The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

WAR: RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE UPDATE: AIR BASE NEAR KIEV REPORTED CAPTURED BY RUSSIANS

Posted on | February 24, 2022 | Comments Off on WAR: RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE UPDATE: AIR BASE NEAR KIEV REPORTED CAPTURED BY RUSSIANS

Russia’s Putin announces
military operation in Ukraine
— Associated Press

Biden’s Own Aides Feared
His Sanctions Wouldn’t Stop Putin
— Bloomberg

Russia-Ukraine conflict live updates:
Ukraine battles Russian attack
on multiple fronts
— NBC News

This is not a “minor incursion.” Meanwhile, in America:

US President Joe Biden was meeting with G7 allies Thursday to hammer out a raft of new sanctions against Russia after it invaded Ukraine, and will later speak to the American people on a crisis that he warns will cause “catastrophic loss of life.”
The virtual, closed-door meeting of G7 leaders — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — was set to start at 9:00 am (1400 GMT), with Biden’s White House speech scheduled for early afternoon.
For weeks, as Russia built up tens of thousands of troops and heavy weapons on Ukraine’s border, Biden has led NATO and other European allies in trying to craft a package of what Washington says are “unprecedented” sanctions as a deterrent.
Now that the deterrent has failed, the effort is likely to see rapid escalation to inflict real pain on Russia’s already shaky economy.
“The United States and its allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable,” Biden said in his first comments late Wednesday in Washington, after Russian missiles began to rain down on Ukraine.
Biden also held a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, saying afterwards that he had promised to “provide support and assistance to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.”
The US president noted that Zelensky had requested him to “call on the leaders of the world to speak out clearly” against Putin’s “flagrant aggression.”

UPDATE 10 a.m. ET: The military situation in Ukraine is, as might be expected, currently confusing. It appears from initial reports that the Russian invasion began in earnest just before dawn local time. Not only are Russian forces advancing from the east, but also from the south and north. It appears an encircling attack on the Ukrainian capital of Kiev (Kyiv) is part of the Russian plan. The good news is that, despite the Russian advantage, outnumbered Ukrainian forces are fighting back, and Russian forces are suffering casualties as a result. The West can provide supplies to the Ukrainian resistance only so long as Ukrainians are willing to keep up the fight, and it is that willpower which will ultimately decide this war. The higher the cost for Russia, in terms of troops killed and wounded, the more likely that reaction in Russia could overturn Putin’s regime — which is the only real hope for Ukraine.

UPDATE 11 a.m. ET: It is now 6 p.m. in Ukraine, meaning that the Russian invasion has been under way for 14 hours. This included attacks on the Gostomel (Antonov) military airport and Boryspil civilian airport near Kiev. Some Russian helicopters were shot down during these attacks. It is reported that, Russian airborne troops have captured Antonov airport less than miles from Kiev.

UPDATE 12:25 p.m. ET: The Commander-in-Chief is scheduled to address the nation, just as soon as he can shuffle to his desk.




 

Category: Joe Biden, Military, Russia, Ukraine

In The Mailbox: 02.23.22

Posted on | February 24, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.23.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Today’s the end of the blogging week for me, and so you get your usual links to the wisdom of the International Lord of Hate and the Beautiful But Evil Space Princess two days early.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Inside the President’s head right now

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1637
EBL: Any Publicity Is Good Publicity?
Twitchy: NYT Reveals Conspiracy Theorists & Conservative Influencers Ditching Google For DuckDuckGo, also, The Most Canadian Moment Ever
Louder With Crowder: “This Ride Has Just Begun”, also, Kyle Rittenhouse Announces Specific Plans To Sue The View and Mainstream Media
Vox Popoli: The Strategic Virtues Of Racism, A Lesson In Leverage, and How Lawyers Lie
According To Hoyt: Here We Stand, also, Just This One Simple Trick
Monster Hunter Nation: Approaching Peak Woke, also, Who Needs High School English When You Can Have Social Justice Instead?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Russian Reality Check, also, Muh Sanctions
American Conservative: The Stoner Nation
American Greatness: Defense Department Authorizes 700 National Guardsmen Ahead Of Trucker Protest, also, Overdoses Spike In Colorado After Legalization Of Fentanyl & Other Drugs
American Thinker: The Treason of The Ruling Class
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Surprise! Cuba Backs Russian Invasion Of Ukraine, Blames U.S. & NATO For Crisis, also, Russia Postpones Communist Cuba’s Debt Payments
BattleSwarm: Texas Governor’s Race Update
Behind The Black: Pushback – Federal Court Grants Injunction Against United Airlines’ Jab Mandate, Trudeau’s Grab Of His Enemies’ Bank Accounts May Have Crashed The Canadian Banking System, and Dry, Barren Grounds In Martian Northern Lowlands?
Cafe Hayek: “Explain” Isn’t A Synonym For “Endorse”, also, Why Not “There Should Be No Minimum Wage”?
CDR Salamander: For Navalists, It Is Time To Get Off The Bench
Da Tech Guy: The Mask Is The Left’s Golden Calf, Wolf Democracy In Canada, and Two (Not So) Incredible Lies
Don Surber: As Putin Rolls Into Ukraine, NYT Praises Biden For Avoiding War, Democrats Lost The Farms, Now They’re Losing The Cities, and Democrat Redistricting Helps Republicans
First Street Journal: Killadelphia, also, Bidenflation!
Gates Of Vienna: How Dare You Tell The Truth About Cultural Enrichment In Sweden!, Viktor Orban – 2030 Will Be A “Serious Stress Test” For Europe, and Time To Discard The Puppets
The Geller Report: Kyle Rittenhouse Plans To Sue Whoopi & Other Celebrities For Defaming & Blood-Libeling Him, also, Trudeau Blinks – Revokes Emergency Act
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, Arp 143, and A Low Budget Remake Flops?
Hollywood In Toto: I Want You Back Restores Sanity, Romance To Rom-Coms, Foo Fighters Fall Flat In Dopey Studio 666, and David Crosby Gushes Misinformation About Joe Rogan
The Lid: CBS Lies About The Economy For Biden’s Benefit
Legal Insurrection: Bloomberg Warns Democrats They’re Headed For A Wipeout In November, LA Prosecutors & Hollywood Elite Back Recall Of LA DA Gascon, and Binghamton U. Stops Prof’s Policy Of Prioritizing “Non-White Folks” In Discussions
Nebraska Energy Observer: They Want Everything
Outkick: Daytona 500 Smashes NBA All-Star Ratings, Longtime NBA Official Says He Lost Job For Refusing Jab, and Phil Mickelson In Trouble For Comments That NBA & Others Get Away With In Red China Relationship
Power Line: What Don’t The Bureaucrats Want You To Know?, The Vindication Of Mitt Romney, and U.S. v. Tou Thao [4] (Updated)
Shark Tank: FL Senate Confirms Dr. Joseph Ladapo As Surgeon General
Shot In The Dark: The Peasants Are Revolting, also, Beef
STUMP: Geography Of Mortality
The Political Hat: The New Year Zero, also, The Degenerate Dialectic
This Ain’t Hell: 77 Years Ago Today, The Flag Was Raised On Mt. Suribachi, Recalled SF School Board Members Blame White Supremacy, and People’s Convoy Leader Asks Biden To End The Mandates
Victory Girls: Trudeau Blinks, also, Biden Awards Mining Contract To Red Chinese-Backed Company
Volokh Conspiracy: Judge Jackson Says She “Doesn’t Understand” Justice Thomas
Weasel Zippers: Biden Admits Gas Prices Will Continue Rising Because Of His Sanctions, Parler Subpoenas Twitter Over Its Deplatforming, and Moonbat Tweet Of The Day
The Federalist: Why Tech Totalitarianism Threatens To Turn America Into Canada Or Red China, No Matter How Peaceful The American Freedom Convoy Is, Our Corrupt Regime Will Demonize It, and Watchdog Sues Justice Department For Withholding Documents On Hiring Of Russia Truther Susan Hennessey
Mark Steyn: Emergencies Real & Concocted, Globalism & Its Discontents, and Sanctioning Ourselves

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Category: Linkagery

Re: ‘Hannah’ Tubbs

Posted on | February 23, 2022 | Comments Off on Re: ‘Hannah’ Tubbs

When this case started making headlines — and it’s 24/7, rotating with Ukraine, as the top story on Fox News — I didn’t want to write about it because what is more absurd than a child molester claiming to be transgender so he can get leniency from a liberal California DA? The whole thing struck me as so inherently silly that there wasn’t much opportunity to make jokes about it. Like, it’s already a joke, what can I possibly say about it? But then I learned that this case was more serious than what I’d thought at first. This creep, James “Hannah” Tubbs, is a career criminal who committed a heinous assault:

On January 1, 2014, just two weeks shy of his 18th birthday, a panhandler named James Tubbs entered a women’s restroom at a Denny’s restaurant in Palmdale, California and lay in wait, court records show. When a 10-year-old girl entered, he grabbed her by the throat. After locking the girl in a stall with him, Mr Tubbs proceeded to shove his hands down her pants and sexually assault her.
“The assault went on until someone walked into the restroom and scared him off,” Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John McKinney would later say.
Surveillance footage captured the suspect, known as ‘Shrink’ to locals who often saw him panhandling at a Chevron gas station near the Denny’s, as he entered the restaurant.
Mr Tubbs vanished from the area shortly after the crime.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors issued a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Mr Tubbs . . .
The suspect had a conviction in the state for Assault With A Deadly Weapon in Kern County, California, and was previously alleged to have sexually assaulted a minor in a case that has never been brought to prosecution.
In 2019, Mr Tubbs came to the attention of Los Angeles County after he was arrested on suspicion of Battery in Idaho and his DNA was entered into a crime database.
During his time on the run, Mr Tubbs amassed a lengthy criminal record, which includes Assault With a Deadly Weapon convictions and Drug Possession and probation violations in Idaho and Washington, where he also has a pending misdemeanor case.

OMG, he assaulted a 10-year-old girl in a public restroom?

Have I mentioned lately that you can purchase a 7-horsepower wood chipper from Amazon for $619 through our associates program, which pays me a modest commission on all products purchased through our affiliated links, at no cost to you? Because perhaps you can think of a good use for a wood chipper, and once you’re done with that job, maybe take a look at Los Angeles DA George Gascon as the next job.

Anyone who would even consider letting James “Hannah” Tubbs back on the street has no business holding public office, and the campaign to recall George Gascon could raise money by raffling off tickets for the chance to feed that son of a bitch into a wood chipper. Meanwhile . . .

Fox News Correspondent Caves
to Woke Gender Theology and Uses Preferred Pronouns of Convicted Child Molester

Are you kidding me with this? You’re essentially inviting the public to participate in this lunatic’s dangerous delusions. Speaking of which:

The DA also expressed concern that Tubbs would be victimized if incarcerated in an adult facility as a trans woman and cited a probation report that actually recommended home confinement.
The newspaper also reviewed an email that said Tubbs has been diagnosed with mental illnesses and might also qualify as “developmentally disabled.”

Oh, the child molester might be “victimized” in grown-up prison? To quote Inspector Harry Callahan, “Well, I’m all broken up about that man’s rights.” And as for mental illness, Crazy People Are Dangerous.

(Hat-tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)




 

Category: California, Crime

The Duke and Duchess of Trash

Posted on | February 23, 2022 | Comments Off on The Duke and Duchess of Trash

Sometimes the algorithm turns up a headline that, while utterly silly, nevertheless gets your mind completely off-track:

One of Meghan Markle’s most iconic looks will be displayed in a British fashion museum.
The Fashion Museum announced Tuesday that the black silk Giorgio Armani dress that the Duchess of Sussex wore for her bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey alongside Prince Harry has been named as its Dress of the Year 2021.
“It’s well known that members of the Royal family often use outfits to send a message through their choice of style, color or motif,” the museum said in a statement. “It was reported that the Duchess chose a dress with a lotus flower design because of the flower’s symbolic association with rebirth, self-regeneration and spiritual enlightenment, and its ability to flourish despite seemingly challenging conditions.”
The two-hour CBS special, which premiered in March 2021, drew an estimated 60 million viewers and aired in nearly 70 countries, with the Sussexes sending shockwaves through the royal family for some of the claims made about their experience in the U.K. . . .
For this year’s selection, editors from the bimonthly British style magazine Dazed chose the Duchess of Sussex’s Armani wrap dress. At the time of the interview, she was pregnant with daughter Lilibet Diana.
“We both latched upon Meghan and Harry’s now iconic interview with Oprah as the definitive anti-establishment moment that will forever endure in the British collective consciousness,” Dazed editors Ibrahim Kamara and Gareth Wrighton said in part.

Am I the only one who thinks that British royalty, of all people, should avoid having anti-establishment moments, “definitive” or otherwise?

Does anyone, on either side of the Atlantic, want members of the House of Windsor to be “anti-establishment”? Have these people given no thought whatsoever to what their status represents? I mean, perhaps Meghan Markle could be excused for the ignorant belief that a duchess is just another kind of realty-TV celebrity — England has duchesses like America has Kardashians — but how is it that Harry, not only royalty on his father’s side, but descended from the Spencers on his mother’s side, should have no sense of the appropriate dignity of British aristocracy?

These cast members of Real Housewives of Buckingham Palace (for such, evidently, is their conception of royal duty) have done real damage not only to their own reputations, but also to the honor of the nation they represent. To borrow the language of evangelical Christianity, a prince is the ultimate “servant leader,” who has inherited a duty to conduct himself in such a manner as to deserve the respect of his people.

To repeat what I said in January 2020:

Imagine going on TV to denounce your own grandmother as a racist. Now imagine being married to the kind of woman who thinks this threat of a “warts-and-all” interview with Oprah is a clever move. This is all on Harry, you see. As I always say when some man grumbles that his ex-wife is an evil crazy bitch, well, what does that say about you? A man who marries an evil crazy bitch is self-evidently lacking in good judgment. So it is not accurate to say the Duchess of Sussex is making a fool of Harry — he was already a fool.
As to the accusation of royal racism, Professor Reynolds is correct: “If you start with the assumption that charges of racism are usually self-serving twaddle, you’ll usually be right.” Beyond that, however, the very idea of royalty is inherently racist, since it assumes that some people are born with a hereditary superiority. It has always amused me how so many American liberals — especially women — who would never be caught in the same room with a right-winger (because we are all so “racist”), nevertheless often display a starstruck admiration for the British royals.

These two have become a permanent source of royal embarrassment:

Prince Harry “does not feel safe” bringing his children to the U.K. following the loss of his taxpayer funded police protection, his legal team told the High Court in London on Friday.
Speaking at a preliminary hearing to have the protection reinstated — which Prince Harry did not attend in person — the Duke of Sussex’s attorney Shaheed Fatima expressed Harry’s concerns over the security arrangements put in place when he and Meghan Markle stepped back from royal duties in January 2020.
Following their bombshell announcement, Harry and Meghan lost their public-funded protection in the U.K. and have privately paid for their own security in the U.S. They were also later told that they could not pay for U.K. police protection out of their own pockets.
This means that if the Duke and Duchess of Sussex return to the U.K. with son Archie Harrison, 2, and daughter Lilibet Diana, 8 months, they will not be entitled to state-funded protection and the deep level of security intelligence that comes with it. . . .

What a damned ingrate! First, he and his trashy wife go on worldwide TV to accuse his own grandmother of racism, and now — having “stepped back from royal duties” — he goes to court demanding that British taxpayers keep footing the bill for his security. Well, as bad as our own leadership caste is on this side of the pond, at least we have a chance to vote them out of office, instead of being saddled with a hereditary whiner like Harry to annoy us. Our independence is worth something, anyway.

Oh, wait — almost forgot — that Armani dress? $4,700. If either of my daughters should ever own a $4,700 Armani dress, I hope they wouldn’t wear it while complaining about what victims of injustice they are.




 

Category: Great Britain

In The Mailbox: 02.22.22

Posted on | February 23, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.22.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

“…and so it was proclaimed throughout the land of r/animemes that this day would be forever known as Zero Twosday.”
Silicon Valley delenda est.

It’s a girl! It’s a dinosaur! It’s Zero Two!

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Ted Turner Suicidal? also, Ukraine, You Are So Screwed
Twitchy: Justin Trudeau’s Slam On Putin Melts Projection Detectors Everywhere, also, Grope & Flail – The #FreedomConvoy Protests Revealed “The Ugly Side Of Freedom”
Louder With Crowder: Kyle Rittenhouse Drops A Few Names That Might Want To Lawyer Up, Cardi B Clarifies Position On Ukraine After Twitter Confusion (NOT A PARODY), and Mike Rowe Blasts PM Zoolander For Turning Truckers Into Villains
Vox Popoli: Arktoons Hits 5 Million, The Jester’s Privilege, and Russia Recognizes Donbass Republics

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: How Can We Achieve Our Freedom?
American Conservative: Don’t Eat The Bugs, also, The Fall Of The Meritocracy
American Greatness: Freedom Convoy Organizer Tamara Lich Denied Bail On Charges Of “Mischief”
American Power: Xi Jinping’s Power Grab, also, Putin Orders Troops Into Donetsk & Lugansk
American Thinker: The Democrats Are Turning America Into The New Venezuela
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Settlement News
Babalu Blog: Amidst Island-Wide Shortages, Cuba’s Dictatorship Is Selling Food To Red China, also, Fifth Sunday Of Castro Regime Arresting Ladies In White Trying To Attend Church
BattleSwarm: Am I Paranoid Enough? also, Jordan Peterson Wants You To Wake Up
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted Americans, Deformed Martian Craters, and A Thumbnail Bio Of George Washington
Cafe Hayek: Konstantin Kisin Explains Vaccine Hesitancy
CDR Salamander: Putin – First Person Spoken Word
Da Tech Guy: Report From Louisiana – This & That, Five More Canadian Tyranny Thoughts Under The Fedora, and Joe Vs. Vlad
Don Surber: Canadian Protest Turns Violent, WaPo Puts Down Freedom As White, and A Press Unworthy Of America
First Street Journal: If Someone Was Out To Destroy Transgender Acceptance, What Would They Be Doing Differently? also, Tulsi Goes To CPAC
Gates Of Vienna: Austria Turns On A Dime, The Doxxing Of Canada, and Never Waste An Opportunity For More Refugees
The Geller Report: NYC Stands With Truckers Against Canadian Tyranny, also, Majority Of Democrats Back PM Zoolander’s Tyrannical Crackdown
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, NGC 6217, and I’m Not Making This Up, You Know
Hollywood In Toto: Here’s The Best Biden Impersonation, Period, DC Comics Artist Bounces Back By Defying Woke Mob, and Late Night TV Just Got Even More Liberal
The Lid: How Joe Biden Created The Ukraine Crisis, also, Armed Antifa Confront Armed Portland Homeowner – One Dead, Five Wounded
Legal Insurrection: Adult Transgender Child Molester Brags Of Light Sentence In Juvenile Jail, Israel Rated More Democratic Than U.S., Spain, Italy, & South Africa – Amnesty International Hardest Hit, and NC Schools Allow Kids To Change Name & Sex Without Parental Consent
Michelle Malkin: Thank You, Tom Tancredo
Nebraska Energy Observer: Sunday Matinee Returns, Freedom Convoys, and Pleas & Sadness
Outkick: The Winter Olympics’ TV Ratings Sucked…Real Bad, Katherine Webb Still Has Brent Musburger’s Back After All These Years, and Annie Agar Should Not Have Apologized
Power Line: Remembering The Indispensable Man, The Democrats’ Selective Authoritarianism, and History is Back
Shark Tank: GOP Lawmakers Turn On Sabatini, also, FL GOP Responds To Carlos Smith’s Failed Amendment To “Don’t Say Gay” Bill
Shot In The Dark: Someone Else’s Backyard, also, We’re In The Best Of Hands
The Political Hat: End Political Litmus Tests In Education, also, Ain’t No Cure For The Manichean View
This Ain’t Hell: Another Accounted For, Texas Hotel To Pay Damages For Refusing Service To Disabled Vet W/Service Dog, and American Democrats Strongly Favor PM Zoolander’s Crackdown On Freedom Convoy
Transterrestrial Musings: Counting Calories Burned, Thoughts On Academic Freedom, and Good News
Victory Girls: Canadian Parliament Votes For Tyranny, also, Tamara Lich Accused Of Pre-Crime, Denied Bail
Volokh Conspiracy: Justice Sotomayor’s Statement In Ortiz v. Breslin
Weasel Zippers: NASCAR Fans Can’t Stop Chanting “F*** Joe Biden”, Bob Beckel Dead At 83, and Inflation Hits 10%
The Federalist: What Made Abraham Lincoln Grow Stronger In Adversity, After Slandering Loudoun County Parents, CNN Is Trapped By San Francisco Recalls, and Once Again Joe Biden Has Failed A Foreign Policy Test
Mark Steyn: Blues In The Night, The Permanent Emergency, and Putin Makes His Move

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Category: Linkagery

Way to Go, ‘White Supremacists’!

Posted on | February 22, 2022 | Comments Off on Way to Go, ‘White Supremacists’!

You probably didn’t realize “white supremacists” had taken over San Francisco, but that’s just how clever and sneaky they are:

The progressive San Francisco school-board president recalled by voters earlier this week claimed her ouster was a “consequence” of fighting for racial justice, and represents a victory for “white supremacists.”
“So if you fight for racial justice, this is the consequence,” board president Gabriela López wrote in a tweet on Thursday. “Don’t be mistaken, white supremacists are enjoying this. And the support of the recall is aligned with this.”
More than 70 percent of voters elected to recall López and two other progressive board members, Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga. The trio were the only board members on the seven-member board who were eligible to be recalled.
López shared a screenshot of a Washington Post article about the recall titled, “San Francisco recalls school board members seen as too focused on racial justice.”
The article’s subheading adds, “In a warning for the left, critics saw misplaced priorities, as the board focused on equity issues while schools remained closed.”
As Washington Post politics reporter David Weigel noted in a tweet responding to López, the recall vote was “racially diverse, including hundreds of non-citizen immigrants who were eligible to participate.”

Yeah, when you’ve lost Dave Weigel — and 70% of the vote in San Francisco — maybe you should rethink your agenda. But of course they won’t. Being “woke” means never having to admit that reality exists.

In point of fact, a key factor in the recall was that the school board essentially destroyed the prestigious Lowell High School by eliminating its meritocratic admissions policy, which really pissed off the city’s large Asian-American community. But if you’re into meritocracy — if you believe hard work should be encouraged and exceptional ability should be recognized — then you’re a “white supremacist” no matter what your race, according to the dogmatic beliefs of 21st-century “progressives.”




 

Category: California, Education, Racism

Ukraine as 21st-Century Sudetenland

Posted on | February 22, 2022 | Comments Off on Ukraine as 21st-Century Sudetenland

Excuse me if the headline is a bit too Godwin’s Law, but the analogy — an invasion launched on the pretext of supporting regional separatists — seems justified, and I don’t mean to do a cheap “Putin is the New Hitler” thing, because obviously the “New Hitler” will be whoever Republicans nominate for president in 2024. Anyway . . .

Putin Invades Ukraine Just One Month
After Biden Gave Him Permission to Mount
a “Minor Incursion” Into That Country

Ace’s headline fairly well summarizes the situation. I’ll resist the temptation to compare Biden to Neville Chamberlain, which would be an insult to the memory of Chamberlain, who wasn’t nearly as bad as Biden. Besides which, it must be admitted that what Chamberlain was facing in 1938 was a historical novelty — nothing like the Nazi regime had ever previously existed — whereas Biden has no such excuse; the Russian threat is familiar, and we have more than 80 years of historical example to teach us why weakness and appeasement don’t work.

The profound irony, of course, is that Biden (and Democrats and the media generally) spent so much time trying to paint Trump as a Russian stooge, and claiming that Biden would “get tough” with Putin — well, where’s the evidence that this alleged “toughness” deterred Putin?

Recall what Biden told the world on January 19:

The White House tried quickly to clarify Biden’s suggestion that a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine would come with a lower cost than a full-scale invasion.
Biden predicted during his nearly two-hour news conference that Russia would pay a steep price if it invades Ukraine. But he also suggested the level of punishment would depend on what an invasion might look like.
“It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do,” he said.

Obviously what happened was that administration officials had been discussing various scenarios — including the “minor incursion” scenario — and that Biden accidentally “said the quiet part out loud.” In other words, the brain-addled fool disclosed strategic plans of the U.S. and its allies and, in doing so, signaled to Putin that he effectively had a green light, that the West would regard a takeover in eastern Ukraine as a “minor incursion.” And the only response is economic sanctions, a policy that has always failed to deter aggressors ever since the League of Nations tried it against Mussolini during the Abyssinian crisis.

Our Commander-in-Chief is a clown. No one respects him, and the fact that Americans elected this idiot means that no one respects us. Nor should they. America has become a decidedly unserious country.




 

Category: Joe Biden, Russia, Ukraine

The Doom That Came To Complex 34

Posted on | February 22, 2022 | Comments Off on The Doom That Came To Complex 34

— by Wombat-socho

It seems I haven’t done any book posts since last fall, when I spent three posts trashing one of the worst lists of combat SF ever posted anywhere, so I’d better get cracking, because I have a lot to talk about. 
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

One of the subgenres of SF that has fascinated me since childhood has been the Cthulhu Mythos, which Steven King had the wit to realize was the true beginning of American horror, slasher films notwithstanding. Leigh Kimmel takes the old tentacles out for a new and surprising spin in The Space Race Trilogy, which somehow successfully folds Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff into Lovecraft’s mythos, and makes it work. Only two of the stories actually involve our legendary Single-Combat Generals, but I understand Kimmel has a slew of stories set in the timeline where Gus Grissom survives the Apollo 1 fire, with major consequences for the history of America in space, and I intend to look into them. Both Kimmel’s slim anthology and Wolfe’s beefier take on the early days of our space program are available on Kindle Unlimited.

Mike Williamson’s That Was Now, This Is Then is that rare beast: a sequel that is actually better than the original, in this case A Long Time Until Now. This is not to slight the original book, which was pretty damn good, but the sequel recalls Lieutenant Sean Elliott and some of his original team to Afghanistan, where the humans from the future want them to go back in time again to retrieve other groups of humans stranded in the past. The problem is, some of those groups don’t want to go back, and the future humans have some dark secrets they’re hiding from Elliott and his people. That Was Now, This Is Then also contains some interesting meditations on the responsibilities of a small-unit leader, centered on the recovery of another American squad that went native. Like the original, very much recommended. 

I don’t know why I haven’t read more Dave Freer; considering his excellent work on the sequels to The Witches of Karres, (The Wizard Of Karres, et seq.), the excellence of Cloud-Castles should not have surprised me. This hilarious tale of Augustus Thistlewood’s arrival on Sybill III and the results of his well-intentioned attempts at philanthropy reminds me somewhat of Wodehouse’s classic Bertie & Jeeves tales, except that in Freer’s story Bertie isn’t completely witless* and Jeeves is a young street urchin on the make. Sybill III is populated by descendants of a prison transport crash, who apparently were the kind of criminals even Australia couldn’t tolerate, who eke out an existence on a sizable  alien anti-gravity plate and various drifting clumps of vegetation, all floating in the upper atmosphere of this moon orbiting a brown dwarf. A fun story with lots of humour, also available on KU.

I went to considerable trouble to get Volume 17 of Komi Can’t Communicate, what with the USPS mangling the first shipment and outright losing the second one (I had no idea the route from Phoenix to Tonopah went through the LA railyards) before finally getting a copy at a Reno Barnes & Noble. It was worth it, though; the Itan High School cultural festival is underway, and the manga takes a hard swerve into romantic comedy as Rumiko Manbagi (former gyaru) comes to the horrible realization that both she and Komi are crushing on Tadano – and precisely because they’re friends, Komi won’t allow her to just bow out gracefully. A long conversation between Komi and Rumiko ensues, and for once Komi isn’t using her notepad. Less serious is the second volume of Higehiro, in which Yoshida, the salaryman who’s taken in runaway Sayu only to have her run away again, finds Sayu in a nearby park with his junior colleague Mishima. It could almost be a harem comedy, but the chad Yoshida resolutely resists Sayu’s busty (and underage) blandishments while encouraging her to go get a job at the local convenience store – which brings another young lady into the mix. 

Finally, it’s not just family loyalty but enthusiasm for a very interesting book that compels me to plug my aunt Pat’s So Far From Home, a collection of letters to and from my paternal great-grandparents, Daniel Donovan and Nora McCarthy. I cannot, as a linguist, fail to recognize what an immense amount of work went into this book. In addition to transcribing the letters, Dr. O’Malley had to do more than a little translation as well, since our ancestors in County Cork often wrote in something closer to Gaelic than English; in addition, the extensive footnotes help explain the context as well as expanding on the history of rural farmers in late 19th century Ireland, something as unimaginably distant from most modern Americans as peasant life in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Despite all the scholarly labor that went into it, this is still a very readable book, made up as it is of letters from ordinary working people, whether they were farmers, midwives, or immigrants working in the shoe factories and upper-class households of late 19th century Massachusetts. Well worth your time and money, especially if you have Irish immigrants in your family tree. 

*In fact, he proves to be a Doc Savage in the making, and Briz (his Jeeves) grows up in a surprising fashion as well. 

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Category: Books, Linkagery
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