Welcome to Sunday, November 24, 2024, and National Sardines Day, a day of celebrating a fish I abhor and (can you believe it?) is often put on pizza, for crying out loud. Well, here is some information about this odious fish:
Sardines (“pilchards”) are a nutrient-rich, small, oily fish widely consumed by humans and as forage fish by larger fish species, seabirds and marine mammals. Sardines are a source of omega-3 fatty acids. Sardines are often served in cans, but can also be eaten grilled, pickled, or smoked when fresh.
The term sardine was first used in English during the early 15th century, and may come from the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which sardines were once abundant.
For your delectation (not mine): “pickled sardines at a market on the Spanish island of Majorca”. I was likely at this market, but don’t remember sardines.
It’s also National Carménère Day (a red wine that can be excellent), D. B. Cooper Day, celebrating the miscreant described below, who absconded from a flying plane on this day in 1971, and Mother Goose Parade Day, held annually on the Sunday before Thanksgiving in El Cajon, California.
D. B. Cooper, also known as Dan Cooper, was an unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 aircraft, in United States airspace on November 24, 1971. During the flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, Cooper told a flight attendant he had a bomb, demanded $200,000 in ransom (equivalent to approximately $1,500,000 in 2024) and four parachutes upon landing in Seattle. After releasing the passengers in Seattle, Cooper instructed the flight crew to refuel the aircraft and begin a second flight to Mexico City, with a refueling stop in Reno, Nevada. About thirty minutes after taking off from Seattle, Cooper opened the aircraft’s aft door, deployed the staircase, and parachuted into the night over southwestern Washington. Cooper’s true identity and whereabouts have never been determined conclusively.
And scenes of Mother Goose Parades from the past:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 24 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*From the Torygraph: Trump’s cabinet so far:
Scott Bessent, a hedge-fund billionaire and Trump loyalist, has been nominated for the Treasury Secretary, while Lori Chavez-DeRemer. a first term Representative who just lost her House set, has been tapped as the future Secretary of Labor. My kishkes are roiling already.
*The NYT asks us, “Israel is not an ICC [International Criminal Court] member. How can the court prosecute Israeli leaders?” (article archived here)
Why does the court claim jurisdiction in the case?
More than 120 countries have joined an international treaty, the Rome Statute, and are members of the court. The court, based in The Hague, in the Netherlands, was created more than two decades ago to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and the crime of aggression.
The court has accused Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant of using starvation as a weapon of war, among other charges, in the conflict with Hamas in Gaza. And it accused Muhammad Deif, a key plotter of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel, of crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, sexual violence and hostage taking.
Powerful countries, including Russia, the United States and China, do not recognize the authority of the court. They have not ratified the Rome Statute, do not honor international warrants issued by the court and would not turn over their own citizens for prosecution.
Has the court sought to prosecute members from nonmember countries?
Yes. Russia is not a member of the court, but in 2023 it issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, over Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is not yet a member but granted the court jurisdiction and invited it to investigate. Ukraine is on track to become a member of the court in 2025.
The court also issued arrest warrants for Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan, and Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the former leader of Libya. Neither country is a member of the court.
In 2017, the court’s prosecutor began to investigate allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, including any that might have been committed by Americans. In response, Washington imposed sanctions on and revoked the visa of Fatou Bensouda, the court’s chief prosecutor at the time. The court later dropped its investigation.
Can the court enforce arrest warrants?
While the court’s reach may be virtually universal in theory, its power is ultimately in the hands of its members.
The court cannot try in absentia those accused of crimes and has no mechanism to make defendants stand trial. It relies on member states to act as enforcers and to detain suspects before they can stand trial in The Hague. Not all member states, however, abide by the agreement.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary said on Friday that he had invited Mr. Netanyahu to visit his country, which is a member of the court, and that he would overlook his formal obligation to act on the court’s arrest warrant.
In September, Mr. Putin visited Mongolia, another member, without being arrested.
It remains to be seen what will happen with Netanyahu and Gallant. The entire EU and Great Britain, for example, have said they’ll arrest these guys if they set foot on their land. But, as you see, some countries overlook the mandates and others may have sworn to obey them but then neglect them. After all, the evidence that Netanyahu and Gallant have committed “crimes against” humanity is nil.
*Over at the Weekly Dish, Andrew Sullivan takes Biden to task for increasing the chances of WWIII by allowing U.S. missiles to be fired at Russia from Ukraine.
There was something truly surreal about President Biden suddenly changing course and agreeing to give Ukraine advanced long-range missiles to attack deep inside Russian territory in the last two months of his administration. There was no speech to the nation; no debate in the Senate; just a quiet demonstration of unilateral presidential fuck-you power. You know: the kind we’ve long worried about with Donald Trump. The missiles up the ante considerably against a nuclear power for a simple reason. As Putin noted:
experts are well aware, and the Russian side has repeatedly emphasized this, that it is it is impossible to use such weapons without the direct involvement of military specialists of the countries producing such weapons.
The tiny tsar continued:
We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities. And in case of escalation of aggressive actions we will respond also decisively and mirrored.
And he looked on edge, bedraggled and belligerent, his arms and hands not moving a millimeter in what sure looks like AI.
There was a time when a NATO missile strike on Russian territory, followed by a Russian threat to attack NATO “military facilities” in response, would have caused the world to stop dead, paralyzed by the fear of nuclear armageddon. Yet here we are, blithely preoccupied by Pete Hegseth’s sexual exploitsand Congressional bathrooms.
Others are not so sanguine. “I believe that in 2024 we can absolutely believe that the Third World War has begun,” Ukraine’s former military chief, Valery Zaluzhny, warned yesterday, noting both the new involvement of NATO troops and the involvement of North Korea. Our own president, having brought us much closer to the brink as a lame duck, seemed unconcerned. He was last seen wandering off-stage in the vague direction of the Brazilian rainforest. Not optimal.
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, was even punchier, and pledged to allow Ukraine to use British long-range missiles as well: “We need to double down. We need to make sure Ukraine has what is necessary for as long as necessary, because we cannot allow Putin to win this war.” When asked if he was prepared to risk the UK forces or Ukraine or a third country like Poland being nuked in response, as Putin has threatened, Starmer simply ignored the question.
I didn’t used to worry about this but now I have to say that my worries are growing. After all, now that the tiny tsar is in power in Russia, and the burger-scarfing Orange Man is about to take office, can we really have confidence that rationality vis-à-vis nukes will reign?
*The Washington Post has a nice interactive reprise of Lucy, the Australopithecus afarensis specimen discovered in 1974 and which provided considerable information about early hominins (e.g., they were bipedal). Called “Lucy’s legacy,” and archived here, though without the interactive feature, it’s well worth a read (h/t Barry). We’ve forgotten all the excitement that obtained when they dug up Lucy in 1974.
Fifty years ago, our understanding of human origins began to change with the discovery of Lucy, a remarkably complete, 3.2-million-year-old human relative unearthed from the sandy soil in Hadar, Ethiopia.
Lucy, formally known as A.L. 288-1, was about as tall as a kindergartner, with a body that blended features of apes and humans. Her Ethiopian name is Dinkinesh, which means “you are marvelous” in Amharic.
Understanding of human origins was still nascent in the 1970s. Fossils of hominins — the group that includes modern humans and our close ancestors — had been dated to 1.8 million years ago at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. A 2.5-million-year-old fossil of a hominin species called Australopithecus africanus had been discovered in South Africa. Lucy’s discovery on Nov. 24, 1974, by paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, pushed things back nearly a million years, a major leap in scientific knowledge that still resonates a half-century later.
Here, for example, is a diagram from the paper (artist unidentified) showing how Lucy was intermediate between the presumed ancestral condition and modern humans with respect to her posture and bipedalism.
Today, we see only our species of humans — Homo sapiens — and often wonder if our abilities and features are unique. Lucy’s body had similarities to apes and to modern-day humans. [JAC: note that they show a modern ape, a chimp, as if was an ancestral form. It wasn’t, for chimps are alive today, but we have reason to think that the common ancestor of modern humans and modern chimps was reasonably close in appearance and behavior to a modern chimp].
Today, the map of early human evolution is much more complicated, and Lucy is one of a panoply of human ancestors in a complex and bushy family tree stretching back some 7 million years. Lucy was not the only Australopithecus. Even older than her, Ardipithecus— discovered in 1994 —blended apelike and humanlike characteristics. Side branches like Paranthropus appear in the fossil record, then disappear.
“The common conception is that we’re finding the grandmother [of humanity], and we’re never finding that,” said John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Culturally, these are our ancestors — they are our connection to the past.”
We don’t have a good “family tree” of hominins connecting modern humans to earlier forms, like Homo erectus. We may some day, given more fossil discoveries and perhaps unearthing of ancient DNA, but for the time being my diagram of human evolution showing all identified species is littered with question marks.
*Associated Press reports on reactions to RFK Jr.’s plan to stop fluoridating water, a move that I find misguided. But so be it: this is what America apparently wants. (They’re going to need a lot more dental care). And apparently local communities can and have stopped it as well:
For about 50 years, adding cavity-preventing fluoride to drinking water was a popular public health measure in Yorktown, a leafy town north of New York City.
But in September, the town’s supervisor used his emergency powers to stop the practice.
The reason? A recent federal judge’s decision that ordered U.S. regulators to consider the risk that fluoride in water could cause lower IQ in kids.
“It’s too dangerous to look at and just say ‘Ah, screw it. We’ll keep going on,’” said the town supervisor, Ed Lachterman.
Yorktown isn’t alone. The decision to add fluoride to drinking water rests with state and local officials, and fights are cropping up nationwide.
Communities in Florida, Texas, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming and elsewhere have debated the idea in recent months — the total number is in the dozens, with several deciding to stop adding it to drinking water, according to Fluoride Action Network, an advocacy organization against water fluoridation. In Arkansas, legislators this week filed a bill to repeal the state’s fluoridation program.
There is some evidence that fluoride in drinking water at twice the levels permitted is associated with lower IQ, but no evidence for normal levels (0.7 mg/liter). From another article:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on the social media platform X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.
“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again,” he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.
Even the lowering of IQ is negligible: 2-5 points with a diet having excessive fluoride, but almost nobody ingests that much. One thing is for sure: dentists are going to get a lot more business and we’ll wind up having the teeth like those of many people in the UK (I asked my dentist). I’m not worried about the IQ business; rather, this is part of a big conspiracy theory by RFK Jr.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is cold. When I worried that she was leaving Dobrzyn, Malgorzata assured me, “Don’t worry. She is just going inside where it’s much warmer.”
A. Where are you going?Hili: To the warmer lands.
Ja: Dokąd idziesz?Hili: Do ciepłych krajów.
*******************
From Cat Memes:
From Things with Faces, a carrot that looks just like Homer Simpson:
From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:
From Masih, who claims that the anger against the Iranian regime is still seething among the people, one of whom (second tweet) has sewed his lips together (does he not eat?):
At Halifax Conference, I highlighted the wave of executions in Iran:
You might think that the protests have finished and the streets are empty but beneath the surface, there is noticeable anger among the Iranian people. Yes, the regime killed 1,500 people in cold blood during… pic.twitter.com/yVMN4K51bC— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) November 23, 2024
Here Neil deGrasse Tyson defends Scientific American‘s publishing garbage on gender, justifying it by saying, “Well, Laura Helmuth lost her job.” But we don’t know whether she quit or was fired, and the owners of the magazine tolerated its mishigass for years, trashy and miguided pieces that were many of the magazine’s articles. Further, the articles denigrating the sex binary and implying that it’s fine for trans women to participate in sports were not from Helmuth, but from articles in the journal by others that were presumably reviewed by Helmuth. Blame not just her, but the magazine’s owners, who finally saw the light, but only after Helmuth’s obscenity-filled rant on Twitter.
Tyson has been wonky on sex and gender before, as I’ve reported (see for instance here and here.)
Bill Maher calls out Scientific American for an unscientific claim that men could only beat women in sports because of ‘societal differences’. Neil Degrasse Tyson defends the concept to Bill’s dismay:
Bill Maher: “I’m going to tell you. Scientific in American.
‘I could read it… pic.twitter.com/tPLJNjcNo7— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) November 23, 2024
A tweet from Cathy Young via Luana. This country is going to hell on the Red Ball Express:
It’s funny that when I saw Ryan’s tweet, I thought he might be exaggerating … but then came the reply from an actual mental health counselor below.
🤦 pic.twitter.com/iaqL5wcIUF— Cathy Young 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@CathyYoung63) November 22, 2024
From my feed:
A man installed a GPS tracker on his cat to track its route while he was walking his dog.
To his surprise, the cat stealthily followed him and the dog for the entire walk. pic.twitter.com/mlSSvIdg6G
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) November 23, 2024
From Simon, God’s attempt to show that all people are equal:
White, black, brown, yellow, Democrat, Republican, man, woman, straight, gay, transgender, Jew, Christian, Muslim, young and old — you will all taste the same to the zombies.
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
Gassed to death upon arrival at the camp. He was two. We’ll never know how his life would have turned out had he not been murdered. https://t.co/v49Bjr2l7k
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) November 24, 2024
Two tweets from Professor Cobb. This first one seems to be real, but I have read only the completely insane introduction:
Received 31 July, accepted 7 August. "All articles are peer reviewed" and in PubMed Central. Key findings: "We practice Neurosurgery on Saturn in a country called Illusionland" pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC…
— Richard Sever (@richardsever.bsky.social) 2024-11-23T01:17:16.542Z
Meet the Nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus), an Asian antelope, and, according to Matthew, there are several thousand of them loose in Texas. They were introduced as game animals and now constitute a free-ranging population.
The best thing about this planet is that every few days I'll learn about an animal I've literally never seen or heard of before, like the Nilgai which is just a stupidly massive antelope
— Capn Borscht (@capnborscht.bsky.social) 2024-03-22T13:16:39.172Z
Regarding the cabinet picks, Lewis Bollard had this to say on X https://x.com/Lewis_Bollard/status/1860023948668469443 :
“The new cabinet will likely contain more animal welfare advocates than any prior cabinet:
– Pam Bondi: championed a federal anti-cruelty bill and a ban on greyhound racing in Florida
– Tulsi Gabbard: is an ethical vegan who championed an anti-factory farming bill in Congress
-Vivek Ramaswamy: has spoken out against cruelty, including to factory-farmed animals.
-Robert Kennedy Jr: led a group fighting factory farms, which he has blasted for animal abuse.
The test now is if they’ll fight cruelty in their new roles. And if the USDA nominee — who oversees most animal industries — will share their anti-cruelty convictions.”
Let’s consider that some positive things could come from the incoming administration (Noem’s reduction to her personal K9 force notwithstanding). As I get older I find dog racing and horse racing more and more unpalatable due to the effects on the animals, and factory farming seems inhumane. On the other hand I don’t know of any other solution to producing meat at the scale needed to supply the population at the same cost per unit, so it would be interesting if a bipartisan effort to improve this happened.
Also: I just read that PubMed paper. Given the publicity, I thought it would have been taken down by now. Wow, the discussion part is incredibly funny. Talking about one of the doctors mentioned, “Today, unlike 20 years ago, when there is a new addition to the consultation list, he grumbles and answers the secretary with this leitmotif: “Is it really urgent? Is it a matter of neurosurgery? or as usual the guy has boo-boos and he comes to piss us off!”” This is in the body of the paper!
Regarding the missiles, the question is : “what is the long term strategy to deal with Russia?”. NATO could, as an alternative, implement a no fly zone over Ukraine or otherwise find better means to help kick the Russians out. Instead we are in this boil-the-frog scenario, due to ongoing nuclear blackmail from Russia. Biden did not have a long-term strategy and still does not, as the missiles are insufficient and Ukraine is losing. After Ukraine, it will be someone else. Sullivan needs to answer this question if he disagrees with the missile authorization (article is pay-walled).
As I understand it, Ukraine is already a no-fly-zone for the Russians, since Ukraine is sufficiently good at shooting them down.
The Ukraine/Russia war is currently being fought in a WW1 manner (artillery and infantry) since cheap, hand-held weapons are now sufficiently good at taking out WW2 weaponry (tanks, aircraft).
Russians have air bases in Ukraine (Crimea) that they are using to fly sorties. Many of these (from Russia as well) are to drop the glide bombs which have wreaked havoc on the Ukrainian lines, leading to their ongoing collapse in eastern Ukraine.
Sullivan apparently considers Ukrainians second-quality humans. I used to have a better opinion about him.
That PubMed paper is really weird.
God is on Bluesky now?
Once fluoride is taken out, it will be fairly impossible to bring it back.
I agree. I think it’s a mistake. But you can get fluoride drops for kids. I seem to recall using them as the city water wasn’t fluoridated.
I, too, am concerned about Biden’s change of policy to allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons in the war with Russia. Why did he do this now? Perhaps he feels less constrained to do what he long wanted to do but couldn’t before the election. Perhaps it’s machismo—a desire to seem decisive in the face of his apparent weakness. Maybe he really believes that his new policy can be decisive in the war, even if it’s only in place for two months. Did Biden “calculate” that Russia won’t do more than sabre-rattle since President Putin knows that Trump will rescind the order once he gets into power? Will Trump rescind the order? Is Biden really thinking clearly? Will Trump?
OMG. Biden’s move creates a lot of uncertainty, a big risk in itself.
I strongly doubt that Putin will use nukes. He knows he’d get nuked back.
I’m more worried about the Ayatollahs. They’re illogical religious fanatics.
If Putin nuked New York, then yes he may well get nuked back. But if Putin nuked Kyiv, then no way is NATO going to nuke back. And that’s because they don’t want Putin to then nuke New York.
He apparently wants to give Ukraine a better negotiating position, and maybe clear a little his name, which history won’t remember kindly.
The timing can be interpreted as an admission that much of Biden’s over-exposed fear of “escalation” was actually fear of losing the elections.
I would suggest that 5 IQ points is definitely not negligible (it’s a third of the standard deviation, so would amount to moving a kid about 10 places downward in a cohort of 100), so if something like that is happening at only twice the currently permitted level then this issue is a genuine concern, and perhaps urgent research is needed.
But it’s not definite:
there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ.
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/completed/fluoride#
I suppose it is like the “vaccines cause autism” trope, which btw Kennedy also believes.
On fluoride in water: Our dentist told us that she could instantly tell people who grew up without fluoridated water. When she drills their teeth (later in life), they crumble.
On NDT with Bill Maher: I always just point people to this site, which compares track and field results for United States high school boys (national champions, 18 yo or younger) to women’s Olympic results (that is: The most talented, best-trained women in the entire world). It’s not pretty: https://boysvswomen.com/#/
On NDT, I don’t think he would deny this. He is claiming that the cause is social…girls are socialized differently and therefore perform worse than boys. Socialize them better and the gaps would disappear.
And if you reply…”so the effects of negative socialization are so profound that a decent high school boy can handily beat the best female runners in the world? The effects are so profound that teams of 14 year old boys regularly beat the best women in the world in soccer? The effects are so profound that the lightest Olympic male weightlifters, weighing around 60 kilos, can outlift women who are literally twice their weight…all of this is due to 100% to socialization???”
He would reply “Yes! The gaps you state just show how negative the socialization on girls is, and how much work we still have to do!”
And finally, if you point out how much sports performance depends on things like height, weight, lean muscle mass, the amount of hemoglobin in the blood, etc., and how all of those differences that favor boys have very little to do with “socialization”….I don’t know what he would say. He’d probably point to Spud Webb from back in the day in the NBA and other such outliers and claim that size doesn’t matter in sports.
It is indeed amazing how powerful “socialisation” is in woke ideology. Similarly powerful is “systemic racism”, despite the fact that no evidence for its existence can be found.
+1
As a former competitive athlete who trained with and was routinely defeated by Y chromosome-challenged athletes*, I shudder to think what they would say and do to me if I told them; “just train harder. It’s all because of socialization. ”
*I may have competed, but I was definitely 2nd tier.
“Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not. This can lead to incorrect conclusions because of incomplete data.”
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
Famous example:
“Abraham Wald[‘s] well-known statistical works was written during World War II on how to minimize the damage to bomber aircraft and took into account the survivorship bias in his calculations.[3]”
I assume by a no-fly zone you mean one that applies only to Russian aircraft, not Ukrainian, right? So you are really proposing that NATO help the Ukrainian Air Force achieve air superiority against the Russians.
NATO has neither the political authority to declare nor the military means to enforce a one-sided no-fly zone over Ukraine. Destroying Russian air defences and aircraft (many of which are in Russia, not Ukraine) an absolute pre-condition to patrolling with impunity, would be a major military operation itself, i.e., a war, that NATO would have to win decisively. There is no guarantee that it could, or that the victory would be worth the sure losses among NATO countries’ aircraft and pilots….and possible long-range missile attacks by Russia on bases in Poland or Germany the aircraft sortied from.
Declaring a no-fly zone in contested airspace, where you don’t already have air superiority, is simply hubris. The other guy says, “Oh, yeah? You and who else’s army?” and starts gassing up his planes and tuning up his radar. On the other hand, since Russia hasn’t been able to achieve air superiority either, the war has been fought with little use of manned aircraft by either side. They just can’t survive long enough to accomplish much. NATO attempting to enforce a no-fly zone would find relatively few aircraft to intercept…and still lose planes in the attempt.
I doubt that kicking the Russians out of the Donbas will ever be possible now that they have dug in there. Realistically no one in Europe (or North America) was ever going to send their sons to defend Ukraine from Russia, and won’t now. Will NATO Europe enlist and re-arm to defend itself against Russia? Or will they roll over as long as Putin doesn’t threaten to take their pensions and universal free healthcare away from them, or ethnically cleanse the Muslims? I can tell you that Canada absolutely would cough nervously and disappear to the gents room when any talk of Article 5 came up. We spend more than twice as much on aboriginal “reconciliation” as we do on defence because we know who we are afraid of, and we are a post-national state — a genocidal one at that — with no national values to fight for and everything to atone for. We have been demoralized as the KGB put it. Has Europe?
Sorry. Comment above intended in reply to Clarkia @#2.
“So you are really proposing that NATO help the Ukrainian Air Force achieve air superiority against the Russians.”
The no-fly zone is only an example of a more forceful step. The problem is how to assist Ukraine so that Russia is defeated (i.e., out of Ukraine). Unless more forceful steps are taken the Russians will continually use the threat of a nuclear response to win smaller scale battles until the larger war is won, a war which extends beyond Ukraine. And “nuclear blackmail” has been a very successful strategy for the Putin regime as evidenced by the Biden administrations self-deterrence actions to date. Further, the limited allowance the Biden administration recently provided for long range strikes is too little too late as far as the larger war is concerned, something the Russians know.
I suppose that in the near future, not only Russia but also many other rogue states will use nuclear blackmail, seeing how efficient it is.
“The no-fly zone is only an example of a more forceful step. The problem is how to assist Ukraine so that Russia is defeated (i.e., out of Ukraine).”
So, your solution is, essentially, “Somebody, do something.” Leslie has outlined why a no-fly zone is a “more forceful step” only in the imagination. It would require substantive NATO (meaning US) military forces engaged in direct and prolonged military conflict with Russia. If that is what you desire, say so directly.
You earlier state that, “Biden did not have a long-term strategy and still does not, as the missiles are insufficient and Ukraine is losing.” We can debate whether Biden has a long-term strategy, but the fact of Ukraine losing is not evidence that he does not. The best plans and the best strategies must always collide with the enemy. Some of them will lose—no matter how good they are on paper, no matter how good the execution. Some wars are not winnable at the cost one is willing to pay; some are not winnable at all. The US clearly led Ukraine into the former; it may have led it into the latter.
You also assert that “After Ukraine, it will be someone else” and demand that Sullivan needs to answer to this if he disapproves of the missile authorization. To the contrary, you are the one who needs to substantiate your assertion. Who would that “someone else” be? With what military forces will Putin achieve this supposed objective given the weaknesses and lack of capability he has demonstrated in Ukraine? You presume he has the will; now show me that he has both that and the means.
As per my original post “implement a no fly zone over Ukraine or otherwise find better means to help kick the Russians out” so it is not necessarily a no-fly zone since many other actions are possible. And a no-fly zone is certainly a more forceful step even though yes, as Leslie has pointed out (and as I am aware) it is both costly and non-trivial. But the Russians need to leave now as opposed to delaying until there is some later conflict with Ukraine now on the Russian side. And yes, if Sullivan argues against the authorization then he should offer alternatives to deal with the Russian invasion. Outside of the ethical aspects of abandoning Ukraine, I would argue that the onus is on him (and you) to demonstrate that the Russian regime does not have further plans beyond Ukraine, all evidence of their expansionist actions to date being to the contrary.
“I would argue that the onus is on him [Putin] (and you) to demonstrate that the Russian regime does not have further plans beyond Ukraine, all evidence of their expansionist actions to date being to the contrary.”
Prior to early 2022, has there been a Warsaw Pact or its equivalent expansion westward during the past three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union?
I heard Anthony Blinken clearly say that the U.S. believes that any country should join any alliance it chooses to join. That is prevaricating bloviation. The populations of countries (e.g. Chile in 1973) can’t even democratically elect the president of their choice (let alone join an alliance which the U.S. opposes) without the U.S. intervening/invading and effectuating regime change.
The U.S. is so keen on promoting and making a reality democracy across the globe. When will the U.S. get around to making that happen in, say, Saudi Arabia?
Do you have an opinion to express about Ukrainian (men) who never wanted this bloody war and who actively seek to leave the country and otherwise avoid conscription and impressment into the Ukrainian military? Especially those who are aware of Mitt Romney glorying in how much the U.S. has accomplished in this proxy war, to boot crowing about how not one American service member (none of his sons, for sure) has been killed? (Are there no U.S. military service members on the ground in Ukraine?)
Europe, with a few exceptions, is ruled by Chamberlains.
To be fair, however, most of Europe had no part in the disarming of Ukraine with false promises that led to today’s war. The USA and the UK were the architects of the Budapest Memorandum. (And also Russia, but Russia is predatory by nature, it is clear that given the opportunity, it will invade, grab land and slaughter people, no matter what treaties it has signed.)
A no-fly zone over Ukraine at this stage will not help the Ukrainians because Russian planes shoot glide bombs from Russian territory.
Immediately after the full-scale invasion began, Ukraine pleaded to NATO to establish a no-fly zone, to no avail. The Chamberlains of the West were unwilling to cross Putin by hindering his ability to bomb Ukrainian civilians.
A NATO-enforced “no-fly zone” in Ukraine would mean NATO airplanes shooting down Russian airplanes (and bombing Russian anti-aircraft weapons on the ground) which would be be incredibly dangerous.
On the other hand, NATO has been giving the Ukrainians weapons to shoot at the Russians with since the earliest days of the conflict, and all of Russia’s talk about “escalations” and “red lines” in response to this has just been bluster (and attempted, but not very credible, blackmail).
Ukrainians have been launching American and other Western weapons at Russians, including in territory which Russia CLAIMS is now part of Russia, for a long time now. Ukrainians have also very successfully launched their own weapons (cheap drones) deep into internationally-recognized Russian territory. Now, Ukrainians–not NATO!–will be launching American-built and other Western weapons into internationally-recognized Russian territory. (Russia has of course been attacking internationally-recognized Ukrainian territory since the first day of the war.)
I just don’t see the claim that this is a huge escalation as remotely believable; it’s just another Russian attempt to blackmail the world into letting Russia have its way. I really wish Biden had done this months ago, though–it may well be too little, too late now, given the incoming administration’s likely policy towards Russia (which will probably be vile and stupid).
It is certainly better to provide the Ukrainians the tools to win the war, if possible, something that still remains to be done.
“all of Russia’s talk about ‘escalations’ and ‘red lines’ in response to this has just been bluster (and attempted, but not very credible, blackmail).”
It has, has it? Yet in the year before the invasion Putin repeatedly said that potential NATO membership for Ukraine was a redline. For decades before that Russia had denounced eastward expansion of NATO and threatened escalation. That the escalation could not come while Russia was still reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union lulled the West to sleep. Many of us with relevant military, security policy, and diplomatic experience warned others with relevant military, security policy, and diplomatic experience that they were needlessly antagonizing Russia and inviting (one might say “provoking”) an armed response. We were told that Putin was all bluster, that he would never dare. That same group is largely the ones telling us now that his talk of escalation is, again, all bluster, that he would never dare. (Incidentally, the overlap between this group and the ones who persisted in delusions of remaking the Middle East over the last two decades is nearly 100%.)
“Now, Ukrainians–not NATO!–will be launching American-built and other Western weapons into internationally-recognized Russian territory.”
And the military targeting, intelligence, logistics, and training expertise to operate these weapons successfully is provided by whom?
Doug, you’re talking like a Russian Asset. One is not allowed to point out obvious policy issues that led to the invasion nor to the steps that possibly could have avoided it.
I’m 100% for Ukraine defending itself. However, in none of the announcements of aid and weapons for Ukraine do I see anyone saying, “this is going to lead to the end of the war”. No. It leads only to continuation of young men dying, cities reduced to rubble, and families decimated.
No knock on anyone, but has anyone noticed how the word “blackmail” is being used more regarding Russian negotiating tactics? “Russian Asset” is another. Ever since reading Chomsky many years ago, I tend to watch for how language is used and manipulated to serve certain ends.
“Nuclear blackmail” has a long history.
https://www.brookings.edu/books/nuclear-blackmail-and-nuclear-balance/
The rest is just run-of-the-mill ad hominems posturing as arguments.
” . . . all of Russia’s talk about “escalations” and “red lines” in response to this has just been bluster . . . .”
You apparently have been vouchsafed a source of knowledge I am denied.
Re: the then U.S. ambassador to Russia Bill Burns’s communication to Condoleezza Rice (?) about the sincerity of Russian red line resolve regarding prospective Ukrainian NATO membership: “Nyet means Nyet.”
I don’t understand Neil’s take on this. He apparently acknowledges that men seem to outperform women in sports both in average performance and at the top tail, but then ascribes all of this to differences in how boys and girls are socialized?
He’s an intelligent guy. Surely he knows that there is not much of a divergence in the performance of pre-pubescent boys and girls, but that after puberty the boys rocket ahead both in average performance and the top tail. Surely Neil is aware of the physical changes that happen in boys relative to girls during puberty?! As in greater muscle mass, height, blood volume, etc., all leading to significant advantages for virtually all sports, and these changes have almost nothing to do with differences in how we socialize boys and girls.
Does he deny any of this? Is he suggesting that height, weight, and strength, and cardio have no impact on sports performance? Or does he think that if we socialized girls in the same way we do boys, girls would physically be identical to boys, and the advantages post-pubescent boys/men enjoy would disappear?
And he’s illogical to boot. He suggests that women have an advantage over men in ultra-long distance swimming, which indeed they may, but then what is the cause of that? If it is social, what it is it exactly about the way we socialize girls that would make them better at swimming the English channel? And if the female advantage is biological in origin (perhaps greater bodyfat % is an advantage in ultra-swimming)…well he is now claiming that the sexes differ biologically in sports potential..which is what he was denying in the first place!
I think that the antelopes released in the New World must be killed off, though I don’t feel well writing this.
Maher certainly stands his ground with Tyson. Especially that verbal exchange when Maher asserts his right to utter (if only) one sentence without being interrupted. Tyson thought Maher wrong in the beginning of his sentence, so why should Maher possibly be allowed to complete a sentence?
(As Lawrence Krauss once responded to Tyson during a panel discussion, “The question was for not-Neil.”)
Re fluoride, see “Purity Of Essence” (or, “Joe For King” in the novelisation).
Merkwürdigsliebe.
What is the purpose of fluoride in a shower, toilet, dishwasher, washing machine, kitchen, outdoor applications – and if none, what is that called – when a product is consumed without need?
Further, if users filter water – to e.g. remove corrosion inhibitors or that black junk that appears whenever a service valve is operated – the fluoride is not going where it needs to go.
Why does fluoride need to be ingested?
Calcium is an essential ion, so shouldn’t it be put in the public water supply too?
Lastly – what is the grade of fluoride used in water supplies, how much does it cost, and what else is in there?