And other pro-Russian sites. But CNN, western newspapers and sites not favourable to Russia have more hopes.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Monday, August 29, 2022
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Friday, August 26, 2022
Standstill says military summary
And conflicting reports about missile strike at a railway station in Ukraine https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/death-toll-rises-after-russian-missile-strike-on-railway-station-20220825-p5bcw2.html
Alexander Mercouris disagrees
Thursday, August 25, 2022
Secrets of the Arab Cafe
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/al-jazeera-world/2021/2/17/secrets-of-the-arab-cafe The stories behind four iconic cafés in Marrakesh, Cairo, Algiers and Hebron and their role in conversation and culture
Wednesday, August 24, 2022
From Umair Haque
Britain is rewriting the rules of social collapse
“The head of the NHS — or one of them, at any rate — recently warned his own government — that would be the British government — of a “humanitarian crisis.”
He said, let me quote, ‘Many people could face the awful choice of skipping meals to heat their homes and having to live in cold and very unpleasant conditions.” To translate that from polite British official-ese for you, that’s the head of the National Health Service warning his own government that scores of people are going to freeze to death.”
Open house of many pro-Russia commentators in the Ukraine conflict
Four and half hours. I watched only bits of it.
Tuesday, August 23, 2022
Monday, August 22, 2022
Sunday, August 21, 2022
Life evolved in thermal vents?
A Biochemist’s View of Life’s Origin Reframes Cancer and Aging in part a review of
Transformer
The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
By Nick Lane.
Saturday, August 20, 2022
Friday, August 19, 2022
The situation at Zaporozhye nuclear power plant
Via a comment in ‘Moon of Alabama’ in
Ukraine Open Thread 2022-133
Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is analyzing the development of the situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
Since July 18, 2022, the station has been subjected to systematic shelling by the armed forces of Ukraine from multiple rocket launchers, barrel artillery and using unmanned aerial vehicles.
As of August 18, 2022, 12 attacks were carried out, during which more than 50 artillery shell explosions and 5 kamikaze drones were recorded on the territory of the NPP and the city of Energodar.
The Russian Defense Ministry conducted an investigation and found that the strikes were carried out from the direction of the settlements of Manganese and Nikopol.
As a result of the shelling, the auxiliary support systems of the station were damaged, as well as the life support facilities of the city of Energodar.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the Ukrainian side, together with their curators from the United States, is trying to play the card, causing, in their opinion, a minor accident at the nuclear power plant and thereby disrupting the normal and safe operation of the nuclear power plant, blaming Russia for this.
The Ukrainian side has repeatedly stated that the strikes on the plant are carried out by the Armed Forces of Russia, and Russian heavy weapons are placed on the territory of the NPP, from which shelling is carried out on the objects of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
We are ready to present to the IAEA real pictures with very high resolution, the sample is placed on a slide, which shows that we do not place weapons, especially heavy ones, on the territory of this station. The Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation said this to UN Secretary-General Guterres.
We know that in the presence of a large number of military and commercial foreign satellites, the same information can be presented to the world community by the American side.
At the same time, the United States suppresses objective data on the shelling and the situation at the nuclear power plant, thereby encouraging the impunity of the Kiev regime and contributing to the possible development of a nuclear catastrophe in Europe.
It is no coincidence that the conclusions of specialists of the American Agency for Arms Control and Disarmament (Washington, DC) and a number of other similar institutions of Western countries, and not the IAEA, which has the right to such conclusions, are widely quoted in the media that the occurrence of a large-scale disaster at the NPP seems unlikely.
In their opinion, the thickness of the concrete shelters of its nuclear reactors is 10 meters, in addition, the station was designed and built taking into account the need to overcome the consequences of incidents such as the fall of a civilian aircraft.
At the same time, it is not excluded that a direct hit of large–caliber artillery shells into the dry storage of spent nuclear fuel will lead to radioactive contamination of the area within a radius of up to 20 km, and an emergency situation at a nuclear reactor is up to 30 km maximum. At the same time, it is emphasized that the risks of radiation spreading on the territory of European countries are assessed as minimal.
Thus, according to American experts, the consequences of the nuclear incident at the Zaporozhye NPP will be limited and will not affect the territory of European countries.
I would like to remind the UN Secretariat and the entire world community that the principal cause of the accidents at the Chernobyl plant and the Fukushima nuclear power plant, despite the fact that in the first case there were experiments with a nuclear reactor, and in the second case – an earthquake and tsunami, is the failure of supply systems, disruption of power supply, partial and complete de–energization cooling systems, which led to overheating of the nuclear fuel and destruction of the reactor.
As a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the territory of more than 20 European countries was contaminated with radioactive isotopes. About 4 thousand people died from direct exposure to radiation, tens of thousands of cases of genetic deformities in newborns and hundreds of thousands of oncological diseases were recorded. Not counting the consequences of forced evacuation, up to 100 thousand people and more than 5.5 million people received an increased dose of radiation.
At the Fukushima nuclear power plant, only at first glance it may seem that the consequences are insignificant. Up to 500 thousand people were subjected to gradual forced evacuation, and descendants will feel the consequences of dumping radioactive water into the ocean.
One gets the feeling that this has been forgotten.
According to our experts, due to the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a similar situation may arise at the Zaporozhye NPP.
Thus, in case of failure of backup diesel generators and mobile pumps, in case of an emergency, the core will overheat and, as a result, the destruction of reactor installations at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe with the release of radioactive substances into the atmosphere and their spreading for hundreds of kilometers.
Such an emergency situation will cause mass migration of the population and will have more catastrophic consequences than the impending gas energy crisis in Europe, which is confirmed by the forecast of a number of European specialized organizations.
In addition, according to available information, as part of a trip to Ukraine from August 17 to 19, 2022, UN Secretary-General Guterres plans to visit the city of Odessa. By this date, the Armed Forces of Ukraine intend to stage a provocation of a man-made disaster at the Zaporozhye NPP, which consists in the leakage of radiation, destruction of the integrity of the nuclear waste storage and the withdrawal of the NPP reactor into a state of abnormal operation.
All this, according to their plan, should be a consequence of the military actions of the Russian Armed Forces on the territory of the nuclear power plant, the incompetence of Russian specialists involved in the operation of this nuclear facility.
In order to stage the AFU, it is planned to deploy radiation monitoring posts to the compounds, military units and units stationed in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine, which are part of the united group of forces "Dnepr", to provide 100 percent of the military personnel with means of chemical and radiation protection, to conduct training on chemical and radiation protection and other security measures for the purpose of staging the AFU. In particular, the units of the 44th separate artillery brigade were ordered to be ready to act in conditions of radiation contamination of the area by August 19. In the same place, in the area of the Zaporozhye NPP, units of the 704th separate regiment of the RCB protection of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are being transferred.
Artillery strikes on the NPP are planned from the city quarters of the city of Nikopol.
This "performance" will be accompanied by alerts to the population about the increase in radiation background and other "special effects". The staging is carried out in the interests of influencing the UN Secretary General and the international community to cover up decisions beneficial to Kiev.
The ultimate goal of the provocation is the creation of an exclusion zone of up to 30 km, the introduction of international forces and foreign observers into the territory of the NPP, as well as the accusation of the Russian Armed Forces of nuclear terrorism.
As a conclusion from the above, we draw your attention to the fact that with the continuation of the negative development of the situation related to the shelling of the nuclear power plant by Ukraine, the issue of the withdrawal of 5 and 6 power units to the "cold reserve" may be considered, which will lead to the shutdown of the Zaporozhye NPP.
Thursday, August 18, 2022
Nasir Abid on Naipaul
One of the best articles about Naipaul that I have read. It also says that the family were originally called Dubey but they emigrated to Nepal which gave rise to the later family name. There is a passing reference to Salman Rushdie.
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
From Alexander Mercouris
Update where he explains the importance of the Ukraine military operation and why he is focussing on it compared to other issues.
Monday, August 15, 2022
A comment from’ Moon ofAlabama’
Military Summary PREVIEW of coming months, from minute 17'30":
https://youtu.be/9Ae0A-wgd5E?t=1050
2022-September-11: referendums of Kherson and Zaporizhia
After: moving a bunch of conscripts to their new Russian territory
Then: freeing SMO troops to storm what's left of Novorussia: Khrakiv in the east, Dnipropetrovks in the center, and Odessa in the south-west.
Tactics: encircle those big cities (and Nikolaev and Zaporizhia) instead of urban fighting. This was saves troops, and keeps the big "trophies" intact.
Priority: save the Nuclear power plant, and the dam north of Kherson. Push Ukraine's shelling away from that. That's +80Km north and west of Dnipre river, up to Kryvyi Rih.
Meanwhile: keep the meat grinder in Donbass until Donetsk Republic is 100% liberated.
It makes sense to me. I guess the Kiev junta will really miss that deal that they could have signed in April...
Sunday, August 14, 2022
Secondary sanctions
Secondary sanctions from TRT related to the previous post. “…..Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, while in Accra, Ghana delivering a pretty lucid threat to any African countries considering buying Russian oil. ”
A general update from Alexander Christiforou
EU, we are at war. Estonia/Finland blockade, Baltic Sea will be NATO sea. US warns Africa. Update 1
Saturday, August 13, 2022
Patrice Lumumba
Apparently, there is a Patrice Lumumba Highway in Bakhmut, Ukraine and Russians are marching along it. At one time, there was a Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. Some communist relatives offered to recommend me to that University. It is now
On the strategy behind bombing nuclear power plants in Ukraine
Strategies of bombing power plants from four to twelve minutes. Apparently Russians are disconnecting the power to Ukraine from Zaporozhye power plant and connecting to Crimea. The idea May Beto make that power plant useless and also create nuclear buffer area. But there are also some other nuclear power plants in western Ukraine and it seems to be beginning of a dangerous game of threats, bluffs and counter bluffs. There is also a discussion by Alexander Mercouris https://youtu.be/lyJh6ZNm6ZQ but he seems to have missed some of the above points.
Friday, August 12, 2022
An interesting dance from ‘Two Moon Junction’
I saw a similar dance in Toledo, Ohio in 1988. The song is by Loria Jonzun and is titled ‘Trance’.
From a book on Asimov’s life
A quote from the book by Davidson “A key theme of Lynn Margulis's career would be "symbiosis"—the cooperation of life forms for mutual benefit. This insight would spur her to revive an old idea that modern cells are assemblages of formerly inde- pendent cells. For example, the little mitochondrion that energizes your bodily cells was once an independent cell itself, but it discovered a life of greater safety and leisure within bigger cells than in the liquid jungle outside them. Likewise, the bigger cell benefited from its acquisition of mitochondria, which greatly enhanced its energy reserves. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours: this is an emerging theme of evolutionary theory, a far cry from the "nature red in tooth and claw" mythology that haunted the Victorian imagination. Sagan and Margulis's relationship was symbiotic, too. He introduced her to biology, explained its basic genetic concepts to her, and had biological contacts (via his relationship with Muller) that might have eased her entry into a biology program in the University of Wisconsin graduate school.”
Another:
One of Lynn Margulis's relatives, the witty Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sheldon Glashow, observed after Sagan became a TV celebrity that Sagan's youthful persuasiveness had "convinced [Lynn] to study biology rather than English." Slyly, Glashow added: "Lynn is possibly,Indeed, in strictly scientific terms, she would become more distinguished than he. She would win admittance to the National Academy of Sciences, which, having a num- ber of members who shared Glashow's attitude but less of his subtlety, would somewhat awkwardly reject Sagan's candidacy.
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
A long discussion on Ukraine at Roundtable
One of the better discussions. All the participants seem pro-Russian. The discussion is wide ranging from politics both local and global to what various groups of people in Ikraine feel.
Tuesday, August 09, 2022
Needham question again?
Chinese History of Science and technology: The rediscovery of the Chinese history of science This author attributes it to Mongolian invasion and rule.
Monday, August 08, 2022
Trash?
Don’t call them trash: Romance novels celebrate female pleasure and aspiration.
“..…..Victorian era enshrined the idea of marrying for love. At her middle-class core, Hallett writes, she wanted “a man who possessed charm and animal force as well as cash”—the perennial dream espoused most memorably in the fiction of Jane Austen. In 1892, at the age of 28, spinsterhood on the horizon, she married Clayton Glyn Jr., a sportsman from a respectable English landowning family and a bon viveur who would, before too long, gamble away everything he’d inherited and proceed to do much the same with his wife’s very substantial earnings from her work.”
Digging a hole to China
Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan saying she has a connection with China and Taiwan because;"When I was a little girl, I was told at the beach if I dug a hole deep enough, we would reach China. So, we've always felt a connection there."
Sunday, August 07, 2022
The courtesans of Bombay 1983
Aboutonehourfifteenminutes. Smaller segments are also available on YouTube
Friday, August 05, 2022
Thursday, August 04, 2022
The Hidden Truth about the War in Ukraine (via Naked Caitalism)
“On 20 January 1991, before the independence of Ukraine, the Crimeans were invited to choose by referendum between two options: to remain with Kiev or to return to the pre-1954 situation and be administered by Moscow…. 93.6% of Crimeans agreed to be attached to Moscow….
On February 26, 1992, the Crimean parliament proclaimed the “Republic of Crimea” with the agreement of the Ukrainian government, which granted it the status of a self-governing republic. On 5 May 1992, Crimea declared its independence and adopted a Constitution….
….on 17 March 1995, it [Ukraine] forcibly abolished the Crimean Constitution. It sent its special forces to overthrow Yuri Mechkov, President of Crimea, and de facto annexed the Republic of Crimea, thus triggering popular demonstrations for the attachment of Crimea to Russia. An event hardly reported by the Western media.”
Wednesday, August 03, 2022
General Antoine Martinez on the Ukraine crisis
From a comment in Moon of Alabama(https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/ukraine-mines-missiles-warcrimes-and-a-warning-to-zelenski.html#comments):
On the Internet there is an article by French Brigadier General (retired) Antoine Martinez, Ukraine-Russia conflict: From fantasy to reality, from illusion to disillusionment. Most of what he says won't surprise barflies, but if your neighbours and friends (and mine) think you've been brainwashed in the Manchurian candidate way, you can ask them if General Martinez has been too.
The article recalls that « the operation launched on 24 February by the Russian president is not the starting point of this conflict but is a logical continuation of a war prepared by the United States. »
General Martinez recalls the comments made in December 2014 by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko against the inhabitants of the east of the country:
"We will have work and they will not. We will have pensions and they will not. We will have benefits for pensioners and children, they will not. Our children will go to school and day care, their children will stay in the cellars...And that's how, that's precisely how we will win this war!"
He asks the question whether the Russian operation was foreseeable or not, and relates the sacking of the head of the French military intelligence (Direction du Renseignement Militaire, DRM), who thought that the Russians would not attack.
According to General Martinez, the DRM was right in its own way because the Russian intervention was improvised:
« The military operation (...) was not, in fact, launched on 24 February by Vladimir Putin but on 16 February by the Ukrainian army, which began shelling the civilian population of the Donbass, putting Vladimir Putin in front of a difficult choice. The massive increase in fire against the population of Donbass from that date onwards indicates to the Russians that a major offensive is imminent (...) This is, in fact, an organised provocation - which could, moreover, be qualified as a war crime (bombing of civilian populations) - intended to push Russia to the brink by intervening. In order to be convinced, but is it surprising, the American president, Joe Biden, announced on 17 February, with a Machiavellian assurance, that Russia would attack Ukraine in the next few days. He is obviously right, since the situation will evolve according to the written scenario. »
« (...) It is not a question of taking over Ukraine, nor of occupying or destroying it. This operation was launched as a matter of urgency on 24 February, eight days after the start of the massive bombardment of the civilian population of Donbass, which preceded the assault by Kiev's forces by a few days. This is why it has been called a special operation because it is not a classic high-intensity war against an intractable enemy but rather an operation to liberate a friendly population (Donbass) that has been martyred for eight years in the deafening silence of the Western leaders and media.
This is why Russia has decided to commit only 12% to 15% of its soldiers, without calling on its immense reserves and without declaring a partial, let alone general, mobilisation. The operation is, in fact, being conducted with a numerical inferiority of 1:2, whereas experts admit that the ratio of forces on the ground required in the offensive phase should be 3:1, or even 5:1 in urban areas.
In this context, the offensive towards Kiev could only aim at fixing the Ukrainian troops elsewhere than in the Donbass: "We must always bear in mind this principle of the balance of power. With 1:1 or 1:2, it is out of the question to engage in urban combat. »
General Martinez points out (rightly so IMO)« the immense responsibility of France and Germany in the present situation with their renunciation or their lack of will - and this for eight years - to follow and ensure the application of [the Minsk] agreements whereas they were the guarantors. »
(Machine translation via DeepL)
I let you discover the rest of the article (in French, use a translation software):
Posted by: Leuk | Aug 2 2022 15:22 utc | 7
Tuesday, August 02, 2022
Update from Alexander Mercouris
As Russia Advances in Donbass Crisis Heats up in Kosovo; EU/UK Major Retreat on Russia Oil Sanctions
Monday, August 01, 2022
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