49 thoughts on “On Duty”

  1. that doggie in the window: “arf-arf arf-arf!” (translation: slava ukraine!)

    Video was made in cooperation with the Estonian Defence Forces … Music and lyrics – Artur Rehi

  2. another song titled “slava ukraine” which is not militarized and rather haunting is described in wiki:

    “Slava Ukraini!” is a song composed by Marcus Paus, the official composer of the Norwegian Armed Forces. It is based on the worldwide use of the expression “Glory to Ukraine” as a symbol of resistance and solidarity during the 2022 Russian invasion, and is loosely inspired by a motif from the opening of Ukraine’s national anthem.

    click here to hear for the video of solo viola version of it.

  4. Ukraine Prez Zelensky strips two Ukrainian generals of their ranks for being ‘traitors’ (freepressjournal.in)

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he has stripped two generals of their military rank.
    Zelensky said “something prevented them from determining where their homeland was” and they “violated their military oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people”.
    According to Zelensky, one of the generals had headed internal security at the SBU, the main intelligence agency.
    He said the other general had been the SBU head in the Kherson region, the first major city to fall to the Russians. Zelenskyy didn’t say anything about the fates of the two generals other than them being stripped of their rank.
    “Today another decision was made on anti-heroes – now I don’t have time to deal with all traitors, but gradually all of them will be punished. That is why Andriy Olehovych Naumov, former head of the main department of internal security at the Security Service of Ukraine, and Serhiy Oleksandrovych Kryvoruchko, former head of the SBU directorate in the Kherson region, are no longer generals,” Zelensky said.
    Zelensky did not elaborate on what had led to the two officials being dismissed, though he noted that under the Ukrainian army’s disciplinary statute officers who “have not decided where their homeland is, who violate the military oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people as regards the protection of our state, its freedom and independence” would “inevitably be deprived of senior military ranks.”
    During his speech, Zelensky shared that he had spoken with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has sought to act as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. Zelensky indicated that Turkey had offered to act as a guarantor for Ukraine’s security in the ongoing negotiations.

     

    same story reported by the hill also included:

    Zelensky also touched on the ongoing situation in Ukraine’s south and the Donbas region, which is controlled by Russian-backed separatists. Conditions in those areas remain “extremely difficult,” according to the Ukrainian president.
    “The invaders are allocating their sick creativity to the temporarily occupied areas of the Kherson region. They are trying to organize some of their incomprehensible structures there, they are trying to figure out how to consolidate their presence there,” said Zelensky.
    “Of course, this is hopeless for them. The more active they are there, the more substantial the losses of Russia itself will be in the end. The losses of Russians themselves. Because who else will pay for the occupation of a foreign land?”

  9. Russia accuses Ukraine of helicopter attack on oil depot in Russian city | Ukraine | The Guardian

    Russia has accused Ukraine of sending attack helicopters across the border to strike an oil storage facility in what would be the first raid on Russian soil since the outbreak of the war if confirmed.

    Ukraine has not confirmed that it launched the attack, raising questions about whether Russian negligence may be to blame.

    A Russian governor in the border region of Belgorod said that early on Friday two Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopters crossed the border at low altitude before firing rockets at an oil facility 25 miles from the border.

    […]

    An explosion also took place earlier on Thursday at the site of an arms depot in Belgorod, raising speculation that saboteurs were targeting the city, which has served as a major hub for Russian military units involved in the invasion of Ukraine.

    [continues]

    my bet is “… Russian negligence may be to blame” if their facility and depot caretakers are anywhere comparable to the russian troops on the ground in ukraine.   

    Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much.

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  11. Anoather good month for jobs.  WaPo.

    The national unemployment rate fell to a pandemic low of 3.6 percent in March, as employers added 431,000 jobs, further bolstering the most rapid labor market rebound on record.

    Average hourly wages for private-sector workers, meanwhile, rose by 13 cents to $31.73 in March, the Labor Department said Friday.

    The fastest economic recovery in decades has pushed many measures of employment strength into uncharted territory: Job creation and new openings are at near-record levels, while the jobless rate is approaching historic lows. But some worry that the labor market may be too tight, with businesses across the economy reporting labor shortages, as job openings continue to far outnumber available workers.
    ***
    Employers have added a record 7 million jobs in the past year, as hiring roars back to life. This momentum, however, has been accompanied by a surge in inflation to 40-year highs, near 8 percent, presenting a major headache for Federal Reserve officials and for a White House struggling with war abroad and low ratings at home. Some economists say a combination of higher interest rates, soaring energy costs and conflict in Ukraine are likely to slow job growth in coming months.
    “Things are zooming along, but there are also a lot of headwinds that are likely to cause the labor market to plateau to a more moderate pace of growth,” said Guy Berger, principal economist at LinkedIn. “We’ve had a lot of forces propping up the labor market — a super supportive Fed, very generous fiscal policies — but those are either played out or actually going in reverse now. In that sense, it’s going to be hard to sustain the strength we’ve been seeing.”

    [Continues]

    Good news – too bad people see gas at $4+ and can’t see the positive side of the equation.

  12. One of the questions I have about greedy old perverts is their new code word “woke”.  I know it was used by the Black community as a specific phrase to describe some specific action, which I cannot tell you what that is. I have never bothered to waste my time trying to find out either, because I am sure it is very different than what is being used as a dog whistle by the gqp.  And, I come to the game late, never hearing the word used in everyday conversation.  Now that it is a common slur invoked by those who I am sure are not woke, other than a new hate term, how long until we can come up with a new word for those idiots to use to make them look even more stupid?

  13. Ummm….how about “assholes”?
    Well, that might be over used but it surely fills the bill.

  16. Make Russia part of Ukraine!

    WSJ: Ukrainian helicopters strike a fuel depot inside Russia, signaling Ukraine’s ability to widen field of war. Russia abandons control of Chernobyl nuke station.

  17. Craig – there is a question in the intelligence community (IC) about the strike on the fuel depot, some are thinking it was a “false flag” operation by the russians against their own supplies.  Putin has done this in the past, but usually it involves russian people being killed by russians.

  18. I am not disappointed to see that it may be that Ukraine has the military wherewithal at this point to mount strikes outside its borders – to the east.  Since we have provided them 1/3 of their military budget in aid and armaments since this stuff started, I’d hope they could do something more than just sit back and take it and mount insurgency attacks on Russian troops within their borders. I hope that the intelligence community’s false flag suspicions are not correct, but I certainly don’t put such stuff past Vlad.
     
    I keep asking whether there is a point that we (collective) say enough and begin helping Ukraine directly.

  19. helping Ukraine directly.

    Boots on the ground?  Full-scale WWIII is when.  Uniformed Americans cannot shoot at uniformed Russians unless y’all like getting nuked

  20. Yeah… I’m with Bink on this.  Giving Ukraine weapons….  yup.  But getting directly involved is insane, IMO.
     
    Craig…  nice picture.  Glad to know that there are people helping with stray pets.

  21. We just got a postcard in our PO Box that had both of us laughing so hard we almost pissed our pants.  Since I can’t (and won’t) take a picture of it… let me tell you what it says:
     
    The True Story of Qanon
    I was a child victim of the Cabal spoken of in Qanon.  They invented the whole saga of Qanon and planned all news and entertainment events 20 years ago.  They planned 9/11, the 7/7 bombing, the Ukraine war, and Covid-19 and told me that Luvox cures Covid-19.  The minutia of every battle and every action by Zelensky and Putin were planned.  They put a mind reading device in me and tortured me and spied on me my whole life.  On Good Friday this world will end, possibly by nukes, or MY world will end.  Please read the truth in the below QR code.  I will be hiding in Kansas.  PLEASE share this and email me at………   so I know people are getting my postcards.
     
    This came from a  PO Box in Portsmouth NH.  And it’s addressed to Postal Customer.
    I can only imagine how many idiot NHerites will actually scan that code and/or use the email!

  22. I’m not advocating that US forces go into Ukraine.  I’m asking a question prompted primarily (today) by Marc Thiessen’s (idiot) piece in WaPo – but don’t assume I’m advocating any answer.  I believe that would be a disastrous move that would give Vlad an excuse to do field trials of tactical nukes, and I’m certainly not in favor of that.    And I certainly am not advocating the the US send in troops unless NATO is the actor, hence the word collective, but even then I believe the risk that would trigger Vlad to go into at least theatre level nukes is real.  I would however like to see that we are helping Ukraine get what it is asking for – Soviet era MIGs from Poland and advanced anti aircraft armaments to establish in effect a no fly zone over Ukraine.  Seems to me that they have sufficient pluck and grit to defend Ukraine on the ground now that they seem to have their feet under them, given sufficient weaponry and other support to do so.
     
    Ah,Spring.  A thunder snow storm just passed through.

  23. The murder of Winter continues –
     

    Stressed by high temperatures and a record run of dry weather over the last three months, the Sierra Nevada snowpack, the source of 30% of the state’s water supply, has hit one of its lowest levels for the end of winter in generations.
    With state water officials scheduled to conduct a snow survey Friday near Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort, automatic sensors spread across the vast mountain range showed snow levels were just 39% of normal on Wednesday. The measurements were the latest evidence that California’s three-year drought is growing more severe.
    From a water-supply standpoint, the April 1 Sierra snow reading is traditionally considered the most important of the year. Very little snow falls after April 1, so water planners at cities, farms and wildlife agencies are able to assess how much is available for the summer ahead.

     
     

     

    California drought: Sierra snowpack falls to one of lowest levels in 70 years

  24. BB – My brother started using “woke” last year.  Angry, white man walking. 

  25. strategic war analysis aside, the war needs to end ASAP, nothing good comes of it the longer it continues

  26. …and when Putin starts getting really desperate, don’t forget the CCP didn’t do a damn thing to help bring him to the negotiation table, they gave him a luxury box at the Olympics

  27. forbes:

    In an incredible feat of airmanship and planning, a pair of what appear to be Ukrainian Mi-24 attack helicopters slipped across the border with Russia on Friday morning and lobbed 25-pound unguided rockets at a fuel depot in Belgorod, igniting a blaze that burned through the daylight hours.
    A Ukrainian official denied the helicopters belonged to Kyiv.
    But assuming the Mi-24s were Ukrainian, the Friday raid was the most recent in a string of Ukrainian attacks on military facilities in Belgorod, which lies just 25 miles north of the border and 50 miles from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Russian troops have besieged Kharkiv since early in Russia’s six-week-old assault on Ukraine.
    Three days before the Mi-24 raid, the Ukrainian army struck a separate depot in Belgorod with Tochka ballistic missiles. But the Friday raid was special. Not only for its impact on the Kremlin’s fuel stocks near Kharkiv—but also for its psychological effect.
    A member of Russia’s emergency services wasn’t shy about the damage the Mi-24s inflicted. “There are 16 tanks in the seat of the fire,” the official told state media. “The fire occurs in eight tanks with fuel and gasoline, occupying two thousand cubic meters, there is a threat of the fire spreading to another eight.”
    […]
    It’s hard to understate how daring the raid was—again, assuming the attackers were Ukrainian. The Mi-24s flew through air space that, in theory, is heavily defended. If other forces supported the gunships, it wasn’t apparent in the dramatic videos of the raid that circulated online as the fires still burned.
    The Mi-24 crews’ tactics were apparent. They flew low, under cover of darkness, staying below the horizon of air-defense radars. They got close and let fly brute-simple, unguided rockets requiring no guidance by forces on the ground. Both Mi-24s apparently safely returned to whatever hidden base they launched from.
    It’s possible the raid stretched the Mi-24s’ endurance. On internal fuel alone, the 13-ton gunship can range just a couple hundred miles. The crews may have hung external fuel tanks under the ’copters’ stub wings, giving them a bit of extra range.
    [continues]

  28. “does not deny or confirm” 

    but then under their breath, the ukranians probably muttered “april fool, vlad”

  29. For fun I played around with the 1950 census this afternoon.  It will have some challenges because of the scan program reading the handwriting.  I needed to correct two of the names I found, but that is easy once you figure out you have to know the line before adding the correction.
     
    It was interesting to see names of family back in 1950.  Just seeing my great-grandmother’s name and the apartment address brought back memories of visiting her in her apartment.  She had not updated the decor since the 20’s and 30’s.  She was seventy-six in 1950.  Those twenty watt light bulbs sure were great.

  30. The Dogs of War-
    That is one hell of an image.  The stairs, the man, the dog,, the window, the lighting.  Too bad Life magazine is dead. 
    The pet rescue story above is just another data point about this war that sets it apart from all others.
    NPR ran one yesterday about  a city NW of  Mariupol  receiving  their refugees, in cars.
    They are so organized to receive them, that volunteer mechanics ate there to try and  replace the glass in cars.  
    The pressure waves from shelling blow the windows out of the vehicles, otherwise they can still run.
    The  Russians  dug trenches  around  Chernobyl, in addition to churning up the ground with their track vehicles . This just  pried open  Pandora’s Box again, that Nature had been burying for nearly the last 40 years.
    This is why they beat feet out of there. Acute Radiation Sickness.  The nasty stuff  from that Russian cluster fuck has a half life  of 24,000 years.  
    This is why Trump loves Putin , they have a very long long history of treating their own people like dogs.
     
     
     

  31. BB dang I mid-read your post entirely when I came up with “assholes”.    I now see where you were headed about wha to call ourselves fir them to look stupid using.    I need to woke up. 

  32. BB-
    I saw that headline , so glad to hear your comments.  I thought of my mother when I saw it . It’s the one where I show up in American History  for the first time !
    If I have it straight , our home address is the Acuff Gin. 
     

  33. Blue in D –
    “Woke”  ……….  tell your bother I’ll take his American history test if he’ll take mine. 
    And we’ll see who is still “Asleep”. 

  34. Fetterman  is ahead of Lamb in PA . , by double digits. 
    And Lamb is a great  choice. 
    My only pause about Fetterman is  his sir name.  One of the great American military disasters , in fact so bad they named a fort after him. 
    Red Cloud  chopped  his command to pieces.  Evan though he had 2 guys with him who had Henry Rifles. 
    The Fetterman  I am talking abut made Custer seem like a wall flower.  Being a braggart in  America ihas a very long tap root.

  35. Weather days off in Douglas , Wyo. .  Reading  the stacks cause I had no library card. 
    A very horny girlfriend that worked at the bank.  A Failing 1250 Holemaster. Slammin’ Steel on “Crazy Woman Creek” in the Powder River Basin. 
    That’s the first time I read about some man named Fetterman. 
     
    The romance of the West.  America  bends Nature to it’s will .
    Well Nature bats last.

  36. Strug –
     
    Stubbs  Bar-B- Que
    The number one selling sauce  in the country  .
    I got punched in the face in this place . I was a terrible drunk by then with a bitter mind. 

     
     

  39. Nite All –
    Shiny side  Up 
    Rubber side down 
    Find a way to smile.  It cures an angry liver, saves a lonely heart.

  40. So i sign off here for   Judy , Brooks, and Caphart. 
     
    Why oh why do we not seee immigration as world wide  event ? 
    Entergy as well ? ( By the way  gas here dropped 18 cents over night )
    Why is there no voice  to knit these things into a larger world ?
     
    And the price of food , that beast is at our door step. 
     
    People did not flee to the cities in Syria  years ago for no reason , the worst drought they had ever seen drove them. 
    That is a fact , full stop, period. 
    The same sort of thing is at work  at our  border.  
    The Irish  did not flee  until there were no potatoes /
    People do not abandon  their homes lightly , they are driven from  them
    Drought , storms , and human geed are just like Russian guns. 
     
    Until we see this we will never stop the flood. 
     
    And just wait  when Canada closes it’s borders  to the American South West. 
     
    I love my country , but :nation sum is a 300 year old tear old idea.
    Either we find a way ro live together , or we all die a lone

  41. Sturg, bless you my … bruthuh? It’s all global.   Climate, fuel, WHEAT, electronics, immigration … you name it.

    I’ve had this convo in bars here with “friends” (lawyers and local businessmen) with Italian and “English” names who look at me like I have two heads while they’re drinking Scotch, Guinness or some other imported spirits or beer, eating lamb, wearing Swiss watches and driving a German car. And they talk ‘murca.” They don’t see it.

  42. The Kraines  have showed us that.  In a war with the fucking Russian Army  who takes care of gerbils,  dogs, and cats ? 
     
    In all other wars they would be stew. 

  43. If I was a young man , i would join this fight. 
     
    So what can we do ? 
    Bomb suits , the Russians fire a lot of duds .
    Body armor Nite  vision 
    America is swimming in this stuff.  Ask the local  cops.
    To send  it  to the Kraines  buy new stuff. 
     
    The Arsenal  of Democracy. 2.O .  
     
     
     

  44. Here I am in ‘e heart of Pogo BB CC country…….90 mph let ‘e hummus down and roll.

  45. This is a question of light and dark.  Fear and hope .Life and death.
     
    We’ve never seen any thing   like it.
     
    This is way I hate Will Shit. And the trails of rich people slapping each other. 
     
    “How much is that doggie in the window ? ” 

  46. It is an age where things stumble a long right up to the day they don’t. 
     
    Putin watched that Omar tape in the culvert , over and over .
    When a bunch of his people got their hands on him. 
     
    He was in our heads , now President Z is in his head. dressed like  Zuckerburg, but with real human body. 
     
    There is a lot of pissing on fire plugs in war.  It is a mammal trait. 

  47. Here I am screaming electrons , and key strokes .  down a wire in the dark.
     
    Tesla saw that Edison  did not. 
     
     
    We’ve  come a long way  from the Acuff Gin. 

  48. Old guyz see this stuff diff’rently I suppose. Th’ soviets had nukes and backed Chiner while th’ Chinese helped NV and we helped SV – directly and openly – and th’ birds didn’t fly. Spy v. Spy in real time and th’ birds didn’t fly. Now Rusher invades the Uke directly in real time and we help Uke openly in real time and we fear if we don’t pretend we aren’t th’ birds will fly. I must be missing sumpin’. Is Putie that much crazier than Mao and Brezhnev and th’ nuts who ran th’ PRC and CCCP? They struck me as bonkers then.

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