Jeff, Paul, cool your jets NOW.

If you cannot be civil to one another, say nothing at all.

Jeff, this is the SECOND person you are not to address directly. Consider carefully if you are the problem.

Paul, several folks have questioned your information. You may want to research it more thoroughly.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that I will be warm and fuzzy should this go on. You need to be thinking of a Number 8 cast-iron skillet.

Jean
WebMom

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 28, 2026 - 05:01 pm: Edit

The usual method of accounting is births per woman during her lifetime.

In a period lasting several/many years, a replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman. The extra 0.1 accounts for deaths as children and grownups who never procreate. It is an average of all women, including some who never have children and some who have six or more.

If your population is stable, each woman during her lifetime is giving birth to on average slightly more than two live children. If the rate is less than 2.1 your population is shrinking and if it's more than 2.1 your population is growing. The point being generational replacement. It's a back-handed way to say "as many live births as deaths."

Note that many countries have varying definitions of life births. The US has a higher infant mortality rate as it includes all infant deaths. Some EU countries count children who are born dead or die within 24 hours as having never been born and thus are not infant deaths. I remember reading a UN report long ago that had some African countries counting children who die within a year of birth as not counting. Some countries consider infants 0-6 months, others 0-24 months, a few 0-72 months.

There are lies, •••••• lies, and statistics.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Thursday, May 28, 2026 - 05:07 pm: Edit

Sorry Jean.

Understood.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 01:12 am: Edit

Jeff, it is as advisable to edit texts before posting, as it is for publishing them. For the same reasons; people are simply not obligated to read what one writes. Therefore a little editing helps in communication.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 08:08 am: Edit

Note that societies that are having trouble maintaining the numbers of "productive age" workers and low birth rates are kind of shooting themselves in the foot by choking off immigration of "friendly" migrants.

For example, my wife is a Filipina and she would be perfectly willing to have 4-6 kids if I hadn't put my foot down. "we've reproduced; 2 kids are enough."

Same with most US migrants; the Hispanic community has a high birth rate.

I agree that migrants that are convicted of crimes should be deported forthwith.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 11:41 am: Edit

A Russian drone hit an apartment building in Galati, Romania this morning. Unlike previous "off target" drones to cross into Romanian territory, Galati several miles west of the tri-border point of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. Romania is considering this a major escalation by Russia.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 29, 2026 - 10:36 pm: Edit

Ukraine is going big on ground robots. They started with a small thing that had been built before the war for agricultural uses, and have several separate companies producing independent designs and several more companies copying those designs.

Innovation is good, so is standardization, so Ukraine seems to be going for standardized innovation. Sort of like Nixon's instant forever policy.

Anyway, the original "cargo cart" drones expanded. One is used for recovering wounded soldiers since it's faster and less vulnerable than having two or four soldiers tote a stretcher.

Another carriers an M2 50cal machinegun. Another carries a grenade launcher. Another carries anti-tank missiles. The point is to avoid human casualties by letting the robots do anything they can be tricked out to do.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, May 30, 2026 - 12:49 pm: Edit

The medevac one actually has an armored capsule. There is a video of one hitting a couple AP mines and keeping going.

I would like to see these get BIG Red Crosses on them. Over watch drones observe and if Russian forces attack them INSTANT referral to the Hague as a war crime.

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Saturday, May 30, 2026 - 04:25 pm: Edit

Does anyone actually believe that the Russian government would give a flying rat's BLEEP about being referred for war crimes?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 30, 2026 - 10:16 pm: Edit

The UN court would have to indict the drone pilot, not "Russian Army" in general. That would take an on the ground investigation. Assuming Russia really cared, they would blame it on a pilot who was dead, perhaps executed by Russia for violations of field regulations.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Saturday, May 30, 2026 - 10:50 pm: Edit

Russia routinely attacks medics. That's why Ukraine developed the medevac drones.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 08:33 am: Edit

Russia isn't a signatory to the ICC. And ICJ adjudications are only between consenting nations. So really, what does a referral actually do?

One nation's warcrime is another nation's valid exercise of sovereignty in pursuit of their national interests.

--Mike

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 11:03 am: Edit

A war crime indictment can go all the way up the chain.

So the operator, his immediate commander, the next level commander and all the way to the top.

ICC warrants and suddenly all those indicted will be stuck in mother Russia.

Besides why not?

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 11:18 am: Edit

No reason why not. But much more valuable is actions that have an immediate impact.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 01:07 pm: Edit

How are you going to identify the operator? And his company commander, who will say the conveniently dead operator acted against orders? And the battalion commander who said he ordered the operator not to do that? You might geographically get a good guess at the identity of the brigade commander who will say he never heard about it. And the division commander who says “what?” And the corps commander who says the army commander said such attacks were not to be made? I would bet the international criminal court dismisses the case for lack of evidence.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 03:29 pm: Edit

I would bet Ukraine has a lot of information relevant.

Your questions imply that NO ONE can ever get to the bottom of these kinds of actions.

Notably a bunch of Rissians are already under indictment. All are "fugitives." So they are subject to arrest on crossing most borders.

Valery Gerasimov
Sergei Shoigu
Sergei Kobylash
Viktor Sokolov

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 04:49 pm: Edit

You are counting only top level people who have appeared in the press. When you identify the drone operator, let us know, until then, please stop windbagging. And stop saying I said things I never said. And stop saying I implied things that you merely inferred.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 06:44 pm: Edit

Mike
The problem is Russia does not care about a war crime. You would have to force an unconditional surrender of Russia. Then You can hold Your trials against whoever You want. As we did Nazi Germany.

If you want to do so in a world court, go ahead. It will mean nothing. If it did mean something, then all of the worlds Terrorist leaders would be in prison are dead.

Russia is not going to let the world execute Putin are any high official. They will play as Steve as said above or just ignore it.

I live and work in the real world not some fantasy.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 08:48 pm: Edit

Ukraine has a more practical solution. It has assassinated several Russian war criminals.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 10:02 pm: Edit

During the four weeks of Trump's Iran War I, the US expended 50% of most of it's precious munitions types (including THAAD and Patriot), and 20%-33% of other types. Restarting the war could quicky lead to dangerously low levels of munitions at a time when Putin might just say "Zishek it all" and start a war with NATO or China just might decide to hide it's collapsing economy behind an invasion of Taiwan.

Hegseth is busy ramping up production to thousands of existing missiles a year, but a year's production is a month in an actual war. His solution is to bring in a whole series of cheap precision munitions which can be used against lower tier enemies (like Iran) so we can save the good stuff for Russia and China. He is also refining the high/low strategy for those countries to use "the good stuff" against air defenses and then saturate everything else with cheap stuff.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 10:33 pm: Edit

Refining is good -- but the failure to think of that prior to the Iran war is highly unfortunate. The Ukrainians would surely have been glad to trade (say) 100 Shahed shoot-down interceptor drones for each PAC interceptor. This would have let the US destroy Shaheds much more cheaply, left the US with more PACs after the Iran war, given Ukraine more PACs with which to shoot down Russian missiles.

In short, the US and Ukraine would both have been better off.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 31, 2026 - 11:36 pm: Edit

Someone make a note of the time William J and I agreed on something. One of the first lessons of the Ukraine War was that ammo stockpiles (of all types) were going to be exhausted very quickly, and the US did start to take steps to fix the issue by ramping up production, but it takes two years to ramp up production as you have to build new factories to make the parts and new factories to assemble the parts.

Ukraine's new "cheap drone interceptors" are a relative new item and I'm not sure Ukraine could part with enough of them to make much different. Also, those "cheap Shaheed killers" are obsolete already as the new Shaheed 2 (introduced in Feb 2026) is jet powered and much faster, too fast for the "cheap Shaheed killers" to catch, limiting them to very very difficult head-on engagements.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Monday, June 01, 2026 - 12:31 am: Edit

Pre-2022 the US was producing 14,500 155mm rds per month.

We just opened a new plant last month that at full operational capacity will produce 12,000 rouds a month.

DOW's goal is to reach 100,000 per month by the end of this year.

Missiles are a lot more high-tech and slower to ramps up.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Monday, June 01, 2026 - 11:39 am: Edit

Estimates are that Ukrainian drone production this year will be somewhere in the 4M-8M units range. They are actively selling their drones and tech on the global market. I imagine that capacity is there to sell to the Pentagon.

Now, if the Pentagon is receptive to purchasing and using Ukrainian drone technology at scale (NIH) is another matter entirely.

--Mike

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Monday, June 01, 2026 - 02:34 pm: Edit

It's not like we have recent historical evidence that stockpiles are never large enough, WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, the War on Terror, Iraq (Both times.) etc. etc. etc.