I tested NEGATIVE for COVID but admittedly felt sick. Everyone in my house has had COVID but my paranoid daughter, so I chose to quarantine last week just in case. I’m down here in this dark cold walk out amidst the couches and the boxes (I’m moving soon) watching Coen Brothers movies. I had never known about how good of a film maker those two fuckers were until now. I saw Burn After Reading and then Hail Caesar, both masterpieces. I will continue with another one today. Aside from that, I haven’t been doing much of anything. Quarantine isn’t bad actually. Food and coffee is sent down and my responsibilities to the outside world is zero. I haven’t had a fever the whole time, a slight cough and minor congestion. If this is COVID, I like it. I’d get it again, willingly.
NASDAQ futures are +95 and I am now listening to Basque music, an odd sounding genre of music in a language that is completely unfamiliar to me.
The news is grim — shooters all over the country in crazy as fuck America. As for the fucker in Buffalo worried about white people going extinct: how about making some babies you piece of shit? Every life is precious and if we begin to believe it isn’t — we become subhuman animals. If you are concerned about your community, do constructive things to help them not destructive things to destroy others. We all love the sounds of summer, the sweet scents of flowers and how the sun sets on a perfect day. Don’t rob that from others just trying to live and be happy on this god damned prison planet.
On the war front, same old same old. Russians fighting Ukrainians and NATO is sending every single weapon in their stores. On paper, NATO should prevail here. It doesn’t look great for the Russians now. But if they pull it off, NATO is fucked. Honestly, the evil empire is too strong to be defeated. We have trillions at our disposal and our people aren’t all trannies yet. Perhaps if Russia attacked in say 30 years — they’d steamroll right into Kiev unopposed. Alas, late empire Pax Americana is violent and viscous and will not cede power without killing all of the Ukrainians first.
On the issue of Finland and Sweden joining NATO — poor choice for them but I can see why they might want protection. At this point, Russia doesn’t have many strategic allies in Europe and will be hard pressed fighting everyone, even with the indomitable Alexander Lukashenko at their side. If NATO can pull it off and drive Russia out of Ukraine, which I doubt, then this market will celebrate in a big way higher. I have no context as to when we might learn when the war will end, but I suspect it will last through the Summer and perhaps even into the winter. It might even end up being Syria 2.0, as NATO attempts to drain Russia of resources by making the war expensive.
I’m sure Ukraine won’t mind.
https://twitter.com/HawkEye02723358/status/1507746595332317193?t=VIoxTRpvJd5aqpDrPnIv1A&s=19
If you were Ukrainian would you welcome the Russians into your home?
If you were American, would you welcome China or Russia militarily setting up all along our borders?
Ain’t Russia like 55 miles from Alaska?
There are about 2500 Russian iCBMs already able to reach us in 30 minutes there, Brezhnev…
My wife had Covid twice. Symptoms were relatively minor and she enjoyed hand-delivered meals and non-stop Netflix and Apple TV. I’m the only one in my household not to get the plague so I’m behind in my TeeVee.
It’s certainly safer to hang in a basement than go to a grocery store or church in today’s America where an 18-year-old can buy a Bushmaster military rifle and body armor but not a pack of cancer sticks. This country is rotting from every orifice.
Russia is slow walking Ukraine – it never had the intention of conquering it. Just take the resource rich areas that include the Donbas and Black Sea rump cities such as Odessa – then neuter the rest of it.
Historically, when Constantinople/Byzantium fell, the seat of the Orthodox Church was moved to Moscow. Russia has a deep historical and cultural interest in re-establishing Constantinople. That is their serious long term target.
Russia have a base in Syria now – their first Med base in history, I believe. If one looks at Turkey, they can see that Russia is slowly enveloping it. Turkey is now surrounded by Russian Syria, Kurdistan, Georgia, Greece, Russia and Bulgaria (who appears to have sided with Russia against Ukraine).
If Russia takes complete control of the Black Sea then life becomes much more difficult for Turkey and Europe. They are slowly achieving this goal.
Meanwhile Turkey is adamantly opposed to the incorporation of Sweden and Finland into NATO, as both nations have overtly supported the PKK in Kurdistan. They also have at least one other adversary within NATO – Greece.
NATO is becoming divided over the issue of Turkey, at a time that Turkey is coming under increasing threats from it’s neighbors, foremost being the big bear to the north.
Just adding, IMO Russia are not interested in becoming a world power, more of a regional one. They want world class defensive capability, ie the ability to strike any corner of the planet with devastating effect, but regional offensive capability.
In effect, a new regional empire, something like a new Byzantium, to join the other regional powers in the new multi-polar world order that is coming.
Enveloping Turkey?? What is remarkable is how Putin stayed put as we violated every word we had spoken re NATO expansion. Our armchair warmongers could not have asked for a more compliant Russian leader. Too bad they couldn’t restrain themselves and pushed a passive Putin to war by pushing into Ukraine in 2014.
His moves look to be defensive in Ukraine … provoked by us; or one could at least make a reasonable argument that we are the ones who are making a grab for resources there …not Putin. As for Syria, would he have gone there if we had not? He was invited ….begged …to go there by the Syrian. We and our ally had, and continue to have, some very bad behavior in Syria.
In any case, we have been able to use our fiat to spread death and destruction. And in so doing, we have destroyed the prospects for our children as our printing press is near spent.
Good points.
But I don’t think that Putin went to Syria for purely altruistic reasons – the Assad regime wanted him there for sure – and I don’t think the Trump administration had any objections either; but he got significant concessions from Syria to his advantage.
Whether or not Putin has been a compliant leader is beyond my pay grade. He’s been focused on rebuilding Russia post Yeltsin and I think he’s realistic as to who Russia can and cannot afford to fight militarily. He picks his fights carefully.
But watch how Russia continues to steadily expand toward the Middle East and Central Asia.