March 17, 2022

Shocked and perplexed... no one is paying attention to war in Yemen.

Yes, shocked and surprised, I tell ya...

For the life of me I can't figure out WHY the war in Yemen is being kept SECRET from all the kind hearted Westerners.

For some reason... the UN is having a hard time finding countries to donate money for millions of starving Yemenis.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114002

WFP was forced to reduce food rations for eight million people at the beginning of the year due to a shortage of funds, Mr. Beasley said. For now, five million people who are at immediate risk of slipping into famine conditions have continued to receive a full food ration.

WFP is currently only 11 percent funded and needs more than $887.9 million to provide food assistance for 13 million people over the coming six months.

Mr. Griffiths said more than 75 per cent of the $14 billion generated by United Nations appeals has come from six donors - the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and the European Commission – whose funds have staved off mass famine, “an important success”, he said.

March 16, 2022

Does the Ukraine War and it's escalation mean...

In future wars involving the US (Think Gulf War 1, Gulf War 2, ISIS/ISIL, Syria, Afghanistan...)

Can we expect the Russians and Chinese to flood the opposition with state of the art weaponry?

In the past, they've been content to send AK's and RPG's...

Is Ukraine a new and potentially "game-changing" standard for the "New World" orientation?

March 14, 2022

What's Putin doing? My theory for the day.

This is just opinion. Opinions may and certainly DO vary.

My own opinion changes frequently but here's where I'm at today.




I think Kiev is a head fake. Kiev is the shiny object that draws the most cameras and defenders. The Russians are establishing light groups around Ukraine, not for an assault but to tie the defenders down and create chaos.

Look at the actual fighting. Kherson, Mykolaiv, Melitopol, Mariupol, Berdyansk...

What do they have in common? They're all located between the Russian leaning LPR/DPR and Crimea.

IMHO, the Russians are looking to grab the land from LPR/DPR all the way to Kherson in the West and Zaporizhzhia in the North, encompassing all the coast along the Sea of Azov.

This gives the Russians control over the Eastern breakaway provinces, the nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia, a land bridge to Crimea, full control of the Sea of Azov.

When the Russians have consolidated the Southeast, they will "threaten" sufficiently to push Zelenskyy to accept a negotiation ceding the land lost in the Southeast to Russia while a literal gun is pointed at Kiev.

Summary: Kiev isn't the strategic target, the Southeast IS. It's a land grab. How long will Zelenskyy fight? Will he negotiate?

Even without negotiation, Russia just annexes the Southeast just like they did Crimea then withdraws from the North and Kiev.

We will see but those are my thoughts on what I THINK the Russians are attempting.

March 13, 2022

China entering the Russia v Ukraine conflict...

It's not really a request for guns, bombs or planes.

It's a political move to get the US and EU to "back off" of Russia.

Let's be honest. The US/EU can NOT sanction/isolate China. That's "Great Depression Level" consequences right there.

Russia wants the US/EU to instruct Z to negotiate and make concessions to end this thing.



Several things are important to understand, since WW2 the world superpowers have mostly allowed each other to engage in war without interference or direct involvement.

The aid to Ukraine marks the first time that the world's most modern weapons are being funneled into a conflict IN THIS QUANTITY/QUALITY being fought by a superpower.

It's the equivalent of Russia and China pouring modern weapons into Iraq in 2003 and NO that doesn't mean AK47's and RPG's.

The world functions on the concept of power and the projection of it. There is a certain balance when a bully is in charge.





I don't envy President Biden. He's being torn between the desire to defend Democracy and Ukraine and a Global cataclysm that can hurl the world into depression or nuclear war.

This is high stakes Poker.

March 12, 2022

Iranian woman stabs American in Vegas in revenge for Soleimani

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10605959/Woman-allegedly-stabbed-date-retaliation-drone-strike-killed-Iranian-leader.html

Las Vegas police arrested a woman who allegedly stabbed her date she met online in retaliation for the US drone strike that killed an Iranian military leader in 2020.

Henderson Police Department charged 21-year-old Nika Nikoubin with attempted murder last Saturday after she allegedly lured a man she met on the dating site Plenty of Fish in bed only to attack him with a knife, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Police said that on March 5, Nikoubin and her date, who has not been identified, rented out a room together at the Sunset Station Hotel where the 21-year-old turned off the lights and they began to have sex.

March 12, 2022

Want to read a Ukraine War assessment from people who are NOT stupid?

The Atlantic Council, working with Forward Defense have an analysis... (American think tank)

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/russia-crisis-military-assessment-how-will-russia-stage-the-battle-of-kyiv/

Their summary for the coming week:

After two weeks of fighting, Russia’s own force miscalculations and fierce Ukrainian opposition have dashed the Kremlin’s hopes of a lightning victory over Ukraine. This week, we anticipate another Russian offensive against Kyiv which would heavily rely on artillery and air strikes targeting Ukrainian forces—but with little regard for civilian casualties and collateral damage. The fight for air superiority remains highly contested, with unanticipated Russian Air Force losses. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is likely to gain air superiority over the next week, and we expect high attrition of Russian attack aircraft and helicopters to continue as Russia attempts to support its ground forces. Meanwhile, Russian forces are enjoying much greater success in the south, where they are close to solidifying a land bridge from the Crimean Peninsula to the Donbas region. We predict Russia will carry out a major attack on Odesa, leveraging a small amphibious operation used to reinforce ground forces with additional personnel and ground-based fire systems and augmented by air and missile strikes against Ukrainian positions. Furthermore, we assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin will maintain, if not increase, his tacit or explicit threats of nuclear escalation.

Over the next week, Russia will attempt to cut the capital off and begin a brutal siege.

March 11, 2022

The UNTOLD cost of the Russia v Ukraine War.

We've heard quite a bit about the economic sanctions placed upon Russia by the West...

But what are the costs to the West?

Just a few things come to mind. Russian stocks are held by Westerners. The State of California is currently holding $1.5B worth of probably worthless Russian stocks in one of the State Pension accounts (CALPRS)

$10B worth of Airliner Leases are probably gone. These airplane leases are bundled and sold to investors just like mortgage loans.

Credit Suisse has $1.7B in Russian exposure

Goldman Sachs goes into great detail:

https://fortune.com/2022/03/11/crypto-stocks-nasdaq-goldman-sachs-recession/


“The Russia-Ukraine conflict has dented our previously optimistic views on Europe’s economic and asset market outlook. Largely due to the sharp increase in energy prices and the potential for additional supply disruptions, our Europe Economics team has revised down their baseline forecasts for 2022 Euro area GDP growth to 2.5% from 3.9%,” Zach Pandl, cohead of foreign exchange strategy, told investors.

Recession risk
Goldman is also blaming the Russian invasion of Ukraine for its souring outlook on the world’s biggest economy. It lowered its full-year real 2022 GDP growth forecast for the United States by 25 basis points, to +1.75%. That’s nearly a full percentage point below the consensus estimate, which could itself shrink should the war in Ukraine persist, Wall Street warns.

March 11, 2022

About Kharkiv.

Ever been to a historic battlefield?

For those of us who enjoy doing such things... we frequently claim we can "feel" a certain darkness in the place. Of course, scientifically that's impossible and it's just our knowledge of the place that fuels the sentiment.

But I still feel it.

I've been to most major US Civil War battlefields. They're pretty much cleaned up and turned into parks but you can still feel what happened there.

I've been to a spot outside of Tours, France where the Frankish King, Charles Martel took on the Umayyad army with an army of volunteer farmers and noblemen in 732 and beat them savagely. It ended the Muslim invasion of Europe.

I've been to the Normandy beaches and the Seelow Heights east of Berlin.

But I've never been to Kharkiv.

Boy, the sad history that city and region has.

The Reds and Whites fought a battle there in the Russian Civil War in 1919.

In WW2, the city was the epicenter of FOUR major battles. There were well over a MILLION casualties sustained.

And now, again the city is at the center of a battle, being flattened yet again.

So... some people think that battlefields "talk" to us... I think Kharkiv would have a terrible energy around it.

March 10, 2022

Outside the West, Putin is less isolated than you might think

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Outside-the-West-Putin-is-less-isolated-than-you-16991175.php

Anthony Faiola and Lesley Wroughton, The Washington Post


Outside the West, Putin is less isolated than you might think

From a perch in the West, it's easy to see a world standing against Russian President Vladimir Putin. As Russian forces lay brutal siege to Ukrainian cities, leaders in Washington and the capitals of Europe are slapping Moscow with sanction after sanction. In Western countries, Putin has come to be seen as a Bond villain caricature and antagonist to a heroic, beloved Zelensky. Even McDonald's suspended operations in Russia. Surely you're isolated if you can't buy a Big Mac.

Look deeper, though, and the suggestion that Putin is isolated may still be something of a Western bias - an assumption based on a definition of the "world" as places of privilege, largely the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan. Of the 193 members of the United Nations, 141 voted to condemn Moscow's unprovoked attack on its neighbor. But that majority vote doesn't tell the more nuanced story.

"There is a feeling [that] the level of support from a lot of non-Western countries for this resolution was quite thin," said Richard Gowan, U.N. director at the International Crisis Group.

March 10, 2022

Ambassador McFaul is universally respected... he's a "NO" on No Fly Zone

Dude knows Russia and Putin better than most Gov't analysts.

https://www.newsweek.com/former-us-ambassador-says-no-fly-zone-would-amount-declaration-war-1686188

"I think a no-fly zone is the wrong move. I support the president of the United States on that," Mcfaul said.