Yesterday, aas you will see below, i had a story fall into my lap (so to speak) at exactly the right moment. That doesn’t happen very often. I also spent more time looking for parody and satire for the video thread, since the parodisis and satirists are often in sync with each other. (If you missed Randy Rainbow and Betty Bowers in yesterdas video thread, click back to it.) I found a few, which will show up in due course … but I didn’t find a new Rocky Mountain Mike, which I was hoping for.
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Crooks and Liars – 300K Hackers Come Together Online To Fight Russia
Quote – Kali – and many others who contributed to this article – declined to share his real name because some of the action he is taking is illegal and because he fears Russian retaliation. He is one of about 300,000 people who have signed up to a group on the chat app Telegram called “IT Army of Ukraine”, through which participants are assigned tasks designed to take the fight to Vladimir Putin. In so doing, they are trying to level the playing field between one of the world’s superpowers and Ukraine as it faces bombardment and invasion. Click through for C&L story, and through again to the Guardian if you want more. I find this very sweet … but sweetness doesn’t always also have teeth. This does.
Mother Jones – Invoking Pearl Harbor and 9/11, Zelenskyy Issues Extraordinary Plea for Help
Quote – During his speech, Zelenskyy urged Americans to recall the panic sparked by the attack on Pearl Harbor and the September 11 terrorist attacks. “Our country experienced the same every day,” he said. “Right now. At this moment, every night for three weeks now.” To conclude, Zelenskyy switched from Ukrainian to English, calling directly on President Joe Biden to become the “leader of the world.” Click through for more excerpts, analysis, and a link to the full speech. I really couldn’t ignore this. It’s also noteworthy that on Tuesday the Senate voted unanimously to censure Putin as a war criminal. Sure, talk is cheap – but not as cheap as we used to think before TFG.
Colorado Public Radio – Without Ouray, Colorado, there’d be no ‘Danny Boy’
Quote – It was [in Ouray] in 1913 that Weatherly, the wife of a patrician miner from England, linked an old Irish tune to a poem that had been written by her brother-in-law, Frederic Weatherly, an English barrister and lyricist. The poem was written in 1910 as Frederic mourned the deaths of his father and his son. He intended for it to be a song, but no one had succeeded in coming up with the right melody to suit the sad words. That is, until Margaret Weatherly thought of a tune she had heard her father, who immigrated from Ireland, and other Irish railroad workers play when she was a child in California. Click through for story. Who knew that a story combining Women’s history and irish culture would fall into my lap. I knew Ourau was historically significant (it’s named after a chief of the Tabeguache band of the Utes), but I certainly did not know this. (Ouray is also absolutely gorgeous, and photographs do not do it justice.)
Food For Thought:
When Russia sanctioned Canada, it barred leaders from all major federal parties, including conservative leaders.
But when Russia sanctioned the U.S., it barred Democratic leaders only. It didn’t name a single GOP leader.
Yesterday, it was pretty quiet. Which is just fine with me.
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Headline from Democratic Underground – Cawthorn said he used his wheelchair to transport “multiple weapons” during Jan 6 insurrection
Unearthed: Madison Cawthorn called into the Charlie Kirk show during the January 6th attack and said he used his wheelchair to transport “multiple weapons” ahead of the Capitol riot and armed those around him. pic.twitter.com/AoQDaqSDjs
The video is short. But it contains all the necessasry “receipts.”
Robert Reich – Helplessness in the face of evil – An allegory
Quote – It’s like watching a three-hundred-pound bully beat up a kid half his size, for no reason — bloodying the poor kid, pulverizing him. Yet you don’t dare try to stop the mayhem because the bully has a gun that he’ll use on you if you intervene. You look for police, but there are none…. Click thorugh for the rest of the story. Yes. This is is exactly what it is like.
Women’s History – The 19th – Black women’s qualifications have long been questioned. Ketanji Brown Jackson’s allies were prepared.
Quote – “Vicious, racist, sexist tropes have long been levied against Black women,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist and member of the Black Women’s Leadership Collective, which has worked in tandem with the White House on messaging efforts around Jackson’s nomination. “These are outlandish tropes, but they’re designed to undermine Black women based on stereotypes, based on trying to play to people’s worst instincts and fears.” Click through for – I guess I have to say aaalysis. And at least some of it, if not all of it (we can hope), will turn out to have been necessary. I do hope it doesn’t take forever (even though Justice Breyer has arranged things to provide plenty of time.)
Food For Thought: Tweet including letter on the loss of American Journalist Brent Renaud. (And i still cut off some of the signature) Yes, you’ll ned a hanky (at least I did).
Yesterday, I changed some light bulbs. Yes, it would have been nice had I changed them when it was getting dark earlier – but there isn’t a lot of ancillary lightng in that room, and I had to be able to see to do it. Also, balance is an issue – I’ve had balance issue on and off since childhood. Most of the time you wouldn’t know it – I can walk aound fine inside without a cane or crutch (because i knpw all the handholds) – but when I go even one step up I need something to grab. But I got it done. Later, I listenet to the Met Opera “A Concert For Ukraine.” I hoped it might show up later on YouTube, but all that has been loaded is the final curtain calls (If anyone does care, when they bring on the soloists, they are, from left to right, .Jamie Barton, Elza van den Heever, Lisa Davidsen. Then Yannnick Nézet-Séguin (the conductor), and on the right, a 24-year-old Ukrainian bass-baritone in the Met’s Lindemann Young Artists Program (which is what thy call their apprentice program, Every major opera company has one now.), followed bt Piotr Beczala and Ryan Speedo Green. Davidsen sang the Four Last Songs by Strauss, and the young Ukrainian soloed in the Ukrainian National Anthem. The other four were the soloists in the last movement of Beethoven’s nintu (Ode to Joy). Sorry I didn’t catch the young Ukrainian’s name … but I also watched a video of a different performance of the anthem, prior to an opera, and I actually picked him out – he was the only one not reading the words, and he had his hand over his heart just as he does in the curtain call. (Beczala, who also puts his hand over his heart in the curtain call, is from Poland, one of Ukraine’s nest door neighbors.) I realize this is not as meaningful if one doesn’t know the peole … but I do (except the one I will get to know better later.)
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Crooks and Liars – Ukraine To Release Commemorative ‘Russian Warship, Go F#ck Yourself’ Stamp
Quote – The Ukrainian postal service will release a stamp that says “Russian warship, go f#ck yourself” to commemorate the soldiers who reportedly cursed out Russian forces attacking Snake Island during the early days of the Russian invasion. Ukraine’s Ukrposhta wrote on Facebook that they will be holding a vote to choose one of 20 finalist designs sent in which feature the phrase, which has become a rallying cry for Ukrainian troops and citizens defending their homeland. Click through for more. The contest is over and the winner is in (and shown here.) My mom took up philately as a hobby after she retired, so I know that collectors all over the world will want this. So if you want one, find yourself a business that deals in philately and you should have no trouble putting in an order Ask about first day covers – I know those are a thing but I really don’t know what effect it would have on the value of this one. You may have to wait a while – I don’t know how hard it will be to get it printed while being shelled. God, I love the Ukrainians. (Can we get a stamp that says “F*ck the GQP”?)
Slate – A New Report Adds Evidence That Trump Was a Russian Asset
Quote – During the campaign, Trump, his national security appointees, and his allies in Congress insisted that China was meddling in the election to help Joe Biden. They even claimed that China’s interference was more dangerous than Russia’s. The report shreds that fiction. China “did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election,” says the assessment. It finds no attempt by China to “provide funding to any candidates or parties,” and it challenges the Republican spin that China feared Trump because he was too tough. It argues, to the contrary, that Beijing saw Trump as a weaker adversary because he “would alienate US partners,” whereas Biden “would pose a greater challenge over the long run because he would be more successful in mobilizing a global alliance against China.” Click through. This report doesn’t mention that he may actually have been a Russian asset for 40 years, or nearly – since the 80’s (when he started getting loans from thhem through Deutsche Bank), but that has also been mentioned recently.
CNN – After over three decades of covering Russia, I leave in despair. One man has extinguished the bright hope many once felt
Quote – Over the past couple of months while I’ve been reporting from Moscow, I’ve met many people who have been horrified, shocked and numbed by Putin’s wanton aggression. Some of them believed him when he said he wouldn’t invade Ukraine. Some even knew players in the Kremlin inner circle and thought they understood the President’s red lines, but now that trust is blown and they fear he has no limits at all. Click through for full analysis. It’s pretty clear that Mr. Robertson feels strongly about this. I certainly would in his shoes. I wish I had a solution. I wish someone – anyone – had a solution.
Glenn Kirschner – Mike Flynn Pleads the 5th; He Should be Ordered to Active Duty & Court-Martialed for his Crimes
Meidas Touch – Exclusive: Ukrainian Diplomat has a message for America
The Daily Show – Russia Threatens to Abandon American Astronaut in Retaliation for Sanctions
Vox – How a no-fly zone would change the war in Ukraine
Armageddon Update – Freedumb Convoy
Sprouts – Skin in the Game: No Risk No Learning
Beau – Let’s talk about a unique proposal going after oligarchs…. Well, this is an interesting development. Did you notive he started with “Ahoy,” not “Hi there”?
Yesterday, I managed to make two trips out to the recyclables bin and one tp the trash bin (and neither is actua;;;y full yet. I know there are disadvantages, but DST is far better suited to my biorhythm than standard time. The first day the sunset is an hour later is also the first day I can summon up the energy to schlep stuff around, which I have been putting off for days. (And I didn’t even get up all that early.) So I am on the side of peple who want to keep DST all year (which would also eliminae the stress that comes with “springing forward,” and studies suggest it would also save lives and energy, and have other benefits.) And – I almost forgot – Happy PI Day!
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The New Yorker – Did George Washington Have an Enslaved Son?
Quote – [West Ford’s] descendants have demanded that Mount Vernon recognize Ford for his contributions to the estate, which was near collapse during the decades after Washington’s death. They also argue—citing oral histories from two branches of the family—that Ford was Washington’s unacknowledged son, a claim that Mount Vernon officials have consistently denied. As that debate continues, Black civic organizations in Gum Springs are engaged in related battles to save their endangered community. Click through for backstory and current issues. Absolutely no one that I can see except The New Yorker is covering this (but I didn’t search for small local news outlets.) Jefferson’s (white) descendants – most of them – have learned to live with the truth. AreWashington’s tough enough? Also, there is more than genealogy in this story.
Daily Kos (David Neiwert) – ‘Patriot’ threatens Nevada’s governor at restaurant, and Republicans cheer the eliminationism
Quote – This kind of rhetoric is not simply violent but eliminationist in nature: That is, it’s discourse intended not simply to oppose a political or cultural foe but to dehumanize and demonize them, to render them nonhuman objects fit only for elimination—vermin, diseases, existential threats. It’s a powerful precursor to real-world violence because it not only obliterates any compunction about killing, it positively creates permission for it…. [Joey] Gilbert … published a long post on Facebook…. “That time is upon us where these fraudulently elected leaders of ours will not be able to walk the streets alone,” Click through for discussion. (My Daily Kos newsletter has stopped coming again, but Crooks and Liars is reprinting enough to keep me in touch.) Neiwert has put his finger right on my deepest fears. I lived through the sixties when one leader after another was getting shot and killed. I am still jittery about it. I am not expecting anyone to target me personally … but they don’t have to in order to ruin my life. This is real.
Women’s History – The Conversation – Deaf women fought for the right to vote
Quote – As a researcher of deaf history, including deaf women’s history, I work to illuminate the often hidden history of deaf people and their unique contributions to the world. I have unearthed historical information about deaf women suffragists and assembled it into an online collection chronicling what is known—so far—about these women and their lives. Despite harsh, discriminatory conditions, low pay, and lack of recognition, countless deaf women have fought with brilliance and dedication for personal and professional recognition, including for the right to vote. Click through for several individual stories. This was publshed last year, but reprinted this year in Yes! Magazine. I prefer original sources in any case, but especially when the original source is one I know everyone can access.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I can’t imagine there is anyone here who is not concerned about radiation, not only in Ukraine, but about what could happen to the rest of the world. This article is not going to answer every question or address every fear. But, as far as it goes, it is based on sound science, not on propoganda. It can be trusted. And it can be confidently shard.
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Military action in radioactive Chernobyl could be dangerous for people and the environment
The site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine has been surrounded for more than three decades by a 1,000-square-mile (2,600-square-kilometer) exclusion zone that keeps people out. On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s reactor number four melted down as a result of human error, releasing vast quantities of radioactive particles and gases into the surrounding landscape – 400 times more radioactivity to the environment than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Put in place to contain the radioactive contaminants, the exclusion zone also protects the region from human disturbance.
Apart from a handful of industrial areas, most of the exclusion zone is completely isolated from human activity and appears almost normal. In some areas, where radiation levels have dropped over time, plants and animals have returned in significant numbers.
A fox near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. T. A. Mousseau, 2019, CC BY-ND
Some scientists have suggested the zone has become an Eden for wildlife, while others are skeptical of that possibility. Looks can be deceiving, at least in areas of high radioactivity, where bird, mammal and insect population sizes and diversity are significantly lower than in the “clean” parts of the exclusion zone.
As of the beginning of March 2022, Russian forces controlled the Chernobyl facility.
Why invade via Chernobyl?
In hindsight, the strategic benefits of basing military operations in the Chernobyl exclusion zone seem obvious. It is a large, unpopulated area connected by a paved highway straight to the Ukrainian capital, with few obstacles or human developments along the way. The Chernobyl zone abuts Belarus and is thus immune from attack from Ukrainian forces from the north. The reactor site’s industrial area is, in effect, a large parking lot suitable for staging an invading army’s thousands of vehicles.
The power plant site also houses the main electrical grid switching network for the entire region. It’s possible to turn the lights off in Kyiv from here, even though the power plant itself has not generated any electricity since 2000, when the last of Chernobyl’s four reactors was shut down. Such control over the power supply likely has strategic importance, although Kyiv’s electrical needs could probably also be supplied via other nodes on the Ukrainian national power grid.
The reactor site likely offers considerable protection from aerial attack, given the improbability that Ukrainian or other forces would risk combat on a site containing more than 5.3 million pounds (2.4 million kilograms) of radioactive spent nuclear fuel. This is the highly radioactive material produced by a nuclear reactor during normal operations. A direct hit on the power plant’s spent fuel pools or dry cask storage facilities could release substantially more radioactive material into the environment than the original meltdown and explosions in 1986 and thus cause an environmental disaster of global proportions.
View of the power plant site from a distance, with the containment shield structure in place over the destroyed reactor. T.A. Mousseau, CC BY-ND
Environmental risks on the ground in Chernobyl
The Chernobyl exclusion zone is among the most radioactively contaminated regions on the planet. Thousands of acres surrounding the reactor site have ambient radiation dose rates exceeding typical background levels by thousands of times. In parts of the so-called Red Forest near the power plant it’s possible to receive a dangerous radiation dose in just a few days of exposure.
Radiation monitoring stations across the Chernobyl zone recorded the first obvious environmental impact of the invasion. Sensors put in place by the Ukrainian Chernobyl EcoCenter in case of accidents or forest fires showed dramatic jumps in radiation levels along major roads and next to the reactor facilities starting after 9 p.m on Feb. 24, 2022. That’s when Russian invaders reached the area from neighboring Belarus.
Because the rise in radiation levels was most obvious in the immediate vicinity of the reactor buildings, there was concern that the containment structures had been damaged, although Russian authorities have denied this possibility. The sensor network abruptly stopped reporting early on Feb. 25 and did not restart until March 1, 2022, so the full magnitude of disturbance to the region from the troop movements is unclear.
If, in fact, it was dust stirred up by vehicles and not damage to any containment facilities that caused the rise in radiation readings, and assuming the increase lasted for just a few hours, it’s not likely to be of long-term concern, as the dust will settle again once troops move through.
Forest fires, like this one in 2020 in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, can release radioactive particles that had been trapped in the burning materials. Volodymyr Shuvayev/AFP via Getty Images
Possible impacts further afield
Perhaps the greater environmental threat to the region stems from the potential release to the atmosphere of radionuclides stored in soil and plants should a forest fire ignite.
Currently the zone is home to massive amounts of dead trees and debris that could act as fuel for a fire. Even in the absence of combat, military activity – like thousands of troops transiting, eating, smoking and building campfires to stay warm – increases the risk of forest fires.
A bird from Chernobyl with a tumor on its head. T. A. Mousseau, 2009, CC BY-ND
There is no “safe” level when it comes to ionizing radiation. The hazards to life are in direct proportion to the level of exposure. Should the ongoing conflict escalate and damage the radiation confinement facilities at Chernobyl, or at any of the 15 nuclear reactors at four other sites across Ukraine, the magnitude of harm to the environment would be catastrophic.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, you, being goddesses, are, I trust, immune to the effects of radiation suffered by hmans, animals, and plants. Anything you can think of that will kelp preserve the rest of us will be appreciated. (I doubt that Democritus can help. He is probably still in shock, awe, and disbelief.)
Snake Island during the early days of the Russian invasion. Ukraine’s Ukrposhta wrote on Facebook that they will be holding a vote to choose one of 20 finalist designs sent in which feature the phrase, which has become a rallying cry for Ukrainian troops and citizens defending their homeland.
