Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,
Hili: Again the same as always?
A: And that means?
Hili: Planning subsequent steps.
Hili: Znowu to samo co zawsze?
Ja: To znaczy?
Hili: Planowanie kolejnych kroków.
Tweets:
Good morning from Ukraine 🇺🇦
— Illia Ponomarenko (@IAPonomarenko) March 2, 2022
We’re still standing!
Some African dogs having fun
Special escort down to the gate on my way to the airport 😭.
— Chris Manatee🌿🐘🌱🐀🇺🇸 (@Sea__Cow) March 1, 2022
(These young guys burst out of the bush and onto the road already running as we were driving by and could have re-entered the bush at any time.)#TIA pic.twitter.com/kqF1X4Agor
A duckling
no words just look pic.twitter.com/NfRe5pdqKu
— Roxy (@RoxyTall) March 2, 2022
A mystery
Did u know?The overly-long & elegant antennae on this moth are a mystery 2 me. 1 of my students told me that males wiggle them 2 attract females. My books haven’t revealed their function. In the meantime,let’s just enjoy this beautiful creature 4 its mysterious grace. #MHHSBD pic.twitter.com/LrwG3Z49ik
— Cath HODSMAN, Insect Art (@CathHodsman) March 2, 2022
The duck is in fact between Manchester and Salford, on the River Irwell that marks the boundary between the two cities.
Mancunian Duck. pic.twitter.com/eahKS5Yadv
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) March 1, 2022
Two examples of autotomy:
Here’s one I found in Italy pic.twitter.com/U3IWnuJalc
— Mr C (@timeislife100) March 1, 2022
And to close, an excellent Jewish joke via Simon:
Press interviews #Ukraine President Zelensky’s mother.
— Barry Tigay, Ph.D. (@TigayBarry) February 27, 2022
Press: Mrs. Zelensky, the whole world admires your son Volodymyr for his bravery and leadership. You must be very proud.
Mrs. Zelensky: My other son is a doctor.
The first video clip more likely than not shows two hyenas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyena), and not African wild dogs. The sloping back (forelegs longer than hind), heavy build, especially the head, and gait is typical. Probably Spotted Hyena Crocuta Crocuta.
African wild dogs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wild_dog), Lycaon pictus, are more slender and nimble with more pronounced colouring, big ears. A Youtube clip here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teCVVHAWcwg shows interaction between the two species.
An interesting video nonetheless – why were the animals running alongside the vehicle? Almost like domestic dogs would do…
As soon as I saw them I thought Hyena’s too. There rear ends certainly do look like a Hyena rather than a dog.
Yes, clearly spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) aka. laughing hyena, I concur 100%, without a shred of a doubt.
They might have been gals though, it is nearly impossible to tell guys from gals in spotted hyenas, unless very close up (not recommended). As to why, that is another story, and there are some, if not conflicting, at least non-identical, hypotheses about that.
Looked like they were also racing each other or sport.
Yes, when one stopped the other wanted to keep going so the race continued.
I wonder if, despite their understandable struggle, the Ukrainians are not just letting Putin destroy their state pointlessly as the Russians surely will win with their overwhelming power? Would it not have been better to let them in THEN attack? Or some other strategy? Putin showed in Chechnya he does not care about civilians.
I admire your confidence. I think they’re in for another Afghanistan.
In fact, in the broader sense, Russia has already lost. They’ve united the rest of Europe. Countries are queueing up to join NATO and, in some cases increasing their defence spending. Russia is now suffering crippling sanctions – well, even more crippling than the previous ones. The Russian army has been shown to be much weaker than most people thought.
Putin may eventually end up controlling Ukraine (probably at the cost of an ongoing body count amongst his troops) but his global political objectives are shattered.
I don’t know where this will go, eventually. But to Dom’s point, it is an idea worth having that if the Ukrainians just let Russia move in and install a puppet government, then the Ukrainians can revolt against it. But I can see where that would back-fire. There would be a dissolution of the former Ukrainian military, and dammit the world would care less, they would probably mobilize fewer sanctions, and have fewer means to arm the Ukrainian rebels.
Who doesn’t root for the “plucky” underdog? They’re playing to the world, while Putin’s starring in his own scripted movie.
The American far right wing, including the recent America First PAC conference (attended by Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, and other Republican luminaries) at which chants for Putin and Russia emanated from the stage and echoed through the hall and Tucker Carlson, whose pro-Putin clips have been used for propaganda purposes on RT (Russia’s state-controlled international television network).
I’m not remotely an expert, but it looks to me like Putin has made a huge mistake.
In addition to all his other problems, like nearly the entire rest of the world actively against him and NATO pulling together like never before, he has revealed the Russian military for the world to see. And it isn’t pretty.
I keep reading articles and comments that try to rationalize why what we’ve seen so far of the Russian military isn’t nearly as bad as it actually looks. For example, Russia sent in their least effective troops first and are holding their better troops in reserve, and just you wait till they send them in.
What? No. That’s ludicrous. No, I think what we are seeing, as far as competence and equipment condition, is all that Russia has. It is true that Russia has more devastating weapons than what they’ve used so far, for example nukes, but their military is not the overwhelmingly capable force that the world feared it was.
Where are the T-14 Armata next generation uber-tanks, and all the other cutting edge technology uber-weapons that Russia has continuously talked up over the past decade or more? They don’t exist, that’s where. Not as field ready weapons systems anyway. Very likely even the prototypes (in cases where there even are prototypes) don’t have near the performance claimed. For that matter, where is the Russian air force? If the Russian air force were the machine the Russians would have the rest of the world think it is, Ukraine would be on it’s knees and even the conscript ground troops we’ve seen so far would be capable of wiping up the Ukrainian forces with that kind of air support. The US and it’s allies managed to completely dominate the skies over Iraq within days, and maintain it, in a theater thousands of miles away from home and yet the vaunted Russian air force has not managed to do so in Ukraine, which is right next door.
I think what we are seeing is that the Russian military is a shambles. That it’s been rotting for decades. That the Russian government has been pulling a con on the rest of the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Russian military leadership has been pulling a con on Putin about their effectiveness and readiness. I wouldn’t be surprised if billions of dollars (or rubles, rather) that were budgeted for the military have ended up in some few oligarchs pockets.
Another thing to consider is that Russia’s GDP is considerably less than Italy’s, considerably less than half of Germany’s and less than the US state of New York. What kind of military capability does that suggest? How long can an invasion force like Russia has mobilized be kept in the field fighting with a budget commensurate with a GDP of that size?
Putin has screwed up and backed himself into a corner that is very likely to result in his death sooner rather than later. He’s already lost in Ukraine, in that he will never achieve his goal. He’s never going to win. Not even if he decides to try to lay waste to Ukraine, not even if he decides to try and use nukes.
If I were a malicious and sociopathic dictator trying to overthrow a neighboring country and install a puppet government, I would not use my fancy schmancy heavy weapons in heavily populated cities. I would try very hard to not break the infrastructure too much since I would have to help re-build it to get what I wanted in the first place.
I see this argument a lot lately, but it doesn’t sound convincing at all. First off, the Russians have used plenty of heavy weapons, right from the get go. Main Battle Tanks (MBT) and artillery are about as heavy as it gets on the ground. The vaunted T-14 is also an MBT. A cutting edge one that is supposed to be nigh indestructible. The reason they aren’t using it is because they don’t have any to use.
Most of the other advanced weapon systems that Russia has propagandized about are absolutely weapons that any reasonably competent military leader would have used to attempt to invade and take over a country with as little damage to infrastructure as possible. Just like the US and its allies did in Iraq. Modern high tech weapon systems are not about maximizing destruction. They are about using the minimum necessary by precisely hitting the intended target.
Note that in Desert Storm the US used it’s newest, cutting edge stealth fighter/bomber, the F-117, extensively from the very first mission. There were 2 reasons. 1, because it could deliver precision laser guided bombs to precisely hit targets and thereby limit collateral damage rather than use the older tactic of area bombing. This capability was not unique to the F-117 though. 2, was it’s stealth capability. That was unique to the F-117 and it was so effective that after the first couple of missions to Baghdad composed of a variety of aircraft (standard doctrine at the time) they changed to sending only F-117’s.
So, if Russia’s goal is to take control of Ukrainian cities while minimizing destruction then where is the vaunted, cutting edge stealth, Su-57 dropping precision munitions precisely on targets?
Not using these fancy high tech weapon systems in such a scenario reveals either severe incompetence or that you don’t actually have such weapons.
There’s analysis of “Russia’s missing air force” from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) here: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/mysterious-case-missing-russian-air-force
The theory goes that if you are a Russian commander in charge of diesel supplies, you’ve been selling it to the local farmers for years and, of course, you’re not going to admit to your superiors that you haven’t got all the diesel you’re supposed to. So, when it’s needed, it’s just not there.
I read somewhere Russia described as “A petrol station with a flag on top” seems accurate as I cannot name a successful Russian motor vehicle, television, cell phone, domestic appliance, the list goes on. The most successful of their aircraft was designed and built in Ukraine. Where does the money come from discounting oil and gas. With such a small GDP how does it all work?
I think those African “dogs” are spotted hyenas.
Yes, see comment 1.
Not for nothing was Putin raised as a Soviet. This is right out of the Popular Front playbook: “Russia to host ‘First International Antifascist Conference’ to fight Nazism”. I wonder if BLM will attend?
Doubtful. I think it’s much more likely that some US Republican politicians, and perhaps some US white nationalists, would attend. Marjorie Taylor Greene comes to mind.
Iraq, a country that we invaded had far more anti aircraft weapons than Ukraine. Therefore, Russia could use its air power to simply hit targets with little regard. In Iraq our strategy was much different and several days were used to attack and knock out the air defense.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/air-defence-equipment.htm
I think it is ironic (well, that may not be the right term, but at least remarkable) that a comparatively small country, where NATO cannot intervene, is actually not just defending itself, but NATO and the West too.
The bloodier the nose Putin gets in Ukraine, the less likely he will be to attack NATO countries such as the Baltics. We all owe Ukraine and it’s people.
Will he resort to tactical nukes? I don’t think so, but then I was wrong he would not invade Ukraine proper, just Luhansk, Donetsk and surrounding areas (I thought).
Note that these ‘thermobaric’, ‘FAE’ or ‘vacuum’ bombs are about as destructive as tactical nukes.
Lovely yellow duckling in the tweet!