What might be the best way to end the war in Ukraine (that I can see)

 C'mere. Siddown.  I've got something to say.

One person has accused me of siding with Putin.  And that's one person too many.

To this person and others who think that of me: "***** you".  Because I am the FURTHEST thing from being a Putin apologist.

NOBODY'S hands are clean in this affair.  Not Russia.  Not Ukraine (as much as many of us want to believe otherwise) and not the United States.  We are involved too.  We sent a LOT of money and war materiel to Ukraine, and it's been questionable whether it was used by that country to fight Russia or if it was diverted and sold to other interests.  It's quite possible that some of the arms we sent wound up in the hands of drug cartels in Latin America.  I love the people of Ukraine, but the matter remains that they allowed their country to be one of the most corrupt in Europe and ultimately that's on them.

What do I think the U.S. should have done?  America should have led international sanctions against Russia.  In time I believe those would have had an effect.  Russia isn't playing nice by the rules of polite international behavior and they should suffer for that.

But that is not what we did.

Ukraine is not Afghanistan.  Afghanistan has defeated invaders for thousands of years.  It is perhaps the worst geography on Earth for an army to come in and try to control.  Alexander of Macedonia learned this.  So did the Soviets.  And in time so did America.  During the Afghanistan conflict with the invading Russian the U.S. did provide the Afghans with Stinger missiles, among other things.  In time that aid did did compel the Soviets to give up and go home.  But the Afghans had the layout of the land, the mountains of their home turf, on their side.  There is no such advantage that Ukraine has.

If we try to do with Ukraine what we did with Afghanistan, we are going to widen the war into something beyond the confines of Eastern Europe.  Zelensky came to the Oval Office yesterday and made clear his ultimate demand: that American armed forces and personnel be brought into Ukraine.  And that would be a terrible, terrible mistake for us to commit.  If we did that we would be turning Ukraine it into a quagmire far worse than Vietnam was.  And this time there will be a belligerent with his finger on a nuclear button.

What do *I* see in these circumstances?  What does Chris Knight the American citizen, the historian, the man just trying to do the right thing, perceive in this matter?

The last thing that Robert Christopher Knight wants to see is any one die.  Scrape everything else away from him and that's what you're left with.  And right now I don't see Ukraine's leadership being serious about that.

So it's left to a third party, someone other than the two sides in the conflict, to try to negotiate something. Right now the best party to do that is the United States.

There are three suggestions I would make, if anyone's interested...

1.  The U.S. and Ukraine should agree to the minerals deal.  The one that was about to be signed yesterday before the dipolomacy fell apart with all the world to see.  Enacting the minerals agreement would result in an active American presence in Ukraine *without* bringing United States armed forces into the war.  Russia would hesitate - and tremendously so - to endanger lives of American civilians.

2.  Work out a deal between Russia and Ukraine to end hostilities.  End armed conflict.  Stop the killing, by both sides.  They have each drawn blood.    Ukraine has also, by way of its drone aircraft.

3.  Negotiate the borders between Russia and Ukraine.  There are many areas in Ukraine that are ethnic Russian and have long expressed a desire to be within Russia.  If Putin wants to prove that he's true to his word he will agree to annex these areas.  But Russia is going to have to give over some territory to Ukraine also.

I have never been a fan of Putin.  I think he is a despicable excuse of a supposed leader.  His soul is a dark one, no matter how much George W. Bush looked into his eyes and claimed to see a good man.  Putin wants a return of the old Soviet empire.  He has never stopped being KGB at heart.  The day he finally dies will be a good one for the world, unless he repents of his wrongdoing and tries to make right what he has done.  But that's between him and God.

But neither have I been a wholehearted fan of sending hundreds of billions of American dollars - that we can't really afford - to Ukraine, without accountability for how it's being used.  Zelensky is not the squeaky clean leader of his country that many of us want to believe he is.  He did not come into office honestly and he has demonstrated many times that he turns a blind eye to the corruption in Ukraine.

So what are we to do?

The three suggestions I just made, provided that the United States pushes them forward, is the best alternative to prolonging the war that I can see.  It's NOT perfect.  It's NOT what either Ukraine or America wants.  In a perfect world Russia would be forced to withdraw and have to make reparations.  But it's not a perfect world and the United States did play a part in exacerbating the situation.

That's the best deal that I see us making that will end the war and stop the killing.  It's the only thing I can imagine will finally end this conflict.

But don't ANYONE dare declare that I'm a supporter of Putin.  Because that only demonstrates how much of a fool that person is.

Just my .02

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I watched the meeting between President Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky

And I mean I watched the entire meeting, not just the final ten minutes that descended into diplomatic chaos.

(Here it is if you want to see it for yourself.)

The war in Ukraine is perhaps the damndest Gordian Knot of foreign relations that I've seen in my lifetime.  I am and always have been against Russia's aggression into what should be a sovereign nation recognized as such by all.  I despise Russian dictator Vladamir Putin as much as anyone can.  The sooner he dies or is somehow overthrown will be a happy day for the world.  He had no right to plan and execute the invasion of Ukraine.

But what can be done about that?  More to the point, what should the role of the United States be?  We've already given hundreds of billions of dollars in funding and war materiel to Ukraine.

It's now an open and very serious question: what has become of all of that support that our politicians in the past few years have cheerfully given Ukraine?

Russia isn't going to withdraw from Ukraine while Putin sits in the Kremlin.  It's doubtful that if and when the war ends that Russia is going to cede over the territory they've won back to Ukraine.

I believe that President Trump is trying to make the best of the situation in the best interest of America: end the war and stop the loss of life.

Back to the matter of yesterday's meeting between Trump and Zelensky and their respective delegations in the Oval Office...

For the first forty minutes things are going as well as this kind of thing could.  Trump is being very gracious to his guest.  In fact, it could even be said that things are going in Zelensky's favor.  And then right around the forty minutes mark Vice-President J.D. Vance breaks in from where he's been sitting and brings up what is, I think so anyway, a good point: that on Joe Biden's watch the official United States rhetoric didn't match the United States's actions.  That there was never any real attempt at diplomacy on the part of the United States government.  Instead the U.S. became something that pumped billions upon billions of dollars into Ukraine's war effort and apparently this was not good enough for Zelensky, who Vance accused of not being thankful enough.

It's pretty clear that Zelensky wants something that the United States and other countries in Europe cannot provide without bringing about a larger conflict with Putin's Russia.  And Zelensky isn't budging about that.

I've had time to contemplate what happened yesterday and the larger scope of things.  And from where this blogger is sitting, it does seem as though Trump's strategy is the best one.  I'm not saying it's the most likable.  But it will bring about an end to hostilities sooner.  The minerals deal that was almost signed yesterday at the White House, before relations broke down between Trump and Zelensky, wouldn't put "boots on the ground" in Ukraine.  But it would put American interests firmly in place in that country, something that could be just as effective at giving Putin pause about furthering his aggression.

It's not a solution that makes anyone happy.  It certainly does not me.  In my perfect world Ukraine would kick Russia out on its ass, retake the captured territory and sue for reparations.  There would be international sanctions against Russia for invading a sovereign country.  But that perfect world does not exist in real life.

Maybe someday, after Putin is gone, there can be a return to Ukraine's intended borders.  Perhaps a Russia without leadership hellbent on bringing back the glory days of the Soviet Union's vast empire will be fully ready to join the family of nations.  But that day isn't in the foreseeable future.  We've got to take what we can get.  

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 28

Russia's invasion of Ukraine may go down as the textbook example of all the wrong ways to try to take over a neighboring country.  I'm reading the reports (whichever ones may be accurate) and it just blows my mind how unprepared Putin was in sending his forces into Ukraine.

First of all: WHY did Russia commit its forces during the winter?  The vehicles have gotten bogged down in mud and mire, just as any armchair strategist knew would happen.  But this seems to be the classic pattern for Russia.

There does not seem to be a reliable system of replenishing food, ammo and replacement artillery.

Speaking of that artillery, there are reports that the Ukrainians have more tanks now than when the war began, because they keep capturing Russian tanks and painting Ukrainian markings on them.

The Russian trucks and other vehicles in the invasion convoys have shoddy tires, and other problem parts, which can arguably be traced back to corruption among the oligarchs.  These are NOT sturdy pieces of equipment they road to war on.

The fight to take Kiev is now approximately three weeks behind schedule.

Odessa and other cities along the Black Sea coast have not been taken.

There are widespread accounts of Russian soldiers giving up.  Morale has collapsed.

The Russian army has now lost more personnel than it did during ten years of occupying Afghanistan.

 Russia continues to be ostracized by most countries.  Putin has blown thirty years of building up goodwill, for sake of a war he cannot possibly win.

All of these reasons and more, are going to be studied at great length in history books sooner than later.  Russia is NOT the great power that it claims to be or ever was.  And it's going to take decades to undoe the damage of this debacle.  The best thing to happen now is for Putin to step aside... or  be made to step aside.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 20

Wow.  Day twenty of writing a new blog post each day during Lent.  I'm starting to believe that I can actually pull off this thing.

Yesterday while looking at the blog stats, I discovered something that startled me.  Over the past 48 hours, this site has received three visits from Kiev, in Ukraine.

Someone going through tribulation that I cannot comprehend, for whatever reason thought to visit my blog.  Actually, at least two someones.  Two of the visits were repeats from the same IP address.

I really don't know what to say, about that.  Except this:

Whoever you are, I am praying for you and your fellow Ukrainians.  You are not forgotten.  You have friends out here.  And maybe someday, sooner than later, we can properly introduce ourselves to each other.  Maybe someday we will get to meet in person.

I would very much be honored to know who you are, who out of all the blogs and websites out there, you picked this one.

God bless you and be with you.

 

 

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 17

Oleksii Kyrychenko of Kiev, Ukraine took this photo of his nine-year old daughter.  He titled it "Girl with Candy":

A few days before the Russian invasion he took this photo:

Let us pray that Kyrychenko's daughter, and all of the children of Ukraine, can be brought through this present madness.  Of all the things that are lost in war, childhood innocence must be among the most tragic.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 11

 It would not be at all surprising if Vladimir Putin was out of power in Russia by Easter.

And, word on the street is that his country is going to take a financial hit this coming week.

We'll see.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 7

Of all the photos that have come out of Ukraine in the past two weeks, it's the one most heart-wrenching to me.  The photo that says it all about what that evil bastitch Vladimir Putin has done to that country.

I came across it on Facebook.  On one of the many dachshund-related groups that I'm a member of there.  It was a few days ago.  And I've been thinking about it a lot.

It's a photo of a Ukrainian woman, fleeing the destruction.  In her arms, she is holding her dachshund.  Keeping it safe amid the turmoil.

I saw that photo and it damn nearly broke me.

I have a dachshund also.  Her name is Tammy.  She turns ten years old one month from today.  She and I have been through a lot together.  We look after each other.  She's been there for me through a lot that's happened in my life.  And in return, I like to believe that I've given her a good life.  I'm hoping that we have many more years together (dachshunds can sometimes live to be twenty, maybe a bit more).  Tammy sleeps in the bed next to me every night.  We curl up together.  I can't imagine my life without her, and I know that one day I'm going to hurt very much when she is no longer with me.

I saw the picture of that Ukrainian woman and her dachshund, and it broke my heart.

Why is this war happening?

I don't agree with Lindsey Graham on everything but he's right.  Someone in Russia needs to KILL Putin.  Needs to blow him away or slip some polonium into his salad or whatever.  He is a madman.  A lunatic who God only knows what he's going to do with his hand over the button that could launch three thousand nukes at the civilized world.

I don't know much.  But I know this:

In Ukraine, tonight, a woman is desperately holding onto her dachshund.

And it pisses me off, what has happened to her and her country.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 2

The Russian people did not wake up pokey one morning last week and decide to invade Ukraine.  Neither did the Russian people occupy Poland and impose the Iron Curtain.  The average subject of the emperor didn’t care where Pearl Harbor was if he even knew it existed at all.  The Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland spent decades blowing each other up… why, exactly?  The typical Palestinian when pressed on the matter can not say why he wants to shove every Jewish man woman and child into the sea.

 

I’m reading stories now about Russian soldiers in the field crying and wanting their mothers.  They didn’t want to be there.  Many of them claim that they didn’t know they were going into Ukraine to begin with.

 

I’m also reading about the Ukrainians holding Russian soldiers hostage and parading them in front of cameras for social media.  And showing photos of dead Russians.  Some are claiming that doing so violates the Geneva Convention.  To quote Patrick Swayze from Red Dawn: “I’ve never heard of it!”  Swayze then answers his friend’s concern about what makes “us” different from “them”: “BECAUSE WE LIVE HERE!”

 

It’s hard not to sympathize with the Ukrainians.  They didn’t ask for war.  And war is hell.  Why shouldn’t they reciprocate in kind?  If someone breaks into your house, you have the right to stop them by any means necessary including acts of violence.

 

But I digress.

 

All of this and more, did not come about because entire populations simply decided to go to war and wipe out another people.  They instead came about by the machinations of a relatively small minority.  Sometimes not even that much.  Too often it comes down to one man.  One man whose sanity is questionable at best.

 

(Sometimes I find myself thinking that there would have been peace in the Mid-East a long time ago already, were it not for that idiot Yassir Arafat rallying his people toward hate and violence.)

 

There have been many such men.  Men who by accident or design have come to control the lives and deaths of millions.  I can tick off a bunch right now: Stalin, Pol Pot, Amin, Kim, and of course Adolf Hitler.

 

Right now, that man is Vladimir Putin.  Dictator of Russia.  And he is following right along with his predecessors.  The big difference is that Putin has it in his power to destroy the world as we know it.

 

So the question that’s been running through my mind, the question that has been asked by many before me and will no doubt be asked by many more to come still, is this…

 

Why do we allow ourselves to follow madmen?  Why do we even tolerate them?

 

Solzhenitsyn was right.  If the people had only resisted.  If only they had chosen to fight back.  Had decided that they would kill Stalin’s agents when they came instead of cowering in fear.  But instead they played along as the victim.

 

Why is it so hard to say “no” to lunatics?

 

When are people like the Russians going to say “enough” and topple the madman controlling their country?

 

 

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Putin's prize: The Second Rome

Vladimir Putin may have come from the KGB.  But there arguably exists aspirations which are far away and removed from anything the Soviet Union set out to achieve.

Allow me to paint a picture...

Very soon, Russia's invasion of Ukraine will commence.  Complete control of Ukraine is not Putin's objective, but neither will it stop there.

There are even now reports of the Russian army stationed in Moldava beginning maneuvers.  It is altogether possible that Ukraine could be faced with invasion along two fronts.

Or not.

Ukraine is needed not to solidify Russia's annexation of Crimea, but to establish an uncontested highway for troops and materiel to be transported to the south and west.  Poland?  Likely it has barely figured into Putin's strategy.  Poland will not be a factor.  Putin is aiming for something far more than re-establishing the borders of Soviet domination during the Cold War.

The Russian army now has free and clear dominion across the north and northwest of the Black Sea.  Next on the agenda: Romania.  Which may or may not acquiesce to Russia's military movements.  When Putin's goals are made clear (perhaps by diplomatic channels) Romania will gladly afford the Russian army to pass through what could be called the "Carpathian Corridor".

And so too might Bulgaria, and then Greece, quickly rally to give passage to the Russian armed forces.  Political boundaries will yield to common cultural ties.  The entire region along the western Aegean Sea is now firmly under Russian control.

It will not be very long before entire divisions of soldiers, tanks, supply lines and reserves are sitting along the border of Thrace.

Ukraine?  Putin is aiming far higher than that.  Ukraine just happens to be in the way.

Because Russia has now positioned itself to take the true prize.  The prize that has been the ultimate goal of Russia - and Orthodoxy in general - for nearly half a millennium:

Istanbul.

The city once known as Constantinople.  The shining jewel of Orthodoxy, until it was conquered by Ottoman Turks led by Sultan Mehmed II in 1453.

Putin knows that he must act soon.  Even now it is being actively discussed in Ankara that Haggia Sophia be turned once again into a Muslim mosque.  Haggia Sophia, which until the fall of Constantinople was the crowning architectural achievement of Orthodoxy as well as it's spiritual focal point in the earthly realm

Haggia Sophia is now a museum.  But to make it a mosque anew?

The Russian - and Greek - Orthodox will NEVER tolerate it.

And then Putin makes the final play of his long game: the re-taking of Constantinople. Russian Orthodoxy's long-dreamt re-conquest of Constantinople from the heirs of the hated Ottomans. The restoration of Haggia Sophia as a church.

It has long been said in Russia that Rome was the first, Constantinople is the second Rome. Moscow is the third. "A fourth there shall not be."

The Third Rome, after more than four and a half centuries, is readying itself to retake the Second. 

Vladimir Putin could very well deem himself the man who is destined to achieve Russia's longest, most lusted-after goal.

It is almost certainly a thought that Putin has seriously contemplated during the past several months and years.  For sure, it has been at least a lingering thought these past few weeks.

Think that western Europe will try to intervene?  In the two and a half decades since the fall of communism, Russia has come to control more than 1/3rd of natural gas and petroleum products throughout the European Union.  Putin merely has to threaten to shut down the pipelines and most of Europe will not be in a position to negotiate with him.

Meanwhile, the troops and tanks are set to roll across the border of westernmost Turkey.

And then they do.

The Second Siege of Constantinople has begun.

It has now gone from clear provocation to full-scale war between Russia and Turkey.

In addition to Istanbul itself, Russia and Turkey especially fight for control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.  The Dardanelles will likely be the secondary objective after entering Thrace.  If Russia succeeds in taking Istanbul - and it most certainly will - Putin will have effective control over the entire Black Sea region apart from northern Turkey.

All to reclaim Constantinople.  To at long last punish the Turks for the desecration of Haggia Sophia.

It could be the single largest open conflict between Christendom and Islam in hundreds of years.

This is the scenario that I have seen could possibly unfold.

Time will tell.

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Strange and bizarre Russian ads from a century ago

It's stuff like this that reminds me of something: we're not all that different from people a century ago.  Far longer than that even.  We laugh at this sort of thing today, but a hundred years from now our great-grandchildren will be looking at our ads for vacuum cleaners and light beer and wonder: "What the hell were they thinking??"

I don't think geography has anything to do with it: humanity tends to do wacky things in the pursuit of profit no matter where it's at.  So it was with our Russian friends in the years leading up to the October Revolution and then the early Soviet era.  And now io9 has compiled a collection of "The Oddest Soviet Ads From The Late 19th And Early 20th Century".  There are many ads for cigarettes (see image) and other tobacco products,  but also for wine, gunpowder and soap.  One young lad brandishes a club as warning against taking his chocolate bar.  A babushka shows off her new galoshes.  An airplane threatens to bomb tsarist Moscow with beer.  And there's one tobacco ad that is a work of visual genius!  It's a great article to check out whether you're into Russian history or just want a good laugh :-)

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Meteorite(s?) smashing Russia this morning

CNN and Fox News are proving they're worse than useless this morning when it comes to breaking news! The "big story" in the U.S. this hour is still that damned Carnival boat that was crippled at sea for the past week.

Meanwhile our friends in Russia are having to deal with a real-life Michael Bay movie unfolding even now...

Check out these bits of footage that are coming in from the Urals, especially the vicinity of Chelyabinsk, where a few hours ago the area was struck by a barrage of meteorites:

There are reports as of this writing that at least 500 people have been injured, mostly from glass shattering because of sonic booms as the meteorite or meteorites exploded in mid-air. However a lot of fragments hit the ground (including crashing through a zinc factory). I'm not hearing of any fatalities yet. Let's pray that there are none.

However to the best of my knowledge, the Chelyabinsk event today has produced about 500% more injuries than all the wounds caused by meteorites of the past sixty years or so combined. The one that best comes to mind right now is one lady in the Fifties who was struck on the leg by a tiny meteor fragment that crashed through the roof of her house as she lay on her sofa watching television.

Twitter is going nuts at the moment with even more footage and tons of photos that witnesses took of the meteor. This is not going to be a situation as difficult to document as the Tunguska event was.

Now hearing that authorities are considering the possibility that more strikes may be expected.

What a week this has been. First Benedict XVI announces his retirement, now this. I'm doubly-cursed to be a fanatic about both history and science (especially astronomy). What's that they say: "No rest for the wicked".

Seriously though, this is gonna be something to watch over the next few days. No doubt even more footage and pics are gonna be making their way onto the Intertubes.

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BattleMech in the Russian Revolution wrecks havoc with Australian students!

From the land Down Under, The Age has the following very strange story of historical revisionism and giant robots. From the article...

VCE scores changed over Battle Tech Marauder confusion

February 8, 2013
Jewel Topsfield

One hundred and thirty confused VCE history students had their scores adjusted after an artwork featuring a mysterious robot who appeared to be assisting socialist revolutionaries in 1917 was accidentally used in last year's exam.

The VCE exam body apologised after the doctored version of Storming of the Winter Palace by Nikolai Kochergin formed part of a question about the Russian Revolution in the History: Revolutions exam.

The altered image had been sourced from the internet.

While many students did not notice a giant robot - rather like BattleTech Marauder II – in the background of the artwork, others were distracted by the strange image, suggesting it was anything from a statue of prime minister Alexander Kerensky, who was supported by the Mensheviks, to the battleship Aurora.

A Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority spokesman said that of the 2379 students who answered that question in the exam, 130 or 5.5 per cent, had their scores adjusted due to the robot.

The exam body looked at every student's answer to the question in relation to their marks on the rest of the paper.

Where their score for that question was significantly lower than the projected score, it was adjusted up to the expected range.

The VCAA spokesman said 27 students referred to the robot image in their answer.

Click on the above link to see the original painting as well as a close-up model of a Maurader II BattleMech.

Those students were way off anyway: everyone knows that Alexsandr Kerensky piloted an Atlas BattleMech, not a Maurader II!

(That's all I got.)

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Russian Devolution

In 1917 Russia, the revolution to overthrow the government was started by the Bolsheviks.

In 2012 Russia, the revolution to overthrow the government is being started by Pussy Riot.

I'm telling y'all here and now: our grandchildren's high school history books are going to be something else...

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THREADS: A British movie that will scare the hell out of you

Working on a few things behind the scenes, but felt like posting something tonight. And that's when I discovered that YouTube is hosting Threads.

Sure, why not.

I first saw this movie in July of 1986 but it wasn't until I was in college a long time later that I found out the title. We were visiting family in Florida and playing a game of Monopoly in our motel room with my cousins and we thought we'd put some TV on. It was a PBS station showing... some very dark and gritty film about nuclear war in England.

I was 12 years old. I soon lost all interest in Monopoly and became transfixed to this film. The image of the young woman chewing through her newborn baby's umbilical cord is something that has haunted me to this day.

Threads originally aired on BBC Two in Great Britain in September of 1984. That wasn't very long after the network ABC aired The Day After here in America. If you've seen The Day After, well that's mild compared to Threads. And that's sayin' something. I was 9 when The Day After broadcast and it made darn near everybody watching (which was, well... darn near everybody) turn white with fright.

Threads, however, is a far more gruesome beast.

I'm posting this because Threads is a fascinating example of Cold War cinema. That was a very different time for those of us who grew up during it. We were the last of the children who came up scared about nuclear holocaust breaking out at any moment. And it could have happened...

Why didn't it? I've no doubt that history will remember that communism in Russia, could not sustain itself. Its people wanted to be free. An unsustainable economy failing to provide for a citizenry wanting better is a perfect combination for a government's collapse. We can see that in hindsight perfectly. But at that time...

Well anyway, here it is: from British television in 1984, a horrific yet intriguing relic of a world that nearly was: Threads.

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50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight into space!

Longtime readers of this blog know that one bit of history that I'm particularly fond of is Russian space exploration. Say what one might about the policies of the Soviet government during those early years, I can't help but have huge appreciation for the engineers and pilots who took part in that endeavor. It wasn't politics that drove those men and women: just good ol' human adventure and tenacity.

So that said, The Knight Shift salutes the memory of Yuri Gagarin, who on this day in 1961 became the first human to journey into space... and not only that but became the first person to complete an orbit of the Earth! His flight aboard Vostok 1 would be his only spaceflight. And unfortunately a few years later Gagarin perished during a training flight in a MiG 15. He was only 34 at the time.

I don't look at it in terms of nationalities. I much prefer to see things on a larger scale. Gagarin was the first human to leave the confines of Earth's gravity and atmosphere. And just think: a little more than eight years later, we were walking around on the Moon.

Kinda makes you wonder whatever happened to that kind of gumption.

But on this day, we honor Yuri Gagarin: the first man in space.

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Russia watches American "Self Immolation"

'Tis painfully ironic that these observations are being made in Pravda, of all places. Stanislav Mishin writes...

It can be safely said, that the last time a great nation destroyed itself through its own hubris and economic folly was the early Soviet Union (though in the end the late Soviet Union still died by the economic hand). Now we get the opportunity to watch the Americans do the exact same thing to themselves. The most amazing thing of course, is that they are just repeating the failed mistakes of the past. One would expect their fellow travelers in suicide, the British, to have spoken up by now, but unfortunately for the British, their education system is now even more of a joke than that of the Americans...

(snip)

That brings us to Cap and Trade. Never in the history of humanity has a more idiotic plan been put forward and sold with bigger lies. Energy is the key stone to any and every economy, be it man power, animal power, wood or coal or nuclear. How else does one power industry that makes human life better (unless of course its making the bombs that end that human life, but that's a different topic). Never in history, with the exception of the Japanese self imposed isolation in the 1600s, did a government actively force its people away from economic activity and industry.

Even the Soviets never created such idiocy. The great famine of the late 1920s was caused by quite the opposite, as the Soviets collectivized farms to force peasants off of their land and into the big new factories. Of course this had disastrous results. So one must ask, are the powers that be in Washington and London degenerates or satanically evil? Where is the opposition? Where are the Republicans in America and Tories in England?

Twenty years ago communism collapsed under its own weight and today the people of the former Soviet Union get to watch the same thing happen to the United States, slowly but surely. Those folks know of what they speak probably better than most anyone else on the planet.

There's plenty more harsh truth in the rest of Mishin's essay.

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Neato meteorological special effect: Halo over Moscow

Fear not! The aliens aren't coming (yet anyway) but this luminous halo over western Moscow a few days ago has sparked worldwide curiosity. Many are saying it looks a lot like the arrival of the giant ships from the movie Independence Day. But meteorologists on the scene are reporting that it's merely a very peculiar effect of sunlight shining through the clouds during a convergence of an Arctic air front over the city.

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Skull thought to be Hitler's is actually of a woman

In April of 1945, during the final days of the European theater and with the approaching rumble of Soviet tanks heralding the collapse of his "Thousand Year Reich", Adolf Hitler is said to have committed suicide within his Berlin bunker. His longtime mistress Eva Braun also joined him in death, rather than be captured alive. They took cyanide and then shot themselves. And according to surviving accounts, Hitler's aides took the bodies outside the bunker, doused them with gasoline and set them ablaze: an attempt to ensure that the Soviets could not make a trophy of the Fuhrer's remains.

But a year later, bones and skull fragments with bullet holes were found at the site by Russian forces. They were assumed to be all that was left of Adolf Hitler. The fragments sat in Moscow throughout the Cold War, and only in recent years have they finally come under the scrutiny of modern science.

And now, according to DNA studies... "Hitler's skull" is found to be that of a woman, most likely between the age of 20 and 40.

There's no telling who this skull might be then. My guess is that it might be Braun's, but absent any confirming DNA from possible relatives, there's no way we'll ever know. Just one more mystery then, among the myriad of enigmas, of World War II. But it also adds fuel to the fire about persistent theories that Hitler survived long after the war.

Or, maybe it really is Hitler's skull... and he was actually a woman? I've heard that one in my time too.

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World War II began 70 years ago today

Early on the morning of September 1st, 1939, a squadron of Nazi German Luftwaffe attacked the Polish town of Wieluń. More than twelve hundred people were killed. Minutes later a German battleship opened fire on the military depot at Danzig. In the hours that followed dozens of motorized German divisions stormed into Poland along three fronts.

World War II had begun.

Nothing more to say here, other than to remember history... and a prayer that we may be mindful of lessons that are all too often only paid for at the highest of cost.

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Russia drilling for oil off Florida coast?

"In Russia we drink YOUR milkshake comrade!"

That's the speculation from Investor's Business Daily. In recent days it has come to light that two Russian submarines have been found patrolling off the American coast. And now Russia is signing contracts with Cuba to develop the oil and natural gas fields in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico... which have thus far gone untapped by United States-based industry because of legislation stifling such drilling.

It kinda boggles my mind that distant Russia would be going after petroleum reserves just a few hundred miles away from here. Anyway, it's an intriguing enough read to bring to y'all's attention.

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