Open thread 3/7/22
Yes, Glenn Gould was strange. This clip shows his habit of singing along as he played the piano:
Continue reading →neo
Then and now
I wrote a draft for a huge post focusing on Ukraine’s history and on NATO. It’s probably going to be a two-parter. Instead of racing to get the first part up here for the weekend, I’ve decided to postpone that … Continue reading →
Reflections on Zelenskyy’s Jewishness
I was very surprised, when Zelenskyy was elected, to learn that he was Jewish. The first surprise was that there were any Jews left in Ukraine at all, given the history of Jews there. The second was that the Ukrainians … Continue reading →
Jordan Peterson and Frederick Kagan talk about Ukraine
Worth watching:
Continue reading →Roundup time
(1) From someone who knew Putin as a young KGB operative, some reflections (hat tip: David Foster of Chicago Boyz). The piece supports my conviction that Putin has been deeply upset at the Soviet breakup for a long time, and … Continue reading →
Open thread 3/5/22
He had an extra couple of gears, didn’t he?
Continue reading →Putin isn’t Hitler, but he sure seems to have studied his playbook
Commenter Geoffrey Britain writes to commenter “om” as follows: “Your understanding of Putin is incomplete because you refuse to consider Russia’s view of NATO upon its border as intolerable.” Actually, though, I think that just about everyone here has “considered” … Continue reading →
Death sentence reinstated for Boston marathon bomber Tsarnaev
Here’s the story: In its 6-3 ruling, the high court rejected arguments by Tsarnaev’s lawyers that his trial judge erred in barring certain questions to prospective jurors, and in blocking evidence of his brother Tamerlan’s role in a prior triple … Continue reading →
War and fog of war: nuclear plant captured? What’s next?
The fog of war has been unusually thick lately. I may have the order incorrect, but first we had a report of an attack on the large Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, then that it had been captured by the … Continue reading →
Open thread 3/4/22
You may have noticed…
…that I haven’t made many specific predictions about what will happen in the war in Ukraine, or about details such as bombings and casualties and the like. I leave that to others, and there’s plenty of it to go around … Continue reading →
The “NATO is at fault” argument is absurd: what does Russia want?
A lot of people on the right, both on this blog and elsewhere, are arguing that Putin did what he did in Ukraine because of NATO’s “expansion” towards his borders. I’ve been arguing otherwise for quite some time, mounting similar … Continue reading →