Day Of The Lord (Glory To Ukraine III.)

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? ~Amos 5:18-20

Earlier today I saw this. Mike Pompeo at some point said "Do you think Americans care about fucking Ukraine?" 

Well, evidently a lot of us do.

But for me, it's more than that. Isn't Mike Pompeo a 1980's-early 1990's Army veteran and supposedly some kind of big-time Evangelical, or something? 

I mean, dude, if you served in the Cold War and you don't care about freedom or resisting Russian aggression...well, I think you were in the wrong goddamned business and I say that as an Air Force veteran my damn self.

Not only that, but I happen to know because...reasons...that a hell of a lot of American Christian groups and churches put one hell of a lot of effort in the 1990's into evangelizing people in the former East Bloc countries, former Soviet states, and even Mongolia. 

Hell, I donated to such efforts, and when I was in college in the late 1990's and early 2000's I saw a little of how that bore fruit...because for awhile, we had a number of foreign students from those parts of the world, and several of them were Evangelicals or Pentecostals. Maybe not quite the American kind...but in some cases, pretty damn close. And some of these students who lived in the dorms were, in fact, more or less adopted by local churches for all the reasons...good and bad...that you might expect. 

My first semester that I lived in the dorms I was friendly with a little clique of mostly Evangelical and Pentecostal students from the Baltic states, one each from Estonia and Lithuania and two from Latvia. Three of them were in the Bible study group my ex and I helped start. But there were also students from Bulgaria,  Russia and Ukraine, There were also several Middle Eastern and Turkish students...though that would become a larger group later on and a couple more from Sub-Saharan Africa.

And you know, some of the stories that the Christian students from the former Soviet Union told were...well, exactly the kind of stories that are why people donated to Voice Of The Martyrs and shit like that. Even in the era of Glasnost and shit, Marxism-Leninism could be a jealous god. My Latvian friend Aelita told me about how her dad got arrested, and ended up losing his job...and pushed into a lower-paying, worse job, simply for being religious. She also said that he was lucky, in the old days one might be sent to a labor camp...or shot.

And from what I hear, these days if you're an Evangelical or a Fundamentalist or a Pentecostal, life in Putin's Russia isn't all that much different. You might not get shot, but you'll still be persecuted because the government wants people to become Orthodox Christians of the exact right kind, in other words to join the government-aligned Russian Orthodox church.. 

Of course, people like Mike Pompeo and Pat Robertson don't care about that. Their idea of Christianity...and even of their own Dominionist bullshit...is so American-centric that an Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian or Ukrainian person who believes the exact same stuff in a similar or even exactly the same way...might as well not even exist to them. Unless they come to America and go to your church and say all the right words when asked to give a talk.

I heard more from my friend than the church people did, and a lot of it was pretty shitty. Life in the Soviet Union was pretty shitty. Just like life in Putin's right-wing attempted reboot of it is shitty, and will be for however much longer he lasts.

Of course Pat Robertson is going to say Putin is being "Compelled by God to start a war" that will "lead to the End Times invasion of Israel." Pat says that about everything. 

But, Ya know, it's funny, for people who say they believe the Jews are God's Chosen People they're sure goat-eager to see Israelis get killed. And they don't give a damn how much either the Ukrainians or the Russians might suffer for their warlike visions, or who might die or what their spiritual condition might be at the time. 

Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go, and whether they say so or not, they think of other people's death or suffering in terms of acceptable losses if they think of it at all. That's why they like the idea of The Rapture and of people being "Left Behind." They beat off to the idea of sitting up there in Heaven watching other people suffer through the judgments of Revelation.

And since Trump failed to bring all that about, now they're hoping Putin will do it. 

I'd bet you money that it enrages these motherfuckers that the Ukrainians are fighting back at all, much less so effectively. It enrages them that an entire society has pulled together to fight, and that the world is backing up the Ukrainian government and its people. 

And I'm sure they look at the fact that the EU is giving the Ukrainian Air Force 70+ Mig-29 and Su-25 fighter jets and see it as the devil's work that the EU is helping a free people to remain that way.

Helping people resist their own Apocalypse, to stand firm against the darkness of their own Day Of The Lord is of course anathema to the Apocalypse-worshipers and the Death-fetishists.

Never mind that the Ukrainians are literally doing drive-by bombings of Russian armor with Molotov Cocktails to fight for their freedom. I mean, I'm sure more jets and munitions and weapons will help, but these people would fight anyway, apparently.

And I'm sure Mike Pompeo hates that, too. Because he doesn't really give a fuck about Christ or Christianity.

These "Conservatives" don't give a damn about freedom now, if they ever really did at all. 

Their "Day of the Lord" isn't "Darkness and not light" it's not even the conquering Christ of Revelation...it's when Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin or somebody like that crowns their self as some kind of world-emperor. Yes, these people basically worship the Antichrist, but they're too stupid to realize that.

Not that they'd care, or change, if they did.

Because it doesn't matter one bit to these assholes what Jesus ever said about Power...or war, for that matter. They think we should all just bend over and take it so they can have their power trip and suck up to dictators and feel righteous about it. They don't understand how Americans could give care about Ukraine because their entire starting point is that they don't care about America unless it conforms to their abusive ideology. They don't understand why Ukrainians care about Ukraine for the same reason.

While right-wingers try to tear everything down so they can use the rubble to built an autocracy, they claim to be defenders of civilization.

But the real defenders of civilization are the people fighting in Ukraine right now.

If you want to have a better country, you have to be a better citizen.

Ukrainians get that, now if they didn't before. Why don't Republicans?

Part II.

 Слава Україна!

Raining Fire From A Woke Sky (Glory To Ukraine II.)

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out
He's chokin', how, everybody's jokin' now
The clocks run out, times up, over, blaow
Snap back to reality, whoop there goes gravity
whoop, there goes Rabbit, he choked
He's so mad, but he won't give up that easy? No
He won't have it, he knows his whole back's to these ropes It don't matter, he's dope, he knows that, but he's broke
He's so stagnant, he knows, when he goes back to this mobile home, that's when it's
Back to the lab again, yo, this whole rhapsody
Better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime. ~Eminem, Lose Yourself

 I saw this early this morning. Some dumbass Putin shill posting a picture of a bunch of people with Pride flags on top of a pink-painted FV101 Scorpion 90 with the caption "NATO tanks arrive in Kyiv to fight Russians."

Seriously? Like Melo said, one could best describe the pronouns of Russian Tankists at this point as "Was/Were" or "You're/Dead" and "You/Lose.: On the other hand, those of Ukrainian Army soldiers, particularly the Javelin teams could best be described as "We/Win."

And at least the Pink Tank isn't broke down, or sitting there having run out of fuel or burned out and dead with a big smoking hole in it, the insides reeking of burned-off fuel, gunpowder and human remains. So, there's that.

I'm tired of this kind of bullshit, this idea that some kind of hyper-masculine attitude and homophobia should be a requirement for military service. It's horse shit. I served in the United States Air Force during the implementation of Don't Ask/Don't Tell, the original compromise legislation that allowed bisexual and gay people to serve in the US Armed Forces.

But they couldn't be themselves while in Uniform. You had to really want to be there, and so the results of that were quite predictable, usually translating into sustained superior performance (the gold standard of any military unit) from such people. Trust me, gay people can fight just as well as anybody else can, and given that in a lot of places they're used to having to fight for even basic respect, in my experience that translates into better performance, personal courage and work ethic because they're already used to having to do it better than the other person just to get their foot in the door.

I served with this one dude, he was Tongan American...from Utah, of all places, but we all called him "Hawaii." Fiercely Fundamentalist Christian and a politically conservative Republican, one of the hardest-charging dudes I ever met, always strove to be the best, and he was absolutely fearless. He was also gay, his parents' culture saw no contradictions or issues with any of that.  We knew, none of us cared. He came out to me and my ex-girlfriend at a mutual military friend's wedding in 2003. When dude retired from the Air Force in 2014 he did so as a married man, married to a fellow NCO he'd met along the way, and with adopted children. In 2016 and after, he was a Never Trump Republican, and so far as I know he still is, though we've not spoke in a couple years.

You want my opinion? If Zelenskiy wants to win this war? If NATO is serious about helping him? Train up a whole bunch of LGBT folks and send them in. Teach the Russians a hard damn lesson, too.

Fuck the damn haters, and you know what? Fuck the goddamned idiots who have a creepy obsession with other people's "Pronouns" I mean come on, we're all people, ain't we?

Isn't the ability to define ourselves a human right?

Also, Fuck the people who think you have to live under some kind of horror to be a real person and that future generations should not have it better than you did. As Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station put it, some of the people where he's at think contempt for others, ignorance and poverty are some kind of a virtues. 

Fuck all that. 

I remember the latter days of the Cold War. There was a point, even in the 1980's, where things could have got very bad. Would the Red Army have choked and had shitty logistics and no training like the modern Russian Army? I don't know, possibly, but until 1991 and watching Soviet-trained Iraqi troops using Soviet doctrine get slaughtered by US and Coalition troops for all their lavish collection of firepower, we didn't know that was even an option. 

In the 1990's, sure, it became accepted wisdom that the Russian Army was junk and I can tell you from the info I saw that they lost 65% of their combat power after the Soviet Union fell, and they didn't get paid, pilots didn't get to fly a lot, all type of stuff like that...but of course most people assumed, especially after 2008 and 2014, that they'd gotten better.

Now of course, just shit like the fact that if they get captured the Ukrainians are letting them call home seems to be taking the fight right out of these people.

And with all the airspace closures, sanctions, SWIFT disconnection and shit like that, I hear lots of Oligarchs are bailing, getting out now, and those who know this stuff are expecting one motherfucker of a run on the banks tomorrow morning.

I saw an estimate that something like half of the value of all of Russia's currency has simply disappeared in the last couple of days, and even shipping of goods to Russia seems to be getting stopped at this point. 

Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are still arming and mobilizing more troops, 

I mean, when the Ukrainians said to the Russians "Welcome to hell" they weren't fucking kidding. Jesus. This shit has got to be about like fighting Murlocs in World Of Warcraft, but the Murlocs have Javelin missiles and Kalashnikovs.

Like, at this point if I were a Russian soldier I'd be afraid to ask what the Aggro rate on a Ukrainian is.

And I think that's starting to show. Hell, it was yesterday, too.

And of course, the Ukrainian troops that are already on the line are just...my God. I mean, I get that these people are, if anything, probably more steeped in the Greek facets of Western culture because of Orthodox Christianity predominating but...fuck...mythology about the subject aside, I'm not sure Spartans with modern training could be doing any better. 

I mean, I get that the Russian Army is a soup sandwich, but it's big, and quantity usually makes a quality all its own, that in fact being their entire military strategy going all the way back to Czarist times. But I don't think Putin's new Russian empire is going to get very far. 

Maybe they can get Belarus to join peacefully, that'll be about it.

And while the Russians are worrying about if they're even going to be able to use their credit cards and shit, Zelenskiy just gave the Ukrainian soldiers one hell of a raise, combat pay for the duration of the conflict. Now, I don't know what they were getting paid before, but you give something like that to people who already believe in what they're fighting for? Let them know not only is their President right out there on the line with them pretty damn often, but that the whole country has their back and they're getting paid the way they fucking ought to for what they're doing? There's times when "Every Man A Tiger" ain't just an expression. 

Especially considering a lot of Ukrainians would give, hell, are giving, the Russians a very bad time of it for free, because "Y'all here/"

So what happens when suddenly, your society treats you as the Michael Jordan of making sure the Russians have a bad night? 

And you know, that's a thing I'd think any American, but especially any American from the South would understand...but it's funny how the ones you'd think would get it the most not only don't...but they're the ones cheerleading for tyranny the hardest, even when most of the rest of the world is against it. This is a thing that I, as a former conservative who actually believed all this stuff, will never understand. 

It was all a lie.

But it's a lie that a little country like Ukraine is defeating...with their own truth.

And the EU is up to giving the Ukrainians major assets like Mig-29 fighters now. Think about that, for a second.

Speaking of things that piss me off, the Russians destroyed the Antonov AN-225 Mriya (which means "Dream" in Ukrainian) a unique...A second aircraft was never finished....and originally Soviet super-heavy airlifter that was designed for the Soviet space program, but was actually built as a regular jet transport, thing could carry six tanks...as well as super-heavy cargoes like generators and locomotives that normally can only be shipped by sea. The AN-225 has been a fixture of humanitarian missions and even COVID-19 relief, and now it's gone. The people fighting to bring back the Soviet Union destroyed one of its greatest lingering achievements. Think about that for a second. Think about the kind of carelessness and cluelessness...all in the service of one man's ego...that this implies. You can't negotiate with that kind of bad faith, willful, nihilistic stupidity.

You cannot reason with willfully unreasonable people.

You can only defeat it. 

And the Ukrainians are doing one hell of a job of that.

I have no respect for people who would destroy something irreplaceable like that, just because they thought it might break the other side's morale or to prove some kind of a bullshit point or something. 

The Dream may have been destroyed, but if the Ukrainians are smart they'll take one of those incoming Mig-29's they're getting and rename it "Nightmare" before they point it at the enemy and use it to rain fire on the Russians out of Clay Higgins' woke shy.

The Russians...and their "Conservative" allies had one shot at getting all this right. Not only did they blow it, but they appear to have blown it so badly that now they've got enemies and problems coming out the woodwork like those carnivorous Scarab beetles in The Mummy.

And the sad, scary part of this shit is that the American Right just keeps doubling down infinitely on what they've been doing all this time. The only catch is, all the sudden it's not working anymore. 

But of course, Conspiracy theories, false religious doctrines, political tribalism and racism are these fucking people's drugs of choice, and they're not going to give any of that shit up until it destroys them...and maybe not even then.

And a lot of people will die because of it. Hell, a lot of people are dying now, and there was never any need for this war. Except, of course, that it was something one of them just had to have. 

And the "Conservatives" will keep pushing this shit at the rest of us and trying to drag this out no matter how much the people of Russia or Ukraine suffer, because to them, this shit is some kind of political proxy war...and it's one that their side is losing. Putin...and Russia the way he runs it...were These Fucking People's Great White Hope.

And now it's all falling apart. It was stupid to start with.

War sucks, and it's kind of good to see the world uniting against one for a change.

But it's time for the rest of us to stand up and start telling these people "No" just like the Ukrainians have done.

It's really that simple, and that complicated.

If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen. If you want a better world, you have to make it better.

And prejudice is no good for that kind of thing.

When you get one shot, try and take it for something better than this, and then not screw it up that bad.

That's all.

Part I

Слава Україна!

...

Two days past eighteen
He was waiting for the bus in his army green
Sat down in a booth in a cafe there
Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair
He's a little shy so she give him a smile
So he said would you mind sittin' down for a while
And talking to me, I'm feeling a little low
She said I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go
So they went down and they sat on the pier
He said I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care
I got no one to send a letter to
Would you mind if I sent one back here to you

I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter says
A soldier's coming home

~The Chicks, Travelin' Soldier.

War Dancing (Glory To Ukraine I)

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life, and realize there's nothin' left 'Cause I've been blastin' and laughin' so long That even my momma thinks that my mind is gone

But I ain't never crossed a man that didn't deserve it. Me be treated like a punk, you know that's unheard of. You better watch how you talkin' and where you walkin' Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk. I really hate to trip, but I gotta loc. As they croak, I see myself in the pistol smoke
Fool, I'm the kinda G the little homies wanna be like. On my knees in the night, sayin' prayers in the streetlight
~Coolio, Gangsta's Paradise

 I first saw this yesterday. Picture of a dead Russian soldier next to a damaged armored vehicle.

And they just left him there. Likewise, in a ghoulish twist, apparently the Russian Army has mobile crematoriums so they don't have to ship dead bodies home. Coming as I do from a country that operates under the credo that we "Leave no man behind" this is anathema to me.

I'm going to be honest, I hope the Ukrainians bury that guy before the ghouls with the truck-mounted furnace find his ass. At least the Ukrainians would probably give him a proper burial, leaving his family with the option of having a grave to visit.

The Russian government is led by fucking Ghouls. I'm glad they're getting their army is getting its ass kicked. Failure on a major scale here will likely lead to regime change, and not least because these fools have made so many enemies, sanctions are piling up, and hell I heard that hotel guests in Russia are being asked to settle their bills early in case the (now official) SWIFT cutoff prevents people's credit cards from working.

Meanwhile, more countries, including Germany, have agreed to supply the Ukrainians with armaments.

I don't think this is working out the way either the Russians or American "Conservatives" thought it was going to. And I'm going to be honest, I can't imagine having imperial ambitions when your army cannot even overcome the country it's already spent 8 years screwing with.

But of course, all Republicans see is the invasion, the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, of hospitals and infrastructure and shit.

Cruelty, death, war, naturally the death cult is all about that type of shit.

Madison Cawthorn wants to have a President that everybody is afraid of. Well, Maddie, how's that working out for Vladimir Putin right about now? If you want to live your life that way, it's a virtual guarantee that eventually you're going to meet somebody far worse than your own most inflated visions of your own toughness eventually.

I'm not sure anybody saw President Zelenskiy as That Guy, but here we are.

There ain't much of a pension plan in the Dictator business, kid.

And Zelenskiy is showing the world what real, lead-from-the-front wartime leadership looks like. If Vladimir Putin, for all his amoral cruelty and deviousness and power, cannot defeat that, you sure as hell ain't gonna be That Guy.

Let me tell you something else. It doesn't matter how brave you are, how tough you are, how good of a shot you are or how well you can fight if you're in the military and you're not instilled with proper discipline, or properly led, or supplied, or trained. 

As the Russians are finding out, to their misfortune, there are some fine lines between a proper Army and a mere mob of armed men and women.

Whole Russian units are breaking down, running out of fuel, and having to forage and steal just to survive because they were sent into the field not only without enough gas, but without anything to eat. I mean, seriously, who in the actual fuck organized this operation, that the Army of a major petrostate cannot get enough fuel from storage facilities (of which they have plenty, trust me) into the field?

I mean, what the hell?

Apparently the Russian Army is a soup sandwich of legendary proportions.

Forget the Ukrainians, hell if I was in Putin's shoes I'd be ordering some major operations to clear out the deadwood in my officer corps and account for and punish theft and generally figure out what the fuck went wrong.

The truth is, in an even marginally competent military, this shouldn't be happening.

And all that is aside from the fact that the Russians walked into the kind of epic beatdown that shouldn't happen to anybody. Or at least, anybody with a brain in their head should have the sense not to fuck with That Guy.

But then, apparently Russian soldiers are trying to get with Ukrainian women on Tinder and then getting cat-fished for intelligence (and probably all type of other shit, too, let's be real) and I'm not sure of the veracity of it, but I saw last night that the Ukrainians were using Tinder and Grindr to track Russian operations.

Apparently, it was accurate, and I've been continuing to see this stuff today.

Dudes, why the fuck are these people even allowed to have their personal cell phones in the field?

It was kind of a big deal a few years ago when the Indian Army banned exactly that, as well as banning use of certain apps in general, but especially now I can see why they did it.

Meanwhile, here in America, Donald Trump is at CPAC advocating that we should invade Canada. I mean...what in the actual fucking fuck?

Over what? COVID-19 restrictions and enforcing their own laws?

I swear these fucking people think that only far-right "Conservatives" should have the benefits of law or society and then they don't even want to follow any of that shit. It's like an entire political philosophy designed by 13 year old boys who never got they ass whupped for being stupid, lying, or talking back to their parents. 

Seriously, somehow these idiots got to thinking they were the end-all, be-all Authority on the Earth.

And quite honestly, I think guys like Putin and Trump are losing whatever grip they had on reality.

And they keep smacking hard into the wall of reality, but their response is simply to back the truck up and hit it again. Well, eventually, the truck is going to break, likely long before the wall does. This is also going to be rather hard on the unfortunate people charged with trying to implement these debased fantasies. 

And that gets even harder when you're dealing with people who will fuck with you just because they can. War is about psychological factors as much as it is anything else. It's about breaking the will of the enemy, as much or more than it is about physically killing them.

That's the whole point of the scary face paint, the Haka, the rebel yell, the war dance, and countless customs practiced by traditional cultures the world over. All that shit is meant to break the will down before the fight even starts.

And in that respect the Russians have clearly failed, I mean, fuck, I just saw that the Russians have failed to even achieve air superiority. And more to the point in a wider sense, I think conservatives read the room wrong, and pushed too hard because they came to believe that their cockamamie political and social theories were reality.

Which is, ironically, the same problem that ultimately doomed Communism.

So keep on these fuckers, and maybe we can party like it's 1989.

Glory To Ukraine!

Last Post

Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora! Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora! Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā Ā, upane! ka upane! Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra! ~Ka Mate, Maori Haka (main body)

...
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
This is the hairy man
Who caused the sun to shine again for me
Up the ladder, up the ladder!
Rise! The Sun shines.
~Ka Mate, English translation.

This most famous, Ka Mate, is the story of a Maori chief named Te Rauparaha who hides in a well, from pursuing enemies of other tribes. He evades his enemies and is rescued by an unnamed man who puts a ladder down the well so he can get out. Made world-famous thanks to its use by the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby team, Ka Mate is a story of the triumph of life over death.

As is the defense of Ukraine.

Glory to the heroes!

Remember Snake Island (Anarchy In Ukraine II.)

I see a red door
And I want it painted black
No colors anymore
I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by
Dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head
Until my darkness goes
I see a line of cars
And they're all painted black
With flowers and my love
Both never to come back

I've seen people turn their heads
And quickly look away
Like a newborn baby
It just happens everyday
I look inside myself
And see my heart is black
I see my red door
I must have it painted black
Maybe then, I'll fade away
And not have to face the facts
It's not easy facing up
When your whole world is black

~Paint It Black, The Rolling Stones

I have a confession to make.

I've been pretty deeply impressed by the courage and tenacity of the Ukrainian people.

Everybody from President Zelenskiy himself, to rich and powerful elites to poor senior citizens...is taking up arms to defend their country. Here for example is heavyweight boxing champion and Mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, manning a machine gun. Imagine showing up for your duty day and finding out that this pure unadulterated badass, like something out of the Terminator movies, is your squad leader. Do not fuck with that guy. 

I saw a video yesterday, of a squad of Ukrainian Border Guards soldiers on this little island, called Snake Island, telling a Russian Navy warship and crew to go fuck themselves. "Remember Snake Island" could be the "Remember The Alamo" of the 21st century. Certainly, it will be in Ukraine.

Hell, earlier tonight I watched a video of this eerily cheerful Ukrainian soldier taunting the Russians.

And here's the kicker, The Ukrainians *Are* making good on all this talk. For all the savagery the Russians have demonstrated in the last couple days...for example, I watched a video this morning of a Russian tank driving over a car...amazingly the driver survived. The Ukrainians have met that evil with courage and sacrifice.

As Rick Wilson said this morning, courage is the highest virtue.

I'm not joking, imagine the society that is going to be reshaped by the people who are all going through this experience. Imagine being the Russians who have to fight them. The Ukrainians believe in God and Country more than the Russians do, and I think that's already starting to have a telling effect.

Earlier tonight I saw that a Russian Il-76 Candid jet transport was shot down, likely carrying between 150 and 225 paratroopers, plus five crew (Six if the aircraft retained its 23mm tail guns.) A second such aircraft has been shot down since.

Meanwhile asset freezes and international sanctions on Russia and on individual Russians...including Putin himself continue to pile up...including disconnection from the SWIFT financial system.

And convoys carrying munitions are continuing to deliver munitions overland from Poland and the Baltic States. The FGM-148 Javelin ATGM continues to be the star of the conflict, and apparently hundreds of Russian armored vehicles have been destroyed...and thus far it looks like overall, the Ukrainians are inflicting more casualties than they're taking.

The Russians can afford that, it worked in Georgia in 2008. It doesn't seem to be working out that way now, but how much longer can Ivan keep throwing bodies into the meat-grinder?

It's really starting to look like the Russians fatally underestimated the Ukrainians, and I don't think yet that they know all what they're walking into. 

Especially considering that with their iron courage, the Ukrainians have won over the vast majority of world opinion.

Especially to do so this quickly is no small thing, and unheard of in hybrid or insurgent warfare. Normally...as with the FMLN in Algeria or the various Anti-Apartheid groups in South Africa and Namibia...such efforts are the product of years, if not decades.

The Ukrainians managed to win over the world in less than one full day.

The main exception of course, seems to be American "Conservatives" in general, and the Far-right in particular...the FOX News crowd most of all. 

But with the Ukrainians kicking Ivan's ass in the Meme War, even that's starting to fray. Tucker Carlson has shifted from supporting Putin to blaming Biden for not doing enough. 

And hell, when asked for aid by the Russians, Kazakhstan refused to send troops to help them in Ukraine. Instead, they got Chechens...and how that's going to go over with the rabidly anti-Muslim far-right, I couldn't tell you...but it can't be helping much.

It's going to amaze me until the day that I die, that so many Americans think Ukraine shouldn't fight back, and that so many of us don't believe in freedom or self-determination.

You'd think, if these people believed in what they said they did, that there'd be a run on airline tickets to Poland or charter flights to Ukraine by gun nuts attracted to the fact that the Ukrainian Army is basically just giving free AK-47's and ammunition to random people and telling them to go fight the Russians.

Isn't that literally what the gun nuts say it's all about?

Molon Labe, right?

But of course, no takers, because it's all a lie. They only even say that shit because they think Black people and liberals don't have guns.

As I said to one such person today, yet another fool who'd rather be alive than free; "Should they have just surrendered at the Alamo?" 

Note: This person was allegedly from Texas. 

They never answered, and I don't give a fuck. As impressed as I am with the Ukrainians, I am equally disgusted by the quisling cowardice of American "Conservatives."

I mean, for fuck's sake, America exists because we fought back in the face of Empire and superior firepower. World history is littered with such cases...from the Spartans at Thermopylae to the Haitians defeating the French and Greeks fighting the Turks to the Afghans fighting both the Soviets and the USA and winning.

I'm sick of these bad faith, lying morons. All their braying like jackasses about "Freedom" was ever and always total bullshit.

They don't even believe in freedom for themselves.

I can't be the only one who's tired of this garbage.

And in the world outside of places like China and Russia and the US far-right, public opinion will move the needle towards more direct intervention. 

Oh hai, here we go. Facebook just banned Russian state media. Think about that one for a second. They won't ban antivaxxers but they just cracked down on the Russians.

The ship was cheered, the Harbor cleared

Merrily did we drop, below the Kirk, below the hill

Below the lighthouse top...

I still say that in a military context, intervention will take the form of more circumscribed efforts like air support and no-fly zones because of the nuclear question, but if they get such support and continued lethal military aid, I think the Ukrainians can handle the rest of this shit themselves.

Another day dawns, and Kyiv...and thus Ukraine...remains free. Glory To Ukraine!

Respect.

Courage is the highest virtue.

Remember that, because our test will be coming soon, too.

Part I

The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

The defenders of Snake Island sure remembered that.

We are spirits, not animals, and those men whose destiny it was to die with courage on that rock stand tall before their God because of it.

#Top20

Слава Україна!

They Did Not Think This Through, Did They? (Anarchy In Ukraine I.)

Two days past eighteen
He was waiting for the bus in his army green
Sat down in a booth in a cafe there
Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair
He's a little shy so she give him a smile
So he said would you mind sittin' down for a while
And talking to me, I'm feeling a little low
She said I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go
So they went down and they sat on the pier
He said I bet you got a boyfriend but I don't care
I got no one to send a letter to
Would you mind if I sent one back here to you

I cried
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy
Too young for him they told her
Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end
Waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letter says
A soldier's coming home

~The Chicks, Travelin' Soldier.

Last night, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Thus far, things do not seem to be going all that well.

I think the Russians, and their backers, boosters and hangers-on in the global authoritarian movement thought it was going to be some Blitzkrieg type of shit, 

And it's just not working out that way. US-supplied FGM-148 Javelin missiles are making life short for a lot of Russian armored vehicle crews, the Russian Army has suffered several defeats and the Ukrainians have even managed to retake a couple of cities that the Russians captured. 

About the only things that the Russians have going for them is air superiority and missile strikes, but the Ukrainians have better morale, and believe in their cause, and against the odds, they're hanging on.

As long as they keep fighting and get support and the flow of supplies and weapons and shit keep on coming, I can tell you, based on those variables, how this is probably gonna end.

And if the Russians try to interdict that flow of equipment, then NATO and US forces enter the chat, and that is going to end very badly for the Russians. The absolute first thing we'll do is take away their air superiority, and then they lose on the ground, most likely.

We're going to get dragged into this sooner or later no matter what. Might as well get it over with.

I'm just stating an obvious fact here.

Sanctions and all that are helpful, but if they were supposed to deter this shit they should have been enacted months ago...if not years ago. That said, the sanctions implemented are...well, they're a hell of a lot more comprehensive then I had expected. 

If the Ukrainians can hang on, that will make a difference.

But they seem to be doing Okay so far.

There's even been a lot of protests against the war in Russia itself, and damn if that ain't unusual. More to the point, the fact that most people in Russia don't want this war and so many people are taking the risks associated with protesting, that matters.

I don't think a whole lot of Russians are down with the idea that they're going to have to sacrifice, or that they or their family members or friends might die...for Vladimir Putin's cockamamie political theories and KGB-style paranoid bullshit.

And honestly, I think Vlad made a mistake. At first blush I thought it was simply setting himself up in a "Win Or Die" scenario like Gaddafi did in Libya during the revolution there, but it's actually worse than that.

He's created a situation where it's not just "Win Or Die" but "Win Or Die, And Then Hope The West Gets Bored And Stops Isolating Russia."

A plan with that many moving parts that's dependent on the good graces of that many other people isn't a plan.

And between the oligarchs being made to feel the pain, the oligarchs kids being sent home and their educational opportunities canceled, and the common people being affected...well, this could end very badly for Putin, for Russia in general, and for Russia's financial prospects in particular.

Now, let me tell you why he doesn't see that.

It's because of these fucking people.

The vapid right-wing airheads who swoon over alleged "Christian values" that Putin has never demonstrated.

And he knows it. But he sees them kowtow to his power anyway, because they like his persecution of LGBT people or whatever.

And the funny part is, the vast majority of these morons don't consider Orthodoxy (Russian or otherwise) to be Christian anymore than they consider Catholicism to be part of Christianity.

And I've always found it interesting how these American right-wingers, the vast majority of them alleged Evangelical Christians, ignore the fact that Putin was KGB and the KGB persecuted religion, including Christianity. Nor only that, but Putin and his government actively persecute Evangelical, Fundamentalist and Pentecostal Christians in Russia even now.

It's the people like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson and the fucking idiots ranting about "Transgender Anarchy In Ukraine" and other nonsensical bullshit like that. 

While Russia does shit like crank out weird synthetic drugs and is all but openly run by criminals.

But these fucking right-wing bobbleheads ignore that because Putin's Drunken Style historical rants get them the same "Fix" they can't get as much from Trump anymore because he's not on social media.

And the reason these fearful little bobblehead ninnies enable Putin is because they see "Anarchy" sexual or otherwise, everywhere. Somehow, awhile back they convinced themselves that Ukraine was symbolic of this, and they want Vladimir Putin to be the "Strong Leader" and symbolically crush the thing that they've made into a symbol of their own shitty little fears. It never occurs to these motherfuckers that in their desire for "Law and Order" they have enabled somebody who has smashed the entire concept, but on the scale of whole nations.

It is the "Conservatives" who have created "Anarchy in the Ukraine."

They create the things they are afraid of, and then try to sell the rest of us on perpetually escalating uses of force to solve the problem that they themselves made.

It's interesting how id never occurs to them to not be afraid. And Putin sees these fearful, privileged, shitty little idiots and thinks, well hey, here's a group of people ripe for exploitation!

Not just that, but due to his Communist background and KGB training, Putin is already predisposed to be against privileged American/Western conservative white people.

In the end though, what's worse, is that these fucking people would be fine with being colonized, exploited, etc. because, to be honest, at this point these assholes would vote for Vladimir Putin if they could.

Even though he hates them. In fact, that's the point. 

Cruelty and Fear.

Note to Christians and "Conservatives" Vladimir Putin does not give a fuck about you, and would kill you too, if he had the chance.

Fear kills. 

Yet it does not occur to the Ukrainians to react to this Russian invasion with anything but damned near superhuman courage.

And that is a truth for which we in the rest of the world may yet have reason to be thankful for.

But in this war that we are not fighting in yet (though I think we will be, soon) Republicans have already surrendered.

So, yeah. Reagan would weep.

Republicans, what in the actual chicken-fried fuck is wrong with you?

If an 80 year old Ukrainian can stand up and volunteer to go fight Russians, why the fuck can't you even be bothered to get a shot or put on a mask or accept people different from you?

You know, the interesting thing here, is that if Vladimir Putin wanted to conquer somebody he might've just invaded the wrong country.

'Cause if Putin (likely) loses this war and/or starts a bigger one that Russia loses, and somehow avoids being put up against the wall and somehow avoids international prosecution...if dude made it to America, there'd be motherfuckers who'd try to change the Constitution so they could vote for his ass at some level.

And that is not a joke.

There's something wrong with these people.

Lost (We Are Spirits, Not Animals, Five.)

The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

I saw this earlier today.

Erik Prince and Steve Bannon, justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine and calling NATO, Ukrainian and US soldiers Nazis. I mean, seriously, what the fuck? As Russian forces literally are plotting full-on old school Communist-style purges in Ukraine and Florida and Texas Republicans essentially try to force LGBT people out of public life, these two fucking traitors have the balls to call American soldiers Nazis?

And mind you, both of these motherfuckers are United States Navy veterans.

Standards must have really been in the shitter at some point, I mean, seriously?

Of course white far-right "Conservatives" are desperately trying to claim themselves to be an oppressed and put-upon ethno-religious group of some kind and especially to say that the Canadian, EU and United States governments, which are [Checks Notes] mostly composed of White people, are oppressing them.

And by "Oppression" they mean "Not meekly giving them everything they want on a silver platter while the rest of us apologize for existing."

And meanwhile, the average grown-ass adult "Conservative" white person (but especially men, it seems like) appears these days to have about the mental acuity and maturity of a 13-year old boy.

Except I'm gonna tell you one thing right now, and do not misunderstand me, but understand me fully so that you get where I'm coming from on this.

If I, as a 13-year-old kid, had called American soldiers Nazis, my Grandpa...who fought against the Japanese in the Pacific during WWII in the United States Navy...would have good and damned well tanned my hide. And I would have deserved it, and I would have understood that I deserved it and that what I did was wrong.

For the record, I turned 13 in 1986.

At that time, the Soviet Union was the Enemy, essentially equated in the minds of Christian, conservative kids like me with the Devil Himself. And Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent...a living, breathing enforcer of the Red Terror that conservatives never stopped talking about and used to justify...well, damned near anything they did.

I'm not saying any of this is right, I'm simply saying that's how it was. If you went on the radio or the TV and sang the praises of a KGB agent and called American military personnel Nazis in 1986, you probably would not do so again, ever. I mean, I don't give a damn how far-left you were at that time. People just didn't say shit like that. And hell, you'd be lucky if you didn't get beat up on the way home.

And most likely whatever group of people beat you up would've been pretty bipartisan.

I'm just sayin' more was expected of me when I was a damn kid, than is expected of these grown ass adult wealthy white right-wing men today.

And ya know, I think that's pretty damned sad.

And another thing. I was a Boy Scout, I was damned well expected to be able to read a map. We didn't have no Google Maps or GPS or anything like that, either. What's these people's excuse, seriously?

One of these trucker convoy wannabe idiots got himself lost on the way to Washington D.C. and as ridiculous as that truck looks I'm honestly surprised he didn't go out and get something made like the Oscar Meyer Weiner-mobile but, you know, shaped like a giant upraised middle finger.

And then, like a dumbass, tried to drive it on the freeway and smacked into the first overpass he came up on and wrecked the damn thing, like an idiot. 

I saw this post earlier, some Mormon dude left his wife because she got a birth control implant (IUD) and my friend sent me this Tweet so I'm like 

"Wuuuut?" (Said in World Of Warcraft male Orc voice.)

Go away, me busy, leave me alone!

And then I thought, oh, wait. That's probably what this asshole's wife said, too.

If I'm sick of one damned thing, it's these people's outright performative hatred of America and the competitive idiocy with which they practice it.

And I'm sick of these people's ridiculously high opinions of themselves.

These people claim to be inspired by all those idiots that just got themselves arrested in Canada, and they think the whole Ottawa thing (which pissed off the vast majority of Canadians) was some kind of resounding success. Well, I don't think they're counting on one thing. The population of the DC metro area is about a sixth of that of the entire country of Canada. Fuck the Police, these morons are going to get their asses kicked by the traffic.

And the same would be true in any major US metro.

Ottawa doesn't quite have a population of 1 million.

These people are the poster children for "No, they didn't think this through, did they?"

And you know what? There are literally people in the world who don't have time for this kind of performance art idiocy and stupid shit. 

I'm sorry, but this needs to be said.

You know who doesn't have the option, much less the time for performance art dumb shit these days?

The Ukrainians.

These idiotic "Conservative" white Americans like to portray themselves as locked in some kind of atavistic, existential death struggle with cultural and social change, or liberalism or something something Gazpacho but you know what? It's all bullshit, mostly for the purpose of getting attention, making money and pushing fascism...which, at least in these people's heads, relies on Bread and Circuses and spectacle to make it work...hence the constant Donkey Show political stupidity. 

90% if everything with these fucking people is basically "Wah, wah, wah, they faced a minor inconvenience or saw that somebody else made some progress in life."

And so they've lost their goddamned minds over it.

Trouble is...and especially considering the fact that Trump has been in WWE you'd think he'd think about this and at least not believe it himself...it's all professional-wrestling type bullshit. And not only a good chunk of the "Conservative" base but a large number of the politicians have forgotten that part.

You know who didn't...even though they use this shit very ably themselves?

The Russians.

And that's exactly why the Russians have been able to bend the Republican Party not so much "to their will" as "Over the desk and make them take it and like it." The Russian Bear pretty much got ahold of the Republican Elephant and said "I'm gonna fuck you 'til you love me" and well, that's exactly what happened. And now these damn Republicans can't so much as see Vladimir Putin on TV without getting a hard-on and they're not even smart enough to try to hide that shit anymore.

Trouble is, the Russians apparently aren't thinking very clearly anymore either.

Nor do they really want to (in either case) because half the problem is a lot of these fucking people are obsessed with their own dicks.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainians, the Democrats, the EU and NATO seem to be treating all this stuff seriously and dealing with it like the existential threat that it is...especially for the Ukrainians. The people of Ukraine right now very much understand that "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty." and I hope it's enough.

Now, I keep trying to warn people that this lack of thinking clearly on the part of Russians and Republicans alike makes things worse, instead of better. In a time when great forces are on the move in the world, these fucking people are making the choice, consciously and with malice aforethought to act as animals, rather than spirits.

These people are lost, very much in the Biblical and Christian-tradition sense of that word.

And a lot of people are going to die, because of it.

Up to and including a lot of these fucking people, themselves. And that makes it no less of a crime, doesn't it? As debased and stupid as these people are, they're still people and whatever their country or their politics they don't deserve to die anymore than the rest of us do.

But they will, and in great numbers, as will others.

Unless we step up and stop this shit, unless decent people around the whole damn world stop putting up with These Fucking People and their love of autocracy and idiocy. And I'm going to remind you that the people who are starting this, they don't care, least of all if somebody else dies.

Well, someone has to.

So get after it.

We are spirits, not animals in this time, we have to be, and don't you dare forget that.

Part Four

Through me is the way to the suffering city;
Through me is the everlasting pain;
Through me is the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and Primal Love.

Nothing was made before me but eternal things

And I endure eternally.
Abandon all hope - Ye Who Enter Here.'

~Sign above the gates of hell, Dante's Inferno.