It was the only source of heat in the old farmhouse where I grew up. Fuel oil; not electric, not gas.

 

My house in Germany was heated with oil. A lot of homes in the US are as well, although NG is more common today.

 

Majority (70% or thereabouts) of houses in Germany have converted to gas. That's the main concern there because it's not as easy to replace. Oil supply is easier to reroute, and they carry good amount of storages for oil.

 

Now that’s an obscure reference that I truly appreciate you bringing up. Part of the carve up of the Austria-Hungarian empire that ended in WWI, due in no small part to W Wilson and his loathing of European aristocracy and empires, yes? (Fun fact:3 empires disappeared after WWI…how many here can name them without a Google search? Relevant, because empires seem all powerful…until they go all Ozymandias. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMySF1nkN8o)

Kinda like Ukraine being given Crimea by Khrushchev in 1954, only to cause festering grievances causing wars now, 30 years after the USSR dissolved.

Europe is…complicated. Watching the entry level propaganda beating war drums right now, it’s like the movie “Team America” all the way down.

With all the information readily available, how do we keep eating it up? The internet: knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep.

 

Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s where my mother was born and was the culture I was raised in, including first language. The people in the now semi-autonomous region there are not ethnic Italians, speak a dialect of German, and have completely different food and culture, even today at like 80+ percent.

After WW1, they were annexed into Italy. Town names were changed into Italian versions, their language was banned, forced Italian immigration was conducted to Italianize the region, etc. After the Fascists came the Nazis, and so on.

These things go back a long long way.

 

​​​​​​Yes, but what's happening here is pretty straightforward. A big country - threatening nukes - surrounded and full on invaded a smaller country for no reason. This isn’t the highly complicated Syrian civil war, Israeli/Palestine, etc…

 

Bad news part 1:

Here's a video from a European Pilot YouTuber, he's discussing what happens if Russia Nationalizes the leased Airline Jets they have. All the Russian Airlines operate 980 jets total, of which 515 are leased from foreign companies. Just one company, AerCap, has 152 leased jets in Russia worth over $4.1B. A couple have been repo'd but the remainder are in Russia and not about to leave. The video discusses the effect on leasing companies in the event of Nationalization. Short version, it's not good for anyone. There will be a trickle down effect on US Carriers. The Cape Town Treaty which regulates transactions involving movable property may become null and void.

https://youtu.be/Lz4gCE4ccRM

Bad news part 2:

Titanium. Guess where a whole bunch of it comes from? Russian company VSMPO-AVISMA provides:
-100% of Titanium for Embraer
-65% for Airbus
-35% for Boeing

https://theaircurrent.com/tac-explai...bal-aerospace/

 

Do you also have a list of all the vital cr@p that China has a monopoly on? and for extra credit,how many of them we have actually given them the know how. That list is unfortunately much much longer.
ChyNah is the true threat to our republic.

 

No reason? None? Just an errant memo from Putin? Just woke up one day and ordered the army in and risked WWIII? Ooopsies?

Every country acts on what they believe is their own rational self interest. You don't need to agree with it (I certainly don't in this case), but c'mon man. Try to see a bigger picture.

History goes back a whole lot further than 2 weeks ago.

 

He was referring to this being an unprovoked invasion based on Putin's imperial aspirations. Yes, Mr literal, it's not for literally no reason. This behavior is without rational justification and is antithetical to the way a 1st world country is supposed to behave.