Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Four Observations

 1.  The Taurus Missile?

It's been hyped-up in the news....over the discussion of the German-made missile....possibly being given to the Ukraine (against Russia).

So, some introduction.  It's air-launched....max range is about 300 miles or 500 kilometers.  Warhead? Around 1,000 lbs.

Where it'd be used?  Well....it was readily designed to be a bunker-buster....meaning that you didn't waste it on a tank, or fuel depot, or a bridge.

I keep looking at this German discussion, the layout of the war (where the Russians control) and see virtually no bunkers.  So the use of this 1-million Euro missile?  That's the odd part of the story.  If you showed me the whole map, and gave me an entire month to review things.....I doubt that I could find more than three 'targets' where the missile was appropriate and worth the effort.

Yeah, this whole discussion is BS.

2.  Russia talking about expulsions over German journalists?

There's nightly coverage on German commercial/public TV news of Russia, and they are fairly careful not to be extremely anti-Putin.  The problem is.....election is coming up, and Putin needs to show things are great.

So, I'm kinda expecting in the next two weeks....some  round-up of German TV journalists to start up.

3.  Was the Red Army Faction business almost forgotten?

Up until the last two weeks where the one gal was discovered....yeah, it was mostly a forgotten topic.  

Lot of reminders going on presently, and significant chatter over the third-generation  RAF folks....who seemed to be more trained/capable than generation 1 or 2.

4.  This electrical sabotage against the Tesla plant from yesterday?  Experts are saying several hundred million Euro will have to be spent to fix the damage caused on the electrical grid.

Vulkangruppe?  The terror 'kids'?  Well....just seems like no one much has heard of them before (at least in public news).

Them being anti-E-car?  To be honest, around Germany....probably 40-million Germans are presently anti-E-car (being pro-gas/pro-diesel).

There is a public comment that federal services have known of the group for several years and tracked them in some way.

5 comments:

Daz said...

1. Belgrade.

Anti E-car? More so anti-Tesla. The many lies of Elon Musk slowly start to catch up. Acting like a slave master in his factories and companies, claiming credit for other's inventions. He's another Elizabeth Holmes who sells vapourware and now cozies up to regimes that can lend him money now that he's bankrupting twitter.

Schnitzel_Republic said...

I will only say, from day one....once you added up the charge-up time, the raw-Earth materials required for a vast launch, and the hype...made me question the entire effort. I did a test-drive of the Audi E-tron and Mini e-car....then went to a solar show in Munich to get smart on requirements. I'm not hyped-up.

Elon? He simply went to the head of the development line and got ahead of 90-percent of folks. Unlike Holmes, at least what he sold did actually exist. In Holmes case....I don't think a single 'box' was ever delivered to anyone...it was just faked-up completely.

On Twitter? Its public stock never paid a dividend. Manpower? After the smoke has cleared....it was probably 300-percent overmanned for what they had as a product.

I'll even go and say this (a year after Elon controlled Twitter)...that from the original crew (2006)....it just seems to be a propaganda platform for messaging across the US and globe. The fact that they brought in ex-FBI/CIA folks to executive positions? It just makes one question what the original intent was, and if they were realizing the zero profit problem back in the year prior to Elon.

Oddly, when you look at actual revenue for 2023 for Twitter...it matches 2019 and exceeds all yearly revenue prior to 2019. 2020/2021/2022? Anomalies after 2019? 2021 is an odd 'way-out' revenue' year (40-percent above 2020, and doesn't make much sense.

Final note....just because you have revenue....doesn't mean you make enough to cover cost of operations. If you have a public stock and pay zero dividends for ten years, you have to increase stock prices to make investors happy, and have occasional splits. None of that fits Twitter history. So I go back and wonder about those ex-FBI/CIA guys.

Daz said...

"Unlike Holmes, at least what he sold did actually exist"

Like self driving, that could take you from a parking lot in LA to New York without touching a steering wheel? He's promised that was coming next year for like, 9 years in a row now.

I recommend the following series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD0r34nEiWA

If you can watch those and still mindlessly tug a forelock in deference to him, well, good luck to you. (And I have a bridge to sell you!)

X is about to hit the same value for advertisers as 4chan. He's the definition of a hypocrite, proudly crying out for freedom of speech for him, but suing anyone who says anything he doesn't like.

Within six months of him buying it for 44 billion it got revalued for less than half of that. So much for financial business wunderkind.

Daz said...

Oh, and the only strategic target for Ukraine with the missile system that makes sense would be Belgrade.

Schnitzel_Republic said...

Just a lot of BS over the German missile chatter. Lot of hype to use it for bridges...when designed as a bunker-buster. You'd have to waste a minimum of ten of these to totally take down the bridge-target they were discussing....at $1-mil per missile. You could do the same damage with 6-to-8 MK82's...which cost only $4,000 each.

Missile makes perfect sense for a North Korea war, where you have so many bunkers.