Diplomatic solution in Ukraine "augurs horrifying prospects"

 From Benjamin Teitelbaum, Daily Beast / Yahoo!News:

"Russia won't return occupied land. So don't ask

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently roiled the foreign policy community by becoming the most prominent voice urging Ukraine to pursue peace talks with Russia.

Kissinger prioritized Putin appeasement over Ukrainian victory, critics alleged, exposing his wanton priorities in the process. But critics did him a favor by ignoring the specifics of his vision...

Kissinger stands out among advocates of a ceasefire because of how much detail he was willing to offer. Most others avoid discussing specifics about the content, prospects, and consequences of their diplomatic solutions. You won’t hear meaningful details from leftist academics like Noam Chomsky, nor The New York Times editorial board, nor foreign policy experts like Charles Kupchan, nor the ragtag gang of German intellectuals urging their country’s chancellor to withhold military support for Kyiv...

Voices pushing Ukraine to trade land for peace rarely specify how much territory should be sacrificed, or where.

Russian forces currently occupy an area stretching from pieces of the Kharkiv region in Ukraine’s north, circling around the Donbas in the east, and extending along the country’s southern Black Sea coast near the city of Mykolaiv. The occupied territories include rich agricultural land, multiple seaports, and a nuclear power plant. Russia has sacrificed considerably for some of it, especially in places like Mariupol, along front lines in the Donbas, and on the outskirts of Kherson city. Putin is building local governments in some of these areas, too, and his share of the Donbas is increasing.

If this is the territory Ukraine should sacrifice, hardly anyone seems willing to say so. Kissinger came close, as did Columbia University professor Jeffrey D. Sachs...

Perhaps one reason nobody wants to talk specifically or realistically about a diplomatic solution is that it, like war, augurs horrifying prospects.

Consider a peace that leaves all occupied territory in Russian hands. In reality, this would mean Ukraine loses seaports, much of its core agricultural base, and substantial, vital energy sources. Alternatively, any deal that incentivized Russia to return to the 2014 boundaries would likely entail spectacular concessions.

Indeed, it is hard to conceive of a settlement that maintains Ukraine’s fundamental nationhood while not emboldening Russian expansionism. Rather, toleration of Putin’s land-grab or offering major bounty in exchange will likely forge a new order not simply honoring Russia’s borders, but also accepting that its foreign escapades—however immoral or poorly executed—get to succeed.

Why would an agreement hold? To abandon military resistance in favor of diplomacy at this point is to put exceptional faith in the Russian government. This is the same government that, in recent decades, habitually invaded its neighbors while lying about its actions and intentions up to and during the operations themselves.

Forget the emotional impact of trying to engage in a dialogue with the unrepentant perpetrators of the massacre of civilians in Bucha. Can Kyiv trust a military that marched into Crimea in 2014 with unmarked uniforms; that told the world it was withdrawing its troops from Ukraine’s borders before invading this year; and whose obvious battlefield effort to take Kyiv diverged from its stated war aims?

Then there’s the long-term challenge of ideology. Western commentators seldom take seriously the depth of Russian nationalists’ assertion that Ukrainians are an artificial people maintaining an artificial state. Russia’s pseudo-religious claims to Ukraine are not only the pastime of obscure fanatics; they animated Putin’s speech at the outset of the invasion (“Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia,” he said). Why would this Russian leadership and intelligentsia ever affirm Ukraine’s sovereignty?

The advocates of “negotiation” should not be excused from addressing these topics.

Perhaps they think that Ukraine should be sacrificed and crimes against humanity tolerated for the sake of preventing inflation, food and energy crises, or a power vacuum in Russia. Fine. Let them then argue for it.

But the current strategy of proclaiming the consequences of war but not its alternatives amounts to little more than a petulant moan. At best, generic odes to diplomacy will be meaningless, given that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledges that the war will end in negotiations.

A more concerning prospect is that these calls will distract from the urgent task of assisting a society under heinous attack from a nuclear-armed madman."

Fundraising campain in support of Raif Badawi

 I have written before (e.g. here) about the Saudi blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes for posts that the authorities did not like. After the first 50 lashes led to worldwide protests, this part of the sentence was quietly abandoned but the prison term remained.

These days, I checked to see whether Raif has been released. It turned out that he has, but he is not allowed to emigrate to Canada where his family is until he pays the hefty fine that was also included in the sentence. Therefore, a fundraising campaign is underway, under the auspice of the Giordano Bruno Foundation. I believe that nobody who reads this blog likes the idea of pouring money into the budget of Saudi Arabia of all states, but for the sake of Raif, you might consider it if you wish.

Russian invaders booby-trap dead bodies

When Ukrainian troops liberate a town from Russian invaders, they warn residents to return with caution because retreating Russians often booby-trap homes, cars, playgrounds, and even dead bodies. An example is described by Azmi Haroun, Yahoo!News:

"Russian soldiers killed a Ukrainian army volunteer on the outskirts of Kyiv and left his dead body in his car trunk fitted with a mine that later exploded when Ukrainian forces attempted to move him, according to Politico.

Lyudmyla Kyrpach, the soldier's widow, told Politico... that the day after the invasion began in late February, Oleksandr, a mechanic, organized volunteer fighters in his village of Kalynivka, near Kyiv.

By March 1, days after Russian troops had encroached on their village, Oleksandr's friends set out driving to see if they could source more intel about Russian troop movements up close... After they failed to return, he set out to find them.

"He said he would be right back," Lyudmyla told Politico. Oleksandr never returned, and unable to sleep, Lyudmyla set out the following day with her friends to find him.

She noticed his sedan on the road, with the keys in the ignition but no passengers in the car, she told Politico.

Lyudmyla's friend noticed that the trunk was riddled with bullets... and they opened the trunk to find Oleksandr's dead body. Her friend pulled her away from the car in fear that the trunk could be booby-trapped...

 

By March 4 they returned to the scene with Ukrainian soldiers.

 

According to the report, the soldiers tied ropes to his limbs and moved far from the car to pull slowly and see if the car was rigged. As soon as they pulled, the "car exploded in a ball of flames." Russian soldiers had placed weight-triggered mine under Oleksandr, Lyudmyla told Politico.

 

"Lyudmyla picked up the pieces of the man she had spent decades with and placed them in a box," Politico reported. Later, she buried him in the garden where they used to plant vegetables together."

A Russian Antigone

 From Allison Quinn at the Daily Beast:

"Russian authorities in Ukraine’s occupied city of Donetsk are tossing the bodies of their dead soldiers in a secret dump “by the thousands” and charging their loved ones money to find them.

That’s according to a new audio recording released by Ukraine’s Security Service on Tuesday, which is purportedly an intercepted telephone conversation between two Russians discussing how one of their missing friends was finally found.

In the two-and-a-half minute recording, an unidentified man tells his female relative that the fate of “Inna’s brother” is finally known after he went missing a month ago.

“It’s better that you don’t hear this,” the man says at first, reluctant to spill all the grim details.

After more urging, he finally explains that the unidentified dead man’s “sister went to Donetsk, and there, basically, roughly speaking, is a dump.”

“They just toss them there. And then later it’s easier to make as if they disappeared without a trace. It’s easier for them to pretend they are just missing, and that’s it,” he said, noting that “there are thousands.”

“There’s nowhere left to place them. It’s a dump. I’m telling you in plain Russian—a dump. It’s as tall as a person,” he said, adding that the site is “fenced off, sealed, they don’t let anyone in.”

According to him, the only reason local authorities at the dump site let the woman find her brother was because she paid “good money.”

After that, he said, “they rearranged it until she found [the body.]”

“It’s not a morgue, it’s a dump.… They are bringing [bodies] by the thousands,” he said, calling it a “shitshow.”...

The disturbing intercept comes after Al Jazeera on Monday released footage of refrigerated train cars holding the unclaimed bodies of Russian troops killed in Ukraine. Inside, there appeared to be human-size bodies stacked on top of each other in white bags. Ukrainian authorities said Moscow has refused to take the bodies back home, apparently to keep the lid on the sky-high death toll..."

Wake up, Russia!

Bulgaria now to give Ukraine "phantom" military aid

 From Tsvetelia Tsolova / Reuters:

"Bulgaria approves repairs to Ukrainian military equipment, not military aid

Bulgaria's parliament voted on Wednesday to allow repairs of Ukrainian heavy military equipment and seek ways to help Ukrainian exports of grains and electricity, sidestepping proposals to provide direct military aid to Kyiv.

 

European Union and NATO member state Bulgaria has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, supported sanctions against Moscow, refused to pay for Russian gas with roubles and hosted over 90,000 Ukrainian refugees.

 

But the Black Sea country remains one of the few in the 27-member EU to have not sent arms and ammunitions to Kyiv as one of the four coalition partners, the Russia-friendly Socialists, opposed the move and threatened to bolt if it were approved.

 

Lawmakers voted to allow the government to provide military-technical support to Ukraine and see how it can repair Ukrainian heavy military equipment...

 

Two other proposals that supported sending military aid to Ukraine did not win enough support in the chamber."

Repairmen who showed Hunter Biden's laptop now suing media

 From Caroline Downey / National Review:

 

"Hunter Biden Laptop Whistleblower Sues Schiff, CNN, the Daily Beast , Politico

 

The Delaware computer repairman who alerted authorities to the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop sued on Tuesday Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, CNN, the Daily Beast and Politico, claiming that he suffered financial and reputational damage after they alleged that the leak was Russian disinformation.

 

Business owner John Paul Mac Isaac filed for the suit, he told the New York Post, because his livelihood was significantly disrupted by tech platforms, mainstream media, and Delaware locals after he turned in the laptop, which would eventually become the subject of a federal investigation.

 

“After fighting to reveal the truth, all I want now is for the rest of the country to know that there was a collective and orchestrated effort by social and mainstream media to block a real story with real consequences for the nation,” Mac Isaac told the Post...

Mac Isaac said he came into possession of the laptop when President Biden’s son Hunter dropped it off at his shop for repairs in April 2019 and never came back to claim it. Authorities have since unearthed questionable content on the device relating to Hunter’s foreign business dealings and the president’s knowledge of them. The store owner first gave the laptop hard drive to the FBI in December 2019 and then to former head of the Trump campaign legal team Rudy Giuliani, who provided a copy of the hard drive to The Post.

 

After the story surfaced in October 2020 right before the presidential election, Twitter and Facebook made a concerted effort to bury it and censored the Post’s article, arguing it was unsubstantiated and illegitimate reporting. Biden and over 50 former intelligence officials smeared the laptop revelation as part of a Russian disinformation operation. Over a year later, the New York Times and the Washington Post finally confirmed the story after dismissing it as unsubstantiated for months. Hunter Biden had previously admitted that the laptop did in fact belong to him.

 

Some Republicans have argued that the early tech and liberal media suppression of the story misled the public and may have effected the results of the 2020 election. Mac Isaac said he suffered great harm as a result of the conduct of the social media companies after the story went live.

 

“Twitter initially labeled my action hacking, so for the first day after my information was leaked, I was bombarded with hate mail and death threats revolving around the idea that I was a hacker, a thief and a criminal,” he told The Post. Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, “has some explaining” to do after he rejected the new information outright back in October 2020 in what looks like an act of political favoritism, Mac Isaac noted.

 

“Without any intel, the head of the intel committee decided to share with CNN and its viewers a complete and utter lie,” Mac Isaac said. “A lie issued in the protection of a preferred presidential candidate.”

 

Mac Isaac alleges that Schiff and those around him unfairly labeled him a prop of the Russian regime for submitting the laptop to the FBI. The lawsuit includes a defamation allegation stemming from Schiff’s interview with CNN two days after The Post broke the story, during which he claimed Moscow was involved.

 

“Well we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin. That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about the Vice President and his son,” Schiff told CNN host Wolf Blitzer, according to the suit...

 

As a result of the false accusations, Mac Isaac says he faced intimidation and hostility at his business. He shut down the shop after people started throwing vegetables, eggs and dog excrement at his store, he told the Post. Mac Isaac is seeking “at least $1 million in compensatory damages [and] punitive damages which will be the much bigger number and will be determined at trial,” his lawyer Brian Della Rocca confirmed to the publication."

The Pope is mad

From today's article Pope Francis Says NATO Started War in Ukraine by ‘Barking at Putin’s Door’by Barbie Latza Nadeau / Daily Beast: 

"Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis has floated the idea that he wants to take a trip to Kyiv to try to broker a ceasefire. But now he says he would prefer to go to Moscow to try to talk some sense into Vladimir Putin, who he has not outwardly condemned in the now nearly three-month-old war and only did so lightly in a lengthy interview with an Italian newspaper.

“I feel that before going to Kyiv, I must go to Moscow,” he told Corriere Della Sera in an interview that ran Tuesday. But the meeting would not exactly be to condemn Putin, based on what he told the paper. He said that the real “scandal” of Putin’s war is “NATO barking at Russia’s door,” which he said caused the Kremlin to “react badly and unleash the conflict.”

Never mind that the 85-year-old pontiff is unable to walk after tearing a ligament in his knee (for which he says he will soon have surgery), or that Putin won’t even answer his calls. Francis repeated comments he has made in general audiences and in other interviews that the war is nothing more than a giant opportunity for a “trade in arms” and that it is still ongoing because of the constant shuttling of weapons to Ukraine. He has spoken twice by phone to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but mostly to urge him not to fight back...

“I don’t know how to answer—I’m too far away—the question of whether it is right to supply the Ukrainians,” he told the paper. “The clear thing is that weapons are being tested there. The Russians now know that tanks are of little use and are thinking of other things. This is why wars are waged: to test the weapons we have produced. Few people are fighting this trade, but more should be done.”

Whether the Italian journalists didn’t ask—or whether he didn’t answer— there was no mention about what would happen if Ukrainians were not fiercely fighting back, whether it would mean a full annexation of the entire country, millions of deaths, or empowering an already insatiably power-hungry Putin.

Francis veered toward conspiracy theory as he blamed the international community for instigating the war. “You cannot think that a free state can make war on another free state,” he said. “In Ukraine, it seems that it was others who created the conflict. I am pessimistic but we must do everything possible to stop the war.”..."

Russia learned the wrong lessons from previous wars

 From David Volodzko / Daily Beast, The Embarassing Truth Behind Putin's War Failures:

"Russia has been forced, humiliatingly, to withdraw some 40,000 troops from around Kyiv and Chernihiv, having failed to make any significant progress in those regions—falling back to their old targets in eastern Ukraine. This raises the question of exactly what the Kremlin learned in Syria and, more importantly, what it should have learned but obviously has not...

Some of the lessons that were not learned well enough include use of drones for artillery spotting, the danger of MANPADS on the contested battlefield, and the need for secure supply lines. Each of these factors has proven devastating for Russian forces in Ukraine...

Russia learned a few more things in Syria. Namely, how to destroy cities, terror tactics to make civilians flee, and the use of proxies as holding forces/cannon fodder.

So what went wrong? For one thing, Russia is one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and by far the most corrupt major power. Ruling a mafia state has its advantages if you’re the Godfather, but it’s hard to know whom to trust. Moscow recently purged 150 Federal Security Service (FSB) agents and sent Sergei Beseda, the head of the FSB’s 5th Service, which handles intelligence in Ukraine, to Lefortovo Prison, which was used under Stalin to conduct torture-based interrogations and mass executions. One theory says Beseda gave information to the CIA, but the official reason, which may very well be true, is that he lied to the state and stole funds meant for espionage activities in Ukraine. If true, this means Putin’s own spy chiefs not only let him bring a knife to a gun fight—they sold off the combat blade and bought a cheap butter spreader...

Russian communications are very lowbrow, and they are using unencrypted mobile phones in Ukraine, a bad habit picked up in Syria, where few opponents could understand Russian or had the technical competence to intercept...

One thing’s for certain, Russia looked at Ukraine and mistook a tiger for a cat. Now even if it decides to cut its losses and completely withdraw, it may not be so easy. As the old Chinese saying goes, when you’re riding a tiger, the hard part is getting off."

Bulgaria still refuses military aid to Ukraine

 From a yesterday's report by Tsvetelia Tsolova / Reuters:

"Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba appealed to NATO and EU member Bulgaria on Thursday to provide sorely needed military aid to help his country survive Russia's invasion.

Bulgaria has condemned the invasion, voted to support European Union sanctions against Russia and is hosting more than 90,000 Ukrainian refugees, but the four-party ruling coalition remains split over whether to send arms and ammunition to Kyiv.

Kuleba, who arrived in the Black Sea country on Tuesday, said he has still not received a clear answer from Sofia on military aid.

"The best way to bring peace closer today is to stand by Ukraine, not to stand neutral," Kuleba said in the Bulgarian parliament at the opening of a photo exhibition depicting the war in Ukraine.

"Sometimes you have to make a choice, you cannot be in between, you cannot come up with endless arguments. You have to take a side and you have to take the side of truth. So all I can say is it is time to make a choice," he said...

Prime Minister Kiril Petkov's centrist PP party has proposed a compromise of sending "technical assistance for defence purposes" to Ukraine... Kuleba dismissed the PP's compromise proposal.

"If you have a helmet and a bulletproof vest, but you do not have a gun in your hands, you are doomed. So this half-measure is nice politically, but basically the message is: 'We want you to die protected'," he said.

Thousands of people have died, cities and towns have been heavily bombarded and some 11 million people - about a quarter of Ukraine's population - displaced in the war since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24.

Bulgaria's parliament is expected to debate next week, after the Orthodox Easter weekend, how to support Ukraine further.

Bulgaria was Moscow's closest ally in eastern Europe in Communist times. It has retained important cultural, tourism and trade links and is still heavily reliant on Russian gas and oil."

"Wholesale destruction of civilian neighborhoods" by Russian military

 Scott Pelley, a correspondent and anchor at CBS News and 60 Minutes, to Jack Holmes:

"In Kyiv, we went all the way up into the northern suburbs yesterday, including Bucha and Irpin. And I'll tell you, Jack, in 40 years of covering wars, I have never seen such wholesale destruction of civilian neighborhoods, absolutely senseless. It could only have been done to kill the people. There's no military reason for it. 10-story apartment buildings, blown to bits, entire neighborhoods [destroyed]. I was talking to the residents about what happened to a very large 10-story apartment building that was completely a burned out shell. And they said it had been hit by a helicopter gunship that launched rockets into it.

"Behind a church, the St. Andrew's Orthodox church, we found a mass grave. The Russians had left and retreated in such haste that they didn't bother to bury the evidence. And so the grave was open, and there were a number of people in the grave, a number of bodies in the grave, all clearly civilian women and men, elderly men, just piled up there, just waiting for mercy, just waiting for someone at some point to lift them out of that trench that they were lying in and properly bury them."

Russian teacher betrayed by students faces jail for anti-war views

 From Matthew Loh / Business Insider through Yahoo!News:

 

"A Russian teacher is facing a prison sentence, and several others were fined or fired after their students reported them for making anti-war comments, BBC Russia first reported.

Irina Gen, 55, an English teacher in the western Russian city of Penza, was speaking to eighth-grade athletes who complained that they couldn't compete in international sporting events, per the BBC, who spoke with Gen's lawyer. Many sporting bodies, including the International Olympic Committee, banned Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.

Gen was recorded on March 18 telling the schoolgirls that she believed the West's decision was correct. "Until Russia starts behaving in a civilized way, this will go on forever," she said. "We are living in a totalitarian regime. Any dissent is considered a crime."

According to the BBC, she told the students that Russia intended to overthrow another nation's government and that Ukraine is a sovereign state.

The teacher received a call from Russia's federal security service five days later and was told by the authorities that they had received footage of her criticizing Moscow's direction, The Guardian reported.

Gen told The Guardian she had "no idea" she was being recorded. She said she told authorities she was "merely citing respected western outlets like AP and BBC," which she believed were professional and objective.

An excerpt of her conversation with the students was posted to the Russian Telegram channel Baza. Baza reported that the schoolgirls had disagreed with Gen and handed the recording to the law."

 

Reporting any words of disagreement with the party line to the authorities is a tradition in Russia, as it was in Bulgaria during communism. To Westerners, the incident may be reminiscent of the murder of French teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist over blasphemous cartoons shown in the classroom.

Resume of Russian military activities around Kyiv

 Reporter Illia Ponomarenko: 

“Russians basically came to Kyiv with an unbelievably stupid and unrealistic plan, killed a lot of people, ruined a lot of homes, and sustained heavy casualties. No results, no reserves.

Now they just have to leave before they get slaughtered in a pocket northwest of Kyiv.”

Nevzorov: Let Putin steal lest he murders!

 From Amy Kellogg / Fox News, March 27:

"A case has been opened against Alexander Nevzorov for calling the bombing of a Ukrainian maternity hospital...the bombing of a Ukrainian maternity hospital.

 Russia's Investigative Committee accuses Nevzorov, a Russian journalist and former MP, of deliberately spreading false information about the event which happened in Mariupol, Ukraine earlier this month. Conviction for such a crime could carry fifteen years in prison...

Nevzorov is out of the country... Meantime, he has a wish for President Vladimir Putin.

"For God's sake, give him 100 more palaces, give him 500 more female gymnasts!" he says, gymnasts being a reference to Alina Kabaeva...

"Just," Nevzorov continued his train of thought, "so he will not carry out his schizophrenic schemes to become lord of the world. Let him play with such palaces, let him be engaged with his personal life, let him steal as much as he wants just to take his mind off his mania to murder."

...He said most average Russians don't grasp Putin's motivations.

"Our people are in an absolute zombie state, in an absolutely false and extremely grave state of mind," Nevzorov said. "And Putin has the ability to constantly feed on this state... They want to remain trapped by propaganda.""

Ukrainian couples training together for war

Instead of planning their weddings or enjoying their marital life, these young people are preparing to fight. Source: Natalie Thomas / Reuters, reporting from Odessa on March 19.

Ukrainian defenders bid their wives and children farewell

 The photos are from the railway station in Kyiv. Men who will fight for their country say goodbye to their wives and children who evacuate by trains. Source: a March 4 report by Dylan Stableford.

 

US psychiatrists gone crazy, call grief a disorder

There is a joke that after enough years of practicing psychiatry, the profession becomes a diagnosis. For the leading figures in US psychiatry, this certainly seems true. They have added "prolonged grief" to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, defining it as inability to return to previous activities a year after a loss.

To me, the idea that an individual who has suffered a loss is expected ever to get over it completely, is crazy. Yet the addition to the Manual will open a wide door to medicate people whose only "pathology" is still mourning their deceased parent, sibling, spouse or child two or three years after his death. Overmedicating people in pain is dangerous. Not so long ago, other medical professionals, including those of the FDA itself, helpfully guided by pharmaceutical companies eager to sell their painkillers, created an opioid epidemic which has killed hundred of thousands of people and still continues.

Ukrainian warriors say goodbye to their beloved

 Photos from the railway station in Lviv on March 9 (source).

No True Russian

You may have heard about the "no true Scotsman" fallacy:

Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Person B: "But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge."
Person A: "But no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." 

Now, it has a variety, "no true Russian": "Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Friday said that citizens who were speaking out against the war are not "real" Russians."

 

For what Russians are arrested

Arrests and other repressions against Russians protesting the war in Ukraine have reached absurdities that would have been comic if the entire situation was not tragic.

On March 12 in Moscow, a young man was arrested for displaying asterisks:

On March 13 in Nizhny Novgorod, a young woman was arrested for displaying a blank sheet:

Source (in Bulgarian).

Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine

 Putin's Russia has attacked freedom-loving Ukraine with full force, using rockets to ruin cities. Brave Ukrainians do wonders to defend their country. Brave Russians protest against the war and Putin and, as expected, get arrested and beaten. The West provides some help and imposes some sanctions but it seems too little too late. Why don't we stop trade with Russia altogether? The West is selling its soul for the damn Russian natural gas and the oligarch's dirty money.

Loss always hurts

 My father died the day before yesterday, and today was the funeral. He had lived to the ripe old age of 99. It was even announced that he had been the last army officer of the Kingdom of Bulgaria (my country has been a republic since 1946). And he was increasingly confused by the end. Still, the loss hurts.

Want good teachers, raise teachers' salaries

 The Kansas City Star reported yesterday that Dianne O’Bryan, a teacher at Blue Valley, Kansas, felt fed up with angry parents and held a speech that was posted and attracted much interest on social media. It said, addressing parents:

"Teachers, counselors are burdened with so much more than they ever have been. Inside the entire system, there’s so much work that needs to be done for kids right now. And then to have communities coming at schools with such negativity, I’m worried we’re going to be losing some wonderful people... For those angry, highly critical, accusatory parents in our district, please know that you’re a major contributing factor to teachers leaving,” O’Bryan said. “You have a choice to be angry, but we also have a choice to leave... The negativity surrounding schools is toxic... We are not teaching critical race theory in our schools. We are, however, working hard to make sure that our students feel safe, welcome, understood and valued. For some, this focus on diversity, equity and inclusion may be uncomfortable. But it is necessary."

In other words, the lady denies that US schools are teaching critical race theory (which they are doing), and tells parents to be fine with "focus on diversity, equity and inclusion", i.e. bullying white children for being white, or else more teachers would leave.

That's the result of chronically low salaries of teachers: payroll of schools fills with losers such as Ms. O'Bryan for whom the only compensation for being underpaid and overworked is the feeling of power that comes from indoctrinating the children they are presumed to educate.

The solution: raise teachers' salaries, hire reasonable young teachers, and good riddance to the "wonderful people" like Ms. O'Bryan and her ilk!

Antivaxxer insanity

 When the coronavirus pandemic first strick the world, some commented that at least it would make antivaxxers shut up, because the scary world of lockdowns, restrictions and ever-climbing death toll was a demo version of a world without vaccines. Unfortunately, the prediction was too optimistic. Good vaccines were developed and tested in record time, but antivaxxers launched a massive attack against them. Conspiracy theorists concocted narratives that vaccines were meant to track their recipients, some minorities imagined that the immunization campaign was a plot to make them sterile, and right-wingers, instead of celebrating the vaccines as the achievement of Western civilization they are, embraced the "freedom" to stay unvaccinated, and turned it into a cause celebre.

As in previous cases of mass psychosis sweeping societies, the current one is most blatantly manifested in some individuals with underlying mental illness. Below, I am copying from an Oct. 6 Baltimore Sun report:

"Maryland man allegedly fatally shot his pharmacist brother for ‘killing people’ with the COVID vaccine, court records show 

Jessica Anderson

A Cumberland man allegedly killed his brother and sister-in-law in their Ellicott City home last week because his brother, a pharmacist, administered COVID-19 vaccines, according to charging documents filed Wednesday in a Howard County court.

Jeffrey Burnham told his mother he had to confront his older brother, Brian Robinette, because he was poisoning people by administering the COVID-19 vaccine, telling his mother, “Brian knows something,” according to the new charging documents filed against Burnham.

Burnham is being held without bond in Allegany County, where he is charged with stabbing Rebecca Reynolds, 83, to death inside her Cumberland home on Sept. 29. Police said he took her car and fled to Ellicott City, where a day later he killed Robinette, 58, and his wife Kelly Sue Robinette, 57. He faces first and second-degree murder charges in the couples’ deaths...

According to the charging documents filed against Burnham related to the Howard County murders, Burnham told another unnamed person that his brother was “killing people with the COVID shot.”

Burnham’s mother Evelyn Burnham previously expressed concerns about her younger son’s mental health...

Evelyn Burnham called police again Sept. 30, concerned about her son’s talk of “Becky’s car,” referring to Reynolds, a friend of hers since childhood. Police have said Burnham stole Reynolds’ Lincoln and drove to Ellicott City.

Reynolds was found dead inside her home with a deep laceration across her throat and a pillow over her face...

The Robinettes were found fatally shot in an upstairs bedroom in their home on Kerger Road..."

Amnesty International leaves Alexei Navalny to rot

 Alexei Navalny is the long-time leader of Russian opposition. Because the Russian dictator Putin tolerates no opposition, there has been a long record of various attacks against Navalny, his famiy members (e.g. his brother has served a prison sentence), and his supporters. Last year, Mr. Navalny narrowly survived a poisoning attempt, and was treated in Germany for months. The doctor who gave him first aid in the city of Omsk and most likely saved his life has meanwhile died, the death attributed to a heart attack. Alexei Navalny eventually returned to Russia, was immediately arrested, and has already been convicted to 3.5 years in prison on made-up charges.

Amnesty International initially gave Mr. Navalny a "prisoner of conscience" status, but has now revoked it because of unspecified "comments he made in the past" that "reach the threshold of advocacy of hatred". These comments have not been specified, but are supposedly from speeches against immigration, especially illegal immigration, held more than a decade ago.

Alexander Golovach, a supporter of Navalny who had been declared prisoner of conscience in 2018, has now renounced this status to protest.

Details e.g. here.

Update: I have just shared this news with my husband, who follows closely the situation in Russia (I have no nerve for this). His comment: "I can tell you that Putin is great. His tentacles are everywhere, see how far they reach!"

Update 2: Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of Britain's Foreign Affairs Select Committee, made a spot-on comment: “If Amnesty will only call out the persecution of saints, they’re siding with tyrants. The prisons will be full and they will stay silent as ordinary, flawed human beings are persecuted for crimes of conscience.” Read the whole report by Robert Oliphant at the Telegraph.

Bad omen for the new US presidency

 The text below is copied from Hernando Sun.

Fact Check: 2020 Lie of the Year

Rocco Maglio,01/08/2021

 

...When the New York Post broke the story of the Hunter Biden laptop and emails which implied influence-peddling on the part of Joe Biden while Vice President,  a letter was circulated that was signed by more than 50 former senior intelligence officials. The letter was signed by Jim Clapper, Former Director of National Intelligence, three Former Directors of the CIA (Mike Hayden, Leon Panetta, John Brennan), Michael Morell, Former Acting Director of the CIA, and many former leaders of intelligence agencies. This letter was reported by Politico journalist Natasha Bertrand to state that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a Russian disinformation operation. Disinformation means the information was false.

After the election former CIA senior operations officer, Marc Polymeropoulos told the National Review that he and former acting CIA director Michael Morell (name has been floated as a possible Biden CIA director pick) basically wrote the letter. "Polymeropoulos stressed, however, that the letter was not intended to question whether the Hunter Biden materials were authentic, but rather to raise the possibility that the Russians were trying to interfere in the presidential election by helping in some way to bring the information to the attention of the press."

“We talk about how this is a Russian information operation, it’s not disinformation,” he stated. “And that’s an important nuance to me as a former intelligence officer. It might not be for the rest of the public, or for people on the right, or the left, or wherever, who would criticize the letter, but it is an important nuance. Because we did not say it was Russian disinformation, we said it was a Russian information operation.”

The letter by the former intelligence leaders does not explicitly state that the Hunter Biden story was Russian disinformation, but it talks about the Hunter Biden story being a Russian information campaign and then goes into depth about Russian disinformation. The letter was crafted in such a way to imply that the Hunter Biden story was Russian disinformation and therefore these intelligence leaders were saying the story was false.  

The legacy media and big tech repeatedly claimed that the letter stated that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation. There is no reporting of the authors of the letters or any of the signatories ever attempting to correct the reporting by pointing out that they were only claiming that it was a Russian information operation. None of the "journalists" reporting on the story contacted any of the 50+ named intelligence leaders to clear up the confusion...  

The claim that intelligence leaders claimed that this was Russian disinformation had a real effect. Twitter locked the New York Post (5th largest newspaper in America) out of their Twitter account for 16 days because they refused to delete their article spreading "Russian Disinformation."  Many of the social media platforms censored the story or inhibited their users' ability to spread the story. The network news refused to cover the story because it was Russian disinformation. The blackout was so complete that polling has shown that many Biden voters were unaware of the whole story or aspects of the story including the FBI investigation.

The reason that the emails and laptop could not be disavowed or called disinformation is that Hunter Biden himself dropped off the laptop and did not return to pick it up, so it became the property of the computer shop. The owner gave the laptop to the FBI but made an image of the disk. He then provided a copy of the disk to the Trump campaign. The emails on the laptop were from Gmail so they contained a digital signature verifying their contents had not changed and that they had been sent through Gmail to the recipients.  

This letter by these intelligence officials was used by the media as justification for not covering the story since it was Russian disinformation. The letter was reported many times as claiming Russian disinformation and no one ever corrected that mischaracterization.

The claim that this was a Russian information operation is interesting since it implies that the President of the United States and his allies do not have the ability to spread a story about potential corruption by his opponent Joe Biden in the US.  The story of this corruption by one of two major candidates for presidents could only be publicized with the help of Russians.

The former intelligence officers knew that by calling it a Russian information operation and then talking about Russian disinformation that the story would be reported as a Russian disinformation operation since that is the term that has been used to refer to the Clinton Emails. If the story was called Russian disinformation then it could be censored by the media and Big Tech since disinformation means it is false.

The leaders of the intelligence community misleading the corporate media and public to prevent the investigation of allegations of corruption against their preferred candidate is what happens in failed totalitarian states, not healthy democracies. The members of corporate media were not innocent bystanders as they did not want to report this story and used the letter as a means of ignoring the story. This was a disinformation campaign run against the American people by intelligence leaders who are going to be in power during the Biden administration. This is why the intelligence leaders misleading the public through our willing media that the Hunter Biden story was Russian disinformation is our lie of the year.

Petition for release of young female Iranian prisoner of conscience

 

I have just signed a petition of Amnesty International for the release of 24-year-old Yasaman Aryani (shown in the photo). Like many other valiant Iranian women, Yasaman has been imprisoned for protesting against the laws mandating headscarves, and refusing to wear one. She was first arrested in August 2018, sentenced to one year, released in February 2019, then arrested again next month and sentenced to 16 years, together with her mother.

 

University admission must be merit-based

 The US Department of Justice has found what has been common knowledge for decades, namely, that US universities discriminate against white and especially Asian-American candidate students, holding them to a higher standard. Because of the consistently higher academic achievements of these two groups, to prevent them from becoming over-represented in the student body, higher test scores are required from them than from students coming from groups with traditionally lower academic performance. To motivate the rejection of academically excellent Asian-American applicants, they are given lower scores in the "personality" assessment. To me, all this is textbook racism, yet it is defended as struggle against "systemic racism", whatever this is to mean.

 

I find this system mind-boggling. In my country, elite universities recruit their students by anonymous written examinations (high school grades are also taken into account, but are given less importance, because it is known that many bad schools grade their students generously). Gender quotas are used for all prestigeous study fields that would otherwise become feminized, but there are no racial or ethnic quotas. So we have proportionally fewer minority students, but the ones that make it into (and out of) the university are as good as those from the majority. My experience shows that this system works well. I'd recommend it to everyone (and I think it would be even better without the gender quotas). At least public universities, and also private ones if they use public funds, should not be allowed to discriminate based on race, ethnicity, personality traits, or any other non-academic criteria.

Ten years

Ten years ago, my brother died. I still miss him terribly. You cannot stop loving someone just because he has died. I still do not feel at home in the world devoid of him. Because it is a damaged version of what it had to be. My brother was of those people who make the world better. And there is still a void at the place of the life he had to live, the love he had to give in the years to come, and of all the nice things he would do.

Warmth

One week after the official start of autumn, summer briefly returned. On the bright blue sky, the sun was warm like the smile of a loved one. I enjoyed the warmth and remembered a smile.

Dad of the year

Below are copied parts of a report in today's Yahoo!News.




"Baby's body recovered, three missing, after raft carrying migrants capsizes in Rio Grande

By Andrew Hay (Reuters) 

The body of a 10-month-old boy was recovered on Thursday and three other migrants, including two children, were still missing after their raft capsized as they crossed the Rio Grande in Texas, U.S. Border Patrol said.

The rubber raft flipped over on Wednesday night near Del Rio, Texas, and all nine of its occupants were swept away in the cold, fast-flowing water, according to the father of the dead child, U.S. Border Patrol said in a statement.

The father swam to safety. A Border Patrol agent jumped into the river and rescued his wife and 6-year-old son. The boy was given emergency care and then rushed to a hospital for advanced treatment. Another man and his son were found on the river bank.

The missing were believed to include the 7-year-old nephew of the dead child’s father, a girl and an adult male, according to the statement.

"What we’re dealing with now is senseless tragedy,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz said in a statement.

The baby’s body was found several miles downriver by a Border Patrol search and rescue team.

Drownings are common on the Rio Grande, which makes up part of the U.S.-Mexico border, as migrants try to cross on often overcrowded, makeshift rafts with no life jackets...

In the past seven months, Border Patrol has apprehended over 418,000 migrants on the southwest border, already surpassing the 2018 fiscal-year total. Most of those arrested were Central American families, many of them crossing the border in large groups that can number over 400 people.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 283 deaths on the border in 2018, ranging from heat-related fatalities to drownings... Migrant advocates say the death toll is far greater as many bodies are never recovered from deserts and the Rio Grande."

Nothing good can come out of emigration culture, i.e. regarding emigration to a more prosperous country as the default path to success, and those who stay and work in their homeland as failures. It drives people to emigrate at any cost, legally or not, and ultimately leads to deaths. At least, once this man's loved ones were in the cold turbulent waters of Rio Grande as a result of his poor decisions, he could try to bring them out, instead of swimming to safety himself and leaving their rescue to the Border Patrol. Moral: do not concent to a perilous journey if the man leading you is a coward and a loser. Of course, dragging one's family through deserts and rivers to cross a border illegally and earn detention is the sort of idea that comes exactly to losers, so wives should just say "no".

Iranian woman lawyer convicted for defending women

Nasrin Sotoudeh (image source: Amnesty International)

From a March 6 report by Jon Gambrell, Associated Press, via Yahoo! News:

"A prominent human rights lawyer in Iran who defended protesters against the Islamic Republic's mandatory headscarves for women has been convicted and faces years in prison, an activist group said Wednesday.

The conviction of Nasrin Sotoudeh, who previously served three years in prison for her work, underlines the limits of challenging Iran's theocracy as it faces economic pressure exacerbated by the U.S. pulling out of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers...

It shows "the insecurity the regime has to any peaceful challenge," said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, which reported Sotoudeh's conviction. "It knows a large segment of the country . are fed up with the hijab laws."

Sotoudeh, 55, was convicted in absentia after she refused to attend the trial before Tehran's Revolutionary Court as she was unable to select her own counsel, Ghaemi said. The Revolutionary Court conducts closed-door hearings over alleged threats to Iran's government.

The charges range from her membership in a human rights group to "encouraging corruption and prostitution." That suggests her detention in part relates to her defense of women who protested the mandatory hijab.

Sotoudeh's conviction was not immediately reported by Iranian state-run media. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran relied on information about Sotoudeh's case provided by her husband Reza Khandan, who separately faces a six-year prison sentence over providing updates on her case on Facebook, Ghaemi said...

One of Sotoudeh's clients in the hijab protests received a 20-year prison sentence, showing the sensitivity authorities felt about the case...

The hijab and chador — the flowing, all-encompassing robe for women — have long been parts of Persian culture. They became political symbols in 1936, when Iran's pro-Western ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi banned the garments amid his efforts to rapidly modernize Iran. The ban became a source of humiliation for some pious Muslim women in the country.

As the 1979 Islamic Revolution took hold, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered female civil servants to wear the chador. At first, thousands of women protested the decision in Tehran and Khomeini later said officials should not insult women who chose not to wear it — though he also called the chador "the flag of the revolution."

The hijab and loose-fitting clothing later became mandatory for all women in Iran..."

On March 8, my sympathy to Ms. Sotoudeh and the suffering Iranian women.

Update: Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. Amnesty International has a petition to free her - please sign if you care!

Christian family tortures 7-yr-old boy to death for not knowing Bible verses

In April last year, 7-year-old Ethan Hauschultz from Manitowoc (Wisconsin) was killed. His photo above has been provided by his mother Andrea Everett. Because of alleged neglect and abuse, Ethan and his three siblings were taken from her by the authorities and put under the guardianship of their grand-uncle Timothy Hauschultz and his wife Tina. These two individuals, together with their 15-yr-old son Damian, are now charged for his death.

(Photo from wbay)

Timothy required the children to memorize verses from the Bible and, when not satisfied, punished them by forcing them to carry around for hours logs heavier than 20 kg. On the fateful day, Timothy went out and ordered his son Damian (then 14) to oversee Ethan's punishment. Because the 7-yr-old kept dropping the log, Damian "hit and kicked the younger boy 100 times, rolled the heavy log over his chest and stood on his head and body while Ethan was face-down in a puddle. He then allegedly buried him in "his own little coffin of snow"" (Damian's words to the investigators; he laughed). When Timothy returned and found little Ethan lifeless, he rushed him to a hospital but it was too late: Ethan died from "hypothermia and blunt force injuries to his head, chest and abdomen".

It is not easy to find this case in the news without explicit searching - it is buried, like Ethan himself. It should be front-page news and send shock waves all across the Christian world. And also in child protection services, who rip children from allegedly unfit parents just to place them under the care of monsters who kill them. In another US case from last year (the Hart case), two crazy women killed their six adopted children in a murder-suicide after starving and otherwise abusing them for years.

Headscarves: photo evidence of cultural regression

Ex-Muslims of North America have declared today, Feb. 1, as No Hijab Day, to support the right of women to not wear the hijab (Islamic headscarf). The two sets of photos above speak for themselves. Both are from the Twitter feed of Roxy, hattip Prof. Coyne. I hope that the women shown (in the bottom photo, not actually shown) will eventually enjoy the freedom to express themselves and to feel the wind in their hair.