Movie Review: The Beast

Posted on September 4, 2022 by Lawrence Person

As I did with Fury, here’s a review of another movie that follows a tank crew driving deep into enemy territory. But instead of an American Sherman driving deep into Germany in 1945, it’s a Soviet T-55 taking a wrong turn in Afghanistan in 1982.

Title: The Beast (AKA The Beast of War)
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Writer: William Mastrosimone
Starring: George Dzundza, Jason Patric, Steven Bauer, Stephen Baldwin, Don Harvey, Kabir Bedi, Erick Avari
IMDB entry

The movie starts with three Soviet tanks blowing the shit out of an Afghan village, taking down a minaret, slaughtering unarmed civilians and even poisoning a well. One mujaheddin who manages to score a Molotov cocktail kill against one of the tanks is then positioned and crushed to death under the tread of the tank commanded by the hard-ass/borderline insane Daskal. (The genocidal brutality of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is well documented.)

Inside the tank, Jason Patric’s Konstantin play Mr. Christian to Daskal’s Bligh. He’s not a fan of the war, and doesn’t understand the contempt Daskal has for Afghan subordinate Samad (Erick Avari). “He’s doing his best he can, sir.” “That’s what worries me.”

Outside the tank, a posse of Afghans, carrying a lone RPG launcher and intent on Badal (revenge), pursues the tank, which has taken a fatal wrong turn into a long dead-end valley. The tank’s crew has to struggle not only against mechanical breakdowns (a busted radio, low fuel, overheating) and pursuing enemies who know the terrain better than them, but a brutal commander who seems willing to kill any of them to keep his tank moving. Eventually Daskal executes one and leaves another for dead, which turns out to be his undoing…

This is an excellent, taut war drama that delivers on the promise of its setup. Daskal may be insane, but he’s not stupid, and he knows how to use his tank against his enemies. Performances are universally good. Unlike Fury, The Beast eschews cliches and never drags, because it never stops for pithy speeches on how War Is Just No Damn Good, because it’s already shown you. It’s a very solid, small-cast film that runs a sprightly hour and forty seven minutes long, and is well worth tracking down on DVD or streaming.

Here’s the trailer, which is much lower quality than the movie:

Russian brutality is in the news again, with numerous reports of indiscriminate killing of civilians and wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure. But while the Russians have been demothballing old Soviet tanks to send to Ukraine, they haven’t become desperate enough to send T-55s to the front lines, assuming they still have any that are able to run…

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The Ukraine War Map Problem

Posted on September 3, 2022 by Lawrence Person

When the Russo-Ukrainian war kicked off back in February, I relied on https://liveuamap.com/ to track military action in the war, just as I had used their similar map when tracking the war against the Islamic State. However, after the initial phase of the war, LiveUAMap seemed to update less and less frequently, and it’s been practically useless for tracking progress in the Kherson counteroffensive.

Today, most video commentators on the war seem to rely on https://deepstatemap.live. Here’s today’s snapshot from Kherson:

Better than nothing, but not as good as LiveUAMap used to be.

Here YouTuber Suchomimus compares different maps of the Kherson offensive, and how the differ on territory captured.

He mentions the War_Mapper Twitter account, which I haven’t been following due to my ongoing Twitter timeout.

He also mentions the official Russian-sourced map, which I’m not particularly interested in trusting.

The Institute for the Study of War includes a map with their daily assessment updates, but they’re not interactive or particularly detailed.

There are also a few YouTubers who do daily map updates. There’s Denys Davydov (“Hello, my friends…”). He’s Ukrainian and upfront about his bias, and covers the various clashes across the entire front (which makes his videos a bit long, and I tend to skip around for the bits I’m interested in). He suffers from “The map is the territory” syndrome, and isn’t a deep tactical thinker or versed in the intricacies of combined arms operations, but he’s useful if you understand his limitations.

One of the maps he relies on (in addition to DeepState) is the MilitaryLand map, which looks really useful.

Ukraine News TV relies on the DeepState map, and goes into considerable detail recount the day’s events.

War in Ukraine isn’t great in terms of voiceover, but seem to have a lot of unit-specific information on his maps.

For the sake of completeness, I note WeebUnion, who says he’s objective but seems pro-Russian (and his commenters even more so). He’s not a dynamic voiceover talent, and he begins this video with “Hello, comrades,” so…yeah, I don’t follow him.

This is the map he’s using.

This is a quick rundown of the map resources I’ve run across. If you know of other useful source, feel free to share them in the comments below.

Posted in Global Warming, Obama Scandals, video | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

LinkSwarm for September 2, 2022

Posted on September 2, 2022 by Lawrence Person

ï»żBiden goes all Nuremberg Rally, more transexual madness, Gibson’s Bakery wins final victory, states subcontract their energy policies to crazy California, and more really stupid criminals. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • You would think that Biden’s team might have better sense than to dress his set like it’s Darth Maul’s bedroom:

    ï»ż

  • What happens when people in the federal government are incompetent and refuse to do their job? Usually nothing. Or they get promoted. But in Florida? Governor DeSantis fires their asses.

    On Friday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that he would be suspending four members of the Broward County School Board for their “incompetence, neglect of duty, and misuse of authority” at Marjory Stonemason Douglass High School.

    In a press release, the governor’s office stated that Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson had been suspended following the recommendations of the Twentieth Statewide Grand Jury. DeSantis has been particularly active in education, going as far as endorsing school board members in their races across the state, and enacting laws on curriculum transparency and parental rights.

    “Even four years after the events of February 14, 2018, the final report of the Grand Jury found that a safety-related alarm that could have possibly saved lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School ‘was and is such a low priority that it remains uninstalled at multiple schools,’ and ‘students continue to be educated in unsafe, aging, decrepit, moldy buildings that were supposed to have been renovated years ago,’” the press release states.

    “These are inexcusable actions by school board members who have shown a pattern of emboldening unacceptable behavior, including fraud and mismanagement, across the district,” the press release continued.

    “It is my duty to suspend people from office when there is clear evidence of incompetence, neglect of duty, misfeasance or malfeasance,” said DeSantis. “The findings of the Statewide Grand Jury affirm the work of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Commission. We are grateful to the members of the jury who have dedicated countless hours to this mission and we hope this suspension brings the Parkland community another step towards justice. This action is in the best interest of the residents and students of Broward County and all citizens of Florida.”

    In their place, DeSantis has appointed Torey Alston, former Commissioner of the Broward County Board of County Commissioners and President of Indelible Solutions, Manual “Nandy” A. Serrano, member of the Florida Sports Foundation Board of Directors, Ryan Reiter, a US Marine Corps Veteran and Director of Government Relations for Kaufman Lynn Construction, and Kevin Tynan, Attorney with Richardson and Tynan, who previously served on the Broward County School Board and South Broward Hospital District, to take the suspended members’ places.

  • Undercover mom shocked by official transexual propaganda depravity.

    Rachel, a Brooklyn mom with a gender-dysphoric child…went undercover as a pre-teen in the chat, searching for resources for detransitioners. She found none.

    Instead, she opened a “Pandora’s box” of sexually perverse content, aggressive gender re-assignment referrals, adults encouraging minors to hide their transitions from their parents, and many troubled kids in need of psychological counseling. She shared screenshots of the chat with National Review.

    Rachel says she looked to the Trevor Project in desperation, “when I thought my child was going to kill herself.” The organization frequently claims that LGBT youth are more than four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers. It claims to be a refuge for these people with its crisis services including TrevorLifeline, TrevorText, and TrevorChat.

    Under the advice of a “highly credentialed” medical and mental-health team, Rachel and her husband decided to socially transition their child a few years ago, she told National Review. After that, her child was hospitalized three times for self-harm and suicidality, including at least one suicide attempt. In New York, due to a ban on psychotherapy, so-called gender affirmation was the only legal option they could pursue, she said.

    They were at their wit’s end, until her spouse sat her down and presented her with a PowerPoint, showing statistics that people who transition are, by a huge factor, much more likely than the general public to commit suicide.

    “My jaw hit the floor. I said, ‘Oh my God we’ve been lied to’,” she says.

    Since then, Rachel, a lifelong Democrat and feminist, has been dedicated to exposing the child gender-transition craze, which she argues is driven by “predatory medicine” incentivized by the government.

    In TrevorSpace, she got a bird’s-eye view of the progressive non-profit giant that is claiming to save young lives but is really driving them further into existential rabbit holes, depravity, and potential danger, she said.

    She documented kids talking about how to buy binders, an undergarment that constricts breasts, behind their parents’ backs. “I know the way people usually do this is by ordering it to a friend’s house or something of the sort, but I don’t have anyone to do that with,” wrote a girl whose account says she’s under 18. “I have money and know where I want to get it from and all that. I just need a means of getting it.” Another user suggested she have the binder sent to a post office where she could pick it up without her parents’ knowledge. Other users were referred to eBay to purchase a packer, or an artificial appendage meant to mimic a penis.

    When people sign up for TrevorSpace, they have the option of placing themselves within the age ranges of “under 18” or “18-25.” The community is open to people 13-24, according to the site. There is no system in place to confirm a person’s age, Rebecca says and National Review confirmed. She also said she noticed entries from people claiming to be over 25 too, as well as guest accounts with no age listed.

    Other teens, presumably girls transitioning to boys, testified to the effectiveness of Minoxidil, an over-the-counter medication that stimulates facial hair growth. “Can I get and use Minoxidil without my parents knowing?” a girl asked.

    The kids Rachel followed on TrevorSpace spanned a diverse spectrum of gender disorientation, some confident in their belief that they were the opposite sex and some just gender curious. But, as Rachel observed, they were all pointed in one direction: gender transition. In a significant number of cases, adults gave minors this validation.

  • “5th Circuit Rules Govt Cannot Punish Religious Hospitals for Refusing to Perform Abortions, Gender Transitions.”
  • “Queer Theory is Queer Marxism.”
  • Gibson’s Bakery finally wins complete victory in their case, as Ohio’s Supreme Court refused to hear Oberlin College’s appeal. “It means the Gibsons now can collect approximately $36 million.”
  • Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner survives an assassination attempt when the assailant’s gun jams.
  • “Californians Told Not to Charge Electric Cars Days After Gas Car Sales Ban.”
  • Speaking of California’s delusional green agenda, a whole lot of Democrat-controlled states have adopted California’s green insanity by proxy, Virginia among them.
  • Poland is not going to get any recovery funds until they start electing leftwing politicians.
  • “Anti-Immigrant, Eurosceptic Sweden Democrats Set To Become Nation’s 2nd Largest Party.”
  • Another day, another high profile Kamala Harris aide leaving. “Herbie Ziskend, a senior communications adviser, announced that he is leaving Harris’s side for the West Wing, where he will be the new White House deputy communications director.”
  • “Bill Maher Slams Libs Defending Censorship Of Hunter Laptop: ‘He was selling the influence of his father, Joe Biden.'”
  • “Joe Rogan tells listeners to ‘vote Republican,’ bashes Dems’ COVID-19 ‘errors.’” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.
  • “Some people collect Pokemon cards, but this guy collects felonies.”
  • French tax agency deploys AI to find high ranking government official who are embezzling. Ha, just kidding! They’re using it to find and tax unreported pools.
  • Greg Gutfeld is driving the enemy before him and hearing the lamentations of Stephen Colbert. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Texas Applies to Build Molten Salt Nuclear by 2025.”
  • Russian drone hacked midflight by Ukrainians.
  • The last Luftwaffe raid against the UK happened April 21, 1945, less than two weeks before Hitler committed suicide, and some three weeks before VE Day. The planes took off from occupied Stavanger, Norway, and it didn’t work out well for the Germans…
  • Critical Drinker is is not impressed with The Rings of Power. “It’s shiite.”
  • “Harvard To Pay Elizabeth Warren $400,000 To Teach Class On Why College Is So Expensive.”
  • You’d think the recent rains would have washed more dust out of the air…

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • Posted in Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Military, Regulation, Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

    Peter Zeihan on The Kherson Counteroffensive

    Posted on September 1, 2022 by Lawrence Person

    For those who think I rely too much on Ukraine updates and Peter Zeihan videos, enjoy this Peter Zeihan video update on Ukraine!

    Takeaways:

  • “Everything that the Russians were bad at before (propaganda, logistics, precision, training, maintenance, equipment), everything they were bad at before, they’re worse at now.”
  • Ukraine has moved from trying to stop the Russian advance with shoulder-mounted weaponry to longer-range heavy artillery, allowing them to hit ammo dumps, logistical hubs and high-value officers.
  • “The degree to which the Ukrainians are able to put targeting information, either from their own human network or signal intelligence that is provided by the Americans, and put it to use has been very impressive, and it has snarled the entirety of the Russian advance in both the east and the south.”
  • “Russia may be running out of ammunition.”
  • Russian doctrine calls for slow advances prepared by massive artillery barrages.
  • “They faced a massive industrial collapse in the 1990s that they never really covered recovered from.”

  • They have fought three artillery intensive wars since the Soviet collapse: two in Chechnya and then one in Syria. So now the Russians are attempting to advance over a front that’s a thousand miles long with a burn rate for their artillery in excess of 40,000 shells a day. Going through a relatively small by Soviet standards arsenal that has been acquired since the Soviet collapse, when the industrial system collapses. Well, any equipment any shells that they’re going to use that are not from that stack are things that were built before 1989, meaning that they’re in excess of 30 years old. We’ve seen reports several a year in Russia going back 30 years that, every once in a while, one of these shells [just] cooks off and the entire ammo dump goes up. It’s entirely possible that some of the explosions were seeing in places like Belograd or Western Russia are not actually being caused by the Ukrainians, but by the Russians manhandling of their own equipment. But regardless, that burn rate 40,000 a day is not something that anyone could maintain at length.

  • Thus Russia has been shooting at big static targets like train stations and malls. “They have the feel of being a little bit more than the Russians shooting at things to demonstrate to the world that the Russians can still shoot at things. Tanks and infantry are not following up on any of these attacks.”
  • “Kherson was the only major city that Ukrainians ever lost to the Russians, the only regional capital.”
  • “All the normal things that plague offensives are appropriate to think about here. They trigger higher casualties among the attackers than the defenders. They require more troops, They require better logistics. They’re more vulnerable to disruption. All of that stands. Also, you have to consider that this isn’t simply Ukraine’s first significant offensive in the war, but this is Ukraine’s first significant offensive ever.”
  • “The Ukrainians have continually surprised to the upside, and the Russians have continually surprised at the downside. So what should have been a wildly unbalanced war that should have been over four months ago all of a sudden, if not a conflict among equals, is suddenly looking like a little bit more of a fair-ish fight.”
  • Summary of the Kherson situation so far, including damage to the bridges, covered here and here.
  • No guarantee that the Ukrainians will win in Kherson, but it obviously offers them the best chance.
  • “If it proves that the Ukrainians are successful [Russian] forces are going to have to evacuate on foot, they are going to have to leave all of their gear behind…this would be the single biggest military transfer to Ukraine of the post-war environment, and certainly of this war…all of a sudden, the Ukrainians might actually have what they need.” Sometimes Zeihan has a tendency to overstate things, and I think he does that here. Yes, they’ll probably capture some usable heavy equipment, but the estimates I hear are some 20,000 Russian troops in Kherson, and I’m not sure how many functional military vehicles will be left in usable condition after such heavy fighting. They might well pick up significant quantities of towed artillery.
  • He talks about the importance of taking Nova Kakhkovka, and controlling the irrigation gates for the canals that feed occupied Crimea.
  • If Ukraine retakes Kherson, they might theoretically be able to take out the Kerch Strait Bridge. (Note that this is only true if they actually have the ATACMS missiles for their HIMARS that the Biden Administration says we haven’t given them yet, as I calculate a distance of roughly 179 miles from Nova Kakhkovka to the bridge.) “Crimea goes from being an incredibly strategically valuable platform that the Russians can use to launch into Ukraine proper, into the most significant military vulnerability that post-war Russia has ever had.” Eh, I think I have to go with the Atomic Bomb between 1945 and August of 1949.
  • “If Ukraine is going to win this war, this is how it’s going to start.”
    • Posted in Foreign Policy, Military, video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

    Mikhail Gorbachev, RIP

    Posted on August 31, 2022 by Lawrence Person

    There are some people whose staggering failures are so awesome that they put ordinary successes in the shade. Like Christopher Columbus trying to find a quicker route to India and discovering the New World instead.

    Such is the case with Mikhail Gorbachev, who died yesterday at age 91.

    Gorbachev never meant to destroy Soviet Communism, he merely meant to reform it so that it could run more efficiently, allowing the Soviet Union to compete more effectively with capitalist nations that were stomping their communist counterparts both economically and technologically. Moore’s Law was creating a tech boom racing so far ahead that the Soviets couldn’t even copy technology fast enough to keep up. Reagan’s obvious resolve and the threat posed by SDI scared them even more. To compete with the west, Gorbachev had to reform his stagnant nation.

    His means for doing so were glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reform, or restructuring). Those two methods, meant to rejuvenate Soviet communism, actually ended it. Glasnost made it clear that a majority of Soviet citizens across the various republics hated the oppressive nature of communism. Perestroika was a hard sell to stagnant and ossified state agencies and enterprises. While some well-connected oligarch’s got rich on the first green shoots of capitalist reform, western companies proved unenthusiastic about investing in Soviet co-ventures.

    Politically, Gorbachev’s reforms eventually resulted in the draft New Union Treaty, which would have devolved more power to the constituent Republics. This was deemed so threatening to the status quo that an abortive coup was launched against Gorbachev by communist hardliners the day before it was supposed to be signed. The coup, opposed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and a large swath of Soviet citizens, collapsed in a matter of days, sealing the fate of the Soviet Union, which would dissolve on December 25, 1991.

    In the process trying to reform the Soviet system, Gorbachev would stop funding communist movements around the world and withdraw troops from eastern Europe. These were great, liberating decisions, but they were committed in support of reforming Soviet communism, not ending it. By that grand mistake, Mikhail Gorbachev did more to make the world a better place than all previous Soviet Premiers combined.

    Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy, video | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

    Kherson Counteroffensive: Day Two

    Posted on August 30, 2022 by Lawrence Person

    Ukraine’s Kherson counteroffensive appears to be making significant headway. The Institute for the Study of War has some summary goodness.

    Ukrainian military officials announced the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast on August 29. Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces have broken through the first line of defenses in unspecified areas of Kherson Oblast and are seeking to take advantage of the disruption of Russian ground lines of communication caused by Ukrainian HIMARS strikes over many weeks. Ukrainian officials did not confirm liberating any settlements, but some Russian milbloggers and unnamed sources speaking with Western outlets stated that Ukrainian forces liberated several settlements west and northwest of Kherson City, near the Ukrainian bridgehead over the Inhulets River, and south of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border. The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD), Russian proxies, and some Russian milbloggers denounced the Ukrainian announcement of the counteroffensive as “propaganda.”

    Many Russian milbloggers nevertheless reported a wide variety of Ukrainian attacks along the entire line of contact, and the information space will likely become confused for a time due to panic among Russian sources. Russian outlets have also vaguely mentioned evacuations of civilians from Kherson Oblast, but then noted that occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast are calling on residents to seek shelter rather than flee. ISW will report on the Ukrainian counteroffensive in a new section below.

    Let’s snip to that.

    Ukrainian military officials announced that Ukrainian forces began a counteroffensive operation in Kherson Oblast on August 29 after severely disrupting Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) for weeks. Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Gumenyuk stated that Ukrainian forces “began counteroffensive actions in many directions” and have broken through the first line of defense in an unspecified area. The Ukrainian operational group “Kakhovka” stated that Ukrainian forces have cut Russian GLOCs across the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast and called the situation a “brilliant chance to return [Ukrainian] territories.” The “Kakhovka” group also reported that the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) 109th Regiment and Russian airborne troops have left their positions in an unspecified area of Kherson Oblast, and Ukrainian wires claimed that these elements withdrew from their positions around Kherson City. The DNR 109th Regiment had previously published an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin in late June identifying itself as a forcibly mobilized unit, complaining that it had not been rotated away from the front line for rest, and decrying poor conditions on the frontlines. Ukrainian military officials also released a DNR document dated July 24 that ordered the redeployment of the 109th, 113th, and 125th DNR regiments to Arkhanhelske, Vysokopillya, Zolota Balka, and Davydiv Brid in northwestern Kherson Oblast. “Kakhovka” also shared footage reportedly of a Russian serviceman seeking shelter on the ground amidst heavy artillery shelling while saying that Ukrainian forces have broken the first line of defense on August 29. Ukrainian officials did not discuss the directionality of Ukrainian counteroffensives.

    Ukrainian and Russian officials called for civilians to evacuate or seek shelter in western Kherson Oblast on August 28-29. Ukrainian Kherson Oblast officials called on civilians to leave Kherson Oblast to get out of the way of Ukrainian forces and directed those choosing to stay in Kherson Oblast to seek shelter away from Russian military equipment. Occupation authorities of Nova Kakhkovka, where Ukrainian forces have frequently targeted Russian military infrastructure and GLOCS, called on civilians to seek shelter due to extensive Ukrainian strikes on August 28-29. Russian sources reported that Nova Kakhova occupation authorities do not plan to issue evacuation orders. Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov stated that Russian forces evacuated their military hospital in Melitopol on August 29, indicating further fear of intensified Ukrainian activity even in rear occupied areas.

    Paragraph of Russian “counteroffensive failed, everything is fine, nothing to see here, return to your homes” blather snipped.

    Russian and Western sources claimed that Ukrainian forces liberated five settlements during the first day of the counteroffensive, but Ukrainian sources have not announced the liberation of any settlements at the time of this publication. An unnamed military official of an unspecified country told CNN that Ukrainian forces liberated Pravdyne (approximately 34km northwest of Kherson City), Novodmytrivka, and Tomyna Balka (both about 23km due west of Kherson City). The official also stated that Ukrainian forces liberated Arkhanhelske on the eastern bank of Inhulets River and south of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border. ISW cannot independently verify CNN’s report and will update its maps if and when more sources confirm the report. The Ukrainian official report about the withdrawal of the 109th regiment that operates in northwestern Kherson Oblast may suggest that Ukrainians have crossed the Inhulets River into Arkhanhelske. Several Russian milbloggers amplified a report from the Telegram-based milblogger Grey Zone (about 276,000 followers) that Ukrainian forces advanced 6km from their bridgehead over the Inhulets River and seized the Sukhyi Stavok settlement (approximately 7km west of Russian GLOCs along the T2207 highway). Ukrainian Former Head of Foreign Intelligence Service Mykola Malomuzh made similar remarks about the liberation of Sukhyi Stavok.

    Ukrainian forces also continued to conduct missile strikes on Russian ammunition depots, GLOCs, and strongholds on August 28 and August 29. Beryslav Raion Military Administration Head Volodymyr Litvinov reported that Ukrainian forces struck Russian manpower and equipment concentration point at the Beryslav Machine-Building Plant, resulting in a large fire at the plant. Odesa Oblast Military Administration Spokesperson Serhiy Bratchuk also reported that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian command post near the North Crimean Canal just east of Nova Kakhovka, a Russian river crossing in Lvove (west of Nova Kakhovka along the Dnipro River), and an ammunition depot in Havrylivka (approximately 33km south of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border). Ukrainian Telegram channels also published footage reportedly showing a strike on the Antonivsky Bridge and a nearby barge. Social media users published footage of reportedly Ukrainian strikes on a Russian ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka. The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command noted that Ukrainian forces launched eight airstrikes at Russian strongholds and manpower and equipment concentration points along the line of contact on August 28.

    Russian forces are continuing efforts to restore their damaged GLOCs over the Dnipro River. Satellite imagery shows that Russian forces are attempting to build a pontoon crossing near the Antonivsky Bridge, which appeared to be halfway finished as of August 27. Geolocated satellite imagery also showed that the Kakhovka Bridge is still out of service with strike holes on the critical junctures of the bridge. Satellite imagery indicated that Russian forces are continuing to move military equipment mostly north toward Kherson City via the pontoon ferry. Satellite imagery showed the movement of 100 Russian military vehicles as of August 25, with few moving south. Such transfer of equipment via ferries is inefficient and vulnerable to further Ukrainian strikes. Russian forces reportedly continue to experience difficulties maintaining other GLOCs to southern Ukraine. Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko stated that Russian logistics efforts relying on Mariupol rail transit will likely falter in the following days due to lack of electricity, damage to station cranes, and flooding that hinders rail operation in Mariupol.

    Deutches Welle has a meaty segment on the conflict:

    Some takeaways:

  • Ukraine seem to have three main prongs for their counterattack:
    • West of Kherson
    • The land bridge that collects it to Mykolaiv
    • “Further north, near the Kakhovka dam.” (For certain values of “near.”)
  • Still shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. (Lots of time spent on this.)
  • Germany is sending Ukraine Vulcano (though the DW announcers pronounce it “volcano”) high precision artillery shells.
  • Ukrainian commander Yurii Bereza says that HIMARS and precision howitzer munitions have been a great equalizer.
  • More than 90 billion Euros pledged to Ukraine. Biggest donors are 1. U.S. (far and away the biggest), 2. UK, 3. EU, 4. Poland, 5. Germany. (Yeah, I know the last two are in the EU.)
  • There’s a lot of talk over Germany going soft due to gas shortages, but German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sounds pretty hardline here, talking about “Russia’s brutal war of aggression.”
  • Private foreign donors have also allowed Ukraine to buy millions in drones.
  • Concerns over rapid depletion of EU weapons supplies. (Also a concern in the US.)
  • Ben Hedges, former commander of U.S. forces in Europe, thinks Ukraine has done a good job of shaping the battlespace and building up forces for the counteroffensive.
  • “The Russians have not yet fixed the many problems [that] were on display back in February and March. Especially their command and control framework …It’s still a mess.”
  • “The logistical system is fragile, it’s exhausted, it’s gotten weaker by the week.”
  • On Putin announcing a 10% increase in troop levels: “I’d bet a large sum of money that there’s not 137,000 Russians willing to step up and join the military.”
  • “There’s a history in Russia of serious inflation in numbers. They’ve never had what they said they had. This is a classic means of corruption, to claim a certain number to draw salaries, when in fact you’re only paying half to three-quarters of that.”
  • “It’s an unhealthy population decreasing in size.”
  • Even if Putin gets the additional troops he wants, it will be months before they show up with equipment.

    • Not only was the Antonivsky Bridge hit again, but the in-progress pontoon bridge was also hit, as was a ferry.

    Ukraine says that all the bridges across the Dnipro River near Kherson are “unusable.” They do appear to have been badly damaged, but I’d take “unusable” with a grain of salt.

    Ukraine also reportedly hit the Russian military headquarters in Kherson. Given Russia’s rigid top-down command structure, that’s potentially a huge blow.

    In-cockpit combat aircraft footage from a Ukrainian Mig-29 in Kherson theater:

    Some tweets:

    As always, the fog of war/grains of salt caveats apply…

    Edited To Update: Here’s a Ukrainian map guy covering the various thrusts of Ukrainian attacks in more detail.

    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military, video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

    Kherson Counteroffensive Finally Begins

    Posted on August 29, 2022 by Lawrence Person

    This morning I’m seeing a lot of reports that that long-rumored Kherson counteroffensive is finally beginning.

    The Odesa-based newspaper Dumskaya reports that the Units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine concentrated in the southern direction have launched a counteroffensive at night on the right bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson Oblast.

    Dumskaya says that soldiers deployed on the front lines informed the newspaper that they have already managed to liberate several settlements and advance in the direction of Kherson.

    This information, however, hasn’t yet been confirmed by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

    Update:

    The Command of the Ukrainian operational group of troops Kakhovka reported that a Ukrainian counterattack knocked out the 109th regiment of the “people’s militia” of the so-called “DNR” from its defensive positions. The Russian paratroopers, who were sent to help them, reportedly fled from the battlefield under the pressure of Ukrainian troops.

    The Kakhovka group command also noted that the Russian forces in Kherson Oblast have been cut off from the supply of weapons and troops from the territory of occupied Crimea.

    Update:

    According to information available to Dumskaya, Ukrainian troops are advancing in at least two directions towards Kherson.

    Nataliia Humeniuk, Head of the United Coordination Press Center of the Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine, says that “the offensive actions are being carried out in many directions in the south of Ukraine.”

    “The counteroffensive has been going on for a long time — it is exhausting the enemy and not giving him the opportunity to advance. And today we started offensive actions in different directions, including in Kherson Oblast,” Nataliia Humeniuk said.

    Sources of Ukrainska Pravda in the Ukrainians Armed Forces stationed in the south note that in some areas there was a breakthrough of the Russian first line of defense, but “it’s too early to say anything concrete, the front is big.”

    Update 13:48

    Oleh Bratchuk, the Odesa Oblast Military Administration’s spokesman, says that so far today the Ukrainian troops hit the following facilities in occupied Kherson Oblast in the Russian rear:

  • Machine-building factory in Beryslav that was used as a Russian base
  • Russian army post near the North Crimean Canal
  • River crossing in Lvove, Beryslav district
  • Ammunition depot in Havrylivka, Beryslav district

    • That’s from Euromaidan Press, a pro-Ukrainian outlet, so treat it with a few grains of salt. From The Kiev Post, another pro-Ukraine outlet:

    Having repeatedly announced plans for a counterattack on Kherson, it seems that today the Ukrainian army has begun implementing orders to liberate the South of Ukraine from Russian occupiers.

    According to an operational group of Ukrainian troops, “Kakhovka,” on August 29, the Armed Forces of Ukraine broke through the occupying force’s first line of defense near Kherson, and the 109th DPR regiment withdrew from its positions. Russian paratroopers, who were the DPR regiment’s support, also fled the battlefield.

    “Ukraine has a brilliant chance to regain the territories, with the help of HIMARS. Almost all the large bridges in Kherson have already been destroyed – the Russian army have been cut off from the supply of weapons and personnel from Crimea,” the message stated.

    The Armed Forces of Ukraine have launched offensive actions in many directions in the south of Ukraine, the head of the joint press center of the Security and Defense Forces “South”, Nataliya Humenyuk, announced on Ukrainian T.V. news.

    Explosions can be heard throughout Kherson region. Massive attacks on Russian bases in Beryslav and Nova Kakhovka, Kherson Region, have been recorded. There are also reports of strikes on Russian infantry.

    Here’s a quick video from Suchomimus, a YouTuber who generally concentrates on analyzing weapon footage from the war:

    He notes the reports of HIMARS hitting Russian infantry positions, something we haven’t seen before and which suggest a counteroffensive is indeed underway. Plus a video of a single Russian soldier freaking out and reporting that Ukraine troops are attacking in force.

    Some relevant tweets:

    Developing…

    Edited to Add:

    This footage of Ukrainian planes pounding Russian positions is all over Twitter:

    Remember, Russia pulled aircraft out of Crimea following attacks on airbases there.

    Edited to Add 2: One of the Ukraine war map guys has a video of the reported tactical situation up:

    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military, video | Tagged , , , , , , | 12 Comments

    San Francisco Shop Owners Reach Their Breaking Point

    Posted on August 28, 2022 by Lawrence Person

    Of all big American cities, San Francisco seems to have had the longest, closest look at what happens when you let the radical left wing of the Democratic Party run your city for decades on end. A half century of Social Justice has turned San Francisco into a literal shithole filled with drug-addicted transients shooting up and defecating on city streets.

    Now shop owners in the Castro District, the heart of gay San Francisco, have reached the breaking point and are threatening to withhold taxes unless something is done.

    Business owners in San Francisco’s Castro district have absolutely had it with the city’s inaction over burglaries, vandalism, and violent homeless people camping on the sidewalks in front of storefronts and residences.

    As the American Thinker’s Olivia Murray notes:

    San Francisco has an established reputation as a capital for fringe culture and leftism, much of which converges in the enclave of Castro. The first “Drag Queen Story Hour” event ever took place in the Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library in the neighborhood and was “well received.”

    Now, under Democrat leadership, the iconically left community is ready to take drastic measures toward radical American patriotism. Three days ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

    For years, business owners in San Francisco’s Castro district have complained to city officials that homeless people struggling with mental illness and drug addiction have wreaked havoc on the neighborhood. Now, merchants say the situation has gotten so bad that they’re threatening to possibly stop paying city taxes and fees.

    The threat arises from a letter drafted and sent to city officials by the Castro Merchants Association on August 8. According to co-president Dave Karraker, if the calls are neglected, the response will be civil disobedience, including refusal to pay taxes.

    Karraker said:

    If the city can’t provide the basic services for them [businesses] to become a successful business, then what are we paying for? You can’t have a vibrant, successful business corridor when you have people passed out high on drugs, littering your sidewalk.

    No, no, you can’t, which is why conservatives suggest not incentivizing criminality and drug use, nor electing D.A.s who hail from domestic terrorists and despise law and order like Chesa Boudin.

    First a school board revolt over Critical Race Theory, now a Howard Jarvis-esque tax revolt among business owners over the crime and disorder the radical left has inflicted on San Francisco.

    The good news is that if a tax revolt can happen in San Francisco, it can happen anywhere. The bad news is, it took 58 years of uninterrupted Democratic Party rule for citizens to reach their breaking point. (San Francisco’s last Republican mayor left office on January 7, 1964. Since then, Democrats (including the Reverend Jim Jones) have had complete control.)

    As the infection of Social justice has metastasized throughout the Democratic Party, even the most basic, fundamental aspects of city governance (enforcing the law, maintaining public order, protecting life and property) have become ideologically impossible to maintain.

    To have one-party Democratic rule in your city is to ensure its eventual destruction.

    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, video, Welfare State | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

    The Crazy Smart Felon Who Lived In A Toys “R” Us

    Posted on August 27, 2022 by Lawrence Person

    This is one of those crime stories that make your jaw drop at the audacity. Jeffrey Allen Manchester, AKA “Roofman,” AKA “Rooftop Robber,” made his name by cutting down through the roofs of McDonalds restaurants, hitting “over 40 stores in nine different states” from 1998-2000. He usually hit his restaurants right before they opened or after they closed. “Everyone noted he was exceptionally polite.” He was finally caught May 20, 2000, after robbing a McDonalds in Belmont, North Carolina, after having hit another McDonalds 10 mile away just a few hours before. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

    And that’s when the story gets weird.

    Some highlights:

  • On June 15, 2004, after four years as a model prisoner, he used his job in the metal shop to fabricate a panel to lay under the rails of the truck that picked up finished metal goods from the ship, letting him escape Brown Creek Correctional in Polkton, North Carolina.
  • Though he had family in California, he only went as far as Charlotte.
  • There, he managed to carve out a living space inside a Toys “R” Us store behind a bike rack.
  • He subsisted on baby food from the store. Honestly, I’m not seeing this setup as much preferable to prison.
  • He kept tabs on store personnel using baby monitors.
  • He tunneled into the abandoned Circuit City next door at set up a larger hidden space there, with Spiderman posters on the wall and a DVD player. He even slept on Spiderman sheets.
  • During this time he got bolder, and started eating at a nearby Red Lobster. (Don’t know how he got the money; maybe fenced merchandise from the store?)
  • He joined a local Presbyterian church and started dating a woman in the congregation. Not exactly “keep a low profile” behavior.
  • Naturally, he always spent time at her place. His excuse? “He had a government job that he couldn’t tell anyone about and that his accommodations were in a sterile and uncomfortable office-type building.”
  • He finally held up the Toys “R” Us the day after Christmas, but two employees managed to slip away and alert police.
  • “Things went even further sideways when an off-duty sheriff’s deputy arrived at the scene, Manchester responded by punching her, stealing her gun and running away.”
  • Police finally caught him by luring him to his girlfriend’s place for supposed party.

    • I’m surprised they haven’t already made a movie about him…

    Edited to add October 9, 2025: They have.

    Posted in Crime, video | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

    LinkSwarm for August 26, 2022

    Posted on August 26, 2022 by Lawrence Person

    Democrats behaving badly, Russian tanks behaving badly, and CNN thinking people don’t hate them. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Three Democratic cities are suffering the slowest recovery from Flu Manchu.

    ï»żThe progressive approach to law enforcement in certain major US cities, supported by George Soros and others, has been a complete failure as residents’ quality of life has collapsed. Soaring violent crime and controversial open-air drug markets plague the downtown areas of San Francisco, Cleveland, and Portland, transforming these areas into wastelands.

    A recent study commissioned by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California Berkeley found that San Francisco’s downtown activity was only 31% this spring (between March and May) compared to pre-Covid levels. Cleveland was at 36%, and Portland was at 41%.

    Meanwhile, after the pandemic, Salt Lake City, Utah, Bakersfield, California, and Columbus, Ohio, experienced the most massive booms in downtown activity.

  • Kurt Schlichter wants our GOP grandees to realize that it’s not 2005 anymore.

    Oh, Mike Pence, you soft, naive little man. Oh, Tim Scott, you kind and friendly gentleman. I like you both. I really do. I would love you to be my neighbors. If I ran short of sugar or charcoal, you’d square me away. Not so much bourbon, but whatever. If I asked you to help me move or give me a ride to the airport, you suckers would be all in because you are nice guys. And that’s your problem and the problem of Republicans like you. You are nice guys in a time that calls for ruthless killers who want to destroy our enemies and leave them on their backs, figuratively cockroaching on the floor.

    We want vengeance and victory. You want hugs. I guess that’s nice. Hugworld would be pleasant, but it’s the hardcore bomb throwers who get us to that stage by pummeling our enemies into submission. You find that unsavory, disconcerting, unseemly. You would prefer a world of comity, collegiality, and unicorns. And that ain’t happening until we warrior cons have broken our enemy – yeah, I used the “E” word – and exacted our payback and thereby ensured that their pain is so great that they will not dare even dream of repeating this nonsense again for a generation for fear of our righteous wrath.

    Your problem is that you live on forever in a world that no longer exists, if it ever did. You live in a world where there are norms. You live in a world of rules and guardrails, where the institutions are at least nominally neutral and where we all share some basic premises that provide common ground. But we don’t. They hate America. They hate believing Christians and Jews. They hate the idea of free speech, freedom of religion, the right to due process, and not killing babies three seconds before they poke their heads out. They think kids should be mutilated to conform to gender delusions. They want us normals disarmed, disenfranchised, and, more often than you softies will admit, deceased.

    Snip.

    It’s time to accept reality and embrace the suck. The suck is that we are in a fight. It’s not going to be over when we pass a few laws or overturn some terrible precedents; those are necessary but far from sufficient actions. No, we are in a long and brutal political struggle where the stakes are our liberty, and while you want to figuratively clutch your pearls and worry about whether this is who we are, we know who we are. And we are the guys and gals who want to figuratively don our plate armor, sharpen our broadswords, and get some, Knight Templar-style.

    Mike Pence, Tim Scott, I like you. And I would love to live in your world. But that world exists only in your imagination, and I and the rest of us in the base are stuck here on Planet Earth. You guys can’t be president because you are not wartime consiglieres. You are both Tom Hagan, reliable and soft Tom Hagan, when we are Michael and we need a Sonny to go after the Barzinis and Tartaglias of the left.

    It’s sad that your dreams of the presidency in 2024 must die, but you don’t get it, and you can’t fake it. This was a test, and you failed. If you are still imagining that there might be some set of facts awaiting public disclosure that makes it okay to send guys with guns to invade the domicile of your primo political opponent, if you still can’t bring yourself to demand that the disgraced FBI be defunded and dismantled so it can never try to frame another GOP politician, then you are not up to the job. You don’t get to be president because you don’t know what time it is.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Chicago Public Schools come out in favor of rioting and looting.
  • Evidently posting this image to Twitter will get you banned.

  • “Antonovsky Bridge Hit Again.”
  • Russia puts on a tank biathlon with some of their loser friends. Hilarity ensues.
  • CNN is suffering from delusions of grandeur.

    One thing about leftist culture that never ceases to amaze is their ability to take a failure and pretend that it was actually a success. This attitude is perhaps an extension of their penchant for propaganda – They lie so much about everything that they end up falling victim to their own disinformation. They tell their enemies they are winning even when they are losing, and then they actually start to believe it themselves.

    It’s a bit like the old rule for drug dealers – Everything falls apart when you start smoking the drugs you sell.

    For CNN and outlets like them, the problem is that you can’t run from reality forever. If no one wants to watch your content then you can’t force them to do so. Leftists wish they could use force, but they can’t, so instead they try to use gaslighting and shame. This has translated into the typical tactics we see today from the media, which include race baiting and accusations of bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, fascism, etc. These tactics really took center stage from 2016 onward and they haven’t worked yet, but the political left continues to beat that dead horse in the hopes that it will one day win the Kentucky Derby.

    They NEED regular consumers to watch their content, but they look down their noses at regular consumers and see them as untouchable peasants. So, they don’t make content for the peasant, they make content for themselves and their friends. This is not a recipe for a successful media network.

    In a recent article on the CNN issue, Vox (a far-left outlet) remarked on Brian Stelter being fired and his show being shut down even though he still had three more years on a six-figure contract. David Zaslav, an executive from Discovery, has taken oversight of Warner Brothers and its properties and has been making extensive cuts to save money and streamline the bloated company. Vox’s position really illustrates the deeper problem within leftist media:

    “Stelter, who reportedly made close to $1 million a year, was an easy cut: His show, along with his daily media newsletter, was a big deal in media circles…but not a huge draw for normals.”

    By using the term “normals” one might conclude that Vox sees themselves and and other journalists as “extraordinary” when compared to the rest of us. Or, maybe they are just “abnormal” – It’s hard to say. The statement is possibly a mistaken admission of how leftist journalists truly view the world, and their view is stunted. They see their work as vital to the masses because their PEERS and Twitter buddies see it as vital to the masses. But mainstream journalists are too far detached from the world and reality to make objective judgment calls. They see themselves as the saviors of humanity, but no one else sees them that way.

    The audience numbers talk. The money talks. It doesn’t matter how important you think you are – You don’t own the audience, the audience owns you.

    CNN has been a consistent loser in terms of audience numbers and ratings; their ratings have plummeted while their profits continue to slump over the past few years. The CNN+ project was supposed to draw in millions of viewers but only generated 150,000 subscribers, and of those subscribers only 10,000 were regular watchers.

    In other words, CNN+ would have been crushed by average YouTuber numbers and their projections for at least 29 million “super fans” were absolutely incompetent. This is why the project was shut down within weeks by David Zaslav – It was an embarrassment from the start, built on inflated delusions of grandeur.

    Forget “delusions of grandeur,” CNN suffers from “delusions of not being widely loathed.”

    And what is CNN really built on? What has been the company’s foundation for years? It’s only product has been anti-conservative agit-prop. That’s it. That’s all they have. This might work financially if the extreme left was as prevalent as they pretend, but if we look at the numbers and the cash flow, they are actually a tiny portion of the population puffed up and screaming as loud as they can to appear big and formidable. CNN is failing because there is an unsustainable audience for their product.

  • “Arizona ‘Has Had Enough,’ Starts Stacking Shipping Containers In Border Wall Gaps.” Good.
  • Federal court strikes down Texas gun law…and for once its good news. “A federal judge has struck down a Texas law preventing individuals aged 18 to 20 years from carrying handguns in public, in the first major court ruling on Second Amendment rights since the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.” Cudos to Judge Mark Pittman for getting it right.
  • Japan pulls a 180°, ew-embraces nuclear power.
  • Remember how the left slobbered all over Gravity Payments CEO for giving everyone a $70 salary? Well, he just resigned after a rape allegation. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Democrat boycott of Goya Foods actually increased sales.
  • Democratic State Rep. Sergio Munoz Jr. to pay $1.2 million in damages for legal malpractice. Namely not mentioning that he and the judge presiding over a divorce case he was involved with had previously been law partners.
  • “Light wood framing is the hamburger of the building industry.”
  • “Nobody will win the streaming wars.”
  • “‘Rings Of Power’ Showrunners Clarify That Any Resemblance To The Works Of Tolkien Is Purely Coincidental.”
    • Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments