Oscar Fight Night
I used to watch the Oscars every year for the fashions. That was fun. And I even liked some of the movies. Then it became way too annoying to watch the Oscars. I didn’t care for the new movies themselves, … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Violence
Siege
Here’s a report from the besieged city of Mariupol. It’s harrowing. A companion piece to that is here: Former UK veterans affairs minister Johnny Mercer, an erstwhile artillery officer who did three tours in Afghanistan, visited Kyiv/Kiev, and
Continue reading →Russia’s Ukraine war will probably spark nuclear proliferation
It’s hard to conclude otherwise. It seems to me quite obvious that if Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons, Russia would not have attacked it. Or at the very least, Russia would have been far more reluctant to have attacked … Continue reading →
Putin: on bringing nukes to a conventional war fight
One of the reasons for the urgency of the Manhattan Project during World War II was the fear that if the US didn’t develop a nuclear weapon, Germany would. However close or however far Germany may actually have been from … Continue reading →
A very brief history: Ukraine and Russia, plus NATO and nuclear weapons
I’m going to respond to this recent comment, not in order to especially pick on its author, but because I think it’s an example of the type of thought process and the sorts of analogies we see quite a bit … 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 →
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 →
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 →
Reading Putin’s mind
[NOTE: I don’t usually post on Sundays, but so much is happening that I thought I’d just put up a brief one and start a new thread that way. So here it is.] Wish I was a mind reader, but … Continue reading →
Random thoughts on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
(1) For sanctions to work, they should not necessarily be considered a deterrence or a punishment. I suppose they would be a deterrence if the leader or leaders involved could be deterred that easily, but that sort of leader isn’t … Continue reading →
“Once I built a railroad” – The Bonus Army and the On-to Ottawa Trek
What went on in this country post-January 6th, and what’s going on in Canada now, have historical precedents not just in repressive dictatorships but even in the US and Canada. It seems that the authorities are always frightened of demonstrations … Continue reading →
Police on horseback against the truckers in Canada
Well, one thing is settled – sufficient numbers of police in Canada are cooperating with the arrests of the demonstrators, and so it is being accomplished. For a populist movement like that of the truckers to succeed, it either has … Continue reading →