurized and unpasteurized cheese are about the same (very low but not zero). There isn’t even any sort of pressure to ban them.