Yes, I have to say the wild abandon with which the News Media have been making things up and yelling at the top of their lungs about the made up stuff is, well, stupifying. Zelenski has won himself an Oscar for best comedian playing Rambo, a very competitive nomination. The sheer number of grifters looking for attention is impressive too.
And thank you for bringing it up.

Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 27 2022 13:17 utc | 3

One issue that is going under-reported is our (US) inheritance.
Do we not have the same elements influencing policy decisions in Washington that we had before?
We had the Afghanistan invasion and it’s 20 years of disastrous war and exit.
Then the Iraq invasion, a total humanitarian and policy disaster.
Washington remained the same.
Then the Lebanon invasion of 2006
Washington remained the same.
Then Yemen.
Same
Then Libya.
Same
Then Syria.
Same
Then the coup in Kiev (2014).
Same
And today we are being asked to stand against Putin.
It was years in the making, this Ukraine debacle didn’t start last week.
And when the dust finally settles on this one we will still have in Washington
the Same.

Posted by: librul | Feb 27 2022 14:17 utc | 5

This goes way beyond propaganda. Once they established how well the mass formation psychosis works, they do not want to let their population out of it. Firstly, they promoted the killer virus, now the killer Russians, what is next mass psychosis? The same individuals shitting their pants because of the virus now want to drop everything and go fight in Ukraine to kill themselves some dastardly Russians. I have never seen or imagined so much madness in humanity. What worthless piece of humanity the Westerners have turned out to be, without a grain of critical thinking, cuddled in their selfish convenience and utterly brain dead.
Yes, it is the same vaccinated people who are now demanding that something be done against Russia.

Posted by: Kiza | Feb 27 2022 15:55 utc | 7

Yes isn’t it interesting how one existential crisis can fade into the ether as another gets going… the point is perpetual crises – germs or guns don’t matter – all that matters is mass hypnosis to cover the truth of encroaching pyramid scheme totalitarianism.

Posted by: gottlieb | Feb 27 2022 16:26 utc | 9

This is an amazing article, IMO:
The CIA and the New Dialect Of Power – americanaffairsjournal.org
Essentially it points to the unification of the CIA and the American PMC class – and how the changing view of said PMC class is what is changing the CIA. Not its mission but its image of itself and what it projects publicly.
It also talks about the Rockefeller Red suburban classes (the PMCs) going to Obama in his terms as POTUS but that these aren’t actually liberal in the working class sense.

Today’s new dialect of power, which has supplanted the old, is radical New Left politics internalized, individualized, and regurgitated by the professional class. It is imparted by the universities just as the previous elite idiom was imbued at British-style boarding schools. This dialect, like the transatlantic accent before it, is a class signifier. But today this class contains both CIA agents and left-wing journalists, to the embarrassment of the latter.
…
For graduate school, she enrolled at Georgetown, a university so entrenched in the national security apparatus that it had a CIA agent in residence, who recruited Fox at the age of twenty-two.
…
Though liberalism is the dominant ideology of the Democratic Party, the stereotypes about liberals—well-paid, well-educated, and cosmopolitan—hardly describe the Democratic Party’s national voter base of working-class nonwhites.42 Instead, the professional-class residents of the Rockefeller red suburbs who defected to the Democratic Party were not Republicans who became liberals; they were liberals who became Democrats. When they did, they took their affection for institutions like the CIA with them.
…
The Left has won nearly every culture war of the past seventy years amid growing economic inequality, deindustrialization, mass privatization, deregulation, austerity, and deunionization. The CIA, likewise, has been most successful in its own kind of culture war, whether it be through the CCF, anti-Soviet propaganda, or the lead-up to the Iraq War. Regardless of their failures, both the CIA and the professional class use their adeptness at culture war as a means of self-justification. The CIA utilizes the new dialect of power because it grants the agency legitimacy within the ruling elite; the Left and its professional-class vanguards cry foul because they do not want to admit their own involvement in the credentialing and reproduction of this elite.

Food for thought.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 27 2022 16:32 utc | 11

BREAKING
Hi folks. You should all feel bad for me. I am spending the day checking Western sources for their err…… analysis? 🙄 or take on things.
I was thinking of using a Democrat propaganda trick (based on an actual science) where I set up a T-table of lies and truths. So the video link and time markers and T or F.
It’s evaluation of a design. It is also offering a huge amount of material for a comedy show from what I see.
See: Former Nazis arming Nazis.
But I come here on a mission of peace.
PEACE TALKS have been officially announced and the Ukraine is going to send a delegation.
So my source it trash but whatever.
From DW News:
https://youtu.be/CEZyzD-8UR0
Russia has defined a firm position on this that I support. Disarming Nazis is never a bad idea.
Peace and love. ☮️

Posted by: David G Horsman | Feb 27 2022 16:58 utc | 13

So far Russia has kept the casualties minimal, under 200 casualties at Ukraine’s last report in the destruction of the military equipment of an entire nation! That must be a record low, less than one percent of typical US interventions. Clearly they will avoid a quagmire like Afghanistan and back off to independent provinces as they did in Georgia.
Russia is unlikely to go much further than broader protection of Donbass:
1. Destruction of military equipment, command and control centers;
2. Defeat of the Kiev government without occupation of Kiev or other major cities;
3. Surrounding and defeat or capture of the Ukraine forces attacking Donbass;
4. Setting up bases and structure to protect newly independent provinces.
The question is which provinces want to be independent, and how to determine that:
1. Odessa probably wants independence, but southern provinces between them and Luhansk/Donetsk are less Russian;
2. Russia may want to control the coastal provinces linking Donetsk to Odessa (Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia);
3. So retaining forces there limits weapons and import/exports of Ukraine during referenda on independence;
4. But if Russia knows the south coastal provinces do not want independence, it may have to forego Odessa.

Posted by: Sam F | Feb 27 2022 17:33 utc | 15

thanks b…. i appreciate all your work here! it is tricky separating the ukraine from the non ukraine issues at this point…
i liked with was said here which a few posters are hitting on.. mass hypnosis or mass psychosis…
@ gottlieb | Feb 27 2022 16:26 utc | 10 quote – ” ….all that matters is mass hypnosis to cover the truth of encroaching pyramid scheme totalitarianism.”
we’ve gone straight from covid to russia in no time at all.. and all of it has to be dealt with a certain way according to the authorities… sad, but true this is happening..

Posted by: james | Feb 27 2022 18:01 utc | 17

james gottlieb ” ….all that matters is mass hypnosis to cover the truth of encroaching pyramid scheme totalitarianism.”
In eight to ten years of looking at geo-politics and what is occurring in the world, I have only ever run into one other person that has done similar. The rest just go with the MSM flow. For them now, all they know about the big bad world is what they hear or read on MSM. I have watched Goering’s simple observation of human nature work its magic on all those around me.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 27 2022 18:21 utc | 19

Sweden made the correct decision by avoiding a full Covid-19 lockdown and relying on their population’s common sense, a commission into the handling of the virus has claimed.
Despite praising keeping the country open, the commission said some restrictions should have been introduced earlier.
Swedish experts said repeated lockdowns in other European countries were neither ‘necessary’ nor ‘defensible’.

Sweden ‘correct’ to avoid full Covid-19 lockdown, report claims

Posted by: Down South | Feb 27 2022 18:41 utc | 21

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 27 2022 16:32 utc | 12
Lol @ “left” and “liberals” but I guess the reflection itself is worthwhile.

Posted by: Misotheist | Feb 27 2022 19:36 utc | 23

Meanwhile ….massive and unprecedented floods in Australia. The devastation extends from Queensland’s Mary River region in the north [Maryborough]to the NSW Mid North Coast and much in between[NSW, Northern Rivers].
The Brisbane River is expected to peak at four meters in one hour. Much of Brisbane is already underwater. There have been several death across two states.
The economic costs will be astronomic.
The Queensland government needs to figure out if the Wivenhoe Dam is a water catchment dam or a flood mitigation dam.
Watch live: https://iview.abc.net.au/channel/news

Posted by: Paul | Feb 27 2022 20:32 utc | 25

Our host keeps on getting everything covid wrong.
“ Two preprints have published today with the aim to demonstrate that the Huanan market was the origin of the pandemic. Just a pity that zero animal samples were found positive there and no ancestral sequences different from the ones found in humans were identified at the market.”
https://twitter.com/Rossana38510044/status/1497650015132602369
They also “forget” to mention that multiple studies point to a circulation of SARS2 in several countries previous to the cases identified at the Huanan market.

Posted by: DG | Feb 27 2022 21:36 utc | 27

DG # 28 Our host keeps on getting everything covid wrong.
Posting a link does not necessarily equate to an endorsement of linked article

Posted by: MW | Feb 27 2022 23:02 utc | 29

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 27 2022 22:59 utc | 29
“Did Australian government loose the Mandate of Heaven, or just Queensland?”
Good question Piotr but you should ask Australia’s PM, Pastor Morrison, that theological question. I bet you wouldn’t understand his mumbo jumbo answer. Lets just stay ‘logical’ at this bar.

Posted by: Paul | Feb 28 2022 0:01 utc | 31

Putin complicated things with his recognition of LPR/DPR and feels to me that was the fatal decision. Personally, if I were him, I would have used the R2P excuse that NATO used to do Libya, because in this case, the government HAS BEEN killing civilians instead of claims that Quaddaffi might feel like he wants to kill people in Benghazi.
Posted by: P Walker | Feb 27 2022 21:20 utc | 27
Seriously, what would be different?

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 28 2022 1:33 utc | 33

@P Walker #27
Federalization was what was on the table with the Minsk Accords.
This next deal is likely going to be significantly worse for the Ukraine.
I agree with Piotr: sending peacekeepers into Luhansk and Donetsk would have reaped most of the sanctions anyway but without actually addressing any of Russia’s geopolitical concerns.
I would also note that this is a prime time for Russia to act.
Economically:
OPEC is unable to even meet their existing quotas.
Iran is not going to fall for Lucy football tactics again on nukes for sanctions removal.
There is no way for the rest of the world, much less Europe, to replace Russian oil and natural gas in the short term (2+ years).
Militarily: Scott Ritter (and others) have been adamant that US and Western European militaries have re-oriented towards fighting insurgents in the past 30 years and have lost all of their capability against top line opponents – F35s vs. guys with AK47s and rags. They have zero capability or experience against Russian troops for the foreseeable future (4+ years). Furthermore, European military capabilities are so weak that they were not even able to bring their own (small numbers) of troops back from Afghanistan when the US pulled out. Russia actually transported Ukrainians out of Afghanistan last year
Russian Defense Ministry Evacuates Russians and Ukrainians From Afghanistan Note that this is a Ukrainian web site…
Thus if the EU and Japan want to destroy their own economies, so be it.
China will be happy to absorb all Russian oil and natural gas production.
Where exactly is the disaster facing Russia? Economically or militarily?

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 28 2022 2:09 utc | 35

I dunno how many barflies use VPN but I have been using assorted VPN servers since 2011, chiefy because I want to protect myself from casual intrusion & accept that if I was really copping the hairy eyeball from the enforcers of the corporate state, nothing could protect me from such intrusion.
Anyway today I have noticed something peculiar about my VPN client which lists over 100 nations I can connect through, listed by the delay between myself and the VPN server of the country I can connect to.
In aotearoa that means the fastest service is from the aotearoa followed by australia then either singapore or brunei. There is only a max of 2 milliseconds difference between those last 2. After that all the other nations are listed usually 30 or 40 milliseconds slower than those last two.
Today when I went to use my VPN I saw something odd, that is the first 50 or 60 vpn servers I can connect to all have exactly the same delay of 141 milliseconds! It is as if all vpn servers are being routed through one central point so the delay is identical.
Are vpn’s all being monitored controlled from one central server as the big boss has decided we are all on a war footing merely because of a minor contretemps far away from here and for the matter ‘the big boss’? Is this so that it doesn’t matter where we connect to the big boss is gonna be able to gather data we send prior to it being protected by an ‘encrypted tunnel’ enabling much faster real time access to the entire internet including VPNs?
I dunno but it sure is weird I’m gonna run some tracert across a range of vpn servers.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Feb 28 2022 2:24 utc | 37

@Debsisdead #38
I haven’t looked at the internet backbones recently, but generally these types of issues have to do with BGP routing changes.
In your specific case: New Zealand has exactly 4 trunk lines: 1 to the US and 3 to Australia.
Given the DDoS attacks being conducted by everyone – it wouldn’t shock me that the relative bottleneck nature of connectivity plus flareup of internet activity due to war porn viewing is causing the infrastructure responsivity changes you are seeing.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 28 2022 3:14 utc | 39

karlof1 | Feb 27 2022 22:13 utc | 346 (from one of the Ukraine threads)
Luke learning his father’s Darth Vader
I may have said this before, but JJ Abrams (ipse or a clone) is writing the script of the Russia/Ukraine conflict for the US audience. So alike. Nothing makes sense. “Empire bad, must die” is the plot. No characters to develop. Theft after theft, in the movies, of both the originals and now even the prequels, so bereft of any ideas have been all 5 miserable Disney Star Wars movies. It’s all action and spectacle and motion and busy vacuous bluster.
My thoughts below are based on comments from the gang at Red Letter Media, who try to be mainstream and “non-political”, and at HackFraudMedia (Harry Plinkett’s grandkid), but who’ve dug their teeth in and pulled some serious red meat out re Disney’s and Sony’s efforts to politicize and “weaponize” the failures of their own horrible, typically horrible capitalist products (Disney=Star Wars and Marvel, etc; Sony is Ghostbusters, etc.)
Just how much of a crap do Disney and Sony and co give about the issues they force down viewers’ throats in desperate efforts to appear “woke” and “diverse” and even “anti-war” in these gooey sickening messes that are the greatest force of cultural homogenization and flattening after only a nuclear weapon? Their one goal is pushing consumer behavior. and for sure the masses love massiveness (Goethe).
I can’t even begin to get into Disney’s Marvel’s Lucasfilm’s Stan Lee’s “Captain Marvel”, its Aryan heroine, story, effects, etc., all DOD bought and paid for. Red Letter Media’s Half in the Bag review goes extensively into Disney’s gaslighting of viewers who hated this seizure-caused undigested bowel movement, because, per the Mouse, these haters don’t like “diversity” and “feminism”. Again, brought to you by the Pentagon (Tom Secker at spyculture.com also covers the DOD angle extensively in his thorough and enjoyable manner, but I point to Red Letter Media because they are not trying at all to get into the politics, financing, support, etc., side, but it’s so obvious, such heavy-handed moralizing and propagandizing).
This is what this #woke bs means in the US. the DOD is all over it. Disney means #iheartdiversity. Disney and the Pentagon are 100% #Metoo.
This is also what scary Russia means to them, as well.
Here’s two articles:
one from The Hill about SW: the Last Jedi.
and one from the Daily Chewbacca about Ghostbusters 2016.
Again in both we get the “repressed incels who hate strong women, esp of color” theme hurled against white guys, stoking racist sentiment to push their cinematic plastic fantastic marshmallow movie.
But we now with both these articles get RUSSIAN BOTS with tweets and bleeps and bells trolling R2D2 fans who are (rightly) saddened by movies that literally “make the [Star Wars] prequels look like Citizen fucking Kane” (Rich Evans, Half in the Bag)
This is how seriously your capitalist overlords take the idea of war with Russia. Putin has influenced your mind not to like Melissa McCarthy or Laura Dern. Not only is adoring Ghostbusters a blow for women’s liberation, but oohing and ahhing and ogling at light sabers in the Last Jedi shows how strong the Force is with you against Russian mind tricks.
fuck this fucking country. what else is there to say?
(George Lucas himself is the version where Luke, instead of confronting Vader, just joins the Empire in the final, original movie. As kids we liked the idea of Luke saving pops, so that’s ok, but already: everything else recycles the 1st movie, but now bigger, and with Ewoks. the dead already had to speak because there’s truly nothing new under the Lucas/Disney sun. People like this run everything about our culture).

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Feb 28 2022 4:03 utc | 41

while i’m blathering about movies:
Mad Max: Fury Road. I can only watch this in short doses. In this era of the constant repetition and recycling in movies of what is, like our consumer “recyclables”, only about 5% “recyclable”, this movie shows how to do it. It’s a retelling of Mad Max: Road Warrior. Did we need this movie? i don’t know. it just leaves Star Wars and Spiderman and Ghostbusters and Marvel and co in the dust. It’s like this movie is mocking the emptiness of all this constant repetition, because Disney and co are not even trying, despite all the slavery and labor. Fury Road does so by exaggeration, how big the action and chase is. it’s enjoyable, but i mentioned seizures for a reason.
oh yeah, and in Fury Road, we return to a very repressed subject: traffic in women. I remember a former commenter here scoffing at the idea that we would go to war over women in the modern world. nah. just bitcoin.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Feb 28 2022 4:18 utc | 43

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 28 2022 2:09 utc | 36
My non-expert impression about “Russian military superiority” observed by c1ue. I would not attribute it to an excessive focus on fighting low-tech opponents. That may be the case in Israel, there military raised harassing villagers to high art (however dark), with some atrophy of infantry capabilities against opponents that are actually armed
But the bulk of NATO spending is on weaponry that has scant use against low-tech opponents and motivated by the prospective grand war, perhaps with Russia, but potentially against China — why there are joint naval patrols in South China Sea. Huge teams develop best possible “specs” for those weapons, and the prices are hefty, very hefty. Once you procure all those “necessary” toys, there is very little money left, say for the manpower or readiness.
One reason is that NATO, after USA example, defines its military goals in terms of spending. Europeans are supposed to spend 2% of GDP, and many countries like Lithuania or Poland proudly spend more. USA quite a bit more. But little attention is paid to what those expenses are supposed to achieve. In countries like Poland there are political fights where to spend money, previous government procured combat helicopters in France, the current cancelled the contract, and after some hesitations, opted for American helicopters. With additional orders for tanks, anti-aircraft systems etc., the government felt that it gained sufficient American support against … EU aggression and domestic private TV. But apparently they lost on both issues. (Later, Zelensky copied some Polish ideas, but to no avail, Americans generously offered him evacuation from Kiev.)
Australia is not in NATO, but in a sense, in NATO+. Recall recent bruhaha about submarines. Another contracts snatched by Americans from the French (helicopters for Poland are another example). Why the heck Australia needs 50 billion dollars (Australian or American? any expert explanation) for submarines. To be serious about defense, that’s why. Submarines or not, Australia could survive the way New Zealand does — too far for an invasion to be worth the bother, and even too far to have any dangerous disagreements with neighbors.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 28 2022 4:44 utc | 45

Peter AU.
Greetings from Castlemaine Victoria.
It is very wet here too.
All strength to Russia and it’s people. I have always felt and believed this

Posted by: tim | Feb 28 2022 5:04 utc | 47

1/ From the people who destroy: Eyes on the Pacific – Declassified Australia A dive into spying operations on the various smaller Pacific nations by Australia and New Zealand.
2/ The people who build: How China Defeated Poverty Arnaud Bertrand’s dive on the battle against poverty by the People Republic (American Affairs Journal).
An answer by a Neo-con ‘thinker’: Jonah Goldberg: Yada Yada-ing Tyranny (the Dispatch) and a rebuttal by Arnauld Bertrand (Twitter thread).

Posted by: phiw13 | Feb 28 2022 9:28 utc | 49

« Nous sommes tous ukrainiens » (perhaps another meaning to that here in the autocratic north)
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2022-02-27/rassemblement-a-montreal-en-soutien-a-l-ukraine/notre-coeur-est-avec-eux.php
Demonstration in Montreal, ‘bout 300 people.
“Le père d’Oleksandr Balokha se bat avec les forces ukrainiennes, raconte le jeune homme, les yeux mouillés. « Nous faisons tout ce que nous pouvons d’ici pour les aider, 24 heures sur 24, 7 jours sur 7. Des enfants ont été tués, et l’ensemble du pays a été bombardé », se désole-t-il, brandissant une pancarte sur laquelle on pouvait lire le slogan : « Poutine = crimes de guerre + génocide ». « La guerre doit s’arrêter. »”
La Presse is in Poland.
https://www.lapresse.ca/international/europe/2022-02-28/la-presse-en-pologne/a-bras-ouverts.php

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Feb 28 2022 11:01 utc | 51

The US, Russia and China all realize that nuclear weapons are suicidal (so do the Israelis and perhaps the Pakistanis – but they may be suicidal anyway).
As alternative devastating weapons, the US has settled on animal and human biowarfare with the eternal hope of finding a disease that attacks Russia and China while leaving Americans safe and sound. I think it is a futile and stupid effort – there is no such disease. No matter what disease they come up with, Americans will be affected.
Russia, on the other hand, has decided on economic warfare. Economically speaking, the US is a parasite – most of US GDP is filled with expensive items (Housing, Health Care and Insurance, College and University Education, Commercial Real Estate) that are either free or cheap elsewhere. Another heavy component is military hardware and software – not useful economically speaking. Meanwhile, Russia runs a budget surplus and has a conservative economy: mining and extraction of natural resources, chemical manufacturing (fertilizer) and other manufacturing. If the Russians withhold commodity exports and fertilizer from foreign spot market(s) for three months and after that demand payment in gold – the world economy collapses. I would not be surprised if they do just that.

Posted by: Albertde | Feb 28 2022 13:45 utc | 53

Beat goes on: gas prices continuing to rise
Gas Prices Over 6 Dollars in LA – abc7.com

A Mobil station near the Beverly Center, just east of Beverly Hills, was advertising regular unleaded at $6.19 a gallon on Friday.
That’s well above the average for the county, which rose by 2.6 cents to $4.848 per gallon.
That was the county’s 19th record high price in the last 22 days. It was also the largest one-day jump since Feb. 2, when the average price rose by 2.8 cents.
The average price has increased 22 times in 25 days, rising 17.7 cents, including 2.6 cents Thursday, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. It is 6.7 cents more than one week ago, 17.9 cents higher than one month ago and $1.143 greater than one year ago.

US Average gas price spikes 10 cents over 2 weeks to $3.64 – Fox Business
The highest gas price in the last 2 decades was in 2008 with crude peaking at $147: it hit $4.11 per gallon.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 28 2022 17:42 utc | 55

@Peter AU1 #57
I have been thinking from that start that Biden wanted a foreign policy win to distract from domestic woes.
And the yakety from that administration clearly is trying to pin further economic pain on Russia.
The question is: will it work? Will people forget the year of inflation preceding 2/22/22 and start blaming Putin for everything?
I don’t know.
I hope not, but anything is possible.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 28 2022 18:52 utc | 57

@joey_n #59
I’m not really clear why it is so important to have larger denomination coins.
There is a 10 ruble coin, for example, as well as 10 ruble notes.
The $500 bill was never in circulation to my knowledge.
As for the breakdown of bills vs. coins and the sizes of denominations: I haven’t visited Russia in a few years, but I distinctly remember that the “cheap” supermarkets sold onions and potatoes for single digit rubles per kg costs. Plus public transportation was in the 10-ish ruble range – and this was in St. Petersburg.
I imagine the purpose of cash is to be able to pay for everyday living expenses, as opposed to storing huge sums of savings.

Posted by: c1ue | Mar 1 2022 4:41 utc | 59

@Paul #61
It is a terrible situation in Australia.
How much are the floods a consequence of the constant refrains of “permanent drought”? i.e. people building in flood plains as a consequence of the refrains.
2003 Permanent Drought – Wired
Creeping toward drought – Scientific American 2019
I seem to remember floods in Queensland in 2010 as well.

Posted by: c1ue | Mar 1 2022 9:32 utc | 61

From Canada, some selected news I’m going to spill across the bar like beer from a tipped over bottle.
Yes, it can get worse, reports fake news purveyors
From the Beaverton: Putin accuses Ukraine of having a civilian population
And —
“Climate Change considering makeover to stand out amongst shiny new calamities”
https://www.thebeaverton.com/2022/02/climate-change-considering-makeover-to-stand-out-amongst-shiny-new-calamities/
“I’m like the mousy chick with the glasses and the ponytail who stands at the back of the dance and everyone takes for granted until she kills ten percent of the people in the room and makes life a living hell for the survivors.”
Canada’s Minister of Defence, Anita Anand, moved into this role after her heroics at procuring COVID vaccines in her previous cabinet post. And she seems to have maybe found a way to apply her skills to national defence procurement: buy it for Ukraine (who are so pathetic they still use Soviet era weaponry unlike the ultra-modern Canadian army with its pistols from the Second World war era that it can’t replace due to procurement difficulties) then hastily add on some stuff for possible later shipment to Ukraine that might be able to be used by Canada’s military. Something to watch for!
La Presse is still in Poland. With a report prominently showing a student from Africa in tears. Not because of Putin, at time of press. Only stony silence from the Kremlin on the issue.
https://www.lapresse.ca/international/2022-03-01/la-presse-en-pologne/une-solidarite-a-deux-vitesses.php
Fake news about Russia withdrawing all its diplomatic staff from Canada. Nice reply by evil Putin-bot from mainstream media CTV news:
https://twitter.com/Gray_Mackenzie/status/1498475720703717382
“To my knowledge, no Canadian media has received any word from the Russians on if they are staying/leaving.”
“With that in mind, it’s important to be skeptical if people who “break news” no one else can confirm, who then follow it up by promoting a startup”
And from CBC’s the National— Canadians support Ukraine (I’m sorry but it is what it is) summarized in under 2 minutes
https://twitter.com/CBCTheNational/status/1498274283952295938

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Mar 1 2022 12:44 utc | 63

@joey_n #63
Again, it has been a few years since I last visited – but I do not recall hardly any vending machines in Russia.
For public transportation:
Subways in St. Petersburg are paid by token. Tokens purchased at a window in the subway station for cash.
Bus and light rail: there are actual people who check fares on each vehicle. They accept payment and make change (and issue a receipt).
Grocery stores: I don’t recall seeing anyone ever use a credit card, although presumably such payments must exist. Cash is the vast majority of purchases although there are also the equivalent of preloaded debit cards.
I’ve never driven a car in Russia so no idea how gas stations work.
But I think you are focusing on the wrong thing. Inflation has been high in Russia for a long time, especially relative to Western countries. Coins/currency denominations have not been an issue. Despite the inflation, the Russian government heavily subsidizes basic foodstuffs (potatoes and onions above are an example) as well as things like health care.
The sanctions being enacted now: Russia does import a lot, but I believe a large percentage of these imports are luxuries as opposed to necessities.
I do know there are a lot of European (and Japanese) cars in Russia despite domestic Russian car lines and domestic Russian production of some cheaper foreign car brands. There are food imports – but they divide into imports from cheap places like Turkey or Morocco vs. fancy French wines and what not. Not really sure what the breakdown is between 1% consumption of imports vs. 99%, but I suspect it is pretty significantly 1%.
In general, I am fairly sure that the sanctions impact is going to be minimal for regular people – certainly so in the short term – so long as China continues to sell to Russia (and buy energy in return).
The biggest impact is likely tourism. St. Petersburg has a huge tourism sector and sanctions will definitely affect that negatively even disregarding the MSM demonization.

Posted by: c1ue | Mar 1 2022 13:21 utc | 65

China has delivered the first dual fuel LNG/Diesel powered VLCC with a total range of 24,000 nautical miles using both fuels. Chinese built, owned and operated. However, the article doesn’t provide info on the difference in costs between the two fuels while dwelling on the better environmental impact of LNG.

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 1 2022 18:01 utc | 67

“>https://palladiummag.com/2022/02/24/what-happened-in-kazakhstans-january-rebellion/”>
On ground report on aftermath of January riots in Kazakhstan

Posted by: die Niemandsfuchs | Mar 1 2022 18:52 utc | 69

Overall, just average weather.
“Summer weather data suggests an ‘average’ year, disguising several incidents of extreme weather”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-01/average-summer-disguises-extreme-weather/100873372

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 1 2022 19:59 utc | 71

For the Aussies that remember hearing this on the radio when they were young. The original Road to Gundagai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwpO7JpO3co

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 2 2022 3:37 utc | 73

73
Us whiteys have only been here a couple of hundred years Paul. Out in the bush, you find the remains of the original station slab hut on river flats or floodplains. By the time they had got financial enough to build a proper house, they had learned to build on stilts or high ground.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Mar 2 2022 3:47 utc | 75

I have really enjoyed reading the comments and following the links in these threads… I would like to offer two links of my own:
1) (Oct, 2019) Fascinating presentation on the philosophies of the ruling elites around the world. The differences between their ideologies; why some countries (China, Russia, Iran) are natural ideological allies; why others (UK vs Russia) are implacable opponents; how UK-created Naziism was used to subvert Germany.
Speaker: Alex Thomson, UKColumn. Duration: 1h 10m.
Link to youtube video
2) (Jan, 2022) Aaron Mate interviews ex- Pentagon aide Douglas Macgregor. Thoughts on Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Syria, Afghanistan.
Duration: 37m
Link to youtube video

Posted by: Browser | Mar 2 2022 15:13 utc | 77

All 6 top oil indices now over $100/barrel.
The huge jump in worldwide average gasoline price since 2/24 has not shown up in US gasoline prices yet – will be interesting to see if it does (don’t see why it would not).

Posted by: c1ue | Mar 2 2022 16:12 utc | 79

Australian barflies take note. there is a predictable disaster waiting to happen at North Richmond, NSW, on the outskirts of Sydney
Background:
There was a magnificent dairy farm terraformed sustainably with dams flowing from one to the other down the side of a gentle hill. This farm as used by the Hawkesbury Agricultural College as a demonstration farm.
Bloated, corrupt developer and coal miner, Nathan Tinkler purchased the farm and put Development Applications [DA’s] before the corrupt Hawkesbury City Council while making ‘donations’ to the corrupt Liberal mayor, Bart Bassett.
Approvals were given against much local public opposition.
A number of dams were filled in. The land was concreted and a huge ‘development’ was built with numerous houses and a retirement village. There was nowhere for the water to go except downhill into Redbank Creek.
Now one of the existing old dams is in danger of collapsing which will endanger the whole suburb of North Richmond below.
https://www.hawkesburygazette.com.au/story/4129693/bassett-solicited-donations-from-buildev/
Bassett continues to exert influence over council planning staff and the NSW Liberal Party.

Posted by: Paul | Mar 3 2022 2:36 utc | 81