Ego Sum Lux Mundi comments

Same-sex marriage is a complete contradiction in terms.

Probably a tip of the iceberg case. You might want to think twice about stewing in a soup of bacteria. So much of life here is smoke, mirrors, spin, and facade.

Never mind Canada, Britain itself should be a republic.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde:

There is only one thing worse than being secretly photographed, and that's not being secretly photographed because no one likes you enough to bother.

It's great how they are putting aside past animosities in the name of preparing for war with China.

February 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

March 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

April 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

June 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

July 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

August 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

September 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

October 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

November 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

December 2022 - Russia ran out of missiles

January 2023 - Russia ran out of missiles

February 2023 - Russia ran out of missiles

March 2023 - Russia launches biggest missile strike ever

Glorious news, Western comrades! The victorious Ukrainian Army is blowing up bridges as it advances away from the defeated Russian Army, which is also demoralized, out of ammunition, and contemplating revolution against Vladimir Putin, the thuggish dictator who is crazy, Neo-Communist, Neo-Fascist, cancer-stricken, and also died 12 times in one year:

Engineer units of the 24th and 93rd mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces began February 27 to blow up bridges in Artemovsk (Bakhmut). By destroying railway and road bridges, the Ukrainian army wants to slow the advance of Russian forces deep into the city.

First, the enemy blew up the bridge over the Bakhmutka River in the northeastern part of Artemovsk. In addition, the automobile bridge over the canal northwest of the city, which served as a communication route with the surrounding area – Chasovy Yar, Bogdanovka and Kalinovka, no longer works.

Another reason for the destruction of the bridges could be the fear of the Ukrainian side that the weapon arsenals of several large Ukrainian Armed Forces formations defending Artemovsk might fall into the hands of Russian Armed Forces units. They store thousands of anti-tank missiles, shells for mortars and grenade launchers, reconnaissance and satellite communication equipment. It is known that at the beginning of the Russian special operation, ammunition was placed in the industrial zone of the electrical plant and the Tsvetmet factory, as well as in the trolleybus depot.

Earlier, the famous Ukrainian activist blogger with call sign Madyar said that his unit left Artemivsk. He said part of the Ukrainian troops had received the long-awaited order to leave the city. According to military correspondents from the scene, Wagner PMC fighters approached the last road to the encircled town.

I wonder if the Ukrainian people are as tired of winning as Donald Trump’s supporters yet?

This dude is so repetitive and formulaic, that there is actually a Haruki Murakami Drinking Game:

If a character has a beer, drink.

If a character has liquor, drink a shot.

If a character listens to jazz, take a hit of MJ.

If a character listens to classical music, savor a sip of wine.

If a character listens to late ’60s/early ’70s rock & roll, drink and take a hit of MJ.

If a character senses that he or she exists in a parallel universe, drink and drop half a bottle of shochu.

If a significant female character disappears without warning, drink and take 2 Vicodins.

If a character expresses existential angst using an ambiguous metaphor, drink and practice transcendental meditation for 20 minutes.

If a character becomes involved with an unorthodox but highly efficient metaphysical organization, drink and tell a semi-employed 30 year-old Japanese fellow that you can refurbish his soul with these weird powers you discovered you had when you were 16.

If a semi-employed 30 year-old Japanese fellow becomes friendly with an eccentric teenage girl, drink and describe a young woman’s breasts in a gratuitous yet tasteful manner.

If an older character describes a traumatic World War II-era experience, drink and thank fate you didn’t live in Japan during World War II.

Kanpai!

Sorry, your money needs to go towards feeding the gargantuan US MIC, so, please make sacrifices accordingly, yoroshiku onegai shimasu

It's nothing to do with money - it's to do with a collapse in values and increased selfishness and materialism. As others have posted, previous generations grew up in far poorer times in material terms, yet they often married young and had 3 or more children.

C'mon Japan, allow dual nationality and get with the program! Then you too can have a Congress stuffed with politicians that claim to serve two countries, just like in the US.

Couldn't care less about the baseball stadium, but I will miss the Prince Chichibu rugby stadium. It has a cosy and intimate character for a sports venue in Japan, with no damn athletic track around the field to separate the fans from the action. As usual, Japan doesn't give a damn about tradition, history or nature.

The Jomon people were near genocided by the Yayoi people, who mainly came via the Korean peninsula landing first in Kyushu about 2,500 BC and spreading out gradually.

That's good to know - I'll be revising my policy for shooting drown drones that fly over my property, too.

So they invite laughable failures like Scotty "from Marketing" Morrison and Lizz "the shortest serving PM in UK history" Truss - this is beyond satire now.

They cast a non-American in the role because American actors today no longer have the manly gravitas to play such a character.

Sad news, and yet still sports involving serious blows to the head are promoted to kids and sold as mass entertainment - And that includes rugby, football, boxing, MMA, etc. Unbelievable.

In addition to no more mask mandates at the gym I go to, I hope the plastic dividers and thermal cameras are taken away on May 8th. Utter nonsense, all of it.

Tragic. About 15 years ago, we once had a man who hated our church and churchgoers so much that he would yell abusive threats even to old women and children, vandalized cars, threw stones at cars, parishioners and the church buildings, made bomb threats, left dead animals at the entrance, etc., and it ended when he tried to burn it down one night with a can of kerosene and a lighter. Fortunately he was an incompetent fool who only succeeded in slightly burning the door frame and our recently installed security camera caught him. He wasn't even wearing a mask. He was hauled off and eventually after psych tests was declared insane and put in a secure mental facility. Never knew what became of him, he was already in his 60s when he attacked us, so could well be dead by now.

Apparently in clown world, surrender now means success! The neocons are still practicing their insane word magic as they try to convince Russia to let them surrender Ukraine without openly admitting that they have lost their proxy war on Russia:

David Ignatius has been a career-long mouthpiece for the US State Department. He has just been called in by the current Secretary of State Antony Blinken to convey an urgent new message to President Vladimir Putin, the Security Council, and the General Staff in Moscow.

For the first time since the special military operation began last year, the war party in Washington is offering terms of concession to Russia’s security objectives explicitly and directly, without the Ukrainians in the way.

The terms Blinken has told Ignatius to print appeared in the January 25 edition of the Washington Post.

The territorial concessions Blinken is tabling include Crimea, the Donbass, and the Zaporozhye, Kherson “land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia”. West of the Dnieper River, north around Kharkov, and south around Odessa and Nikolaev, Blinken has tabled for the first time US acceptance of “a demilitarized status” for the Ukraine. Also, US agreement to restrict the deployment of HIMARS, US and NATO infantry fighting vehicles, and the Abrams and Leopard tanks to a point in western Ukraine from which they can “manoeuvre…as a deterrent against future Russian attacks.”

This is an offer for a tradeoff – partition through a demilitarized zone (DMZ) in the east of the Ukraine in exchange for a halt to the planned Russian offensive destroying the fortifications, rail hubs, troop cantonments, and airfields in the west, between the Polish and Romanian borders, Kiev and Lvov, and an outcome Blinken proposes for both sides to call “a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity”.

Also in the proposed Blinken deal there is the offer of a direct US-Russian agreement on “an eventual postwar military balance”; “no World War III”; and no Ukrainian membership of NATO with “security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5.”

Blinken has also told the Washington Post to announce the US will respect “Putin’s tripwire for nuclear escalation”, and accept the Russian “reserve force includ[ing] strategic bombers, certain precision-guided weapons and, of course, tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.”

Russia isn’t going to accept this offer or even use it as a point to begin negotiations, because they already tried negotiating with the West with the Minsk Accords of 2014 and 2015. But, as Angela Merkel and other Western leaders have publicly admitted, the agreements were a sham from the start, and were only intended to buy Ukraine more time to prepare its defenses.

Various Russian leaders have stated that both the USA and Ukraine regimes are now “non-agreement capable” and they are absolutely correct to have reached that conclusion, as Clown World’s leading neocons are still making plans to win a war that was not only unwinnable from the start, but has already been lost.

Because what they really need to prepare for is success, you see!

Success. That’s the potential outcome that the United States, Ukraine, allied and partner governments, and private-sector actors must now prepare to confront. Ukraine’s counteroffensives, backed by expanded and accelerated US and allied support, continue to push Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory, although at a reduced rate. These hard-won successes, however, bring with them possible challenges that also must be addressed.

In the short term, there are fresh threats from Moscow—attacks on electricity, water, and heat as winter approaches, sham annexations of occupied territories, mobilizations of new troops, reduced but persistent nuclear risk, and Russian prisoners to manage. Areas that Ukraine has liberated from Russian forces need immediate governance, cleanup, humanitarian assistance, and economic revival. Over the longer term, Ukraine will have to rebuild destroyed infrastructure; institute the economic and political reforms required for European Union (EU) membership; and be capable of ensuring its security.

How exactly to meet these looming challenges while exploiting present and future opportunities?

It is, of course, up to the Ukrainians to determine their priorities and their supporters to assist as much as possible, which is also consistent with US interests. But what’s urgently needed is a four-front, long-haul strategy for helping Ukraine win the war against Russia and the peace that follows—one built to withstand the dramatic developments that are sure to play out over the coming years, not just over the next weeks and months of this rapidly evolving conflict.

Preparing for victory: A long-haul strategy to help Ukraine win the war against Russia—and secure the peace, Atlantic Council, November 30, 2022

This isn’t, yet, quite Hitler in the bunker giving orders to nonexistent divisions levels of delusion while the Red Army tanks are just a couple of blocks away, but they’re observably getting closer to that level of delusion. And, of course, the word magic failed. Russia simply said: No deals. I find it particularly interesting that they went out of the way to mention Victoria "Nukeland" Nuland’s name. I think they’re making it clear they know perfectly well who is calling the shots in Washington:

The Russian Foreign Ministry has dismissed proposals issued this week in Washington by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Under Secretary, Victoria Nuland. Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova has confirmed that Russia’s military plan for the Ukraine will not be interrupted or delayed.

The West’s desperation is observably increasing, as both China and Russia have gone largely silent. This leads me to suspect that both nations will make their next major moves in concert with each other. Exactly what those will be, we can only offer our best surmises, but it would not be surprising if both Ukraine and Taiwan are entirely lost to Clown World by the end of this year.

Nikki The Neocon is coming back, hooray! I'm sure she'll be so different in her foreign policies than the current administration.

/s

You absolutely cannot separate these numerous and repeated scandals by these people from the history of the party. The LDP was formed in 1955 as a merger between two right-wing conservative parties, as a united front against Japan Socialist Party (日本社会党, Nipponshakaitō), now the Social Democratic Party (社会民主党, Shakaiminshutō).

From the 1950s through the 1990s, the United States' Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation spent millions of dollars attempting to influence elections in Japan to favor the LDP against more leftist parties such as the Socialists and the Communists, although this was not revealed until the mid-1990s when it was exposed by The New York Times.

The disgusting stench of nepotism, inherited wealth, hubris and corruption...but we shouldn't be surprised - after all, this is the CIA founded and funded LDP we are talking about.

WSJ Admits Bakhmut Almost Cut Off; Russia Pushes Forward at Vuhledar; US Military Wants Quick End to Ukraine War to Concentrate on China:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psLmxw45cus

A Toyota upper management executive who attended our church a few years ago put it to me this way:

"I'm proud of working for Toyota, but if I didn't work for the company I would never buy one of our cars, they're so boring. Even Lexus is boring. I would buy a fancy European car with beautiful character and design..."

Oh, what to do when your best laid plans are failing?...A Rand report published in April 2019 laid out US strategy vis-a-vis Russia, which as you can see in hindsight, was followed fairly closely to the letter. Note that “extending” Russia is shorthand for “causing the Russians to overextend and unbalance themselves”.

This report examines a range of possible means to extend Russia. As the 2018 National Defense Strategy recognized, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report examines Russia’s economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then analyzes potential policy options to exploit them — ideologically, economically, geopolitically, and militarily (including air and space, maritime, land, and multidomain options). After describing each measure, this report assesses the associated benefits, costs, and risks, as well as the likelihood that measure could be successfully implemented and actually extend Russia. Most of the steps covered in this report are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter-escalation. Some of these policies, however, also might prompt adverse reactions from other U.S. adversaries — most notably, China — that could, in turn, stress the United States. Ultimately, this report concludes that the most attractive U.S. policy options to extend Russia — with the greatest benefits, highest likelihood of success, and least risk — are in the economic domain, featuring a combination of boosting U.S. energy production and sanctions, providing the latter are multilateral. In contrast, geopolitical measures to bait Russia into overextending itself and ideological measures to undermine the regime’s stability carry significant risks. Finally, many military options — including force posture changes and development of new capabilities — could enhance U.S. deterrence and reassure U.S. allies, but only a few are likely to extend Russia, as Moscow is not seeking parity with the United States in most domains.

Key Findings

Russia’s weaknesses lie in the economic domains

Russia’s greatest vulnerability, in any competition with the United States, is its economy, which is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports.

The Russian leadership’s greatest anxiety stems from the stability and durability of the regime.

The most promising measures to stress Russia are in the realms of energy production and international pressure

Continuing to expand U.S. energy production in all forms, including renewables, and encouraging other countries to do the same would maximize pressure on Russia’s export receipts and thus on its national and defense budgets. Alone among the many measures looked at in this report, this one comes with the least cost or risk.

Sanctions can also limit Russia’s economic potential. To be effective, however, these need to be multilateral, involving (at a minimum) the European Union, which is Russia’s largest customer and greatest source of technology and capital, larger in all these respects than the United States.

Geopolitical measures to bait Russia into overextending itself are likely impractical, or they risk second-order consequences

Many geopolitical measures would force the United States to operate in areas that are closer to Russia and where it is thus cheaper and easier for Russia than the United States to exert influence.

Ideological measures to undermine the regime’s stability carry significant risks of counter escalation

Many military options — including force posture changes and development of new capabilities — could enhance U.S. deterrence and reassure U.S. allies, but only a few are likely to extend Russia, as Moscow is not seeking parity with the United States in most domains.

Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, RAND, 24 April 2019

This was followed up by a report five months later, which provided specific actions intended to achieve the objectives identified in the initial report, entitled Overextending and Unbalancing Russia: Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options.

Insert deep movie trailer voice: They did not correctly assess the impact of the cost-imposed options.

What’s fascinating is that now RAND is rapidly backtracking on the idea of extending Russia, because the US attempts to extend Russia have turned out to extend the USA, its NATO proxies, the other European states, and Clown World itself. Remember what I said in the previous post about NATO needing to win fast? That’s why Rand wants to pull a Vietnam/Afghanistan, call it a win, and get the US military out of Eastern Europe as quickly as possible.

The Andrew Anglin committee has correctly assessed the situation.

Here’s the deal: everyone understands that Russia is only a power capable of competing with the US because it is backed by a much larger and much wealthier country called “China.” Russia needs their economy to survive. India wouldn’t be standing up to the US, nor would Saudi or any of the other former allies pushing back, if they weren’t getting cover from China.

The think tanks were all pushing for China to be the target of the next US war.

However, Pentagon people said Russia is much weaker, so they went with that. Now it’s a boondoggle. The West is destroying its economy, they are alienating the whole world, and they’re accomplishing what exactly? Russia can keep fighting indefinitely. It’s not costing them anything…

The US can’t possibly open up the China front while the Ukraine is ongoing, and time is on China’s side over there.

This is why RAND is mad.

However, wars do not take place in a vacuum and they have a way of creating a new reality that is unforeseen even by the architects of the best-laid war plans. There is no reason for Russia to let NATO and the US military off the hook just because it suits RAND, and there is absolutely zero chance that Xi Xinping and the extremely astute Chinese war planners are going to be blind to the advantages of making sure that the first front stays active until the second one is opened by one of the two parties concerned.

Remember, the failure of a plan doesn’t mean it never existed, it simply means it didn’t work.

10 AO titles...stunning and brave! He owns you, Aussies!

Now 22 GS titles, he will march imperiously to 30 at least. All time GOAT, both on and off the court, a principled man who stands up for what is right. God Bless you, Novak.

Croatia very sensibly wants no part of NATO’s war on Russia:

Commenting on the German foreign minister’s declaration that Europe is “fighting a war against Russia,” Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday that this was news to him, and wished Berlin better luck than in WWII. Croatia “should in no way help” Ukraine militarily, Milanovic said…

“Now the German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I didn’t know that. Maybe Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck, maybe this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago.”

Neither, apparently, does France.

Decisions by the US, Germany and several other countries to supply main battle tanks to Ukraine do not mean NATO is at war with Moscow, the French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The comments from Quai d’Orsay come after a controversial speech by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in the European Parliament earlier this week. “We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said on Thursday, according to AFP. “The delivery of military equipment… does not constitute co-belligerence.”

But while it takes two to tango, it only takes one to war. And Russia is now “at war with NATO and the West” thanks to the neocons’ successful escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia is now at ‘war against NATO and the West’ and has taken the invasion of Ukraine to a ‘different stage’, a senior EU official has admitted, raising the terrifying spectre of a global conflict.

The Asian and Arab nations have already taken Russia’s side. The African nations don’t really matter, but they will do so as well. I expect that more than a few European nations will follow suit once it becomes abundantly clear to even the most casual observer that NATO has zero chance of winning the war. And when I say zero, I mean ZERO. None whatsoever.

Based on a comparison of the technological and industrial capacities, the United States and the UK have about the same chance of defeating the Sino-Russian alliance as Japan had of defeating the US/UK alliance in WWII. Which is just one reason why no American or European should lift a finger, let alone risk his life, for Clown World and its wicked disorder.

Well, for its part Croatia very sensibly wants no part of NATO’s war on Russia:

Commenting on the German foreign minister’s declaration that Europe is “fighting a war against Russia,” Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday that this was news to him, and wished Berlin better luck than in WWII. Croatia “should in no way help” Ukraine militarily, Milanovic said…

“Now the German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I didn’t know that. Maybe Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck, maybe this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago.”

Neither, apparently, does France.

Decisions by the US, Germany and several other countries to supply main battle tanks to Ukraine do not mean NATO is at war with Moscow, the French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The comments from Quai d’Orsay come after a controversial speech by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in the European Parliament earlier this week. “We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said on Thursday, according to AFP. “The delivery of military equipment… does not constitute co-belligerence.”

But while it takes two to tango, it only takes one to war. And Russia is now “at war with NATO and the West” thanks to the DC neocons’ successful escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia is now at ‘war against NATO and the West’ and has taken the invasion of Ukraine to a ‘different stage’, a senior EU official has admitted, raising the terrifying spectre of a global conflict.

The vast majority of Asian and Arab nations have already taken Russia’s side. The African nations don’t really matter, but they will do so as well, especially South Africa. I expect that more than a few European nations will follow suit once it becomes abundantly clear to even the most casual observer that NATO has zero chance of winning the war. And when I say zero, I mean ZERO. None whatsoever.

Based on a comparison of the technological and industrial capacities, the United States and the UK have about the same chance of defeating the Sino-Russian alliance as Japan had of defeating the US/UK alliance in WWII. Which is just one reason why no American or European should lift a finger, let alone risk his life, for Clown World and its wicked disorder.

The vassal states have received a flurry of orders from DC this week, each one hoping they won't be targeted in revenge by Russia when it kicks off.