37 thoughts on “Fuel for Thought”

  1. yeah, yeah, i know it should be food for tho’t; but what can you expect at 5:25 in the morning – shakespeare?

    ‘toons to think about for today’s thread

    and

  2. jack, sorry forgot to say thanks for the thread yesterday.  it was sorely needed as you can see i’m stooping to cartoons for erudition here for thread topics under my watch without fearless leader’s journalistic depth. 

    please jump in anytime and tell our friends and neighbors to do likewise.

    again, thanks.

  3. It hasn’t stopped raining in Australia –
    That’s on the East Coast , on the West Coast, it’s been their hottest summer on record wildfires burn on. 
     

    Floods Show That Australia Is Getting Harder to Live In, PM Says
    Morrison spoke to reporters as he visited Lismore, in northern New South Wales state, one of the areas worst hit by the natural disaster. Extreme rainfall and flooding has already claimed at least 20 lives across Queensland state and NSW and caused tens of thousands of residents to flee their homes since the downpours began about two weeks ago. Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/australia-floods-leave-1-billion-of-damage-as-thousands-fleeCopyright © BloombergQuint

  4. cbsnews:

    Residents of Ukraine’s capital got messages Wednesday warning them to take shelter “immediately” due to the apparent threat of a new wave of Russian airstrikes. Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities warned that power had been cut to the Russian-held Chernobyl nuclear power plant, risking the release of a possible “radioactive cloud” if cooling systems can’t be kept on line. 

  5. NYpost:

    Russian forces have taken the Ukrainian plant — the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 — off the grid, according to Energoatom.

    “Because of military actions of Russian occupiers the nuclear power plant in Chornobyl was fully disconnected from the power grid,” the system operator NPC Ukrenergo said, according to Interfax Ukraine.

    “The nuclear station has no power supply. The military actions are in progress, so there is no possibility to restore the lines,” it said.

    The system operator warned that without electricity, the cooling systems necessary for the fuel will stop.

    “As a result, the temperature in the spent fuel radioactive substances into the environment. By wind, a radioactive cloud can be transferred to other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Europe,” the company said.

  6. Yes, thanks Jack, and as always to you Pat, for feeding the trough. I’ve been so glued to the war box lately I haven’t had much to offer. Like watching the History Channel in real time.

  7. Volodymyr Zelensky courageously revealed his location in a speech intended to rally the world to Ukraine’s aid, while the women in Ukraine are demonstrating their bravery by taking up arms, and, in one case, taking out a Russian drone with a jar of pickles. #Colbert #Comedy #Monologue

  8. https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/09/opinions/russia-soviet-memories-prague-spring-1968-kumermann/index.html

    “Indeed the Soviet justification for occupation of Czechoslovakia was found in the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine of “limited sovereignty,” which claimed that any threat to socialist rule in any state of the bloc was a threat to them all.”

    “…when we hear Putin summoning the ghost of Brezhnev’s doctrine, according to which Moscow is entitled to feel threatened by an independent neighbor who could show that life outside Putin’s rule is also possible…”

    “The Ukrainians fighting back against the Russian onslaught do so not only for their own freedom, but for our freedom as well.”

  9. Greta warned us to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels.  We didn’t pay attention and now we are dealing with the Soviet dinosaur.

  10. Yeah…  the right wingers are all over the internet griping about the price of gas.  I guess making any sacrifice for any country fighting for democracy is a just a bridge too far for the so called “patriots”.  I have only one word for them….    SNOWFLAKES!
     
     

  11. I am still frustrated by the media not looking at a greater sphere of what KGB agent Putin wants to take over.  If I was in any country east of the Atlantic Ocean and around Japan, I would be making plans for a new home.  (yes, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but not too much)  Poland, Finland, Estonia, any Stans, Germany etc.  Putin is in his own world of aggression.  The question is which of the Russian military or intelligence agencies is not looking forward to getting the U.S. involved?  It is not rhetorical to ask what would happen if KGB agent Putin does not get to celebrate another loop around the sun.

  12. I don’t know who is responsible but why has this discussion of Polish jets to Ukraine gone public? Seems like something that should have been done in secret before anybody, especially Russia, knew it happened.

  13. but why has this discussion of Polish jets to Ukraine gone public?

    … because negotiations are being made via public zoom chat?  Zelenskyy is fighting for his life, everyone else trying not to get nuked😰
     
    i never understood the compulsion to have a “new” thread, everyday, i would stress less about it, patd.  Thanks for keeping it all going, regardless 

  14. David Muir interviewed Zelenskyy and asked him if he had a message for Americans, and i’m paraphrasing:
     
    ”You Americans love to talk about freedom, we are fighting for it”
     
    i think everybody is done with petulant republicans, we all have real shit to deal with

  15. I view daily thread posts as helpful conversation starters that keep comment sections timely and trim. Very much appreciate Pat’s efforts.

  16. BID, if you haven’t noticed the movement of the country away from fossil fuels – particularly in the auto industry – you aren’t paying attention.  The infrastructure to allow that is being developed and is part of the various funding bills that have been and are on the verge of passage.  Research and development time is not instant, although I will concede that if we didn’t have a closely divided government in a perfect world we would have moved more quickly than we have.  That said, Greta better try and convince Asia and the subcontinent of the need to get moving on non fossil fuel energy sources or we’ll be more or less pissing in the wind.

  17. bink, i share craig’s stance on daily threads. fresher ideas as well as unexpected voilà moments. also the long threads (especially those with a lot of videos) seem to clog the machinery. 

     thanks, folks, for the words of appreciation.  most times it’s fun coming up with silly titles or looking for latest news and i didn’t mean to whine.  these days one can’t feel sorry for themselves when faced with what’s happening to others.

  18. So it appears that little Steven Miller is still on his parents’ cell phone plan, and that he was a naughty on January 6 and the lead up to it.

  19. the hill:

    But in an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit, Zelensky indicated that he did not take Putin’s seriously.

    “I think that the threat of nuclear war is a bluff. It’s one thing to be a murderer. It’s another to commit suicide. Every use of nuclear weapons means the end for all sides, not just for the person using them,” Zelensky told the German newspaper. 

    “Rather, Putin’s threat shows a weakness. You only threaten the use of nuclear weapons when nothing else is working. I am sure that Russia is aware of the catastrophic consequences of any attempt to use nuclear weapons.”

    The Biden administration is coming under increasing pressure to consider a no-fly zone as Russia bombards civilian targets across Ukraine, including hospitals and schools. However, the president has insisted that the U.S. will avoid direct conflict with Russia out of fear of starting a world war with a nuclear power. 

    Zelensky also lamented it was a “mistake” that the signatories of a memorandum struck in the 1990s — that guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons — had violated their agreement. The signatories include Ukraine, Russia, Britain and the United States.

     

    “Who in the world would still trust the power of treaties? And that’s why severely punishing Russia would mean restoring the power of international law,” he told Die Zeit. “The West is capable of that.”

  20. I’ve wondered why we and Britain, as signatories to the 90s Ukraine denuclearization and border security agreement can’t get involved, attack the shit out of the Russian invasion force, and restore Ukraine’s borders under that agreement. NATO and the UN be damned. They aren’t parties to that agreement. 

  21. Youtube has many graphical nuclear war simulations- i haven’t posted any because they all end the same: everybody dead

  22. We could invade Ukraine and Russia would never touch it’s nukes. Ukraine ain’t worth dying over. 
    However, Russia could  nuke Kyiv tomorrow and get away with it. For much the same reason. Why did Poland not want to have those fighter jets come from one of their bases. Because they can do the math, they are in much the same position as Ukraine. The last 4 presidents have made that very clear.
    Jack

  23. Something tells me….it might be a little bird or something, not sure…..there are cool heads behind the scene who are using this time for ramping up and getting it together for what they see as the inevitable wider war between Putin and the world.   This frog’s gonna jump and it might not be that far off, ladies and germans.

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