Babylon Bee advises on how to protest Russia.

I can't wait until BB gets hold of the Russian cat banning news.

10 Ways YOU Can Protest The Russian Invasion | The Babylon Bee

As Putin's wicked forces of darkness bear down on the peaceful utopia of Ukraine, you may be asking yourself: "What can I do to help?" Fortunately, there are things we ALL can do to express our extreme displeasure with Putin that will surely have a powerful effect somehow! Do your part, citizen! 

Here are ten things you can do to protest Russia:

1) Return your Russian mail order bride: You may have said your vows, but she'll definitely understand when you tell her it's important to the war effort!

2) Pass over the Russian mob when hiring hitmen: You have plenty of other options, like the notorious Mexican cartel MS13 or Hillary Clinton. 

3) Disavow Communism: Really, you should have done this long ago.

4) Throw away all your Beef Stroganoff Hamburger Helper: Replace it with all-American Cheeseburger Macaroni flavor. Take that, Ruskies! 

5) Watch a bunch of 80's movies, but fast-forward every time a Russian is on the screen: Do not give them the honor of screentime.

6) Stop doing that one Russian dance where your squat and kick your legs out and shout "hey": We forget what this dance is called. But stop doing it. Now. 

7) Use the term "hurryin'" instead of "rushin'": These small sacrifices really add up. 

8) Buy ten million Adidas tracksuits so there won't be any leftover for Russians to buy: Actually, this might hurt the Ukrainians too, so never mind. 

9) Sell your vacation home in Moscow: (Bernie Sanders only)

10) Throw your big red fake reset button in the trash: (Hillary Clinton only)

Whatever you do, it's important to remember to always join in whenever everyone's caught up in a mass shared hatred of an entire people group. It's your patriotic duty! 

Ban on Russian cats: Do you get the feeling things have gone too far?

 No. this news is not from the The Babylon Bee | Fake News You Can Trust , although BB will probably get around to lampooning this all-to-true development in the quest to ban Russia from existence:

Ban on Russian Cats – Consortium News

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Fog of War lifts, more or less, around Ukranian nuke plant fire

From RT, published today:

Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘shelling’ nuclear power plant — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

4 Mar, 2022 00:59

A firefight has been reported near Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant in Energodar

A fire broke out on Friday morning in a training building adjacent to the six-reactor Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), which local Ukrainian authorities have blamed on shelling by Russian troops. Moscow had informed the international nuclear authorities on Tuesday that Russian forces had secured the territory around the plant and it was operating normally.

The plant is “on fire,” Energodar Mayor Dmitry Orlov claimed on his Telegram channel, blaming “continuous enemy shelling of buildings and units of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.” He did not give details as to which buildings might be on fire or whether there was any danger to the reactors.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service later issued an update stating that the blaze had actually erupted in a “training building” adjacent to the nuclear site, not the facility’s reactor buildings. While it noted firefighters were initially unable to respond due to the fighting, they were ultimately able to contain the blaze.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meanwhile, said no “essential equipment” had been damaged at the plant, adding that there has been “no change reported in radiation levels,” citing Ukrainian officials.

The six-reactor nuclear power plant is Ukraine’s largest. The territory around it came under the control of Russian troops on Monday, Moscow informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), adding that the plant staff continued their “work on providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal mode of operation.” All of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants remained under control of the national operator, Moscow noted.

Security camera footage from the plant indicated there was indeed a blaze on the premises, after apparent flares and tracer rounds had been fired towards one of the buildings. Ukrainian media reports earlier on Thursday claimed that negotiations with the local authorities had broken down and that a firefight broke out between Ukrainian and Russian forces controlling the surrounding area.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted on Friday that if the plant blows up, it will be “10 times larger than Chernobyl,” referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster. Russian troops secured Chernobyl last week and were jointly patrolling the area with Ukrainian security, Moscow has said.

[...]

[END REPORT]

SouthFront sitrep Russian operations in Ukraine, Day 8

War In Ukraine Day 8: Russian Forces Make More Gains In Southeast Amid Stalemate Near Kharkiv (Videos)South Front - March 4

See also:

Russian Forces Secure Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Expand Control Zone Near Kyiv (Video)South Front - March 4

And from Sputnik:

LIVE UPDATES: Fire Near Europe's Largest Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine Extinguished - 03.03.2022, Sputnik International (sputniknews.com)

History of CIA promoting Nazism in Ukraine

From MOA comment section:

A commentator at Escobar's VK page provided this outstanding nugget from the past [2016] that many never read or learned about, "CIA: Undermining and Nazifying Ukraine Since 1953":

"The recent declassification of over 3800 documents by the Central Intelligence Agency provides detailed proof that since 1953 the CIA operated two major programs intent on not only destabilizing Ukraine but Nazifying it with followers of the World War II Ukrainian Nazi leader Stepan Bandera.

"The CIA programs spanned some four decades. Starting as a paramilitary operation that provided funding and equipment for such anti-Soviet Ukrainian resistance groups as the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR); its affiliates, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), all Nazi Banderists. The CIA also provided support to a relatively anti-Bandera faction of the UHVR, the ZP-UHVR, a foreign-based virtual branch of the CIA and British MI-6 intelligence services. The early CIA operation to destabilize Ukraine, using exile Ukrainian agents in the West who were infiltrated into Soviet Ukraine, was codenamed Project AERODYNAMIC.

"A formerly TOP SECRET CIA document dated July 13, 1953, provides a description of AERODYNAMIC: «The purpose of Project AERODYNAMIC is to provide for the exploitation and expansion of the anti-Soviet Ukrainian resistance for cold war and hot war purposes. Such groups as the Ukrainian Supreme Council of Liberation (UHVR) and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN), the Foreign Representation of the Ukrainian Supreme Council of Liberation (ZPUHVR) in Western Europe and the United States, and other organizations such as the OUN/B will be utilized». The CIA admitted in a 1970 formerly SECRET document that it had been in contact with the ZPUHVR since 1950."

I would say contact was made well before 1950 by OSS sometime after 1943's incursion into Italy since Alan Dulles was involved in that region. Yet more evidence of Outlaw US Empire fomented terrorism aimed at Russia that also proves the existence of a longstanding policy of utilizing terrorists and the formal formation of a Terrorist Foreign Legion that was sent to operate in Eastern Europe and Central America--do recall the events in Guatemala that culminated in the 1949 coup and US-sponsored genocide there.

It's important to recall that Putin as a KGB member would have learned much of that background, which is why he's gone through great lengths to be patient with the great mass of Ukrainians who've been manipulated and exploited as expendable pawns that's part of the unpublished yet very important aspect of the underlying context in the operation to free Ukraine. 

[...]

Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 3 2022 17:25 utc | 152

MoA - Ukraine Open Thread 2022-20 (moonofalabama.org)

For more on Nazism in Ukraine, see Larry Johnson's Yes, The AZOV Battalion is a Nazi Sympathizer - TurcopolierTurcopolier [Pat Lang's site] published March 2.

See also this explainer, published March 1:

Profile: Who are Ukraine’s far-right Azov regiment? | Military News | Al Jazeera

*******

Russian attacks focus on Ukraine airfields to stop incoming arms aid"

 

 Mar 1, 2022 @ 12:06

Russian attacks focus on Ukraine airfields to stop incoming arms aid - DEBKAfile
Russian forces were on Tuesday focusing their attacks on Ukraine’s airfields a) to sustain air superiority after disabling most of the Ukrainian air force and b) to block incoming  European weapons deliveries, especially anti-tank arms. Ukraine still has some aircraft capable of low-flying missions.

[...]

Israel's DEBKAfile sitrep Russian operations in Ukraine as of March 2

The nuclear threat looms large in Ukraine war rhetoric - DEBKAfile

[...]

The war situation on the Ukraine warfront on Wednesday is summed up as follows:

1.  Russian forces have completed their encirclement of Kyiv and armored troops are moving into its eastern outskirts. It is not clear whether they have enough strength to hold the entire capital of up to 3 million inhabitants to siege.
2. The Russians continue to pummel Khrakiv after capturing sections of Ukraine’s second largest city.
3. Reinforcements continue to pour in for the Russian forces holding the southern regions. Full control of the Crimea highway would open the way for Russian forces from Rostov-on-Don to cross over and capture Odesa.
4. The Russians are close to seizing control of another southern city, Kherson and its 300,000 inhabitants, the key to overwhelming Odesa and Mykolayiv.
5. Despite denials from Minsk, the Belarusian army is fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

[End Report]

H/T Moon of Alabama comment section 

MoA - Disarming Ukraine - Day 7 (moonofalabama.org)

"Russia’s grain shipments drop by half"

 And Ukraine has stopped shipping grain according to the following RT report, published today.

The decline in exports is due to disruption to both sea and river routes

Grain shipments from Russia have more than halved due to traffic restrictions in sea and river ports, the country’s grain union announced on Wednesday.

“Before the current situation [the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia], daily shipments of grain from Russia amounted to 100,000 tons. Now the volume is less than 40,000 tons,” the union’s president, Arkady Zlochevsky, said, as cited by RIA Novosti.

Not only has navigation via the Sea of Azov, which hosts several large Russian ports, been halted, but also shipments on river-sea routes in the Azov Basin, Zlochevsky explained, adding that only long-term contracts were currently permitted to be fulfilled.

Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, accounting for over 18% of international exports. Together with Ukraine, which has also stopped shipping grain, the two countries account for about 30% of global wheat supplies. The crisis threatens to push food prices across the world to an all-time high.

{END REPORT]

READ MORE: China lifts all restrictions on wheat imports from Russia

Russia is now exclusively a ruble country

 "Neither citizens nor companies will be able to pay in foreign currency"

Russia is now exclusively a ruble country — RT Business News

Scott Ritter: "Russia is overrunning Ukraine as we speak."

Scott Ritter knows what he's talking about. Latest interview approx. 4 AM Eastern Time today.

NATO Too Weak to Face Russia Scott Ritter on Russian Offensive - YouTube

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More on Russian operations today, plus all Indians evacuated from Kiev

DPR Troops Prepare For Storm Of Mariupol. Russian Attack Helicopters Buzz Nikolayev Area (Video)South Front

See also SF's earlier detailed report:

War In Ukraine Day 6: Russia Changed Tactics And Succeeded. Huge Casualties And Humanitarian Disaster (Video 18+)South Front

From Sputnik:

approx. 3 AM Eastern Time

Indian Embassy in Kiev Closed, Diplomats Relocating to Western Ukraine, Report Says

The Indian Embassy in Kiev has been closed, with diplomats and staff members relocating to the western Ukrainian city of Lvov, according to Indian broadcaster NDTV's sources.

On Tuesday, all Indian nationals, including students, were advised to leave Kiev urgently by train or by any other available means. Within hours, Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla announced that all Indian nationals had left Kiev.  [...]

LIVE UPDATES: European Gas Futures Price Breaks Historic Maximum at $2,226 Per 1,000 Cubic Metres - 02.03.2022, Sputnik International (sputniknews.com)

:********

Russian military makes its move

SouthFront has done a great job of reporting on Russia's complex military actions in Ukraine but has been very vocal for days about what the staff perceived as repeated Russian military screw-ups. Whether Russian tactics up until March 1 were indeed filled with mistakes or just careful to a fault given Russian objectives, South Front is now reporting in detail that the military did a sudden about-face and is acting with unerring efficiency.  

Here is the link to the lengthy report, which includes several videos that are generally 20 seconds or less in length: 

War In Ukraine Day 6: Russia Changed Tactics And Succeeded. Huge Casualties And Humanitarian Disaster (Video 18+)South Front published today. 

The "humanitarian disaster" is mostly directly due to the Ukrainian government's actions, which SouthFront details but which have been obvious for days.  As to the number of casualties -- "huge" is relative. 

********   

Ukraine Crisis simply explained

 Putin is fed up.

The U.S. Forest Service's Gordian Knot isn't limited to forestry

The John Batchelor Show / Fix America’s Forests: Reforms to Restore National Forests and Tackle the Wildfire Crisis (Audioboom podcast featuring Holly Fretwell, pictured above.)

From Holly's discussion with John Batchelor for CBS Eye on the World:

 "...there so many layered regulations that overlap each other that make it really difficult to get anything done on the ground.  We have the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act], the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Forest Act, the National Wilderness Act -- the [Forest Service] has to abide by all these different laws. By the time you get done trying to work your way through that, you're kind of tied into a Gordian Knot ..."

So that's how the Forest Service came to use the term Gordian Knot, which is closely related to Analysis Paralysis, which Holly and her co-author Jonathan Wood explain in their report for PERC (Property and Environment Research Center), Fix America's Forests: Reforms to Restore National Forests and Tackle the Wildfire Crisis (perc.org). See the report for details, but this passage from it will get you in the ballpark fast:

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), for instance, requires federal agencies to document and analyze the expected environmental impacts of their actions. The extent of analysis required can vary based on the degree of anticipated impacts. But for any project, NEPA compliance adds costs and can be a source of significant delay. For the most complicated category of projects, which includes large-scale forest restoration projects, NEPA paperwork takes an average of nearly three years to prepare.

Then what survives Analysis Paralysis is woven into the Gordian Knot, which is to say it's a wonder anything gets done to fix America's forests.

Now everyone is recognizing that a great deal must be done and quickly because the wildfires in America are at a crisis level. The federal government is overwhelmed by the task of curing what are very sick forests.

Holly and her co-author detail practical recommendations for restoring forest health that are summarized in John's discussion with her.  They cut through the Gordian Knot and get around the worst of Analysis Paralysis. Holly's can-do attitude gives hope that bureaucracy and special interests will implement the recommendations.

Of course, the Forest Service's Gordian Knot is not limited to forest management. Lawmaking in America's giant society has proliferated to the point where many laws overturn or block others from implementation, even when a new law is meant to fix an outdated one.

So, we are now less a republic built on laws as one that generates Gordian Knots.

********

Sorting out the truth

[...]

Smil thinks there are major gains in efficiency which can be had, over and above the enormous gains so far. He points to water use as an example: in 2015, the US only used about 4% more water than it did in 1965, but in the meantime, its population had gone up by two thirds actual per capita water use has dropped by 40%, even while the country has got richer and better fed. Perhaps similar efficiencies can be found with energy and carbon.

[...]

The quote is from How long can humans survive? - at UnHerd published January 17. Without stating it outright the author, Tom Chivers, makes it clear that many popular arguments about the threat of overpopulation are uninformed. His quotes from Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst Vaclav Smil in Smil's new book, How the World Really Works, underscore the point.  

[...]

For Smil, our discussions about climate and energy are hamstrung, because so few people actually understand how the world really works. 

[...]

Smil explains that one of the four key building blocks of modern society is ammonia, of all things:

[...]

In the beginning of the 20th century, a German chemist called Fritz Haber invented a process for getting nitrogen out of the air by making ammonia. It requires huge amounts of energy, and hydrogen, usually taken from natural gas. We now spread hundreds of millions of tons of ammonia on our fields — about 50% of the total nitrogen going into food production comes from it. Smil quotes an author, writing in 1971: “industrial man no longer eats potatoes made from solar energy; now he eats potatoes partly made of oil.”

This means the world is able to eat. The share of the global population that is underfed has plummeted, even as the actual population has ballooned – about 65% of people could not get enough to eat in 1950, compared to about 9% in 2019. So, “in 1950 the world was able to supply adequate food to about 890 million people,” as Smil puts it: “but by 2019 that had risen to just over 7 billion”. That is not entirely down to ammonia, but ammonia is a large part of the story. If fertiliser were removed, perhaps half the world’s population would starve.

[...]

Calls for radical reduction in carbon fuel use don't factor in ammonia production. They don't factor in a great many other crucial points, as Chivers makes clear.  

Books such as Vaclav Smil's can help us sort of the truth of matters, but not if government funding, propaganda, and fads in published 'authoritative' opinions promote solutions ignorant of the truth.

So how to sort out the truth? Science survives on disagreements; if too many scientists are in lockstep about a broad and complex issue, I take that as a warning to keep an open mind about the conclusions.

Keeping one's news sources varied is also some help. I learned about the article by Chivers and about Smils from a headline link at DRUDGE REPORT 2022®. Drudge's news aggregator team(s) cast a wide net. The John Batchelor Show for CBS Eye on the World radio/podcasts is another news source that casts a wide net.

Another tactic is to avoid accepting sweeping generalizations.  And to always ask if an idea sounds true just because it's attractive to you, because it 'makes sense.'

You can't make sense out of the invisible, which is what the truth can be when it reflects facts that are unknown to you.  

In this era we're trying to know everything about everything. Here, incrementalism is a big help.

*********

   

 

Camaraderie

 

Photo posted at Twitter by Tracy-Ann Oberman. 

WSJ: How TikTok's algorithm figures you out UPDATED 6:00 PM

The Chinese company that owns the 'addictive' social media site TikTok didn't want to reveal their secret algorithm. So, the Wall Street Journal formed a team of investigative journalists to figure out the algorithm and how it works to hook viewers. What the team discovered makes for one of the most important and disturbing investigative reports of this century.  

In addition to the following Wall Street Journal 13-minute video explainer see How TikTok Serves Up Sex and Drug Videos to Minors - WSJ, September 8 report.  But it's much more than sex and drugs.  The TikTok algorithm is a kind of blueprint for controlling billions of people without the use of secret police and messy mass executions.  It is a totalitarian government's dream come true.  From the September 8 report:

[...]

The addiction machine

An earlier video investigation by the Journal found that TikTok only needs one important piece of information to figure out what a user wants: the amount of time you linger over a piece of content. Every second you hesitate or re-watch, the app tracks you.

Through that one powerful signal, TikTok can learn your most hidden interests and emotions, and drive users of any age deep into rabbit holes of content—in which feeds are heavily dominated by videos about a specific topic or theme. It’s an experience that other social-media companies like YouTube have struggled to stop.

“All the problems we have seen on YouTube are due to engagement-based algorithms, and on TikTok it’s exactly the same—but it’s worse,” said Guillaume Chaslot, a former YouTube engineer who worked on that site’s algorithm and is now an advocate for transparency in how companies use those tools. “TikTok’s algorithm can learn much faster.”

[...] 

So what is to be done, beyond attempts to hound TikTok brass and the millions of contributors to the site to more closely monitor content posted on the site? 

First, learn from the WSJ video how the algorithm works. Second, realize that the algorithm is an inevitable progression in the abuse of technology to stealthily manipulate behavior. 

There is no getting the genie back in the bottle; it's too useful to too many individuals and organizations. However, this particular genie has an inherent weakness; it depends entirely on the user; don't use and the genie vanishes. 

There is also a way to flummox the genie, which is what the WSJ team did to probe TikTok's secret. Actually, there would be several ways to screw with the algorithm, and you may trust that hackers are already at work on strategies. 

But this doesn't deal with the fact that millions of people want the kind of feedback TikTok use provides. Even when warned of the dangers, they'll keep coming back for more.

There might be at least a partial solution to the problem.  I'll discuss my idea in the next post. Speaking of outfoxing the system, see Remote workers are using this viral ‘mouse movers’ hack on the job (nypost.com) Yes indeed, where there's a will there's a way.  [smiling]  

Oh What a Night For Dancing!

 We made it through! HAPPY  NEW  YEAR !

The dogs bark, the caravan moves on

 

"Resistance Forces in Afghanistan Regain Control of Highlands in Panjshir"

11:00 GMT 05.09.2021(updated 11:01 GMT 05.09.2021)

KABUL (Sputnik) - The Spokesman for the Panjshir Resistance in Afghanistan, Fahim Dashti, said that the resistance forces had regained control of the Paryan highlands in the eastern part of the province.

"The Paryan district of the Panjshir province was completely cleared of the Taliban [a terrorist group banned in Russia]. At least 1,000 terrorists were blocked. All militants were killed, surrounded or captured by resistance forces during attempts to escape and retreat. Most of the prisoners are foreigners, mostly Pakistanis," Dashti wrote on Twitter.

[...]

 Resistance Forces in Afghanistan Regain Control of Highlands in Panjshir - Sputnik International (sputniknews.com)