I watched Dr. Risch tell about a SIGNAL in form of new agressive cancers and within exceptionally young population. Late Arne Burkhadt and swedish breast cancer specialist Ute Krüger point to the same direction. So we can add another novel malady happening everywhere, with one common denominator: The time from the start of the intervention. Talking about cancer, as Risch points out, it has only been 2 years. Oncologists are already fully booked for months. I normally refuse to predict, but this is too easy...
I’ve been using what3words for years now. I’m an avid mushroom forager, and the best places to find mushrooms are the places where you found them before, so it’s handy to be able to drop pins at very precise locations.
In the UK, it’s used by the emergency services (best option if you are struck down in the middle of a field, for instance) and many other organisations.
However, I think the boxes are 3 square metres a side, which means an area of about a hundred square feet, not ten - still quite good enough to tell the delivery company which door to leave the box at.
Glad to find someone who has used it successfully. What I don't understand is how you figure out what your particular space is when you're in the middle of the woods.
The What3Words app (iOS or Android) uses satellite location and/or cellphone tower triangulation to locate the exact spot to within ±3 metres, then looks up the 3-word combination to identify the 3x3 metre square.
I regularly teach English to Emergency Call Handlers in France, who dispatch ambulances and give emergency first-aid advice by telephone. As part of each course of lessons, I introduce them to What3Words. Although they already have apps and facilities to locate callers, none of them is nearly as precise as W3W, and they've invariably been fascinated, especially when they put in their own home addresses, and tweak the result to locate the front doors of their houses.
It's also great fun to put in random words on the website, and see where you land. With students, I've landed in the middle of dense jungle in Africa, in the middle of the Himalayas, in urban Sao Paolo, and in the depths of New Brunswick. The website picks the nearest equivalent to the words you put in.
The words can be in any one of 57 languages (and counting…). For example, here in France, Anne and I are at ///supplied.nail.pinks in English, and at ///majeur.jument.frère in French; both combinations point to our front door. That's better than any standard GPS application, as we're at the end of a courtyard in a largish village in the Oise department.
It's an incredible way to locate things. Thanks to you, I just wasted a half our of my life trying random words and ending up all over the place. I've seen close up maps of places I've never even thought about.
Nice to see your address. If I'm in the area, I might pop by for a drink. :)
what3words doesn't seem to work for apartment buildings, and my address has a 1/2 in it which throws off certain address search mechanisms. As for Ukraine, I didn't notice any flip flopping at all. The messages seemed remarkably consistent. "This has nothing to do with NATO expansion!" Of course in truth it has everything to do with NATO expansion which Russia sees as an existential threat. With NATO membership comes US missiles and other offensive weaponry. Russia, having been invaded over the centuries by various European countries, sees US missiles within 10 minutes flight time from Moscow as unacceptable and threatening. I don't understand why you think the decision was abysmally stupid and one that Putin regrets. (Have you been watching the PonyTailGuy again?) Russia is winning, and NATO is losing. The danger is that the Biden regime will continue to escalate this war because politically it would look bad during an election year for it to become too obvious what a debacle this has become for the US and NATO.
You must have missed the very first part of the video on Ukraine and NATO. In it the very same talking head who later said it wasn't because of NATO says it WAS because of the decision to make Ukraine a part of NATO. Then he flip flops.
I do think Putin regrets it and wishes he could have a do over. His decision has earned him the world's enmity. Has cost God only knows how many Russian lives. Has caused him (or his admirals) to move his ships out of Sebastopol, where they have been getting destroyed or damaged. Their hugely expensive Nord Stream pipeline is destroyed. I don't have much doubt that Russia will end up prevailing in all this, but what will they get? All the territories they already had. An assurance that Ukraine won't become part of NATO. And what else?
Is that worth all the destruction, the world's hatred for starting the first European war since WWII, the loss of Russian life, the loss of Nord Stream pipeline and all its future economic return, the destruction of a significant portion of the Russian navy, and on and on. Do you really think that if Putin had known beforehand this was all going to happen, he would have forged ahead?
Yes, absolutely, I think if Putin had known beforehand this was all going to happen he would have made the same decision. What else could he have done? NATO (which is essentially a projection of US power) refused to guarantee Ukrainian neutrality and Ukraine as a member of NATO is as unacceptable to Russia as Canada being in a military alliance with Red China would be to the U.S., or Soviet missiles were in Cuba. What Russia will get from this war is a de-militarized, neutral Ukraine who is not a member of NATO which was their initial goal, and probably the eastern Russian half of Ukraine and the entire Ukrainian Coast. Russia hasn't lost a significant part of his navy and the devastation and destruction is in Ukraine not Russia. Russian casualties are in the tens of thousands, but Ukrainian casualties are in the hundreds of thousands. Millions have left Ukraine, with no intention of ever returning. And of course we have driven Russia and Red China closer together which is not good for us.
I don't think the world hates either Putin or Russia. You are conflating the Western part of the world of about a billion people versus the rest of the world of about seven billion people. Even in the West the primary antagonists are the US, which wanted to use Ukraine to degrade the Russia military. The results are the exact opposite. Russia is stronger than it was at the beginning of the conflict and the West and the US have been shown to be weak. Russia's weapons are generally better than ours, as are their tactics and resolve. Biden regime tried to play Chicken with Putin and is being, and will continue to be humiliated. It seems clear that the brief period since the fall of the Soviet Union was a usual unipolar moment where the US was the sole superpower and could bully any country they wanted to with little or no serious repercussions. We are returning to a multipolar world and the US is unprepared for this. Russia is not Afghanistan or Iraq, but a near peer adversary to whom we promised that we would not move NATO one inch westward. We lied. We signed the Minsk accords which would have protected the Russians living in Ukraine. That too was a lie. We help overthrow the democratically elected Russia friendly president of Ukraine and helped install a US friendly government. This threatened Russia but they were too weak at the time to do anything but protest our actions. They are no longer weak and they will not believe anything we tell them. There will be no negotiation. This war will end on Russia's terms and on Russia's timetable.
My one fear is that the Biden regime will do something stupid as a means of avoiding a major embarrassment during an election year.
I agree re our promises about NATO, the Minsk accords, and that we helped overthrow Yanukovych. I still believe Putin wishes he hadn't started the war. Neither you nor I are in Putin's brain, however, so all either of us can do is guess.
But he has lost a major asset in the Nord Stream pipeline. Given its cost and given what it could have provided Russia in terms of income and a bit of leverage over Europe (especially the Germans), it's a huge loss to a country with a GDP that is less than one tenth of ours and about a third of Germany's. If push came to shove, we could arm vastly more quickly than could Russia. I'll agree that Russia's troops right now are more battle hardened than ours, but I don't think that makes up for the wealth differential in the countries. Especially if you throw Europe into the mix.
I'm not sure how you are so confident of the casualties in Russia. From what I've read, info out of Russia has dried up, and even our intelligence agencies can't get a decent read on the number. Do you have info they don't? Or is it just a guess on your part.
"The war continues, I have been told by an official with access to current intelligence, because Zelensky insists that it must. There is no discussion in his headquarters or in the Biden White House of a ceasefire and no interest in talks that could lead to an end to the slaughter. “It’s all lies,” the official said, speaking of the Ukrainian claims of incremental progress in the offensive that has suffered staggering losses, while gaining ground in a few scattered areas that the Ukrainian military measures in meters per week.
“Let’s be clear,” the official said. “Putin did a stupid and self-destructive act in starting the war. He thought he had a magical power and that all that he wanted was going to work out.” Russia’s initial attack, the official added, was poorly planned, understaffed, and led to unnecessary losses. “He was lied to by his generals and began the war with no logistics—no way of resupplying his troops.” Many of the offending generals were summarily dismissed.
“Yes,” the official said, “Putin did something stupid, no matter how provoked, by violating the UN charter and so did we”—meaning President Biden’s decision to wage a proxy war with Russia by funding Zelensky and his military. “And so now we have to paint him black, with the help of the media, in order to justify our mistake.” He was referring to a secret disinformation operation that was aimed at diminishing Putin, undertaken by the CIA in coordination with elements of British intelligence."
I am sure Putin has learned a lot from his folly, but I don't think he is any match for the forces that would be combined against him. And I suspect he knows that. He at least now knows that his entire system is/was riddled with graft, corruption, and incompetence. I'm sure it's a little better now. But how does he know that any of his nuclear weapons would even work if he tried to use them?
Every time I listen to Col McGregor, I hear that the war will be over in a couple of weeks when Russia finally gets serious and crushes Ukraine. I've been hearing that for over a year now, yet the crushing still stays two or three weeks away.
My view is that if Putin were offered a face-saving way out of this, he would take it. It's Zelensky who is the problem. Now that he has run into a funding problem, maybe he'll soften his position a bit.
Oh, I do agree that the Biden regime (as you term it) could do God only knows what with the election coming up, his favorability falling like a rock, and Trump looming.
As always, I'll let you have the last word. I'm in slide making hell and only a few days before I have to fly halfway (or more) across the world and present.
Still unanswered is the question of what else Russia or Putin could have done given that Biden had indicated that Ukraine would become a NATO member. Diplomacy had been ineffective, and the West had not taken seriously Russia's security concerns. Russia's initial military advances was a show of force, meant to indicate how seriously Russia took the issue. Peace negotiations were going on in May 2022 but squashed by the British (with our concurrence I presume) on the promise that we would provide the weapons if Ukraine provided the soldiers. Russia's initial army was large enough to provide a show of force but not large enough to defeat the Ukrainian army, especially with the West providing arms and munitions. So Russia withdrew to defensive positions and began to raise a huge army and went on a war footing in producing arms and munitions. Perhaps if Putin had known that his show of force wouldn't work he would have raised a huge Russian army first but I can't fault him for hoping that Western leaders had some sense of the realities of war and of Russia's resolve.
The war could have been over in a couple weeks for quite some time but for Russia to prevail she would have been willing to take much greater casualties. She chose instead to let Ukraine waste its manpower against Russian defenses in a war of attrition. The West is running out of ammunition, Russia is not.
I am unclear what forces you think are or could be combined against Russia. Europe has relied on American military might since WW2, and the US military has been designed for Counter-Insurgency operations not against a war against a near peer within 100 miles of that near peers borders. The US has never fought a war in which the homeland wasn't safe or free movement by sea and air was not a given, or were communications were not secure. This would be an entirely different kind of war for us, and we are not prepared to fight it, let alone prevail in it.
Putin doesn't need to save face. He is winning. Zelensky is a puppet and I'm sure he has his tens of millions of dollars "retirement" stashed safely outside of Ukraine. The side that needs to save face is the US, NATO and the West because we are losing. I'm sure Biden will end up blaming Trump and the Ultra-MAGA Republicans.
The Nordstream pipeline will be fixed and put back in operation if Germany wants it to be. It was only half owned by Russia, and the Europeans who own the other half will probably come after the US for compensation for our bombing it. Russia has found other customers for its fossil fuels.
Russia is stronger economically, and much stronger militarily than GDP numbers indicate. But I'll save that for another time.
Okay, you don't have the last word. You do after this, though.
You asked what Russia could have done given that "Biden had indicated that Ukraine would become a NATO member."
How about quit being a belligerent. Instead of worrying about NATO, Putin could have made an effort to purge the corruption from his own government and encourage his people to make something out of the unbelievable richness of the natural resources his country has. Instead, he is a KGB agent to the core. No one worries about Sweden or Norway or Finland or any of the Baltic countries. Why? Because they don't saber rattle and act like the former USSR. Putin is sitting on a goldmine of natural resources along with a population of ~145M people. If he would quit acting as if he were trying to protect himself from invasion by Europe--give me an effing break--and work on becoming a decent citizen of the world, he wouldn't have to worry about invading Ukraine. Or worry about a European invasion. He's still living in the 19th century.
YIKES! or as you would say, Jesus wept. (I will try to refrain from writing in ALL CAPS though that would reflect my thoughts here.) I think your unspoken assumptions are clearly mistaken. Russia is not threatened by a European invasion. She is threatened by us, America, the U.S. of A. NATO is a not a problem because of its nominal European members but because of us, the U.S. of A. For thirty years now we have been the world's sole superpower, with the power to set the rules, grant exemptions, and punish whomever we liked. We are the world's A-number-one belligerent. Since WW2 we have continually carried out militarily operations overseas, intervening in civil wars, overthrowing elected officials, orchestrating revolutions, and killing a few millions foreign nationals. (Here is a partial list I found on Google of over 85 such interventions. https://open.substack.com/pub/californiaman/p/list-of-us-wars-and-interventions?r=tapzv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) We now tend to offload the wet work on others, preferring to offer funds, weapons, surveillance and intelligence instead of boots on the ground. (Body bags arriving in Dover is not a good look for a politician.) We would like to see ourselves as a benign, benevolent hegemon, but I don't think the rest of the world sees us that way. We are the bully who not only thinks he knows best what is right for others but has the desire and power to inflict his views. We have financial sanctions on some 26 countries right now which means that we use our control of financial systems to coerce or punish countries that don't things we like.
We have helped overthrow the democratically elected governments of two countries that were former members of the Soviet Union, replacing them with governments antagonistic to Russia. We have pushed for the assassination of Putin himself. WE are the threat that Russia fears, and rightly so.
As for living in the 19th century, we'll leave aside Poland's invasion and occupation of Moscow in 1610, Sweden's invasion of Russia in 1708, and Napoleon's invasion and occupation of Moscow in 1812.
In the twentieth century we can start with the Russo-Japenese War in 1904-1905 where Japan invaded the Russian Far East with several hundred thousand troops, the Russian civil war where Europe, American and Japan sent a couple hundred thousand troops into Russia to fight against the Bolshevik government, and the Soviet-Japanese conflict in 1939 in which the Soviets lost 33,000 men.
That all pales compared to Russia's experience in WW2. In 1942 Russia was invaded by the armies of Germany, Romania, Finland, Italy, Hungary and Slovakia. They got to the outskirts of Moscow before being stopped. In that war the Russians lost 27 million people out of a population of 168 million, roughly 1/6 of its population. Two thirds of those deaths were civilians. The United States lost 400,000 dead out of a population of 132 million, or 1/330 of our population. Our civilian casualties were around 12,000, mostly merchant seamen. Our troops never had to worry that while they were fighting, their homes were being bombed or their wives and children killed.
We have lived for more than two centuries safe between two wide oceans and two weak neighbors. That has never been Russia's experience. Russia cannot and will not ignore threats to its existence.
As an aside, Putin has made persistent efforts to curb corruption in his country. He saved Russia from being sacked and pillaged after the fall of the Soviet Union by those who wanted to get control of that "gold mine of natural resources".
As for developing those resources, in 1997 the US and Russia each graduated roughly the same number of engineers, about 230,000. Twenty five years later, in 2022, the US graduated just 268,000 and Russia graduated 448,000, about the same number as Red China. Our population is roughly twice the size of Russia's and China's is ten times larger. (check this out on CityGlobeTour on YouTube).
Everyone I've heard who has actually visited Russia recently is amazed at how much progress has been made in the last twenty years. Putin regularly gives long press conferences where he talks freely and without a teleprompter, answering questions from the world press. Not like the scripted farce we get from Biden and his ilk. I think Russia is much happier and better served by its leaders than we are by ours. I urge you again to listen to (or read) Oliver Stone's interviews with Putin from a few years ago.
Sorry this reply is not better organized.
I hope there is no Covid outbreak while you're in Australia, otherwise we might not see you until Christmas. I'm surprised they let you in without the Jab. If you end up being sent to a "quarantine facility", smuggle out your address and I'll send you a cake with a file in it.
Dr Eades, if you have to make your own way into Sydney from the airport I recommend using the airport link train as it's quick, frequent and cheap, while taxis are expensive and the drive is long and slow. And if you plan to travel around the city an Opal card is very handy to have.
I realize this is anecdotal, but two oncologists have expressed alarm about a spate of cancers that they're seeing in young people. I strongly suspect the Covid vaccines being the causal factors.
My mistake. I went back and checked what I wrote, and I didn't put in the disclaimer that I intended. Which was that I saw only one report on this and was unable to verify it. Anyway, this is a great example of if you want to get an answer to a question, just post something incorrect on the internet.
Mike - another gem and much longer than I expected given that you’re getting ready for Low Carb Down Under. The plane non-trip sounds awful, although one would rather have things fixed than not, eh? I’m guessing that 10F has something to do with seating - can’t wait to hear about it. I do hope you get to meet Anthony Chaffee at the conference.
I find the Orf videos incredibly disturbing (and telling) and am not surprised that so many, having been so relentlessly propagandized, were talked into taking the jabs. I think a lot of the relentless effectiveness of that propaganda is a result of identity politics too - if x says something that doesn’t fit with what team y (or red and blue) believes it must be wrong - because x said it - not because it’s - in fact - wrong.
Have a fantastic trip - as I’m sure you will. Jacinda being safely ensconced at Harvard says it all, doesn’t it!
As a friend says, Safe home.
Just 3 of yours - one is Malone’s which I’d actually noticed when I read his column . . . .
I can take a lot of doubling
It can take a lot . . ..
more accurate that randomized-control studies
more accurate than randomized-control studies
favorite Substack reads is eugyppias
Should be eugyppius (one of my favorites too)
In Malone’s long quote (so not sure if you can or care to fix it):
which is even more potent that naturally occurring
which is even more potent than naturally occurring
No i don’t know for sure - but I do know that he really liked your talk from the last low carb conference. He lives in Perth (studied in and is from the US) and advocates a carnivore diet - which is certainly low carb; he’s not on the list of speakers (but you are twice and MD once - can’t wait). Paul Mason is another speaker who knows Chaffee so maybe you can check with him. Course it’s only a 5 hours plus flight from Perth to Sydney - maybe FaceTime or its equivalent would work if nothing else does. Hope you two connect somehow somewhere.
Mike - another gem and much longer than I expected given that you’re getting ready for Low Carb Down Under. The plane non-trip sounds awful, although one would rather have things fixed than not, eh? I’m guessing that 10F has something to do with seating - can’t wait to hear about it. I do hope you get to meet Anthony Chaffee at the conference.
I find the Orf videos incredibly disturbing (and telling) and am not surprised that so many, having been so relentlessly propagandized, were talked into taking the jabs. I think a lot of the relentless effectiveness of that propaganda is a result of identity politics too - if x says something that doesn’t fit with what team y (or red and blue) believes it must be wrong - because x said it - not because it’s - in fact - wrong.
Have a fantastic trip - as I’m sure you will. Jacinda being safely ensconced at Harvard says it all, doesn’t it!
As a friend says, Safe home.
Just 3 of yours - one of Malone’s which I’d actually noticed when I read his column . . . .
I can take a lot of doubling
It can take a lot . . ..
more accurate that randomized-control studies
more accurate than randomized-control studies
favorite Substack reads is eugyppias
Should be eugyppius (one of my favorites too)
In Malone’s long quote (so not sure if you can or care to fix it):
which is even more potent that naturally occurring
which is even more potent than naturally occurring
I watched Dr. Risch tell about a SIGNAL in form of new agressive cancers and within exceptionally young population. Late Arne Burkhadt and swedish breast cancer specialist Ute Krüger point to the same direction. So we can add another novel malady happening everywhere, with one common denominator: The time from the start of the intervention. Talking about cancer, as Risch points out, it has only been 2 years. Oncologists are already fully booked for months. I normally refuse to predict, but this is too easy...
Accidentally I run into their tv channel https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/dr-harvey-risch-rise-in-aggressive-turbo-cancers-and-especially-among-younger-people-atlnow-5489582
JR
I hadn't seen this video. I'll give it a watch. Thanks.
I did see this video. It is the same one I posted above. Just opened your link to check it out.
I’ve been using what3words for years now. I’m an avid mushroom forager, and the best places to find mushrooms are the places where you found them before, so it’s handy to be able to drop pins at very precise locations.
In the UK, it’s used by the emergency services (best option if you are struck down in the middle of a field, for instance) and many other organisations.
However, I think the boxes are 3 square metres a side, which means an area of about a hundred square feet, not ten - still quite good enough to tell the delivery company which door to leave the box at.
Glad to find someone who has used it successfully. What I don't understand is how you figure out what your particular space is when you're in the middle of the woods.
The What3Words app (iOS or Android) uses satellite location and/or cellphone tower triangulation to locate the exact spot to within ±3 metres, then looks up the 3-word combination to identify the 3x3 metre square.
I regularly teach English to Emergency Call Handlers in France, who dispatch ambulances and give emergency first-aid advice by telephone. As part of each course of lessons, I introduce them to What3Words. Although they already have apps and facilities to locate callers, none of them is nearly as precise as W3W, and they've invariably been fascinated, especially when they put in their own home addresses, and tweak the result to locate the front doors of their houses.
It's also great fun to put in random words on the website, and see where you land. With students, I've landed in the middle of dense jungle in Africa, in the middle of the Himalayas, in urban Sao Paolo, and in the depths of New Brunswick. The website picks the nearest equivalent to the words you put in.
The words can be in any one of 57 languages (and counting…). For example, here in France, Anne and I are at ///supplied.nail.pinks in English, and at ///majeur.jument.frère in French; both combinations point to our front door. That's better than any standard GPS application, as we're at the end of a courtyard in a largish village in the Oise department.
It's an incredible way to locate things. Thanks to you, I just wasted a half our of my life trying random words and ending up all over the place. I've seen close up maps of places I've never even thought about.
Nice to see your address. If I'm in the area, I might pop by for a drink. :)
what3words doesn't seem to work for apartment buildings, and my address has a 1/2 in it which throws off certain address search mechanisms. As for Ukraine, I didn't notice any flip flopping at all. The messages seemed remarkably consistent. "This has nothing to do with NATO expansion!" Of course in truth it has everything to do with NATO expansion which Russia sees as an existential threat. With NATO membership comes US missiles and other offensive weaponry. Russia, having been invaded over the centuries by various European countries, sees US missiles within 10 minutes flight time from Moscow as unacceptable and threatening. I don't understand why you think the decision was abysmally stupid and one that Putin regrets. (Have you been watching the PonyTailGuy again?) Russia is winning, and NATO is losing. The danger is that the Biden regime will continue to escalate this war because politically it would look bad during an election year for it to become too obvious what a debacle this has become for the US and NATO.
You must have missed the very first part of the video on Ukraine and NATO. In it the very same talking head who later said it wasn't because of NATO says it WAS because of the decision to make Ukraine a part of NATO. Then he flip flops.
I do think Putin regrets it and wishes he could have a do over. His decision has earned him the world's enmity. Has cost God only knows how many Russian lives. Has caused him (or his admirals) to move his ships out of Sebastopol, where they have been getting destroyed or damaged. Their hugely expensive Nord Stream pipeline is destroyed. I don't have much doubt that Russia will end up prevailing in all this, but what will they get? All the territories they already had. An assurance that Ukraine won't become part of NATO. And what else?
Is that worth all the destruction, the world's hatred for starting the first European war since WWII, the loss of Russian life, the loss of Nord Stream pipeline and all its future economic return, the destruction of a significant portion of the Russian navy, and on and on. Do you really think that if Putin had known beforehand this was all going to happen, he would have forged ahead?
Yes, absolutely, I think if Putin had known beforehand this was all going to happen he would have made the same decision. What else could he have done? NATO (which is essentially a projection of US power) refused to guarantee Ukrainian neutrality and Ukraine as a member of NATO is as unacceptable to Russia as Canada being in a military alliance with Red China would be to the U.S., or Soviet missiles were in Cuba. What Russia will get from this war is a de-militarized, neutral Ukraine who is not a member of NATO which was their initial goal, and probably the eastern Russian half of Ukraine and the entire Ukrainian Coast. Russia hasn't lost a significant part of his navy and the devastation and destruction is in Ukraine not Russia. Russian casualties are in the tens of thousands, but Ukrainian casualties are in the hundreds of thousands. Millions have left Ukraine, with no intention of ever returning. And of course we have driven Russia and Red China closer together which is not good for us.
I don't think the world hates either Putin or Russia. You are conflating the Western part of the world of about a billion people versus the rest of the world of about seven billion people. Even in the West the primary antagonists are the US, which wanted to use Ukraine to degrade the Russia military. The results are the exact opposite. Russia is stronger than it was at the beginning of the conflict and the West and the US have been shown to be weak. Russia's weapons are generally better than ours, as are their tactics and resolve. Biden regime tried to play Chicken with Putin and is being, and will continue to be humiliated. It seems clear that the brief period since the fall of the Soviet Union was a usual unipolar moment where the US was the sole superpower and could bully any country they wanted to with little or no serious repercussions. We are returning to a multipolar world and the US is unprepared for this. Russia is not Afghanistan or Iraq, but a near peer adversary to whom we promised that we would not move NATO one inch westward. We lied. We signed the Minsk accords which would have protected the Russians living in Ukraine. That too was a lie. We help overthrow the democratically elected Russia friendly president of Ukraine and helped install a US friendly government. This threatened Russia but they were too weak at the time to do anything but protest our actions. They are no longer weak and they will not believe anything we tell them. There will be no negotiation. This war will end on Russia's terms and on Russia's timetable.
My one fear is that the Biden regime will do something stupid as a means of avoiding a major embarrassment during an election year.
I agree re our promises about NATO, the Minsk accords, and that we helped overthrow Yanukovych. I still believe Putin wishes he hadn't started the war. Neither you nor I are in Putin's brain, however, so all either of us can do is guess.
But he has lost a major asset in the Nord Stream pipeline. Given its cost and given what it could have provided Russia in terms of income and a bit of leverage over Europe (especially the Germans), it's a huge loss to a country with a GDP that is less than one tenth of ours and about a third of Germany's. If push came to shove, we could arm vastly more quickly than could Russia. I'll agree that Russia's troops right now are more battle hardened than ours, but I don't think that makes up for the wealth differential in the countries. Especially if you throw Europe into the mix.
I'm not sure how you are so confident of the casualties in Russia. From what I've read, info out of Russia has dried up, and even our intelligence agencies can't get a decent read on the number. Do you have info they don't? Or is it just a guess on your part.
Seymour Hersh wrote in a recent column https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/zelenskys-bad-moment
"The war continues, I have been told by an official with access to current intelligence, because Zelensky insists that it must. There is no discussion in his headquarters or in the Biden White House of a ceasefire and no interest in talks that could lead to an end to the slaughter. “It’s all lies,” the official said, speaking of the Ukrainian claims of incremental progress in the offensive that has suffered staggering losses, while gaining ground in a few scattered areas that the Ukrainian military measures in meters per week.
“Let’s be clear,” the official said. “Putin did a stupid and self-destructive act in starting the war. He thought he had a magical power and that all that he wanted was going to work out.” Russia’s initial attack, the official added, was poorly planned, understaffed, and led to unnecessary losses. “He was lied to by his generals and began the war with no logistics—no way of resupplying his troops.” Many of the offending generals were summarily dismissed.
“Yes,” the official said, “Putin did something stupid, no matter how provoked, by violating the UN charter and so did we”—meaning President Biden’s decision to wage a proxy war with Russia by funding Zelensky and his military. “And so now we have to paint him black, with the help of the media, in order to justify our mistake.” He was referring to a secret disinformation operation that was aimed at diminishing Putin, undertaken by the CIA in coordination with elements of British intelligence."
I am sure Putin has learned a lot from his folly, but I don't think he is any match for the forces that would be combined against him. And I suspect he knows that. He at least now knows that his entire system is/was riddled with graft, corruption, and incompetence. I'm sure it's a little better now. But how does he know that any of his nuclear weapons would even work if he tried to use them?
Every time I listen to Col McGregor, I hear that the war will be over in a couple of weeks when Russia finally gets serious and crushes Ukraine. I've been hearing that for over a year now, yet the crushing still stays two or three weeks away.
My view is that if Putin were offered a face-saving way out of this, he would take it. It's Zelensky who is the problem. Now that he has run into a funding problem, maybe he'll soften his position a bit.
Oh, I do agree that the Biden regime (as you term it) could do God only knows what with the election coming up, his favorability falling like a rock, and Trump looming.
As always, I'll let you have the last word. I'm in slide making hell and only a few days before I have to fly halfway (or more) across the world and present.
Still unanswered is the question of what else Russia or Putin could have done given that Biden had indicated that Ukraine would become a NATO member. Diplomacy had been ineffective, and the West had not taken seriously Russia's security concerns. Russia's initial military advances was a show of force, meant to indicate how seriously Russia took the issue. Peace negotiations were going on in May 2022 but squashed by the British (with our concurrence I presume) on the promise that we would provide the weapons if Ukraine provided the soldiers. Russia's initial army was large enough to provide a show of force but not large enough to defeat the Ukrainian army, especially with the West providing arms and munitions. So Russia withdrew to defensive positions and began to raise a huge army and went on a war footing in producing arms and munitions. Perhaps if Putin had known that his show of force wouldn't work he would have raised a huge Russian army first but I can't fault him for hoping that Western leaders had some sense of the realities of war and of Russia's resolve.
The war could have been over in a couple weeks for quite some time but for Russia to prevail she would have been willing to take much greater casualties. She chose instead to let Ukraine waste its manpower against Russian defenses in a war of attrition. The West is running out of ammunition, Russia is not.
I am unclear what forces you think are or could be combined against Russia. Europe has relied on American military might since WW2, and the US military has been designed for Counter-Insurgency operations not against a war against a near peer within 100 miles of that near peers borders. The US has never fought a war in which the homeland wasn't safe or free movement by sea and air was not a given, or were communications were not secure. This would be an entirely different kind of war for us, and we are not prepared to fight it, let alone prevail in it.
Putin doesn't need to save face. He is winning. Zelensky is a puppet and I'm sure he has his tens of millions of dollars "retirement" stashed safely outside of Ukraine. The side that needs to save face is the US, NATO and the West because we are losing. I'm sure Biden will end up blaming Trump and the Ultra-MAGA Republicans.
The Nordstream pipeline will be fixed and put back in operation if Germany wants it to be. It was only half owned by Russia, and the Europeans who own the other half will probably come after the US for compensation for our bombing it. Russia has found other customers for its fossil fuels.
Russia is stronger economically, and much stronger militarily than GDP numbers indicate. But I'll save that for another time.
Okay, you don't have the last word. You do after this, though.
You asked what Russia could have done given that "Biden had indicated that Ukraine would become a NATO member."
How about quit being a belligerent. Instead of worrying about NATO, Putin could have made an effort to purge the corruption from his own government and encourage his people to make something out of the unbelievable richness of the natural resources his country has. Instead, he is a KGB agent to the core. No one worries about Sweden or Norway or Finland or any of the Baltic countries. Why? Because they don't saber rattle and act like the former USSR. Putin is sitting on a goldmine of natural resources along with a population of ~145M people. If he would quit acting as if he were trying to protect himself from invasion by Europe--give me an effing break--and work on becoming a decent citizen of the world, he wouldn't have to worry about invading Ukraine. Or worry about a European invasion. He's still living in the 19th century.
An addendum. This is from this morning's Wall Street Journal. It is a roadmap for what Putin should have done instead of acting like the ex-KGB thug he is. https://www.wsj.com/articles/lessons-for-ukraine-from-estonia-corruption-economy-taxes-education-business-investment-483f974b?st=mab1pu9xlegourp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
YIKES! or as you would say, Jesus wept. (I will try to refrain from writing in ALL CAPS though that would reflect my thoughts here.) I think your unspoken assumptions are clearly mistaken. Russia is not threatened by a European invasion. She is threatened by us, America, the U.S. of A. NATO is a not a problem because of its nominal European members but because of us, the U.S. of A. For thirty years now we have been the world's sole superpower, with the power to set the rules, grant exemptions, and punish whomever we liked. We are the world's A-number-one belligerent. Since WW2 we have continually carried out militarily operations overseas, intervening in civil wars, overthrowing elected officials, orchestrating revolutions, and killing a few millions foreign nationals. (Here is a partial list I found on Google of over 85 such interventions. https://open.substack.com/pub/californiaman/p/list-of-us-wars-and-interventions?r=tapzv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) We now tend to offload the wet work on others, preferring to offer funds, weapons, surveillance and intelligence instead of boots on the ground. (Body bags arriving in Dover is not a good look for a politician.) We would like to see ourselves as a benign, benevolent hegemon, but I don't think the rest of the world sees us that way. We are the bully who not only thinks he knows best what is right for others but has the desire and power to inflict his views. We have financial sanctions on some 26 countries right now which means that we use our control of financial systems to coerce or punish countries that don't things we like.
We have helped overthrow the democratically elected governments of two countries that were former members of the Soviet Union, replacing them with governments antagonistic to Russia. We have pushed for the assassination of Putin himself. WE are the threat that Russia fears, and rightly so.
As for living in the 19th century, we'll leave aside Poland's invasion and occupation of Moscow in 1610, Sweden's invasion of Russia in 1708, and Napoleon's invasion and occupation of Moscow in 1812.
In the twentieth century we can start with the Russo-Japenese War in 1904-1905 where Japan invaded the Russian Far East with several hundred thousand troops, the Russian civil war where Europe, American and Japan sent a couple hundred thousand troops into Russia to fight against the Bolshevik government, and the Soviet-Japanese conflict in 1939 in which the Soviets lost 33,000 men.
That all pales compared to Russia's experience in WW2. In 1942 Russia was invaded by the armies of Germany, Romania, Finland, Italy, Hungary and Slovakia. They got to the outskirts of Moscow before being stopped. In that war the Russians lost 27 million people out of a population of 168 million, roughly 1/6 of its population. Two thirds of those deaths were civilians. The United States lost 400,000 dead out of a population of 132 million, or 1/330 of our population. Our civilian casualties were around 12,000, mostly merchant seamen. Our troops never had to worry that while they were fighting, their homes were being bombed or their wives and children killed.
We have lived for more than two centuries safe between two wide oceans and two weak neighbors. That has never been Russia's experience. Russia cannot and will not ignore threats to its existence.
As an aside, Putin has made persistent efforts to curb corruption in his country. He saved Russia from being sacked and pillaged after the fall of the Soviet Union by those who wanted to get control of that "gold mine of natural resources".
As for developing those resources, in 1997 the US and Russia each graduated roughly the same number of engineers, about 230,000. Twenty five years later, in 2022, the US graduated just 268,000 and Russia graduated 448,000, about the same number as Red China. Our population is roughly twice the size of Russia's and China's is ten times larger. (check this out on CityGlobeTour on YouTube).
Everyone I've heard who has actually visited Russia recently is amazed at how much progress has been made in the last twenty years. Putin regularly gives long press conferences where he talks freely and without a teleprompter, answering questions from the world press. Not like the scripted farce we get from Biden and his ilk. I think Russia is much happier and better served by its leaders than we are by ours. I urge you again to listen to (or read) Oliver Stone's interviews with Putin from a few years ago.
Sorry this reply is not better organized.
I hope there is no Covid outbreak while you're in Australia, otherwise we might not see you until Christmas. I'm surprised they let you in without the Jab. If you end up being sent to a "quarantine facility", smuggle out your address and I'll send you a cake with a file in it.
Dr Eades, if you have to make your own way into Sydney from the airport I recommend using the airport link train as it's quick, frequent and cheap, while taxis are expensive and the drive is long and slow. And if you plan to travel around the city an Opal card is very handy to have.
https://airportlink.com.au/
We're going to get picked up, so we won't have to worry about it. Thanks, though, for the suggestion. We may come back, so it may be useful then.
I realize this is anecdotal, but two oncologists have expressed alarm about a spate of cancers that they're seeing in young people. I strongly suspect the Covid vaccines being the causal factors.
As for your comment regarding Zelensky and his mother-in-law buying a villa on the Egyptian coast... I think you've been duped!
https://disinfo.detector.media/en/post/zelenskys-mother-in-law-bought-a-villa-on-the-egyptian-coast-with-western-humanitarian-aid-to-ukraine
My mistake. I went back and checked what I wrote, and I didn't put in the disclaimer that I intended. Which was that I saw only one report on this and was unable to verify it. Anyway, this is a great example of if you want to get an answer to a question, just post something incorrect on the internet.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/11/11/fact-check-false-claim-zelenkyy-bought-parents-8-m-home/10609965002/
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20230522-debunking-president-zelensky-s-luxury-real-estate-assets
https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-ukraine-russia-infinity-1814058
Sorry about the double post - in the UK and working with a new iPad instead of my trusty iMac.
No problemo.
Mike - another gem and much longer than I expected given that you’re getting ready for Low Carb Down Under. The plane non-trip sounds awful, although one would rather have things fixed than not, eh? I’m guessing that 10F has something to do with seating - can’t wait to hear about it. I do hope you get to meet Anthony Chaffee at the conference.
I find the Orf videos incredibly disturbing (and telling) and am not surprised that so many, having been so relentlessly propagandized, were talked into taking the jabs. I think a lot of the relentless effectiveness of that propaganda is a result of identity politics too - if x says something that doesn’t fit with what team y (or red and blue) believes it must be wrong - because x said it - not because it’s - in fact - wrong.
Have a fantastic trip - as I’m sure you will. Jacinda being safely ensconced at Harvard says it all, doesn’t it!
As a friend says, Safe home.
Just 3 of yours - one is Malone’s which I’d actually noticed when I read his column . . . .
I can take a lot of doubling
It can take a lot . . ..
more accurate that randomized-control studies
more accurate than randomized-control studies
favorite Substack reads is eugyppias
Should be eugyppius (one of my favorites too)
In Malone’s long quote (so not sure if you can or care to fix it):
which is even more potent that naturally occurring
which is even more potent than naturally occurring
Also, I'll keep an eye out for Anthony at the conference. Do you know for sure that he's going?
No i don’t know for sure - but I do know that he really liked your talk from the last low carb conference. He lives in Perth (studied in and is from the US) and advocates a carnivore diet - which is certainly low carb; he’s not on the list of speakers (but you are twice and MD once - can’t wait). Paul Mason is another speaker who knows Chaffee so maybe you can check with him. Course it’s only a 5 hours plus flight from Perth to Sydney - maybe FaceTime or its equivalent would work if nothing else does. Hope you two connect somehow somewhere.
Thanks for finding all these. I'm surprised there aren't many more given the circumstances I was under.
I can take a lot of doubling
It can take . . .
Mike - another gem and much longer than I expected given that you’re getting ready for Low Carb Down Under. The plane non-trip sounds awful, although one would rather have things fixed than not, eh? I’m guessing that 10F has something to do with seating - can’t wait to hear about it. I do hope you get to meet Anthony Chaffee at the conference.
I find the Orf videos incredibly disturbing (and telling) and am not surprised that so many, having been so relentlessly propagandized, were talked into taking the jabs. I think a lot of the relentless effectiveness of that propaganda is a result of identity politics too - if x says something that doesn’t fit with what team y (or red and blue) believes it must be wrong - because x said it - not because it’s - in fact - wrong.
Have a fantastic trip - as I’m sure you will. Jacinda being safely ensconced at Harvard says it all, doesn’t it!
As a friend says, Safe home.
Just 3 of yours - one of Malone’s which I’d actually noticed when I read his column . . . .
I can take a lot of doubling
It can take a lot . . ..
more accurate that randomized-control studies
more accurate than randomized-control studies
favorite Substack reads is eugyppias
Should be eugyppius (one of my favorites too)
In Malone’s long quote (so not sure if you can or care to fix it):
which is even more potent that naturally occurring
which is even more potent than naturally occurring
I’ve been to Australia—it’s amazing. I hope you can see some sights. Sydney harbor is lovely. Take some ferries around!
I'm hoping to do so. I've never been there, so I want to see all I can.