For those who may have followed yesterday's drama about a policeman (actually sheriff's officer) shooting into a car that refused to dim its headlights, the story plays out today:
The Chinese Immigration Act, which we posted about earlier, and which banned Chinese immigrants from entering Canada, save for a few exceptions, came into effect.
A Rin Tin Tin movie was released.
After 117 days at sea on a life raft, following the sinking of their yacht, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were rescued by the South Korean fishing vessel Weolmi.
A solar eclipse was seen over most of Africa, lasting over four minutes. An equally long one will not be seen until June 25, 2150.
Iraqi Defense Minister Gen. Hammad Shihab was wounded at a banquet by those in the government who had invited him. The Minister of Defense, Hammad Shihab, was killed in the same coup attempt.
Vasyl Velychkovsky, age 70, Ukrainian Catholic Priest who had been imprisoned for 13 years, died one year after being allowed to immigrate to Canada due to injuries sustained as a prisoner. He has since been beatified.
The House of Commons passed a bill authorizing women to divorce on the grounds of infidelity without having to prove desertion.
The Craven Holding Company purchased Pepsi Cola's trademark and trade secret information out of bankruptcy.
Bryce Canyon National Park, designated a U.S. national monument by President Harding.
Metis leader Ambroise-Dydime Lépine, who had been sentenced to death due to his role in the Red River Rebellion, but whose sentence had been commuted to five years in exile, died at age 83. He is buried next to his co-rebel, Metis Louis Riel, at the St. Boniface Cathedral in Winnipeg.
Older America.
The median age of Americans is now 38.8, a figure brought up from last decade's 37.2 due to the obvious advance in aging of the Baby Boomers and the decline in the birth rate.
This is not a surprise, nor a disaster, contrary to how it seems to be sometimes portrayed. The median will obviously advance into the 40s shortly.
This brings up this next item, from the Adam Smith blog:
Older World
Fertility rates and the conflict with the liberal vision
That headline wouldn't seem to make sense at first, but it actually does in context.
One of the things that people are wringing their hands about is the declining birth rate all over the world.
This brings up piles of incorrect analysis and ignored facts. In the short term, by which we mean very short term, you can find plenty of pundits, often of the environmentalist inclination, still giving Malthusian warnings that we're about to breed ourselves into oblivion. In fact, the data shows that in most regions of the glob, the trend is reversing, and in some very much reversed.
Which brings up the next example of hand wringing. Conservatives at first, but now liberals as well, are worried about the demographic death of entire societies. Some countries are now at the point where they're doing something that hasn't been done for eons, which is to take official measures to encourage couples to have children.
The Adam Smith institution isn't worked about it. They state:
This past century has included glorious events - the economic liberation of women for one. The result of that freedom and liberty is fewer children. Oh well, that’s just what humans want to do with their freedom and liberty.
It’s therefore the politics that needs to change, nothing else. For the people have spoken in their most intimate acts and decisions.
It might well be true that some don’t like that aggregate result, the society that results from freedom. But bully for the complaint, not the acts.
And there's a lot to that statement.
Frankly, almost all the angst over declining birth rates is misplaced. Some of it isn't, but much of it is. We're about to enter an era in which there will be much reduced employment in advanced societies, for one thing. Another is that frankly, societies with smaller populations are much nicer to live in, something that politicians in the US don't seem to grasp. Lots of countries passed the level in which they were really nice to live in some time ago, including for that matter much of the US. An overall declining population reverses that.
And it doesn't cause economic disaster, as so often predicted.
At any rate, no matter how a person feels about it, what Adam Smith notes is in fact the case. Reversing the trend at the present time is darned near impossible. I think it will reverse, or stabilize, but not during my lifetime. Probably when, for example, Europe reaches an overall population below 200,000,000, and North America's is about the same. That's quite a ways off.
I'm not commenting, I'd note, on the moral aspects of this, which is in fact an aspect of it. But in an era in the West, at least, that large sections of the population can no longer actually tell what is naturally male and female, and we're back to the era in which "science" supports a societal movement that's wrong, much like it once did with Eugenics, race science, and many other now despised movements of the past that claimed scientific basis, we're probably not going to see much progress in this area, whatever progress would mean.
Speaking of a country with a declining population, and a tradition of baby bonuses, we have Russia, which gives us this. . .
Field Wife
Not really a surprise.
As with all things Russian military, pretty horrific, but with long-standing precedence in the Russian military.
We have a long paused thread on women in armed forces which will be unpopular, but we'd start off with this. Mistreatment of women in any military is very common. The conditions are prefect for it.
They're also perfect for giving rise to temptations that are hard to address and are embarrassing to address when they arise. The U.S. Armed Forces have been working on this for decades, presenting it mostly as a male abuser on female victim situation, which is large true, but it wasn't all that long ago that the Marines had to come in and order female Marines to quit posting nude photos of themselves on line, such as a photo of a group of female Marines stationed in the Middle East running on a beach naked. Everyone knows where this is going.
Suffice it to say, the circumstances of military life. In spite of ongoing American hagiography about servicemen, Kipling's 1890 poem Tommy remains just as true for U.S. troops on some things, including this:
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
This doesn't excuse the conduct, but eradicating it would require eradicating the situation, which we're not going to do.
And we aren't the Russians. The Russians aren't going to do any such thing with their military.
The recent war in Ukraine has shown, to a very large degree, that the Russian Army is the Red Army, and the Red Army was an overrated armed gang for parts of its history, and just overrated when that wasn't true. It was an armed gang in the immediate post Civil War period, and certainly during the Second War. Its aura of greatness was heavily impacted by Soviet propaganda. In reality, rape was a common thing once it crossed out of Soviet territory and the taking of "field wives" very common. So much so that it was a major source of domestic strife in the post-war Soviet Union, as men's actual wives knew that their husbands had engaged in both behaviors.
Believing that your enemy is impressive is wise, but in realty, the Red Army was not all that good in the Cold War, and the Russian Army isn't now.
We'll get back around to the Russian Army momentarily. Sticking with our current theme. . .
Exploitation suit dismissed.
I was going to report on this headline some time ago.
Olivia Hussey, then 15 and now 71, and Leonard Whiting, then 16 now 72, filed the suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging sexual abuse, sexual harassment and fraud.
This in regard to their nude scenes in Romeo & Juliet.
They basically alleged that they were told that nudity they posed for would not actually be shown, when Hussey's breasts briefly were, and Whiting's butt was as well, and that they suffered years of shame as a result. The suit sought punitive damages for an act which was illegal, at the time, under California's law, but which obviously nobody did anything about at the time. They were asking for $100 million in punitive damages, but theoretically could receive more than $500 million to match what the film has earned since 1968, apparently.
If you are wondering how this could be brought now, California temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for older claims of child sexual abuse, which expired at the end of 2022.
This is an interesting development for a number of reasons.
One is that the nude scenes were noted at the time, but obviously, nothing was done about it. Indeed, while the scenes noted above are the ones that have been picked up by the press, Hussey's also had at least one scene in which she rolls over while inclined, exposing her full bare back and rear. At least one poster for the movie depicts an illustration of a nude Hussey on a nude Whiting, although you can't see the generally forbidden features.
This film isn't really unique in this regard. A little later, but not much, a genuinely shocking scene was included in 1976's Ode To Bobby Joe, which is an overall horrifically bad film, but which had some popularity at the time. The whole film is incredibly stupid, but it also features a nearly nude scene. The actors were in fact in their majority when it was filmed, but they're portraying, at least in the case of the female lead, underage teenagers. It's really pretty sick overall.
And recently, because of her bringing it back up, the public has had the opportunity to ponder the films Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon. Ick.
If nothing else tells us something about the moral depravity of the late 60s and the entire 1970s.
Anyhow, I don't know much about Whiting, but Hussey went on to be a famous actress, somewhat discrediting the claim that they subsequently lost roles. Indeed, given the moral climate of the late 60s and entire 70s, I doubt it. Her career actually goes back to 1964, at which time she was very clearly still a child, and she was cast as the Virgin Mary in 1977, when she still would have been quite young. Interesting, FWIW, her age in Romeo & Juliet would have been closer to what Mary's is speculated to have been at the time of the birth of Jesus, but the point is that her reputation hadn't been so tarnished as to keep her from getting the role of the most significant of all the female saints.
Oddly, FWIW, my high school English teacher, who later was arrested and convicted on what we might call a morals charge, didn't like her portrayal of the Virgin Mary, but did like the portrayal in Romeo & Juliet, in part due to his perception that her depictions in both were juvenile.
I haven't seen Jesus of Nazareth, that latter film, and I've only seen part of Romeo & Juliet. I don't like Romeo & Juliet, the play, as it strikes me as boring and juvenile, and the parts of the movie I've seen, years ago, struck me as boring at the time.
Hussey also portrayed, Mother Teresa in a 2003 television movie,
Anyway, I feel they were exploited, if they brought their suit to address it a bit late. The California judge did not, stating that they, "have not put forth any authority showing the film here can be deemed to be sufficiently sexually suggestive as a matter of law to be held to be conclusively illegal.”
Too bad, in my view.
Maybe just bringing it to light, however, served an overall good purpose.
Let's go back to topics Slavic.
Where's the offensive?
In much of the Northern Hemisphere, it's late Spring, and we were expecting a Ukrainian offensive.
Well, maybe we'll get one, or maybe not (we probably will), but what seems to be the case is that spring came late to Ukraine, and everything is really muddy. Therefore, the Rasputitia is still ongoing.
The Ukrainians, in the meantime, are using the time, it appears, to their training and logistical advantage.
Without getting into it too deeply, the Ukrainians also seem to have managed to cause the Russians to fight a 2023 version of the Battle of Khe Sanh.
Speaking of things with a long past. . .
Charles the Third, by the Grace of God King of Canada and His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.’
Canada has changed the honorifics for the King, or Queen.
The late Queen was known as ‘Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
Changing the titles of people in this fashion says something. And in this case, not something good.
Last prior edition:
Canada banned Chinese from entering the country unless they were diplomats, children born in Canada, merchants, or university students.
The law was repealed in 1946. Between 1923 and 1946 only 15 Chinese immigrants were accepted into Canada. The effect of the law, which precluded familiar ties and lead to an imbalance of genders, resulted in a decrease in the Chinese population in Canada.
On the same day, this baseball game was played in Toronto's Bayside Park.
Hitler, on the rise, delivered this speech in Munich attacking war reparations, something obligated by the Versailles Treaty, and also urging rearmament.
I continue to be amazed by how the Tribune, in 1923, routinely issued headlines that were largely irrelevant locally.
Cannabis was added to the Canadian list of prohibited narcotics.
Banning marijuana was part of the spirit of the times, just like liberalizing marijuana laws are part of ours. This act in Canada nationalized a ban long before this was done in the United States.
Hyeongpyeongsa was organized in Korea by merchants and social leaders with the goal of eliminating the Korean caste system. At that time, Korea had a class of untouchables known as Baekjeong.
Poland opened up the Port of Gdynia on the Baltic in order to attempt to avoid the labor problems the country had been having in Danzig.
Women appeared in Turkish film for the first time.
Kodak introduced 16mm film.
Delaware authorized the Delaware State Police.
Hoover helped break ground for a model house.
CN police, RCMP investigating Monday train robbery in Brocklehurst
Mar 28, 2023 | 1:36 PM
KAMLOOPS — Kamloops RCMP are assisting CN Rail police as they investigate a train robbery.
Spokesperson Cpl. Crystal Evelyn says RCMP were called just after 7:00 a.m. Monday (March 27). The incident took place at the junction of Tranquille Road and Ord Road in Brocklehurst.
It’s not known what was taken.
CFJC Today.
It’s not known what was taken.
Eh?
Canada and the United States signed the Convention for the Preservation of Halibut Fishery of the Northern Pacific Ocean, referred to commonly as the "Halibut Treaty". It was the first treaty Canada signed without involving the United Kingdom. The environmental treaty was a pioneering treat regulating the fishing of halibut.
Halibut are just about the tastiest fish ever.
But, in reality, Monday through Friday I'll be in my office.
On the same day, German Chancellor Cuno told the Reichstag, smarting over the Belgian and French (the Belgian part is typically forgotten) armed occupation of the Ruhr, that Germany would not negotiate with the French directly, but only through an intermediary.
While the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr is now nearly universally condemned, it should be recalled that the two Francophone countries had seen substantial armed occupation at the hands of a non-repentant Germany, which in both instances had killed civilians in ways that would foreshadow the Second World War. Had the French simply remained in the Ruhr, it might be recalled, or enforced their treaty rights at the time that the Germans under Hitler reoccupied it, the Second World War would not have occurred.
British Prime Minister Bonar Law, for his part, was being pressured on the same day to form a more definitive stance to the situation.
The Egyptian Feminist Union (الاتحاد النسائي المصري), was founded at the home of Egyptian activist Huda Sha'arawi.
تأسس الاتحاد النسائي المصري في منزل الناشطة المصرية هدى شعراوي.
It still exists.
Five Irish soldiers were killed by a Republican booby trap at Baranarigh Wood in Kerry. The following day a bloody reprisal was carried out by the Free State against nine IRA prisoners.
Pilots of the United States Army Air Corps posed for this photograph:
We're only on to Feb 1 and already on to the second edition of this thread for 2023.
The reason is simple enough, the last version is already so long that certain features, such as the spell check, aren't working for new entries. It's easier and more convenient to put up a second edition.
The big news remains, of course, the war in Ukraine. Now a year old, the drama saw an anticipated Russian walk over turn into a monumentally expensive military disaster, with the Russians suffering battlefield defeats and being pushed out of much of what they'd taken in the first weeks of the war.
Right now, the battlefield is nearly static, recalling the long stretches of World War One where neither side had the ability to defeat the other. What seems to be really going on, however, is that the Russians have taken a page out of the Soviet Union's playbook and have been buying time with bodies, sending in convicts and conscripts to soak up Ukrainian munitions while they build towards a resumed offensive which is expected to start soon.
The Ukrainians know this, and are trying to prepare for it. Part of that preparation is the acquisition of modern Western heavy weapons, which have not yet been provided to them. Western military analysts have been critical of the West for this, but frankly, early in the war nobody saw the Ukrainians being in the position they now are in.
So a race is on, in which the West scrambles to provide modern main battle tanks, and Ukraine asks for any new system, including F-16s, which it thinks it can get and needs, against a Russian build up based on lessons learned and a larger army.
What should be clear is this. Putin cannot negotiate, at least not unless he fears a disaster that will remove him from office completely. Ukraine cannot give in. It's easy to figure out what a Russian victory would be, but harder to figure out how Ukraine can force a battlefield conclusion.
Having said that, Ukraine might be able to push Russia out of Ukraine entirely, and if I were their strategist, which I'm not, advance across the frontier to the western bank of the Don, which would give the country some security and perhaps something to cause a coup in Russia. But if they are going to do so, they'll have to achieve that in the next several months as it fights a country whose population has 100,000,000 more souls than it does.
Slava Ukraini.
February 1, 2023, continued:
An announcement from the Canadian government:
Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Prime Minister expressed Canada’s ongoing solidarity with the Ukrainian people as they continue to fight Russia’s brutal invasion while facing Russian strikes on civilian targets. The two leaders discussed Ukraine’s military, humanitarian, and financial needs, as well as the recent announcements of significant new support to Ukraine. They also spoke about how Canada and like-minded partners could continue working together to meet Ukraine’s needs due to Russia’s ongoing illegal and unprovoked invasion.
The Prime Minister and the President talked about the upcoming somber anniversary of Russia’s invasion on February 24, and the Prime Minister reaffirmed Canada’s support for Ukraine for as long as it takes. Prime Minister Trudeau welcomed President Zelenskyy’s diplomatic efforts toward a just peace, and the two leaders discussed ongoing engagement with the Global South.
The leaders agreed to remain in close and regular contact.
Canada recently announced it would send four Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, out of an inventory of 112, of which 82 are the combat model and the rest an engineering model.
A couple of things.
The Canadian Army doesn't have a lot of tanks, but its only really likely to need its tanks if Ukraine goes down in defeat and Russia turns its gaze on other territory it once ruled. Regarding Leopard 2 tanks in general, the British paper the Guardian notes:
There are over 2,300 Leopard 2 tanks available or in storage in 13 Nato countries, according to the IISS, whereas there are only 227 Challenger 2 tanks in the British entire army.
2,300.
The Ukrainians are basically asking for about 300, or at least 100.
There's plenty of them around, although some countries, the Guardian notes, have let theirs deteriorate to such a state they're pretty much unusable. Spain is in that category.
The US has 2,300 M60s in storage. They're not being used at all. A lot of them are probably not serviceable, but a lot of them could be made serviceable.
Also, Justin Trudeau came into office with a pledge to withdraw Canadian forces from their commitments in the Middle East. This isn't the Middle East, and of course the United States made a dog's breakfast out of its withdrawal from Afghanistan about two years ago. But it's interesting how events tend to dictate what countries do, as opposed to countries opting how events will proceed.
Canada, FWIW, has a pretty large Ukrainian Canadian population, that being people of Ukrainian heritage. It's estimated to number 1,359,655 people.
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February 2, 2023
Israel-Hamas
Israeli aircraft hit Hamas targets in Gaza following a rocket attack.
Russo-Ukrainian War
Careful watchers of the Op Ed page might note that there's been a growing theme in the last couple of weeks of defeatist "Ukraine can never win" type of opinions being published by pundits. Boiled down, the general gist of them is 1) yes the Ukrainians have managed to hold off the Russians so far, but the Russians have an infinite capacity to absorb losses and 2) they're going to ultimately win through sheer attrition and 3) therefore, NATO support is just prolonging the suffering.
Probably all of these commentators have been against NATO support for Ukraine since the onset, for different reasons. Some are likely America Firsters, others highly fiscally conservative, and some probably Russian sympathizers. The message, however, is all the same, and this will keep up for a while in anticipation of the oncoming Russian offensive.
Historically, it might be worth remembering that the "lesson of history" that "Russia always prevails" is not supported much by actual examples. If we go back a bit, the opposite seems to be the case.
Russia lost the Crimean War, which lead to an unsuccessful effort to modernize the Russian state. It also lost the Russo-Japanese War. It also lost against the Germans in World War One, leading to a complete collapse of the Russian government and revolution, replacing the existing regime with a democratic one which was in turn replaced by a Communist one.
It was on the winning side, of course, in World War Two, but its victory in that war has been so heavily mythologized that it became misunderstood. In reality, the USSR started off as a German ally, taking part of Poland and the Baltic States, but being fought to a standstill by the much smaller nation of Finland. Its status changed in 1941 when it was attacked by Nazi Germany, but it was not able to arrest German progress without massive American and British aid. Had the Western Allies chosen to ignore the Soviet Union, which they really could not have, it's not really known what would have occurred. Lenin bargained away Poland, Belorussia and Ukraine to the Germans in 1917 in order to retain control of Russia itself, and it may well have done the same in World War Two but for Allied assistance. Germany's land lust was vast, but it never intended to take all of Russia and in fact it never occupied very much of it, most of its success being in the lands just mentioned. Moreover, the Soviets were able to rely upon the Belorussians and Ukrainians, for the most part, to fight against the Germans. People the USSR regarded as non-Russian nationalities made up to 45% of the Red Army, with Ukrainians making up over 60% of the Red Army on the Ukrainian Fronts. Jewish soldiers in the Red Army, regarded as a separate nationality, were more likely to be decorated for combat than Russians.
Looked at that way, the current war is the first time the Russians have fought a war in which their army has been more or less ethnically homogeneous since the Russian Civil War. Moreover, the actual history of Russian wars is that the Russians can endure a long war and then collapse into revolution. The Crimean War saw Cossack revolts. The Russo Japanese War led to the 1905 revolution. World War one lead to the complete collapse of the Russian state.
Ukraine can win, but it has to be given the means to do so, and very soon. If Ukraine could be adequately armed this month, and that is what it may take, the oncoming Russian spring offensive could end up a disaster. When Russian armies experience collapse, which they never did during World War Two, it usually leads to a downfall in the Kremlin.
February 3, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War.
Ukraine is reporting that Putin has ordered the Russian forces to capture Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by March 2023.
The particularly concerning thing about this is that it's very doubtful that new armor will be deployed in Ukraine by the time of the Russian offensive.
Russians have been seeking passports in mass numbers. Russia has suspended issuing them, and now Russians are seeking foreign passports.
China
China has been overflying the United States with a spy balloon. The US pondered shooting it down, but concluded its intelligence gathering abilities are limited, and it would be more dangerous as a falling object.
Yesterday it was over Montana.
February 4, 2023
China
A second Chinese spy balloon has been spotted, this one headed for an overflight of South America.
Secretary of State Blinken cancelled an intended visit to China over this.
Frankly, there's no good reason for the US not to have shot this down over southern Canada, if Canada would have allowed for it to happen, or for the Canadians to do it. Likewise, while it was over Wyoming or Montana, it should have been shot down. The junk it's carrying would have hit nothing.
Russia
The US is seeking to expel the Wagner Group from Sudan and Libya.
Feb 4, cont.
China v. US.
Perhaps for the first time since World War One, a US aircraft has shot down a balloon.
February 6, 2023
China v. US.
The Administration has announced that it was discovered that the Chinese flew spy balloons over the US during the Trump administration, but apparently they were not detected at the time. The revelation was dismissed by Trump as "fake disinformation". The Biden Administration offered to brief the Trumpites.
At any rate, the news that the Chinese have been able to pull this off over the past several years undetected is not good news.
Additionally, with the past week or so a U.S. Air Force general has stated that he's fairly certain there will be a war between the United States and China over the defense of Taiwan. Interestingly this has been a sort of Republican rallying point even though some sections of the GOP are willing to abandon Ukraine. While perhaps not obvious to everyone, a Ukrainian victory would perhaps serve to delay that, and delay might serve to prevent it.
As for the balloon itself, there is speculation that this was an intentional provaction designed to demonstrate that the US couldn't react, and would do so ineffectively. If so, it probably partially succeeded in demonstrating that, given as the US was so slow to shoot it down.
February 9, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War.
Ukraine's president, asking for more arms for the country yesterday, also asked for admission to the European Union.
February 11, 2023
China v. US and Canada
Two more balloons have now been shot down, one over norther Alaska and one over British Columbia. The US shot them both down, the latter via a Canadian request.
The balloons have not been affirmatively identfied as Chinese, but seeing as China is a 19th Century imperial power and balloons a 19th Century surveillance aircraft, it seems likely.
China has become a full blown menace. Where this is headed seems fairly obvious.
February 12, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War.
There are suddenly a lot of voices coming out of Russia suggesting that it won't be able to launch its anticipated spring offensive due, in part, to manpower losses.
Russia has been taking combat losses like crazy the past couple of weeks, and while its made slight gains, they've been very slight and are comiing at a huge cost.
Ukraine has destroyed a Russian BMPT Terminator in combat. The much vaunted autonomous combat vehicle was overblown to start with and unlikely to amount much, as has been the case with all prior attempts to deploy weapons of this type.
Lithuanian supplied Bofors L70 anti-aircraft guns have arrived in Ukraine. Ukraine itself is presssing for Western fighter aircraft.
February 12, cont:
And now another object shot down, this one over Lake Huron.
February 13, 2023
China v. US and Canada
The Aerodrome: Why Canada didn't shoot down the "unidentified" ob...: An excellent thread on NORAD and the strategic considerations that went into it and the modern RCAF: Why didn't Canada shoot down the o...
One of the things he points out in this post is that the F-22, which Canada does not have, is one of the few aircraft capable of performing in the fighter role at such a high altitude.
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It's been pointed out ot me by a highly knowledgable person that the reason we may be picking up so many of these now is that NORAD has adjusted its radar screening to pick these up. The Congressman made the same point. We have traditionally been looking for Soviet or Chinese ICBMs and Soviet aircraft, not slow moving balloons.
Finally, a commentator made the point that we may call these balloons, but they're really drones.
On a goofball level, lots of people are launching speculation on whether they indicate an alien invasion, meaning alien from outspace as opposed to alien from another country.
I also saw somebody quote Noam Chomsky, to the effect that government and elites need to keep people distracted in order to carry out their agenda. Frankly, I don't know why anyone quotes Chomsky on anything whatsoever, other than linquistics. Feeling that the government and elites in this country are so coordinated that they have a plan to keep us distracted while they do whatever deeply evil nepharious, and right wing, plot against the working me of the 1930s is crediting everyone with a lot more organization and foresight than they deserve. Anyhow, that person thought the whole thing was a false flag operation.
Get a grip.
Russo Ukrainian War.
The Institute for the Study of War credits Russia with a real information false flag, in the form of media propoganda designed to suggest back in December that they were ready for peace talks, when they were not. This, the Institute maintains, delayed the supplying of armor to Ukraine.
There's no reason whatsoever to believe at this point that the Russians are aiming for anything else than the complete defeat of Ukraine.
February 14, 2023
Russia v. Moldova
Moldova has revealed a Russian plot, first revealed by Ukraine last week, to destabilize the small country and bring it into the Russian orbit.
Moldova is an independent country because of Russia, but not in the way a person might at first imagine. It was part of the Russian Empire after 1812 and then declared independence in 1918, and then joined Romania later that same year. The country is essentially Romanian. The Soviet Union took the territory back in 1940 which was a principal cause of Romania joining Operation Barbarossa the following year. Following the Axis defeat, the USSR took it back, but it left again after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
That Russia continues to covet it is interesting. This appears to be at least partially in reaction to Moldova's efforts to move closer to the EU in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
February 16, 2023
British defense estimates figure that the Russians have potentially committed 97% of their Army to combat in Ukraine and have now sustained so many casualties that they no longer can engage in a sustained offensive.
If this is correct, and its a big if, it would likely mean the anticiapted spring offensive is not coming, and beyond that, the Russians might not be able to mount a sustained defense against a Ukrainian offensive.
February 17, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War.
Russians have put in excess of 6,000 Ukrainian children through reducation camps.
Marina Yankina, a Russian defense official whose role in the current war was with finance, fell, supposedly, from a 16 story building to her death.
Hmmm. . . .
China v. US and Canada
The Aerodrome: Failed Balloon Run: It's now known that the U.S. Air Force did attempt to shoot down the Chinese balloon over Montana, using the F-22's cannons as the i...
February 18, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War.
The Wagner Group has sustained 30,000 casualties fighting in Ukraine.
Parts of the Belorussian defense industry are being taken over by Russia.
February 19, 2023
United States v. ISIS
February 20, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Analysts increasingly believe that Russia is in its Spring offensive, but that it has adopted a World War One attrition style strategy where it simply throws men at the Ukrainians knowing that they are expending ammunition, and lives themselves, resisting them. The strategy isn't to be rapid, but simply cause Ukraine to hemorrhage.
Ukraine is aware of this, which is why it is begging for modern weapons with which to launch its own more mobile offensive.
Russia has committed 97% of its army to combat at its strategy is not without risk. It's performance has been abysmal and its using up its human resources.
Some, however, believe that the slowness of the Russian advance reflects wartime attrition, and that the Russians are actually deploying per doctrine, but without much armor.
China appears ready to start supplying Russia with weapons. The US is warning China not to do so. There's some speculation that China hopes to prolong the war as it does not wish to see Russia fail, and it wants the US to use up its weapons stockpile so that it has nothing with which to aid Taiwan in the (highly likely) event that China attempts to invade Taiwan.
President Biden is in Kyiv.
February 22, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Vladimir Putin suspended the START Treaty regarding nuclear weapons, the irony being that a country whose conventional weapons have been shown to be ineffective, and which is using them up at a prodigious rate, can hardly afford to engage in a nuclear arms race.
Putin did this in an epic length speech on the anniversary of the war he launched on his neighbor. The speech was telling as he claims that he's not waging a war on the Ukrainians themselves. This raises the question of to what extent Putin might actually be delusional.
NPR released an excellent edition of its podcast State of Ukraine on the one-year anniversary of the war.
Ukrainian newspapers have broken the news that they have a secret Russian document outlining Russian plans to absorb Byelorussia by 2030.
February 23, 2023
China v. United States and Canada
The Aerodrome: United States releases Chinese Balloon photograph ...:
Russia v. Moldova
Vladimir Putin renounced his 2012 guarantee of Moldova's territorial integrity.
February 24, 2023
Russia v. Ukraine, Byelorussia and Moldova
The UN passed a resolution calling for Russia to leave Ukraine.
Russian troops dressed in Ukrainian uniforms have been moved near Russia's border with Byelorussia in what appears likely to be staging for a false flag attack on that country, in an effort to expand the war.
Russia also appears to be staging for a false flag operation in Transnistria, the Russian enclave/breakaway region of Moldova. The area houses one of the world's largest prestaged arms and ammunition stockpiles.
All of this suggests that Russia is set to attempt to expand, not contract, the war.
Prior Related Threads:
The game was between the Toronto St. Patrick's, now the Maple Leafs, against the Ottawa Senators, which is now defunct. Toronto won 6 to 4.
CFCA would only broadcast for ten years before going out of business.
French authorities seized 85,000,000 Marks from the city hall treasury of Gelsenkirchen, and 17,000,000 from the railway station, in retaliation for the city's refusal to pay 100,000,000 Marks due to the wounding of two French officers in clashes with the police.
Louis-Alexandre Taschereau retained his position as Premier of Quebec, as he would all the way through 1936.
Taschereau was a member of the Liberal Party (Parti libéral du Québec) and had been elected in 1920 as the Canadian economy started to sink, in advance, into the Great Depression. He was an opponent of Roosevelt's new Deal, comparing it to fascism and communism, and instead encouraged private enterprise to develop Quebec's forest and hydroelectric potential. As he did so, his policies challenged Québécois agrarianism, which would begin to lead to its end.
And therefore, I am not a fan.
That may sound silly, but agrarianism is what allowed the Québécois to remain that. Their agrarian separation and close association with the Catholic Church is what allowed them to remain a people for two centuries of "English" domination.
Taschereau was not a disloyal Francophone or Catholic, but by attacking the agrarian nature of Québécois society he was by default attacking its essence in favor of money. Ultimately that attack would succeed, leading to the downfall of Québécois agrarianism and ultimately to the undercutting of the culture itself. It remains, of course, but badly damaged by the experience.
For the first time in history, a National Hockey League match concluded with no penalties having been imposed. The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Hamilton Tigers, 5 to 4.
Hockey, unlike football, is not boring.
Italy required public school students to start using the extended arm fascist salute, claimed to have been derived from Rome, but with little historical support for the proposition.
The general gesture was in vogue at the time, having been popularized in the United States as the Bellamy Salute. It's co-opting by fascism, forever associated it with fascist movements.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt Jr., occupying the position that his father had leading up to the Spanish American War, and his cousin had during World War One, addressed the midyear graduating class of the Peter Force School, a school he had attended during his father's occupancy of the office. The class planted a Lombardy Poplar in memory of Quentin Roosevelt, aviator, who had died in action in World War One.
The school had been founded in 1879 and was named for a former Washington, D.C. mayor. Many children of important personages attended the school, including the late Quentin Roosevelt and Charles Taft, the son of President Taft.
The school would not have a much longer run. It was abandoned in 1939 and demolished in 1962 in order to make way for the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.
As it was Saturday, the Saturday Evening Post hit the stands. On this occasion it had an illustration of children playing music, probably loudly but badly, by Alan Foster.
For some reason, uploaded versions of period illustrations from the Saturday newsstands are a lot harder to find after late 1922 for a while. Probably the drama of the war and the comparative lack of drama of the early 20s was the reason. The Country Gentleman hit the stands with an excellent illustration of Independence Hall. Judge had a fascinating, nearly photo realistic painting of flappers in a club.
The Canadian Northern Railway and the Canadian Government Railways merged into the Canadian National Railway. The merger of the CNR and the CGR was forced by the government due to the financial failure of the CNR, although at one time the railroad had steamships as well as trains.
The CNN is one of the world's great railways, spanning all of Canada and the Eastern United States.
You'll note that the creation of this system is either an application of the American System of economics, albeit in Canada, or of Socialism. At one time the nationalization of railroads was not the controvery it would be now.
The French arrested twenty-one German mine operators for failure to cooperate in the occupation, and Essen's banks all voluntarily closed.
The London Daily Mirror ran this cartoon:
At one time, I assumed that the entire globe had the same Catholic Holy Days of Obligation, but this is not true. No, not at all.
The United States has the following:
