Links For Today

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 10

Kerch Strait Bridge Update

Here is an argument that it was a truck bomb.

US Ammunition Supplies Dwindle as Ukraine War Drains Stockpiles

Mistrust Abounds Among the Liberated Residents of Ukrainian Village

A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere

Florida Surgeon General warns of 84% increase heart attack deaths 18-39 men

Remarkable reversal’: President Biden just (quietly) scaled back student loan forgiveness — and the change could impact up to 1.5M borrowers. Are you one of them?

France’s Fuel Supply Problems Worsen As Refinery Strikes Continue

Europe’s Race To Ensure Gas Supply Comes At A Cost

The Russian Response

From the source I have come to trust the most….

From a pro-Russian source…..

It is too early tell what the results of this are. The power went out over large swaths of Ukraine but the real testament to how bad the damage is will come from how long the power stays out. Some bloggers are reporting that the power came back on as they were in the process of making their video.

Figuring out the long term damage is not as simple as figuring out which targets got hit. If a power plant got hit, the first thing they are going to do is shut the thing down and figure out the damage. It may turn out that that only one turbine was damaged and hole was made the wall. They clean up the mess and put the undamaged turbines back on-line and at least some capacity is back on line in short order. Or it could turn out that the critical controls for the entire plant were put out action and the plant cannot run until they are replaced and parts to enable the plant have a six month lead time. In extreme cases, the entire plant may be flattened and the entire plant will have to be rebuilt for scratch. But so far, Russia does not seem to be having that kind of success.

From the early reports, it does not seem like the strikes were all that successful given the amount that Russia invested into the attacks. Part of that is due to the fact that Russia seems to have prioritized hitting a lot of different targets over thoroughness on a few critical targets. Part of that is they seemed to have had a lot of malfunctions (maybe some of that is due to Ukrainian air defenses but I am skeptical).

But the biggest problem the Russians have is that they just don’t have the capacity to do this right. When NATO wanted to force Serbia to bend the knee, they spent 78 days and launched 10,484 strike sorties. And this was on a much smaller country then Ukraine. By comparison, 130+ some missiles and drones (accounts vary) is weak sauce.

While on the subject of NATO, I should note that while Russia is a hypocrite for calling the attacks on the bridge a terrorist attack when it would fit most nations (including their own) definition of a valid military target, NATO did strike power plants in Serbia when they were trying to force them to withdraw from Kosovo. So keep that in mind when you hear people talking about how terrible Russia is for attacking civilian power plants (NATO called them dual use targets). That said, Russians thought that the attacks on Serbia’s power plants was horrible crime….

Links For Today

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 9

If your read the article, you find that it is killing skunks and such as well. I bring this up because my crew at work found a skunk whose cause of death we could not identify just laying peacefully in a courtyard. This year’s avian flu epidemic — the first in North America since 2015 — is caused by a version of this virus unlike any that virologists and wildlife managers have ever seen. “It’s behaving by a different set of rules,” said Bryan Richards, emerging disease coordinator at the National Wildlife Health Center. For the first time, it’s spreading widely among wild birds, which has far-reaching implications for wildlife and human health.

PayPal Still Threatens $2500 Fines for Promoting “Discriminatory” “Intolerance” (Even if Not “Misinformation”)

Amazon “suicide kits” have led to teen deaths, according to new lawsuit

U.S. barge backlog swells on parched Mississippi River

Major companies including Starbucks – which attacked GOP ad on crime – are abandoning Seattle, D.C., more due to GUESS what?

European Energy Market Spooked By $1.5 Trillion Liquidity Crisis

The Navy Accused Him of Arson. Its Own Investigation Showed Widespread Safety Failures. More commentary here.

German authorities said there were no signs of foreign interference in the suspected sabotage of the national railway system. The incident has renewed fears of attacks on Germany’s critical infrastructure.

Links For Today

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 8

Kerch bridge attack – initial analysis. See this for more details and note the comment section.

A Pro-Russian View. Ukraine SitRep – Recent Incidents Of Concern For All Sides

The $2500 fine (read it and weep). Of course, after all the criticism they reversed course but it still lets you know where their heart is at.

Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, The World’s Largest Volcano, Is Starting To Rumble

Did California Just Ban Medical Misinformation? What We Know

New York’s emergency: getting what they asked for

Haiti requests foreign security assistance amid growing unrest

Sabotage cause of massive train disruption in northern Germany, rail operator says

Links For Today

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 7

Berlin and Washington Play Out Nuclear Scenarios

Leader of Russia-annexed region calls for Russia’s Military Chief to ‘shoot himself’

WH walks back Joe Biden’s warning that we’re on the verge of nuclear Armageddon

Electric vehicles catching fire in Florida after Hurricane Ian

I don’t normally do sports news but this is to bizarre to pass up. Choice of Saudi for Winter Games reflects worsening environment for major events

Grief-stricken parents laid white roses on the steps of a Thai nursery where an ex-police officer began his shooting rampage. The majority of the 36 victims were children, who were slain while taking afternoon naps.

Bank of England says pension funds were hours from disaster before it intervened

Automakers Are Struggling To Secure Steel Supply

Haiti black market gasoline at $40 a gallon.

Links For Today

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 6

President Joe Biden says the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, as Russian officials speak of the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering massive setbacks in the eight-month invasion of Ukraine.

Putin Makes Chechnya’s Kadyrov Army General

Ukraine could retake Crimea if it continues to recapture territory from fleeing Russian forces at its current rate, senior US military officials believe.

Armed and Beltway-ish: More Federal Bureaucrats Than U.S. Marines Are Authorized to Pack Heat

Joe Biden Plans to Tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Yet Again

It comes just nine months after the last milestone of $30 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and only five years after reaching $20 trillion.

The Federal Network Agency, Bundesnetzagentur is once again warning that the country needs to reduce its natural gas consumption by 20%.

New Discovery Means Parkinson’s Could Be Diagnosed With a Swab in Just 3 Minutes

Links For Today

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 5

Ukraine’s Capital Distributes Anti-radiation Pills In Case Of Possible Russian Nuke Attack

Sintchenko is willing to admit that the Russians are superior to the Ukrainians in two areas: “In electronic warfare and in military engineering.”

Manufacturing growth in the United States slowed in September to its lowest rate since the pandemic recovery started

Study: Decreased proteins, not amyloid plaques, are tied to Alzheimer’s disease

In a round about way, this study proves how unimportant diet is to heart health compared to other factors. White rice is as bad as candy when it comes to heart health

AAA Study Finds Automated Emergency Braking Systems Have Flaws