Author: Blazingcatfur

In 1946, Walter Bedell “Beetle” Smith, who was the new ambassador to the Soviet Union, left Spaso House late at night to meet with Generalissimo Josef Stalin in the Kremlin. Winston Churchill had recently delivered his Iron Curtain speech and relations between West and East could hardly have been frostier. The Cold War had begun. The first question Smith asked the Soviet leader was “What does the Soviet Union want, and how far is Russia going to go?” Stalin was impassive. “He did not look at me directly,” Smith wrote in his memoirs, “but kept his head turned to one side, taking an occasional puff from a long Russian cigarette.” After Smith reiterated the question, Stalin looked directly at him and said, “We’re not going much further.”

Vladimir Putin has said there is broad public support for the invasion of Ukraine that he announced just before dawn on Thursday morning. But by evening, thousands of people in cities across Russia had defied police threats to take to central squares and protest against the military campaign.

Police had made at least 1,702 arrest in 53 Russian cities as of Thursday evening, according to the OVD-Info monitor, as they cracked down on the unsanctioned protests. Most of the arrests were made in Moscow and St Petersburg, where the crowds were largest.

The protesters chanted: “No to war!” as they exchanged shocked reactions to the attack on Ukraine.

This feels like the flip side of the White House’s rhetorical game-playing about “invasions” versus “minor incursions.” How “minor” does an incursion need to be to avoid qualifying as an “invasion”?

Similarly, how restrained does the U.S. response to Russian aggression need to be to avoid qualifying as “major? The term is sufficiently vague that it can mean anything.

I hope Trudeauscu commits to 40,000 Ukraine refugees as he did for his Afghan Mohammedans.

Imagine – it’s winter. Heating oil prices are rising. Low temperatures are forecast for the next few days.

You turn on your television and hear the first reports of a massive cyberattack against America’s largest pipeline.

Ransomware has infected the company’s computer system, bringing operations to a halt as IT staff work feverishly to stop the spread.