Yesterday, I read up on the SOTU. Other than Lauren Boebert humiliating, not so much herself, but certainly her district, and the number of other Republicans who claimed they couldn’t be bothered (and in reality probably didn’t want to cheer for Ukraine and also didn’t want to be caught not cheering), it looks to have been pretty positive. I do cite Heather Cox Richardson on it below. I did go out to the mailbox, which I hadn’t done for a couple of weeks (i can get away with that becaue I have Informed Delivery notofications, and because most packages are brought to my door. There was quite a lot of paper mail. Almost all of it went straight into the recycling polycart. Two envelopes and a pocket calendar made it into the house – and one of the envelopes needn’t have. Also, I put together a couple of cartoons for this month. Only three to go,now, and all in the second half.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
DU – As the Tanks Rolled into Ukraine, So Did Malware. Then Microsoft Entered the War.
Quote – Last Wednesday, a few hours before Russian tanks began rolling into Ukraine, alarms went off inside Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center, warning of a never-before-seen piece of “wiper” malware that appeared aimed at the country’s government ministries and financial institutions. Within three hours, Microsoft threw itself into the middle of a ground war in Europe — from 5,500 miles away. The threat center, north of Seattle, had been on high alert, and it quickly picked apart the malware, named it “FoxBlade” and notified Ukraine’s top cyberdefense authority. Within three hours, Microsoft’s virus detection systems had been updated to block the code, which erases — “wipes” — data on computers in a network.
Quote from comment – We shall fight them on the hard drive, we shall meet them on the motherboard, the coaxial of evil shall not prevail. If this sounds familiar … look at the FFT.)
Click through for more. DU is quoting Yahoo News, and you can go there from DU’s link. I don’t mind Yahoo news so much, but the people it attracts I don’t care for.
Letters from an American – March 1, 2022
Quote – Biden offered a “Unity Agenda for the Nation.” He outlined “[f]our big things we can do together”: beat the opioid epidemic, make the way we address mental health equal to the way we address physical health, support our veterans, and end cancer as we know it…. “In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security,” Biden said. And Americans “will meet the test. To protect freedom and liberty, to expand fairness and opportunity. We will save democracy.”
Click through for full letter. I didn’t find any surprises. Of course, it’s far from certain that the unity we need can be achieved, when so many people stand to benefit from preventing it. Somewhat counter-intuitively, Putin’s invasion may help. I would certainly not count on it. We have much work to do just for the midterms.
Womens History – The New Yorker – The Ambassador Caught Between Ukraine and Trump
Quote – Q – Was there intelligence that Putin could invade Ukraine? A – Well, I retired from the State Department back in 2020, so I don’t have access to the intelligence anymore. But, yes, I’m sure that there were all sorts of privileged communications. One of the things that the Biden Administration has done, which I can’t remember seeing before, is quickly declassifying intelligence and sharing it with the world. I’m sure not everything was declassified, but an awful lot of it was, and it took away some of the element of surprise.
Click through for interview by David Remnick. Masha, as she is called, is one of the four damning witnesses, along with Alexander Vindman, who testified at the first impeachment. A third, Fiona Hill, has also bene quoted at length this week. Funny how that works.
Food For Thought:
