There's no such thing as an adolescent silverback. A silverback is a fully mature dominant male. They don't gain the silver coloration until they are mature, so the entire premise is a contradiction in terms.

Seems like a red flag to me.

Maybe it's not a deal-breaker in and of itself, but if you get many more of these, you probably want to cut your losses and move on.

Take it from an old guy who's learned this shit the hard way.

In my experience it's the case that if someone shows you that they are crazy or psychologically maladjusted, there's very little that you can do about it as their romantic partner.

I don't say that people can't change, only that it's almost never going to happen when they are already in a relationship with you and exhibiting weird and abusive behavior such as what you describe.

That said, in all honesty I think you might want to at least consider getting out now. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be.

Again, I'm an old guy in his 50s and I have seen and been through some shit over the years. That doesn't mean that I'm somehow magically "right," but it does mean that I have some perspective on these things.

Take it for whatever you think it's worth.

Yeah, me too. I pat myself on the back for this one nearly every day. Probably the best financial decision I ever made.

This seems mostly right, but I want to add a few points.

The first is that the Ukrainians won't stop fighting if the west stops supporting them. They may suffer some severe defeats and the nature of the war may shift to being more of a guerrilla insurgency, but they won't stop fighting.

The second is that even if the US withdraws support, it's not likely that European nations will necessarily follow, and between Germany and the UK and France, the Europeans can easily continue to support Ukraine at or above current levels.

My final point is that Ukraine actually is making slow progress in pushing back the Russians, it's just not going anywhere near as fast as anyone would like.

I also really dislike the term "stalemate" because it implies a static state of affairs as in a chess game where there are only so many pieces and moves, when in fact war is much different in the sense that additional pieces and moves can and probably will be added to the equation.

You are seriously confused. OP specifically said that you're fucked if there is no visual cue.

They've actually lost a lot of their senior officer corps. The reason is that in the Russian military the enlisted ranks and junior officers have very little autonomy, so senior officers are obliged to be in much closer contact with the front than we would expect in NATO, for example.

Plenty of talk about Georgia being purple though too.

False dichotomy.

There's a lot of bullshit in this thread. People can wear shorts in cold weather either a) if it's not that cold, or b) if it's not for a long period of time. I've been in -50 and -60 degrees fahrenheit weather in Alaska and Montana and Wyoming and when it gets that cold any exposed skin is a huge liability and will become frostbitten and/or severely painful in a very short amount of time. Left untreated it will turn necrotic which is not good. You also, pretty much no matter what you're wearing, can't stop moving at those temps unless you are in some kind of shelter.

When I worked on The Slope in Alaska back in the 90s we used to do 20 minutes outside and then 20 minutes inside for full 16-hour shifts.

That said, it can be kind of invigorating and of course you do get used to it and learn to not let it bother you.

Edit: Also, if anyone cares, I'm not proud of having worked for Big Oil on The Slope back in the day. At the time I was young, it was a big adventure and it paid big money that allowed me to do a lot of other things that I otherwise would never have been able to do. Also, it was all union work through IUPAT DC5 which I am still an active member/activist of today.

Polls a year out from the election. They have zero predictive value with regard to the ultimate outcome. Any pollster will tell you this. In fact, they have been telling us precisely this, but maybe not all of us are paying attention.

These results are still deeply disturbing.

Good luck with that Johnson, you absolute fucking moron.

Let's see how far your far-right bullshit gets you.

The American people are sick and tired of your dysfunctional inability to get anything done.

Too fucking right! Local 10 till I die!