DL Open Thread Tuesday February 22nd 2022
Putin’s pretext for invading Ukraine is every bit as flimsy and based on ego as our pretext for invading Iraq in 2003.
President Vladimir Putin railed against Ukraine in a televised address on Monday, saying that neo-Nazis were on the rise, oligarchic clans were rife and that the ex-Soviet country was a U.S. colony with a puppet regime.He described eastern Ukraine as ancient Russian lands and modern Ukraine as a state created by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution. He said that Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood and complained that post-Soviet Ukraine had wanted everything it could from Moscow without doing anything in return.
Meanwhile back in the US of A…
More contagious version of the Omicron variant spreading in US
Scientists are keeping close watch on the BA.2 strain of the Omicron variant that has quietly spread throughout the United States.
BA.2 has now been detected in more than 30 states,
#Worldle #32 3/6 (100%)
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https://worldle.teuteuf.fr
After taking some time to heal her shin splints, Briana DeSanctis is back on the American Discovery Trail in her quest to be the first solo women to complete the series of connected trails, walking paths and roads that span more than 5,000 miles from Cape Henlopen to Point Reyes National Seashore in California.
West Virginia’s Dolly Sods Wilderness Area is unique in that it resembles the Canadian tundra. It can snow here during any month of the year. This raised plateau provides panoramic vistas of the Allegheny Mountains. From Bear Rocks the ADT passes Red Creek Campground before crossing Dolly Sods.
I think the Iraq/Ukraine connection is flimsy at best. Putin has a clear purpose and goals. Post 9/11, Bush was surrounded by a chorus of generals, beltway types, and citizens hungry for blood demanding that he “do something”. We bumbled into war, and spent the next 2 decades trying to reverse engineer our reasoning. The old chant of no blood for oil flattens really just how dumb that fiasco really was.
In contrast, Putin has a clear goal. He will continue to use Ukraine and it’s people as a human shield while demonstrating the impotence of nato. Whether or. Or is a good plan is hard for me to say, but. It’s more of a plan than 2003
So Putin is more competent than Bush. Not a high bar. Still, the “why?” is murky and idiosyncratic, and I don’t see a lot of long term end game thinking by either war monger.
Vladimir is rebuilding the iron curtain and demonstrating that he can act without consequence.
There is a great reshuffling of the world order and he is staking a claim.
Putin wants soft-on-Russia Republicans in power in the US. If Putin can disrupt energy markets and raise gas/oil price in the US, which an invasion and sanctions will accomplish, he will virtually guarantee Republican wins in 2022 and 2024. Just like he did in 2016.
No doubt. Ratfucking US elections has been very profitable for him.
Man who pointed a gun toward protesters outside Lauren Witzke rally last year sentenced. A 61-year-old man who drew a gun from his holster and pointed it at people protesting a Lauren Witzke rally in 2020 was sentenced to four years in prison, the Delaware Department of Justice said.
I wonder that the protester who had the gun pointed at him thinks about the sentence?
I was one of those. I have mixed feelings, thanks for asking
I knew it was you. Maybe we can get you to elaborate on your mixed feelings sometime.
Listen the podcast next week.
“A 61-year-old man who drew a gun from his holster and pointed it at people protesting a Lauren Witzke rally in 2020 was sentenced to four years in prison”. Holy Crap! A stiff sentence! Had it been for the Jan.6th insurrection it would have been four months and time off to go on vacation.