2025 Mar 09 - Ukraine Again
The long grift that is the Ukraine war headed to Europe this week with Kier Starmer promising to write as many strongly written words as possible and to commit all the generals he has, as long as by general you mean general hopes an generally vague commitments that don't involve any more money or real commitment. I imagine him going on the radio to invoke Churchill, promising that "Other countries shall fight them on the beaches, perhaps the French or Dutch shall fight them on the landing grounds"
Certainly if I was the Germans I'd want a very strongly signed agreement that everyone was absolutely ok with them raising an army and going on a rampage through Poland to fight a war with Russia, you really want to make sure there's no ambiguity about whether people are ok with that or not this time.
Of course, while the US is being discussed in the European press as the most important thing in the world, the news cycle in DC has long since moved on. The main story there this week was yet more DOGE savings, including a story about the TSA losing their union collective bargaining rights after it turned out that many major airports had more staff employed in union activism than actually screening the passengers. Apparently it's a way they let tenured staff quasi retire with a pay rise. Admittedly though, and speaking as someone who travels transatlantic a lot, I'd frankly be ok if they all just disappeared to the pub and chatted about lefty activism all they wanted, rather than hassling passengers at a security cordon, but then I guess grew up traveling in the world before 9/11. The response by the media of course remained as rational as internet fan fiction and the late night legacy news discussion shows are almost indistinguishable from their satirical equivalents.
Queue the New York Times claiming that Trump cheated in the election while Trump himself gave a fairly amusing speech in DC mentioning how he would be booed by the democrats even he cured cancer. Then as a followup he decided to prove the point by giving an honorary Secret Service membership to a terminally ill child and was immediately vilified for it by the left. Meanwhile, the South African government, always rational, decided to cancel a contract with Starlink after remembering that it was owned by Trump's buddy Elon Musk, and then a minister there suggested that the country should develop it's own system instead. I guess it's a real shame that there isn't a South African equivalent of Elon Musk, apart from the one that lives in America, and fled from South Africa.
Apparently there's a sale on the lego store, people are lined up for blocks.
Certainly if I was the Germans I'd want a very strongly signed agreement that everyone was absolutely ok with them raising an army and going on a rampage through Poland to fight a war with Russia, you really want to make sure there's no ambiguity about whether people are ok with that or not this time.
Of course, while the US is being discussed in the European press as the most important thing in the world, the news cycle in DC has long since moved on. The main story there this week was yet more DOGE savings, including a story about the TSA losing their union collective bargaining rights after it turned out that many major airports had more staff employed in union activism than actually screening the passengers. Apparently it's a way they let tenured staff quasi retire with a pay rise. Admittedly though, and speaking as someone who travels transatlantic a lot, I'd frankly be ok if they all just disappeared to the pub and chatted about lefty activism all they wanted, rather than hassling passengers at a security cordon, but then I guess grew up traveling in the world before 9/11. The response by the media of course remained as rational as internet fan fiction and the late night legacy news discussion shows are almost indistinguishable from their satirical equivalents.
Queue the New York Times claiming that Trump cheated in the election while Trump himself gave a fairly amusing speech in DC mentioning how he would be booed by the democrats even he cured cancer. Then as a followup he decided to prove the point by giving an honorary Secret Service membership to a terminally ill child and was immediately vilified for it by the left. Meanwhile, the South African government, always rational, decided to cancel a contract with Starlink after remembering that it was owned by Trump's buddy Elon Musk, and then a minister there suggested that the country should develop it's own system instead. I guess it's a real shame that there isn't a South African equivalent of Elon Musk, apart from the one that lives in America, and fled from South Africa.
Apparently there's a sale on the lego store, people are lined up for blocks.
The long grift that is the Ukraine war headed to Europe this week with Kier Starmer promising to write as many strongly written words as possible and to commit all the generals he has, as long as by general you mean general hopes an generally vague commitments that don't involve any more money or real commitment. I imagine him going on the radio to invoke Churchill, promising that "Other countries shall fight them on the beaches, perhaps the French or Dutch shall fight them on the landing ground ......