How big is Putin's Army?

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Tuesday March 15, 2022 · 2:42 AM PDT

2022/03/15 · 02:42

Just now went down this Rabbit hole, looking for real data to contribute to various threads here.

Best answer I could find on the internet (Wikipedia?) was 136 “Battalion Tactical Groups” (BTG).

Which was the kind of number I was looking for.

Background: I was a late cold war (1980’s) Army Intelligence Analyst, and developed/have an interest in Soviet WW II Order of Battle Issues. Thru the end of the Cold War. Most of the unit Wikipedia pages I have looked at trace the descent of Russian/Ukrainian/Belarusian Military Units to their WWII/Cold war ancestors, and agree with my (Late cold war) information.

Knowing the numerical order of battle strength of the Soviet Army in the 1980’s, A total of 136 (?) Brigade/Division flagpoles, fielding 136 BTG’s is about right for the (current) Russian Army. Given the state of the Russian economy and society, the ability to mobilize significant numbers of additional useful units is dubious. Reminds me of the American “Broken Army” of the 1970s.

So how are the Ukrainians doing? Well, first we would need an actual count on the number of BCT’s committed to the operation. Then account for losses. Don’t be afraid to “count on your fingers”!

Which is left as an exercise for the student.

Letter to the White House, Pandemic Relief

OzarkOrc

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Thursday March 25, 2021 · 12:54 PM PDT

2021/03/25 · 12:54

OK, it was really an email, but might amuse some of the people here:

***

Dear President Biden

Why are there any Trump holdovers in any executive agency? I am referring to the story on Daily Kos today about how the Pandemic Relief Payments to Social Security recipients have been delayed by Trump "holdovers";

It does not surprise me, I have been following closely the problem getting rid of Louis DeJoy; BUT, you should have been ready on January 20th with (interns? volunteers?) with form letters (and a supply of empty cardboard boxes!) to be photocopied a soon as it was legal for the President to sign an original, kind of fill in the blanks:

"Greetings (Insert Name of Trump Sh*tb*g here), the new administration has no need of your services as (Insert job title here); The bearer of this letter has a box for the removal of your personal items, please be off Federal Property in two hours from receiving this notice.

You are required to turn over all keys and access codes to automated systems to the bearer of this letter, and arrange for the turn in of all Government Property (laptops, cell phones, etc.) within twenty four hours.

(Optional, consult legal authorities?) You will have five working days to submit any claim for travel reimbursement, etc, to the appropriate office.

s/"

Terminate all of them. Every Last one! Republicans in general have no interest, and make no contribution to the efficient functioning of the Federal Government (See: Betsy DeVos, Louis DeJoy, etc). Terminate (or write "I expect your resignation letter on my desk in 24 hours") ALL of them.

***

I should have suggested, supply a form letter listing the relevant unemployment web sites (DC/Maryland/Virginia), with the note that the claim will be valid because of “Lack of Work”

(Copy, paste, insert your signature here)

We Need a PLAN!

OzarkOrc

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Tuesday December 12, 2017 · 6:31 AM PST

2017/12/12 · 06:31

I really wish there was some unorganized ("Occupy") group proposing a unified protest about the whole fraudulent Tax "Reform". Let us make sure all the Republicans who voted for the plan are greeted at the airport as they fly home for the holidays by constituents with signs saying "Your Tax Reform plan is a FRAUD" or "Four Pinocchio's" or simply "GOP LIES" and of course, "Are you a Nazi?"

There is something very reminiscent of Nazi's in Republican disdain for the less fortunate, mentally ill and minorities. They are not up to organized extermination (yet?), they seem content to let them die slowly in the streets. Including granny, when they cut Medicaid, which pays for 61% or so of nursing home care.

But I don't want to be alone out there folks.

Little Free Pantry Update (Blessing Box)

OzarkOrc

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Thursday July 27, 2017 · 6:46 AM PDT

2017/07/27 · 06:46

Meanwhile…

I have been loading our “Little Free Pantry” a couple of times a week. See my diary from April 11, 2017 for an overview. The speed with which what are pretty mediocre groceries, mostly generics from Aldi disappear continues to astonish me and demonstrates just how grim things are for some people here in NW Arkansas, usually assessed as the most prosperous part of the state. There are now three active LFP in a town of 65,000, with another one planned.

I drive within two blocks of the church almost daily in the course of driving around town, and it is nice to have a meaningful activity to participate in.

I will admit to a certain level of frustration with people who have problems shall we say with the “concept” of sharing. Which was the first thing I put on a hint sheet I prepared, everyone I have given a copy to says it is great, useful information.

It is frustrating to put out $10 worth of groceries I just bought at Aldi, come back literally ten minutes later (Old guy pit stop) with a couple of additional items, and someone has scarfed literally everything “good.” I have pictures. The frustration being those were likely the “Best” groceries available to be placed in the LFP for the rest of the weekend.

But, like the Pope said last spring, when someone asks, just give; Good for all of us to be reminded of that sometimes, and not turn into judgmental Republicans. But it would be nice to be sure the bounty (such as it is) was spread a little more widely.

The above is a picture I made of the contents last Friday afternoon (7/21/17); These are examples of groceries that may not be particularly appealing (I’m not sure who keeps supplying Pumpkin, is there some tasty secret recipe I am unaware of?), but everything pictured disappeared over the weekend. After the aforementioned “better” stuff.

You can’t make pumpkin pie without, well, all of the other ingredients.

Right now ordinary breakfast cereal, like “Honey Nut Crispy Oats” and “Fruit Rounds” from Aldi are most wanted. I have literally seen those picked up ten minutes after I load them, and am trying to encourage the parish to donate/self stock more.

Just wanted people to know about some of the issues this kind of project encounters.

Little Free Pantry or "Blessing Box"

OzarkOrc

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Tuesday April 11, 2017 · 6:15 AM PDT

2017/04/11 · 06:15

My Church decided to set one up, it went live in February.

It is pretty much “Free Form” self replenishing, I make it a point to check and replenish once a week. Because our church (First Methodist, Rogers, Arkansas) is “Downtown” I had a couple of extra occasions to go by it last week.

Shocking how fast it is emptied, we could fill it daily and not meet the need. I don’t think it is being emptied in the dark, but definitely at some point in the day just about everything vanishes. It’s not like these are great groceries, Ramen Noodles and Aldi canned goods mostly. When donating to a food pantry I try and provide things I myself actually eat. Empty, every time I go by, even if I have refilled it the day before.

(I have before and after pictures, how do I insert them here?)

Just food for thought about how much need there really seems to be out there.

The Geography of Dallas

OzarkOrc

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Friday July 08, 2016 · 10:19 PM PDT

2016/07/08 · 22:19

This may or may not be relevant to Thursday’s tragic events, but I feel compelled to contribute a bit of background knowledge.

In the last four months I have spent eight weeks (three separate trips) in Dallas on family matters.

I had an opportunity to take an outsiders look at some of the local news stories, and spent time just driving around the city. While I don’t recall seeing any streaming confederate battle flags like I do here in northwest Arkansas, (Another story for another blog) there are some definite quirks to the local geography.

“South Dallas”, the heavily minority area of the city, is a “Food Desert”.

I am aware of this because of a local newspaper story, the city council took note of this, and instead of a tax abatement for another Walmart in an already well served part of the city, offered the subsidy to anyone willing to open a grocery store in the undeserved part of the community. Walmart chose not to (I have written elsewhere about Walmart’s “emerging” strategy), and understand the opportunity was going to be taken up by COSTCO.

Actually, zoom out any google map search for any retail chain (Walmart, Kohl’s, Penney’s, Staples, Lowe’s) and the pattern leaps out at me (the kind of thing the military trained me in). There is a hole on the south side of the city where there are no chain stores, within the “635” ring road and south of Interstate 30.

Add in local stories about Feral Dog Packs in south Dallas (I have my own local problem with a free range pit bull), a couple of accidental drive arounds (So I’m not very good at following my new smart phones directions), well, it reminded me of the bad parts of Chicago. Complete with panhandlers at seemingly every freeway interchange. Probably not a part of town I would want to live in.

Please be aware there are numerous Walmart Neighborhood Markets and other grocery stores in the better parts of town I spent most of my time in.

Part of a consistent pattern I have seen elsewhere, the Republicans are quite willing to abandon a portion of our population. Cut off their housing assistance and food stamps and tell them they should take (non-existent) jobs.

Twice I was stuck while traffic crept past (Single) older vehicles stopped n the middle of a main arterial during rush hour. Broken Down? Out of Gas? Who knows, but a sign there is a portion of the population not doing as well as the Republican narrative there would have you believe.

I have no idea where Micah Xavier Johnson lived or what his life story was about, no doubt details will emerge in future weeks. Plenty of other veterans I have met and talked to are back working the same dead end fast food jobs they enlisted to escape.

Any help on tags or illustrations would be appreciated. Could use some good Dallas Ruins Porn for the header.

Walmart's "New" Strategy.

OzarkOrc

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Saturday June 25, 2016 · 1:37 PM PDT

2016/06/25 · 13:37

It’s pretty obvious. First the ongoing store resets/remodeling, the Neighborhood Market Expansion pattern, then the Walmart Express closings.

They are abandoning their working class rural customer base, and trying to move “upmarket” into the lower portion of what was called the “Yuppie” market when I was younger. Nice suburban moms.

Will it work?

Who Knows.

The Economist noted Walmart’s share of US Retail sales peaked at “almost” 12% in 2009, and is now at 10.6% (Editorial, June 6, page 14). This is presumably absolute numbers, and represents the continuing erosion of working class purchasing power and pay in absolute terms.

So the solution is to move upmarket, and abandon their traditional customers.

During the recent 2016 Annual Meeting, the local news media had multiple stories about their logistics network, and emphasis on eCommerce growth. Like I want to use drive thru to pick up my $15 worth of weekly groceries. But then, they don’t care about sales to chumps like me, they want to complete with Amazon for the big ticket sales to the busy Urban Professionals, presumably the target market for Grocery Pickup here in Bentonville.

Walmart have economically strip mined rural America, shifting their own customers jobs to China, destroying the main street local economic activity that used to support local consumption. Walmart now plans to conquer the Suburbs just as many of those jobs are poised to be off shored and automated. And be a major force in eCommerce.

Walmart’s online shopping platform is still not as smooth as Amazon, and is increasingly cluttered with redundant offerings from third party sellers. I purchased a cheap tablet this spring, and found the listings for a “cover” by (redundant) Chinese offerings in multiple colors. I gave up after going through multiple pages, and the search engine would not allow me to filter them out. But those are trivial, surface annoyances.

The real issue is Walmart's interest in selling to upper tier customers. The “Walmart Express” closings represent abandonment of Eastern Benton county, creating a retail vacuum. Not quite a Food Desert, Dollar General still has a vigorous presence there, and they are now selling the empty stores to local grocery chains (More local news coverage). But Walmart doesn’t find it worthwhile to pursue those customers, who probably are NOT going to drive into Bentonville to pick up their month’s worth of groceries when their food stamps come it.

American Elites are willing to write off some percentage of the population, and condemn them to absolute impoverishment.

Their are recent books about the cycle of Evictions and people “getting by” on less than $2 a day, Walmart is merely implementing this policy.

Operation Barbarossa: June 22, 1941

OzarkOrc

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Wednesday June 22, 2016 · 2:58 PM PDT

2016/06/22 · 14:58

Just wanted to note with all the surface things going on today that this is the 75th “Anniversary” of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

This was one of the pivotal events of the twentieth century. While the “net effect” was two of the most reprehensible dictatorships the world has ever seen tearing at each other, at a tragic cost of their own populations, it also shifted the balance of power in the global struggle against Fascism.

Without the Red Army, the Allies would have had a much harder struggle to defeat Nazi Germany (The American War in the Pacific was never in “Doubt”, it was a matter of American Resolve).

A simple Google search will bring up several informative web sites and articles, I just wanted to note the date.

Allied Victory in World War II is one of the basic foundations of our liberal society, without it we would be living in a VERY different world.

The Propaganda Organs

OzarkOrc

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Wednesday May 25, 2016 · 1:25 PM PDT

2016/05/25 · 13:25

I was watching CNN this morning casually, the lead story was (Naturally) about Hillary and her emails. What was really shocking was the Republican Political Operative was allowed to blame the economic crisis on “Bill Clinton”. It is not clear if he mentioned the (FALSE) story line about the housing crisis being caused by poor people receiving government loans for houses they could not afford, but that was definitely the underlying story line. The Housing Crisis was all the fault of Bill Clinton, Barney Frank and all those Poor People.

I can’t figure out how to write CNN and tell them how nauseating I find their inability (unwillingness?) to challenge this false narrative. Finding this kind of false equivalence in the “Mainstream” media shows just how much work we have to do to take our country back from the Plutocratic interests. Remember, this was a show about the (Meh) scandal about the emails. The Republican Operative stuck dutifully to the Party Line.

How do we encourage the media to label this kind of talking head as the sadly misinformed liar he is? CNN does the country no service allowing these kind of narratives to go our unchallenged.

$9 an Hour at Walmart & McDonalds

OzarkOrc

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Monday September 07, 2015 · 11:00 AM PDT

2015/09/07 · 11:00

Because this is Labor Day, I thought I would report on what I have learned about Walmart's much publicized initiative to raise the pay of its lowest paid workers to $9 an hour, and how it is going so far here on Walmart's home turf, Northwest Arkansas, because I live about twelve miles from corporate HQ.

I used to amuse myself by asking the Cashiers in store #1 (3rd Edition) if they had had their dinner break. Ten years ago, as often as not, the answer was NO. These days, with Automated self checkout, I talk to far fewer checkout clerks. But they had pretty much solved that problem before they went to the automated self serve checkout.

NW Arkansas (Benton County) supposedly has the "Best Performing" regional economy in Arkansas.

Discussion below the fold, if it does not disappear like my first draft did.

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