ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

Supposedly he's got a huge cachet in Russia still -- and probably among the older generations that need to hear it most, by all accounts -- so hopefully it'll help.

_Speaker Pelosi reads #StPatricksDay poem by Bono, which reads in part:

"Ireland's sorrow and pain
Is now the Ukraine
And Saint Patrick's name now Zelenskyy."_

Ireland's sorrow and pain
Is now the Ukraine
In the membrane

FIFY

The house of 'kraine is in effect y'all
and anyone that steps up is gettin wrecked

This is the poem Vladimir Putin stole from the beatles
We’re stealin it back

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/static/uploads/2021/05/When-Paul-McCartney-met-Vladimir-Putin.jpg

Thinks: " ... and he'll go out the bathroom window ... "
Thinks: "If I can't be the fifth Beatle then I will be the onlyBeatle."
Whispers: "I think 'Spies Like Us' is underrated."

Supposedly he's got a huge cachet in Russia still -- and probably among the older generations that need to hear it most, by all accounts -- so hopefully it'll help.

Seems not good:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33527472/ex-gm-donnie-nelson-sues-dallas-mavericks-says-was-fired-reporting-sexual-misconduct-team-denies-claim

Whoops! V sorry.

omg that macca pic

No thumbs up, Macca playing it cool.

Cable news has spent the past few weeks almost literally begging administration officials to label Putin a war criminal -- now that Biden and Blinken have said so, they've gotten out their fainting couches. 'Embarrassed Biden aides scrambling to de-escalate the WH's war of words!' Stfu.

Not @ you personally, Sam Weller, but if there's one thing I can recommend 100% it's to stay away from cable news or any TV news. You can literally look up #ukraine on Twitter and go all night looking at varied perspectives interspersed with hyped-up Indian nationalists, re-heated Ukraine biolabs theories from 2019, edgy tankies/sullen right-wingers, and still come out better informed, saner, and more sober than you would from watching TV.

I thought people abandoned cable news after 2016 but it's weird how many takes on Ukraine are more about "I'm scared by the crazy things on cable" than about the actual war. NGL, I still get taken in by the odd Tucker Carlson smarm piece about how Putin never called HIM a racist, but just catching up with politics on ILX threads is a much healthier way to get your news than wasting time with TV. Probably faster too.

Avoiding cable is probably better for your mental health, but you don't necessarily see what people in power are reacting to.

I'm with Moomin all the way. Made that decision on 9/11 itself and my life's better for it.

I'm late to the party on this, but:

Ireland's sorrow and pain
Is now the Ukraine
And Saint Patrick's name now Zelenskyy_
What a sad and sorry and sickening sight
Ah hu-a-a hu-a-a hu-a-a hu-a-a-a, ha-u...
Ah hu-a-a hu-a-a hu-a-a hu-a-a-a

Dan, is this set to Flipper’s “Ha Ha Ha”?

Worst/most cringeworthy lyric on The Cranberries' 'To The Faithful Departed'

I recall reading at the start of this invasion that Russia's place on the UN security council was actually grandfathered in, that after the fall of the Soviet Union they just kind of remained in that position. But given all the current bullshit, perhaps it's time to reconsider giving Russia such a prominent platform.

... what purpose do you think that would serve?

Probably none. But it's a permanent spot, with instant veto power, which allows them to fuck with votes, however symbolically. If current events really do mark a conspicuous break with the geo-political status quo, then it's kind of weird to have them there so prominently.

Just recognize Kyrgyzstan as the legitimate inheritor state of USSR and give the seat to them. Simple dimple!

CNN can be good when I get around the talking heads to field correspondents, so I gravitate more toward their website, via Google News, but checking international sources there too---much easier than sorting through bullshit on Twitter, though I do some of that as well.

via CNN: "Ukraine’s armed forces say about 14,200 Russian soldiers have been killed since Russia began its invasion more than three weeks ago. It added that 450 Russian tanks and almost 1,450 other armored combat vehicles have been destroyed, along with 93 Russian aircraft and 112 helicopters.

Additionally, 205 Russian artillery systems have been destroyed, along with 72 multiple launch rocket systems and 43 anti-aircraft weapons systems, it said."

Even if these numbers are doubled for propaganda that seems like... a LOT of men and materiel

xpost Also, I don't keep up with most podcasts. but NYT's The Daily is occasionally useful re Ukraine, keeping details more organized than they were in my head; for instance yesterday's "Four Paths Forward For Ukraine"---excerpts from transcript that struck me:
David Sanger
So let me paint a scenario for you about some of the possibilities for a diplomatic end from people I’ve talked to. First, the Russians have a set of three demands for Ukraine and for President Zelensky, even though President Putin’s commitment that he would end the war, even if President Zelensky agreed to these demands, is not entirely clear. But here’s what the Russians have said Ukraine would need to agree to.

The first is they would have to give up any claim to Crimea, the territory that Russia invaded in 2014 and then annexed. The second demand is that the two Eastern self-declared republics of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, where there’s been this grinding war being fought for the past eight years, would have to be recognized as completely independent states by Ukraine. And then the third is that Ukraine would have to publicly declare its neutrality, probably along the lines of a country like Austria, which has a military but not much military capability. And they would have to say that they would never again seek to join NATO, even though that’s written right now into the Ukrainian Constitution. So the Constitution would have to be amended.

Michael Barbaro
And, David, do we think that Zelensky might be open to those demands?
David Sanger
Well, he’s indicated that he’s open to discussing at least some of them. For example, he has said that he’s moved beyond the hope that NATO was going to let Ukraine into the Western alliance anytime soon. So you could imagine how he might be willing to accept neutrality. But giving up Crimea and those two Eastern republics, boy, that’s a much further reach because he would essentially be ceding to Russia roughly a third of his country.

Michael Barbaro
So, David, let’s assume for a moment that Zelensky does agree to several of these Russian terms. I imagine Russia might still need some kind of assurance that these crippling sanctions that have been imposed by the United States and Europe will be relaxed, as part of any diplomatic solution.

David Sanger
David Sanger
Well, that’s absolutely right. The Russians would insist that these crippling sanctions, which are likely to send them into default in coming days and have plunged the ruble to its lowest levels and really begun to bite on ordinary Russians, they would need an assurance that those would get lifted. So it was interesting that on Tuesday night in an interview with NPR, Secretary of State Blinken said that for the sanctions to begin to lift, the Russians would have to withdraw completely from Ukraine and irreversibly. That is to say, there would have to be some method of assurance that in the next two or three or five years, the Russians couldn’t just turn around and go back and do this all over again. And so now you’re suddenly discovering that, while this is a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine, there are a lot of other players in it at this moment. Well yeah. Neutrality, depending on other countries for most of your security, sounds risky to me, wonder if Zelensky is really okay with it.
So that's gist of diplomatic option, transcript and pod are here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/podcasts/the-daily/ukraine-war-zelensky-putin.html

xpost Especially in the era of modern remote warfare.

I dunno, I'd think if Russia was doing well ... well, first of all, it would already be done. But barring that, they probably wouldn't be so cagey with their own numbers. I think the most recent numbers given by Russia were back in very early March, around 500, so the fact that there have been no new numbers for two weeks is telling.

This is prob not a fair criticism but I cannot deal with that guy Michael Barbara’s voice. He’s just so breathless in a way that I find annoying. Have been enjoying the Economist podcasts - check it out!!.

xpost@dow

Yeah, by Twitter I mean just simply looking at a hashtag + "Latest," not "Top." It's completely unfiltered and can be exhausting but between that and your personal list of people you follow, can give you some pretty decent idea of things that are happening. It was pretty surreal to watch uploaded videos of combat or airstrikes on buildings, or those famous Ukrainian farmers and their tractors, only to hear the cable networks picking up the SAME videos and showing them as news while providing little to no context. How could they? They're just people in suits on TV.

That said, it's not that twitter or ILX is magically better than other sources, I just find there's greater diversity of opinion, nuance, and context in online media than, say, among MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News. There are blogs, twitter accounts, youtube channels that have been covering any given topic for years, while on television even legit experts only get a few minutes to say their piece, with predictably disappointing results.

I think Putin might get some Stalinesque pleasure from the high death count of his own troops... young blood spilled for the Motherland is probably an aphrodisiac for psychos like him

So yeah we have a new Folk Devil a past it media star who uses a current war to show his ability to write doggerel.
Is this the same aesthetic as drunkenly waving along to Tinariwen a few years back.
Can we burn Hewson in effigy alongside Putin

It's less about dunking on this clown show and more about how much it reveals about Pelosi and her contemporaries that they think an aging 80s rock star and an early 90s Irish dancing show are super relevant in 2022.

A lot of "who are the ad wizards that came up with this one?" energy.

Moomin, I agreed with you about online vs. TV, but also applies to some websites of what started and hangs on as "cable news," the sites of which can and sometimes do post and preserve videos w/o broadcast edit to make room for commercials etc, and yeah also, as you say. with original context/framing of war correspondents etc. I need to filter my Twitter better for reliable sources.

Were they eating corned beef & cabbage as she read that awful poem? I'll bet they were. Maybe a half pint of Guinness as well

xp agree that vocal quality can be off-putting in pods, always glad for transcripts, but most of 'em don't do that, right?

an aging 80s rock star

Tbf, Pelosi is in her '80s.

Flashback! Nancy Pelosi, age 20, meets JFK at the 1960 DNC. There’s lots more rare footage on #TheKennedys Sunday at 9p on CNN. pic.twitter.com/MFm2vqrQiN

— CNN Original Series (@CNNOriginals) March 16, 2018

folks

Really for a bright shining moment I thought that said something about the DKs and I was doing a double take.

Interesting article about how Russia's increasing internet censorship follows the Chinese example:

"When people ask me how info environment within the Great Firewall is like," Yaqiu Wang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch in New York, wrote on Twitter about China's censored internet, "I say, 'imagine the whole country is one giant Qanon.'"

After years of testing and hesitation, Russia is heading toward harsher internet censorship akin to China's Great Firewall to better control its people. China's information dark age could be Russia's future.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/business/chinas-russia-information.html

Surely the point of the UN security council isn't "these are the good faith partners the world trusts to keep the peace" but rather "these are the assholes with enough destructive might that we don't want them to go to war with each other".

Nah, it's just a remnant of WWII. That's why France is a permanent member, too.

Yes, the 'great powers' post-war, of which Russia is the proper heir to the Soviet Union because, you know nukes.

Three tokes over the line:
...The trio of drone incidents has amplified concerns that Russia's war in Ukraine could spill over into NATO countries, even if unintentionally, forcing the alliance to decide how to respond -- if at all -- to incidents that occur inside its borders.
US defense officials say the errant drones that entered NATO territory appeared to be largely inadvertent...But NATO has tried unsuccessfully to connect with Russia via a deconfliction hotline and written letters, raising concerns about Russia's willingness to engage as the invasion of Ukraine has spread further west toward NATO territory, senior NATO military officials said on Wednesday...While the US and NATO have stopped drone surveillance flights inside Ukraine, the US military is flying surveillance drones and U-2 aircraft along the border...
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/17/politics/us-nato-errant-drones-unintentional-conflict-russia-ukraine/index.html

xpost They didn't have nukes in 1945 did they? Anyway, there are a lot of countries with nukes now.

They were one of the great powers in 1945 and they have nukes now.

Countries not on the UNSC with nukes are Israel (their interests are covered), Pakistan, India and North Korea (their interests are also pretty well covered) - adding Pakistan and India to the permanent Security Council would make a lot more sense than this gibberish about removing Russia, yes. Even adding Israel and North Korea, for that matter...

Russia and the US both have more active nukes than the rest of the world combined

<i>the US military is flying surveillance drones and U-2 aircraft along the border...</i>

https://i.imgur.com/qqRL9cC.jpg

Good read, I thought.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/18/russia-putin-ukraine-war-three-weeks/

Yeah, thanks Ned. They're hitting Lviv some more, messing with supply lines from the West while trying to get their own logistics together, seems like:
Having bungled its initial attack, the next phase of the war rests on whether Moscow can solve its logistics challenges and stabilize its troop losses while Ukraine is supplied with more and better arms from the West.

“You can see them being bled out over a long period of time,” Watling said. “The second way that this could go is that the Russians unscramble their logistics over the next couple of weeks, start to prioritize their axis of advance, close off key cities, and suck up the punishment until they starve them out. In which case, you can see a scenario in which, in six months, they have functionally taken over eastern Ukraine.”