p.s. and, you really should come to n.e. s.e. washington to see the wonderful rolling hills at the base of the blues. they are not terribly high, but, they are very deep steep. quite pretty, especially this time of year, post-spring but before everything turns brown from the heat. the highway from pendleton, oregon to dayton, washington is very special. for, for just the sheer exuberance of the drive, from pendleton to heppner, oregon is exhilarating. but, when the sign with the little hairpin says 15 miles an hour, it means 15 miles an hour. up down, and round round, as they say. On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 11:40 AM John Jay [email protected] wrote: sir: thank you ever so much for your kind words. it was very kind of you to say so. john

sir: thank you ever so much for your kind words. it was very kind of you to say so. john

mark: yep, the sweet is a good onion. but, the land upon which it is grown is fast disappearing, under an onslaught of new housing. personally, id rather have the onions than the new people. oh, well, such is life. in walla walla county, washington development seems to be the order of the day. in n.e. oregon, the state wide plan is in favor of farm ground, so in the future, i would expect the sweets to be oregon grown. and, thats just fine with me. as a final note, the harvest of the sweets just cannot match the majesty of wheat and/or peas on the hillside ground in which they are found (mostly the wheat ground.) john

drew: i think that you are a bit off on the disparity between populations fueling the opposing armies. russia has a population roughly around 145 million persons, while the ukraine is smaller at about 45 million persons. the russians, however, are a bit limited in their abilities to raise troops, as the white russian muscovites dont favor the war, and many have left to avoid being drafted. most of the russian army as members of the various ethnic groups east of the urals, and neither are they that damned enthusiastic about the war. on the other side of the conflict, 45 millions will feed enough suitably aged men and women to have a respectable number of soldiers, and support for the war seems to be from what i can tell, fair enthusiastic in support of it. this has to be somewhat fueled by the fact of the russian invasion, and the brutally stupid way in which the russians have waged war. it will be a while before ukraine forgets the atrocities in town like bucha, and the bombing of maternity wards and hospitals all over ukraine. now, the problems for the russians are compounded by the fact that they have so stupidly pursued their aged and hoary doctrine of fighting as to have pretty much destroyed their conventional forces ability to conduct offensive war. the armor is shot to hell, and they are fielding 60 to 70 year old tanks, and other things. no, the russians have pretty much pissed away the ability to efficiently wage human wave tactics, and the ukraine has pretty effectively mowed such things down with very effective defensive positioning and maneuver, and it would appear very accurate artillery fire and small arms fire. nope, my money is on the ukrainians. they have out fought the russians, and out thought them. putin has pissed away a lot of the russian ability to fight conventional war. john

drew for some odd reason, when ever i think of the ukrainians, the image is of a very sly fox with chicken feathers adorning his muzzle, slipping back into very thick cover, one last glance to check his back trail. and, with a step, he disappears. always, with a sure step. john

drew: when will the rooskies ever learn to be more careful with those damned cigarette butts. (and, how long do you think it will take the ukrainians to learn how to build a himars missile with about 250 miles range? that would be interesting. launch a missile and 2 boosters out of two or three adjacent slots? hey, its an idea.) john

drew: i give up. i mowed the lawn. but, it was a nice day here today, ..... , maybe the solar flare wasnt a waste, afterall. laughing. and, activity on the left/east bank of the dniepro? nova kakhovka? john

that, and that he has em pegged.

mark: nice feller. good guy, for picking grinnin, but not in the same league with those fellows i favor. chet atkins, pretty good, i will give you that, but maybe just a rung on a high ladder below my favorites. but, roy clark was enthusiastic, for sures. (and, quite a few rungs down.) and, not great. laughing. funny as all git out, as we say out these parts. john

drew: anyone outside of wiki laid eyes on her? whats bae, btw, ive never heard of them, living in milton freewater. odd that, huh? john p.s. its been a good afternoon for some chuckles. never happened, always brings a smile. and, i got an email from some troll who claims russia is doing quite nicely in the ukraine, thank you very much. says they have had about 16 to 20,000 war dead over the last year, which would explain the conscription of another 400,000 rooskies to take their place.

sejanus: you are welcome to your views and to the inside of your head, thankfully, neither of which i share. you are welcome to your view of things. btw, i think that you are wasting your time here, plain and simple. you have better places in which to share your views, no doubt, and you should go there and share them with people who live in the same little bubble as you do. john jay p.s. come back in about a year, and tell me again how russia is doing.

laughing. ive got a small c.d., given to me by my deceased brother. well see.

drew: yep. he will not be arrested. he will not be cuffed bail set. there will be no prosecution. all the dumb assed demos do with all this trump baiting is simply solidify and enrage trumps political base, which is the most rabid and loyal political base in american politics. as for me, trump at the top of the ticket, desantis for vp. ojt for desantis in 2028. john

grog: if and when things happen, they will happen very quickly, and they will not be as broadly anticipated. ive watched elk herds placidly lying down, chewing the cud as it were, and then all of a sudden they are up, and thundering away at full gallop, as one. it would not do to be in their way. and, all without the help of pundits. (something to be remembered by those who think they control things.) i believe as you. john p.s. there is simply no other person who arouses the primordial/pathological fear in the left, as does donald trump. they loathe him. but, mostly they fear him, right down to their cockles, in their bellies, in their loins. he makes their mouths dry as bone.

paul: the korean war has never ended .... peace talks are ongoing. still. same place. so, quite literally, almost anything is possible there. who knows about russia? i personally dont think the chinese want to get involved in that. there is some evidence that xi would like to go to ukraine after russia, so maybe he is brokering a peace deal. well see. john

grog: yeder tier hat sein pleasur. i like potatoes boiled, fried, baked, hash browned, mashed and in potato salad. i like em boiled, cold and with mayo and salt pepper. au gratin. about the only way is the baked salad when they are floured ... whats the point of that? and, they do make a wonderful breakfast. laughing. john

drew: infantry rifles, or rifles for infantry battle, are pretty interesting. now, i happen to be a bit of a fan of the .280 british,*** the skinny cased cartridge as opposed to the fat cartridge the brits tried to sell the concept of the cartridge to the cousins. that one. instead, the u.s. foisted the 7.62mm nato on the allies. all of these shenanigans in the face of the fact that for a rifle to kill opposing infantry, something along the line of the .30-30 winchester or the .280 british is just fine. something along the line of a rifle to be used for killing small deer and the like ..... that is just fine for dealing with two-legged critters, in the 150 to 200 lb category. if nato just went back to the original .280 brit (the skinny one) i would be quite happy. one simply doesnt need the .264 winchester magnum as an infantry cartridge, .... , and, not really for much of anything else. now, one can drive a 140 grain bullet at 3,000 fps from a 26 barrel, with all the attendant problems you point out. to be able to do that from a 16 barrel cannot be done, and if it could, it would probably require a 15 or 16 lb. rifle to keep it from being lethal on the shooter. and, for all the reasons that you set forth, it simply cannot be done. the end result of all the things you describe as being detrimental is pressure, and huge amounts of heat, such as would strip the leades of rifling, probably destroy the rifling, and in the end would simply prove destructive of all the rifles systems in very quick order. can you imagine the speeds the rifles action would be subject to, trying to cycle the damned thing? aint gonna happen in our lifetimes. laughing. not without major revolutions in materials and propellants. enjoyed the letter. keep em coming. john ***to the point of having developed a wildcat called jjs brit, simply my version of the .280 brit. mild mannered, a pleasure to shoot, and not hard on rifles. whats wrong with that. who needs all the sizzle? and, not until they invent the guided bullet could such an abomination hit the broadside of a haystack at 600 yards.

grog: what, no fervent testimony to my overwhelmly persuasive logic. and, command of the relevant facts. well, i shall just have to lick my psychological wounds, and try again, harder. laughing. always good to hear from you. and, if you take exception to what i write say so. youve earned the right. i always enjoy hearing from you, drew458, and paul. you are all very good eggs. john

grog: too bad they couldnt get a couple of aardvarks out of storage some place. they were very good at laying down a whole lot of ordnance on ground pounder marking in column. and, had relatively good reach. aardvarks and warthogs working in tandem can lay some serious hurt on ground pounders. john

drew: well, they do have a lot of tanks in storage, sitting in open parking lots exposed to the weather, and rusting. (this is where the old shibboleth of 14,000 tanks comes from.) but, they are not battle worthy, for the most part. and, it is not a simple matter of pouring a little fuel in, turning the engine over, and driving off to do battle. most of them have deteriorated quite a bit, and most of them are equipped with sights that are pretty much a hazard/danger on the battlefield. to go into battle they have to be refurbished, and sometimes parts have been cannibalized from them to service newer tanks, and some of them simply have had parts stolen out of them. in short, they are not very refined, and lack the speed to acquire targets, before they are destroyed. good for the minor leagues, not so hot for the bigs!!t russia manufactures about 20 new main battle tanks a month, according to a lot of sources i read. they can manage to refurbish about 20 or 30 of the older tanks a month. given that they are losing about 150-200 tanks a month (ukraine claims 3500 tanks destroyed in a year, western observers who are monitoring this say about 1800 to 1900 tanks destroyed by ukraine, but these are tanks that are viewed by satellite, e.g., verified. i go with the ukrainians.), they cannot produce enough tanks to replace their battle losses. the areas around bakhmuts and donetsk have been sort of like shooting galleries for the ukrainians. i have seen articles wherein they claim that 7 russians soldiers die for every ukrainian k.i.a., and they just massacre the armor. some russian units are refusing to go onto the battle fields, for want of supplies and ammunition, and the russians just havent figured out how to go across open ground which has been mined by ukrainian artillery, courtesy of u.s. artillery shells. the t-64 is not toothless. but, it cannot play with the ukrainian t-72s and t-80s, supplied by the russians. and, the wagner group guy claims that the russian lines are failing, and will fail, if the wagner group pulls out. all in all, it does not look very encouraging for the russians. i dont think the present regime will survive this war. and, it appears to me that russia will lose the crimea, and its hold on moldova appears very tenuous. putins war is not turning out to be what he wanted, and expected. and, now, the russians are opening talking about the prospect of putin dying before the war ends. which means, someone is likely to kill him, if he wont do himself in. and old curse, may you live in interesting times. john

drew: thanks for your observations, which, as per usual, are most cogent and well directed. your observations on the black sea facilities already in place pretty much destroys most of the tiny soviets point on the need to access a deep water point. there is, of course, the little matter of odessa and its facilities, but, as per usual, the russians would rather take than do their own developmental work. deep down, i think they are mostly lazy bastards who enjoy their time inside a vodka bottle. let us hope that the ukraine takes more and more of her territory back in the donbas, and that she kicks the russians out of the southwest of the country, entirely. personally, if the ukraine can gain unfettered control of the crimea, and make nice nice with belarus and moldova in the meantime as well as securing a good position to the east of melitopol (and perhaps mariotopol), i would view it a very good win. all the way around. and, i think that eventually, any ground she may cede to the russians in the donbas in the present time frame, she will regain by simple historical process in the foreseeable future. as i look at things in eastern europe i see very little enthusiasm in that area for the history those countries shared with russia, and i would remind everyone that even hungary, as big a pain in the butt as they are to n.a.t.o., finds it much more cozy in n.a.t.o. than in the soviet block. no one, in the long term, finds being friends associates with the rooskies a very desirable position. thank you for your very kind remarks, and, as always, i am most impressed by your feel for geography, roads and airports, location and the like as being controlling factors in looking at the reality of a situation. your remarks in that regard are to me very interesting, and pretty much dispositive of the situation. and, remember ..... putin is a dick head. slava ukraine!! john

they will get, just as each of us, precisely as fate and justice dictates. mask, or no mask, one just does not dodge fate and circumstance. nor, that little element of randomness which is a great leveler. best to you, good sir.

yep, shes pretty radioactive and quite likely to stay that way until she gets the brain/intellect transplant she so badly needs. i wonder how far she and biden as a team would get in a bridge tournament?

drew: the ukrainians have had plenty time to construct the kill zones to retreat over. and, i think the rooskies are so eager to kill a couple of western tanks that they would do anything to get their hands on one. to me, anything to get them out of the trenches and moving over ground, is so desirable as to try anything to make it happen. those trenches are nasty things to try and attack. and, to get to the sea. nothing bad can happen from that. from the ukraines perspective. it will be interesting to see what the indigenous population of crimea does, should the ukraine put boots there. interesting, indeed. and, what is desirable to happen quickly, or best to age a little bit, seems to kind of hinge on how many casualties the ukrainians have suffered this year. to kill 115,000 russians, would a lot more, has got to have some sort of cost associated with it .... but, no one seems to know what the ukraines casualty list actually looks like, in kia and wounded such. if ukrainian casualties are mounting, they will opt for quick and dirty, rather than prolonged blood letting, if they can manage it. makes risk analysis pretty tricky, and what one can afford down the line is partially determined by what has come before. anyone from the ukrainian war ministry given you any insight into that? they sure havent favored me with that sort of information. and, it will be interesting to see what the ukraines troop supply looks like this spring. john

oh, drew, you made me laugh out loud, first time in a long time. how about little lances and/or pikes? it was kind of shocking to see that mongoose lay the chompers on that cobra: sort of gave the word masticate a new meaning. he bit that damned thing, hard, about 3 or 4 times, and then bounced away to regard his handiwork, before the cobra knew what hit him. it would be like you or me sitting on a big pin cushion, with the pointy ends sticking out, prominently. that mean old snake just sort of slithered off, his dignity hat askew. (literally, thoroughly deflated.) laughing.