Friday: Hili dialogue

December 10, 2021 • 6:30 am

Good morning on another chilly Chicago Friday: December 10, 2021. It’s National Lager Day, the beer that’s like making love in a canoe.

It’s also Festival for the Souls of Dead Whales, Nobel Prize Day, when the Laureates get their medals and certificates in Stockholm, Dewey Decimal System Day, and Human Rights Day (International).

News of the Day:

*CNN reports that, according to a Ukrainian military expert, the number of Russian troops massed at the joint border has risen to 120,000, the equivalent of 8 American divisions. Putin is starting to sound and act much like Hitler before WWII:

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the suggestion that Russia would invade Ukraine as “provocative.”

“Russia is pursuing a peaceful foreign policy. But it has the right to ensure its safety,” he said during a televised news conference on Wednesday, emphasizing the Kremlin’s concern at the prospect of Ukraine one day joining NATO.

As if Ukraine were a threat to Russia!

Putin also declared that he’s just trying to protect Russian-speakers living in Ukraine. That was the same excuse Hitler used to annex the Sudetenland (a German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia) in 1938, and, in part, Austria in the same year.  Is Putin bluffing to keep Ukraine (and Belarus) out of NATO? Who knows?

*The battle at Western Washington University to rename “Huxley College of the Environment” has been won by the woke. Many people fought hard to keep the name, but in the end Huxley was deemed a racist, though, as noted below, Huxley’s “racism” was typical of the time AND he became an abolitionist and was quite liberal and progressive for his era. But his name has been removed. Here’s a tweet from Nick Matzke, one of those who fought for reason:

*Frank Bruni’s column in the NYT yesterday was very strange. Although its title is a standard one for an op-ed: “Democrats’ dangerous appetite for eating their own“.  But after that op-ed, which is reasonable, follows a long list of sentences that Bruni’s recently read and liked, a picture of his dog, a list of what he’s reading, and an ad for his latest book, a memoir. In other words, it’s like this website, but in a single column. Perhaps he’s been posting Andrew-Sullivan-esque essays for a while, but I hadn’t seen them.

Here’s one sentence, though, that I quite liked:

Here’s Michael J. Lewis in The Wall Street Journal on some of the more untraditional proposals for restoring the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, damaged from that 2019 fire: “Is that lovely victim, saved in the nick of time and made whole again, now to be whisked, still groggy, straight from the hospital into the tattoo parlor of contemporary art?” (Jim Lader, Bronxville, N.Y., and Kathleen Hopkins, Oak Park, Ill.)

It totally IS, because, if you read the link, they’re restoring the outside of Notre Dame as it was before the fire, but the inside is getting a radical revision. Oy vey! Or should I say “Ave Maria”?

According to LiveScience, the ancient skeleton of a 25-35 year old man have been found in England, showing that he was crucified in the third or fourth century AD. (h/t: Ginger K.)

A man in Roman England, possibly a slave, died brutally when he was crucified in the third or fourth century A.D., according to the archaeologists who found his remains, including a nail hammered through one of his heel bones:

The man, who died between the ages of 25 and 35, had thinning in his leg bones, indicating that he had been “chained to a wall” for a long time before his crucifixion, said David Ingham, a project manager at Albion Archaeology in England who led the excavation of the remains. “[We] think he was one of [the] local native population.”

During the man’s crucifixion, his arms would have been tied to a cross, with his feet nailed to the ground. This position would have made it hard to breathe, and he would have suffocated, Ingham said. Even for an enslaved person, crucifixion was reserved for “one of the most serious crimes,” such as rebellion or treason against the state, Ingham said.

This discovery is one of just a few examples of a crucified person being found from the Roman Empire, Ingham said. Another example, discovered in 1968, was unearthed in a first-century tomb in Jerusalem.

*Because of the success of transfemale athlete Lia Thomas, breaking record after record in women’s swimming at Penn, the debate about transwomen competing against biological women has resurfaced. Abigail Shrier wrote about that yesterday, and now Michael Shermer weighs in on his Substack column. He uses a more statistical argument based on the degree of overlap in performance curves of males and females, both cis- and trans. His conclusion jibes with Shrier’s:

In the case of Lia Thomas and other MTF trans athletes, we have a conflicting rights issue between the right of biological women to compete against other biological women who fall within the acceptable bell curve range of female performance vs. the right of MTF transgender athletes to compete against biological women. Given that it seems clear from the current evidence that MTF transgender bell curves of performance do not perfectly overlap with those of biological females, we have to make a hard choice between whose rights should prevail. Given the centuries-long history of women fighting to be treated equally and to enjoy the same rights and privileges as men, including and especially the hard-won Title IX laws that protect women’s sports, it seems clear to me that we should and must continue to support the rights of biological women unless and until scientific research and athletic performance evaluations make it crystal clear that the two bell curves perfectly overlap, and/or until there are enough transgender athletes to comprise their own athletic divisions.

*Brian Leiter directs us to a disgruntled eater’s long description of the worst meal he ever had in a Michelin-starred restaurant. (The place is in Italy.) What a debacle! If you’re a foodie, prepare to be horrified:

That is how I’ve come to regard our dinner at Bros, Lecce’s only Michelin-starred restaurant, as a means of preserving what’s left of my sanity. It wasn’t dinner. It was just dinner theater.

No, scratch that. Because dinner was not involved. I mean—dinner played a role, the same way Godot played a role in Beckett’s eponymous play. The entire evening was about it, and guess what? IT NEVER SHOWED.

So no, we can’t call it dinner theater. Instead, we will say it was just theater.

Very, very expensive theater.

*Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 793,227, an increase of 1,281 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 5,305,715, an increase of about 7,700 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on December 10 includes:

Here’s the papal bull that Luther torched. Luther’s name is on the first page because it was an attack on him.

The Queen was only 20, and it’s likely she did canoodle with either or both men. Here’s a letter she wrote to Culpepper (as someone once told me, “if you’re doing stuff like this, don’t put anything in writing.”)

  • 1684 – Isaac Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley.
  • 1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.

A first edition of the Encyclopedia, published in three volumes, will run you about $30,000:

  • 1799 – France adopts the metre as its official unit of length.
  • 1896 – Alfred Jarry‘s Ubu Roi premieres in Paris. A riot breaks out at the end of the performance.

The play mocked all social conventions, ergo the riot. As Wikipedia notes:

The first word of the play (“merdre”, the French word for “shit”, with an extra “r”) may have been part of the reason for the response to the play in Paris. At the end of the performance a riot broke out, an incident which has since become “a stock element of Jarry biographia”. After this, Ubu Roi was outlawed from the stage, and Jarry moved it to a puppet theatre.

Here’s the program for the first (and last) performance:

A photo with the caption, “John Hay, Secretary of State, signing the memorandum of ratification on behalf of the United States.”

  • 1901 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
  • 1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize in any field.

As the Nobel Organization says:

Theodore Roosevelt, President of the USA, received the Peace Prize for having negotiated peace in the Russo-Japanese war in 1904-5. He also resolved a dispute with Mexico by resorting to arbitration as recommended by the peace movement.

  • 1907 – The worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1,000 medical students, protesting against the existence of a memorial for animals that have been vivisected, clash with 400 police officers.

Here’s the memorial to vivisected dogs, which stood in London from 1906-1910, after which it was removed (was the dog a racist?) and destroyed:

BUT, there’s a new Brown Dog statue by Nicola Hicks:

Here’s Lagerlöf (left) with her long-time companion Sophie Elkan (Wikipedia says they were likely to have been lesbians, but could not reveal that in that era):

Here it is:

  • 1949 – Chinese Civil War: The People’s Liberation Army begins its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China, forcing President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan.
  • 1953 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Nobel Committee says this:

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1953 was awarded to Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

Am I right in thinking that Churchill was the only Prime Minister to ever receive a Nobel Prize?

Notables born on this day include:

Garrison, America’s most famous antebellum abolitionist:

  • 1815 – Ada Lovelace, English mathematician and computer scientist (d. 1852)

She’s now well known for her work. Here’s one of the few pictures of her:

(from Wikipedia): Ada Lovelace aka Augusta Ada Byron-1843 or 1850 a rare daguerreotype by Antoine Claudet. Picture taken in his studio probably near Regents Park in London
  • 1909 – Hermes Pan, American dancer and choreographer (d. 1990)

Pan was a terrific choreographer, and worked with Fred Astaire on 17 of the 31 films in which Astaire danced. Here they are around 1937 working out a dance routine. It’s complicated! (Pan is of course to the right.)

  • 1913 – Ray Nance, American trumpeter, violinist, and singer (d. 1976)
  • 1956 – Rod Blagojevich, American lawyer and politician, 40th Governor of Illinois
  • 1975 – Emmanuelle Chriqui, Canadian actress

Chriqui, born of Moroccan Jewish parents, is the Canadian equivalent of Sarah Silverman: Every Jewish boy’s dream girl:

Those who passed away on December 10 include:

The Prizes grew out of Nobel’s guilt for having invented dynamite, which gave him the reputation of a “war profiteer.”

Hooker, with a scraggly beard and formidable eyebrows, was Charles Darwin’s closest friend, both personal and scientific. He served as a sounding board for Darwin’s ideas and, together with Charles Lyell, brokered the joint publication of Darwin’s and Wallace’s papers in 1858. Hooker also advised Darwin on drafts of The Origin:

  • 1946 – Walter Johnson, American baseball player, manager, and sportscaster (b. 1887)
  • 1967 – Otis Redding, American singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1941)

Redding’s most famous song is of course “Dock of the Bay”, but I like this one better, here performed live in 1967. (The song was written in 1932.) This is a fantastic performance.

  • 1999 – Rick Danko, Canadian singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer (b. 1943)

Gone too soon, one of the three members of The Band who are no longer with us:

  • 2005 – Eugene McCarthy, American poet, academic, and politician (b. 1916)
  • 2006 – Augusto Pinochet, Chilean general and dictator, 30th President of Chile (b. 1915)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the housebound cats are obsessed with noms. Look at their sad and disappointed faces!

A: What are you doing?
Hili: We are pondering the lack of bowls.
A: They are in the sink.
Szaron: That’s not where they belong.
In Russian:
Ja: Co robicie?
Hili: Kontemplujemy brak miseczek.
Ja: Są w zlewie.
Szaron: To nie jest ich miejsce.

From David:

A Louis Wain rendition of Christmas cats:

From Bruce, clearly describing me (when I buy just a few items, like three, I always carry them in my hands; but then I always find at least one more thing to buy):

Titania hasn’t tweeted since November 21, and I’m wondering if her creator has gotten tired of it. Anyway, here’s a lazy seal from Barry, but if it were really lazy, it wouldn’t have to keep raising its nose out of the water to breathe.

From Gravelinspector, a screenshot of a tweet. I’d be surprised if the tweet were still up!

A tweet from Ginger K. Look at the expression on that moggy’s face!

A tweet from the Auschwitz Memorial, and reminder that more than just Jews were killed en masse by the Nazis:

Tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, feeding hippos. The whole thread is wonderful so long as you don’t fret about the great beasts being confined in a zoo. Sound up.

Words failed me when I read this wedding announcement:

The photobomber is great!

45 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Lester Pearson, Prime Minister of Canada, won the Nobel Prize in 1957 for his role in resolving the Suez Crisis.
    So that’s at least one other prize winning PM.

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    1. If we count executive presidents who fulfilled roughly the same role as a British prim minister, both Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter have won the Peace prize. Also Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk.

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    3. Peace Prize doesn’t count, like being elected Prom Queen today. Maybe it once did. But Obama? Right after being elected? He hadn’t even run Bin Laden to ground yet. Maybe the American people should have received the Prize for electing him, ‘Kay…

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  2. Here’s a letter she wrote to Culpepper (as someone once told me, “if you’re doing stuff like this, don’t put anything in writing.”)

    I know that guy. Stringer Bell:

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  3. Here’s Lagerlöf (left) with her long-time companion Sophie Elkan (Wikipedia says they were likely to have been lesbians, but could not reveal that in that era).

    Mebbe so. But Alice B. Toklas took up with Gertie in Paris a year or two before Lagerlöf won her Nobel Lit Prize. And it wasn’t much later that Virginia Woolf had her affair of the heart with Vita Sackville-West.

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  4. Otis also sang “Try a Little Tenderness” during his big breakthrough performance before white rock’n’roll audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. He was dead six months later in a plane accident. “(Sitting on) the Dock of the Bay” was recorded three days before his death and released posthumously.

    Mr. Redding is my favorite soul singer of all time. Still, I gotta admit, one of my favorite versions of “Try a Little Tenderness” was done, Otis-style, by a pick-up band of Irish kids in Alan Parker’s 1991 film The Commitments:

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    2. I am often caught out on the age of some songs that were recorded in the 50s and 60s. Just this week I learned that “Try a Little Tenderness” was written in 1932, and recorded by Bing Crosby in 1933. The contrast is notable, almost as if you heard your grandma singing “Afternoon Delight.” (And The Commitments is a great movie. I need to watch it again.)

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      2. I came across Bing Crosby’s “Try a Little Tenderness” about a week ago, too, but, for the life of me, I can’t remember how I wound up there.

        Growing up, I always thought of Crosby as the world’s squarest guy. Then, a few years ago, someone turned me on to some sessions he did in the 1920s with Bix Beiderbecke. Damned if, in his youth, Der Bingle wasn’t a hepcat.

        Plus, Bing plainly loved performing with Pops.

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        1. Pretty sure I came across Crosby’s “Try a Little Tenderness” while watching the bio-miniseries Sinatra: All or Nothing at All.

          Trying to remember that was driving me nuts.

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      3. The first “hit” release was by Frank Sinatra in 1945, and his performance made the song a standard. The lyrics are awkward and even boorish – at least as the sung was originally sung. They smack of male “take a tip from me” condescension: When women get weary (and “women do get weary”), just give them a little pat and say “good girl” now and then. If you say a few nice things to them they’ll be eating out of your hand. It’s what they live for, you know (“love is their whole happiness”). In early recordings, it’s hard to get by this, and that may be one reason why the song never really made it big until 1945.

        Sinatra saw (heard?) something in the song that no one before him had. Without changing the lyrics, he made the song into a ballad of delicacy and sympathy, by adding the one thing earlier versions typically lacked: actual tenderness.

        “Tenderness” was one of Sinatra’s favorite songs (and among musicians Sinatra performances of “Tenderness” are very highly regarded). He sang it regularly for the rest of his career and it was often a show-stopper in his concerts. He included the song on his last recorded ballad set at Capitol with Nelson Riddle (the 1960 LP Nice ‘n’ Easy). In his 1971 “farewell” concert he chose 11 songs from the thousands he’d performed over the years; at the time the last 11 songs anyone expected they would ever hear him perform. One of them was “Tenderness.” It was the only song performed that night with no orchestral accompaniment; just a guitar. He chose the song (one of 10) for his 1973 White House concert (that effectively ended his 1971 “retirement”).

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      1. The band’s manager, Jimmy Rabbitte, broke it down for them why the Irish had what it takes to sing soul, while showing them a video of James Brown 🙂 :

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    5. Otis died at age 26. The mind boggles at what he might have accomplished in the next few years. He was on the cusp of breaking through to the mass white audience with his most atypical recording, “Dock of the Bay.” What other directions would he have taken? He left behind enough material to craft three excellent postjumous albums from—The Immortal Otis Redding, Love Man, and Tell the Truth—and had already proven himself one of the most charismatic performers around. His Live in Europe is one of the greatest live albums ever made. I consider Otis’s death even more tragic than those of Joplin or Hendrix, because he had less time and his life was cut short at the cruelest possible moment.

      Reply

  5. I wonder if anyone will put up a memorial to Fauci’s Beagles?

    They really need to find more places to sign treaties; I count eleven Treaties of Paris in the nineteenth-century alone.

    Jen Psaki has denied that Biden intends to pressure Ukraine to “cede land to Russia as a way to deter them from invading.” Given this Administration’s history of denials (vaccine mandates, American’s stranded in Afghanistan, immigration, dog bites man, etc., etc.), I think Ukraine should be worried. Get ready for Peace in Our Time.

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    1. Heck, if you are looking for peace with Russia, just put the puppet back in there with Moscow Mitch. Would be a regular love fest. They could have a corruption conference down at the laundry mat.

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  7. ”Am I right in thinking that Churchill was the only Prime Minister to ever receive a Nobel Prize?”

    UK Prime Minister, maybe, but several heads of state and so on, some with the equivalent job in another language, have received the peace prize. Willy Brandt comes to mind.

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  8. My understanding is that Jehovah’s Witnesses, unlike Jews, were not systematically murdered in Nazi concentration camps and that the JW leadership was treated rather well, although under the severe conditions of imprisonment many followers died. The sin of JW was its pacifism, not theology. The Seventh Day Adventists, under pressure, renounced pacifism, and Hitler allowed the church to continue to operate pretty much as usual.

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    1. Hardly pacifism – the then JW leader tried to make a pact with the Nazi regime, declaring JW’s support for the policy on Jews, and it then threw the followers under the bus when the regime didn’t want to play.

      If I can find the video containing the text of the letter together with the consequences I will post it – sadly, it is some time since I watched it so it could be difficult to find. The letter is equally difficult to find: the JW online library likes to avoid digitising things they would like their followers to forget, but printed copies of the relevent JW publications still exist.

      Edit – Around the 28 minute mark of this video:

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    1. I wonder if anyone actually tried the recommended chili enema?! You’d think that they would get the joke, but then some people are taking ivermectin for Covid…

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      1. If they are daft enough to be wanting rid of the vaccine then I can see them trying it, Quora does have something of a reputation for reliability (and the reply has a *lot* of upvotes).

        It paints a picture that will take some time to leave me :~D

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        1. Hell, in the process of simply chopping the peppers up, one could easily end up with *brutal* eye irritation, skin reactions, etc. – don’t ask how I know! The seeds have the capsacin, I am pretty sure… I wonder if habanero or ghost pepper could land one in the emergency room?!

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  10. The Michelin-starred meal from hell is a funny enough story but it now has gotten even better. The chef has taken offense at the review and produced a manifesto which he demands be published in its entirety (as manifesto writers are wont to do). It gives his theory of the culinary arts that has to be read to be believed. It features a painting of a man on a horse in an attempt to explain art.

    Chef responds to account of Michelin-starred dining experience from Hell
    https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/drop-doing-read-michelin-starred-165800330.html

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  11. Ooh ooh! Let’s have everyone tell us about their worst Michelin-rated dining experience!

    Mine was at Per Se in NYC. That place has three Michelin Stars. The plates for every course, including the entree, were just teeny tiny things you could eat in two to four bites. The food itself was middling, and I’ve had better at numerous other restaurants. The staff was not nearly as helpful as staff I’ve had at many other places. For a place with even one Michelin star, Per Se didn’t even come close to being worthwhile, for the price or any other reason beyond saying, “we dined at Per Se last night.” It was probably the most disappointing meal I’ve ever had, considering the anticipation.

    Anyone else want to go?

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    1. So you didn’t have a fine dining experience, per se?

      I am unlikely to ever eat at a Michelin starred restaurant. I don’t like tiny portions, and I find it difficult to enjoy a meal when it costs me a couple days’ pay.

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    2. Cannot, but want to say :

      Those portions are so small, they’d be room temperature before the first bite was done.

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    3. And speaking of bad dining experiences, it’s good to see in the hippo feeding video that someone has found a use for silver beet.

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    4. Ask me about the dreadful meal I had at the French Laundry some day, a meal so bad that my friend and I wrote a joint complaint to Thomas Keller. No reply ensued. So we wrote again. Crickets. I believe I dropped around $500 on that meal, and I wasn’t even full at the end. And the wine pairings were dreadful.

      Reply

      1. Restaurants that get such notoriety were probably good once but the continued adulation allows them to degrade without penalty. If you hear of one, go immediately. If you are unable to, don’t go at all. This is probably a theory with a name that has its own Wikipedia page. If not, it should.

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  12. Putin also declared that he’s just trying to protect Russian-speakers living in Ukraine. hat was the same excuse Hitler used to annex the Sudetenland…

    That’s a bit of an alarmist comparison. Putin said exactly the same thing before he took over Crimea from the Ukraine a few years ago, and extrapolating Putin’s future behavior from Putin’s similar past behavior is probably on much solider grounds than extrapolating Putin’s future behavior from Hitler’s similar past behavior.

    So I don’t think he’s bluffing. I’d take this as indication he plans on invading and taking control of eastern Ukraine (which is bad, and we should strongly oppose it). But Hitler, he ain’t.

    [Shermer] it seems clear to me that we should and must continue to support the rights of biological women…

    While I agree with his analysis, this is exactly the sort of ham-fisted or foot-in-mouth, us-vs-them style conclusion that causes problems. We can and should support the rights of BOTH trans and non-trans women at the same time.

    We do that by creating an “Open” category so that trans women aren’t forced to compete in Men’s events. Designating it as a Men’s event is a clear social rejection of the the notion that their gender matters. Make the Open category open to all women, not just trans women. Most (non-trans women) will probably choose to continue to compete in the sex-based women’s events, but some may do both and some may just choose to compete in the Opens. This will demonstrate and support the social acceptance of trans women as women.

    This is not an either-or choice, it’s a both-win opportunity, if we choose to take it. Do I think all trans people will be happy with my proposed solution? Of course not. No solution ever makes everyone happy. But I think it’s a way to improve trans rights and social acceptance while at the same time maintaining the title IX and other programs intended to break down the barriers historically faced by women. It’s some progress without significant cost to anyone. Which IMO is much better than saying well we can’t come up with a perfect solution that satisfies everyone, so let’s not change anything at all.

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  14. Ukraine is a strategic threat to Russia, as Putin well knows. Moscow lies only 300 miles from the Ukraine border and could be reached in less than 15 minutes by hypersonic missiles launched from Ukraine. Ukraine’s government is furiously negotiating with the US for advanced weapons to use against Russia and with Europe in a effort to join NATO.

    Crimea is Russia since the 18th Century. It’s population is 60%-70% ethnic Russian and even more speak Russian in their homes. The peninsula was an integral part of Russia until 1954 when the USSR mysteriously transferred it to SS-Ukraine just as Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, came to power. Facts, so far as known, appear at Wikipedia. The Soviet Union and later Russia, under leasing agreements, continued to run a naval base and anchor its Black Sea fleet there. However, in 2012 Ukraine’s duly elected, Moscow-friendly president was overthrown by a suspicious uprising centered in the western, election-losing part of the country. In 2014 Russia (which effectively controlled Crimea from its leased military bases) oversaw a plebiscite in which the citizens of Crimea voted by a large majority (96% in favor, with an 83% turnout) to return to Russian rule. Voting was monitored by (unofficial) NGOs and European state MP’s who judged the plebiscite free and fair. Only Trump could complain.

    Crimea houses Russia’s only major Naval base on the Black Sea (the Russian coast along its NE rim is largely inaccessible because of mountains and lacks good harbors). Were Ukraine to take over Crimea, it would almost certainly lease the bases to the US, and the Black Sea would essentially become property of the US and NATO.

    My hypothesis is that Ukraine and its investor allies from the West have manufactured a crisis in the hopes of 1) sucking in the US via public opinion into helping it regain control over the oil and gas riches of rebel-held eastern Ukraine (and crush local people who overwhelmingly sided with Russia) and 2) obtain control over naval bases in Crimea and lease them to NATO and US, denying Russia access to the Black Sea. Most of the Russian “buildup” (the satellite images that appear almost daily in newspapers) is in a city in western Russia near the Belarus border about midway between Moscow and Minsk and `150 miles from Ukraine.. True, were Ukraine to invade Crimea or the Donetsk People’s Republic, Russian forces would be at Ukraine on short order.

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  15. Yikes, let’s hope that the age of Cullen and Johnson preclude them from having kids. Could you imagine the horrors?

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