Newspaper editors must relish this situation. There is so much blood.
There are unknown numbers of dead — hundreds, the newspapers say, while also stating that many are uncounted in the chaos — and a million people displaced, bridges and roads and towns destroyed, and the Russian army rumbles slowly forward.
Just over 1 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, according to data from the U.N. refugee agency — an exodus that is set to become Europe’s worst humanitarian crisis this century. That figure already matches the number of refugees who were displaced from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in 2015. The International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine, the intergovernmental organization’s prosecutor said in a statement.
It wasn’t that long ago that I’d open up the news in the morning to see graphs and tallies of how many died the slow death of COVID-19. Now I open the news to see the stories of sudden gory deaths, explosions, and families fleeing the onslaught. It is not an improvement, world. Especially since the pandemic continues, it’s just been bumped from top billing.
Churchill’s response to the news of Pearl Harbor and the death toll was “a couple of bad nights of the Blitz”.
But the emotional response to very dramatic destruction is not logical.
I hope the images will spread inside Russia and undermine support for the war.
I also hope people are willing to accept the economic sacrifices inherent in getting oil and gas from other sources than Russia- it is a petrostate with an obsolete infrastructure.
Well, the Russians are already having logistical problems with the weather not allowing a hard freeze of the ground. Supply trucks and tracks don’t really do well in knee deep and deeper mud, they simply get stuck with their floorboards or hull bottom resting firmly submerged in mud and no traction.
Military vehicles, especially armored vehicles are fuel hogs, so slow or no fuel, slow or no movement. Patton proved that nicely during his rapid advance far beyond his logistical trains.
Russia also already lost one general to the fighting, one notorious for human rights abuses against LGBTQ persons, ranging from torture to mass murders. No great loss to humanity there.
Meanwhile, COVID has fallen from top billing, but is expected to spike massively in Ukraine and likely in the Russian forces. Even money, we’ll get a new flavor of COVID to sample, likely one that’ll evade the vaccines fully.
All, to “rid Ukraine of Nazi Jews”, aka Zelenskyy. And a holocaust memorial… Apparently, history isn’t a strong point with Putana, erm, Putin.
Petrostate infrasructure is always with us:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-brief-history-of-russian-climate.html
birgerjohansson@1,
Churchill was actually delighted by the news of Pearl Harbor, because he knew it meant American entry into the war (and was rightly confident this would be against Germany as well as Japan).
If it bleeds people – just like us but for twist of luck of birth and circumstance – are hurt and often dying.
Whoever and where ever they are.
If it leads .. leads to what & willwillewhat itleads to be better or worse for who and why?
Will what it leads to ..
Sigh. Sorry folks.
The link is unusable unless you want to subscribe. Bloody capitalism ruins everything.
Kherson is a hub city. I’ve not got strong enough curse words in English to express my opinion of this invasion. It requires every possible inflection, and the proper sharp intonations and suffixes.
Reminds me of growing up during the Vietnam war.
The Vietnam war was on the television evening news every night for years.
That had a lot to do with Americans eventually turning against the war.
@2
Spike in covid will happen also in neighbouring countriess, COViD rules are basically suspended for refugees.
On the brighter note, pet rules are also laxed, if your dog has no paperwork it will be microchipped and vaxed for rabies for free.
About bombing holocaust memorial – the target was TV broadcasting tower, Russia can’t afford Russian receiving Ukrainian TV. Holocaust memorial was next to it.
@2 As long as tin tits is safe.
At the risk of being accused of being a Churchill lover,while he did want the US to come into the fight against Germany and Italy,there is no way he wanted the Japanese to be dragged into it
He knew how weak the British Empire was in Asia.
war and pestilence, that is two of them the fundie christians must be really glad
it is something that has been worrying me with every picture from there I have seen
and let us stop and praise and give gratitude for mud!
Just as you’re annoyed by non-biologists pretending to understand evolution, I (a retired newspaper editor) am annoyed by non-journalists who think they know how journalism works. You don’t.
I won’t get into it except to point out that newspaper editors don’t write the headlines.
@davidc110
Switching to another piece of gendered anatomy in your insults?
Oh look, someone is being a dumbshit in yet another thread.
@ Brony
I randomly came across his lame excuse in the are you feeling overwhelmed thread, and here it is.
To the misogynist-
No, your disorder doesn’t exempt you from the consequences of being an offensive pos. You owe multiple apologies for your rancid shit- throwing behavior. Get meds if you simply cannot stop yourself from being abusive towards women online.
Shunning, resumed.
Re: unclefroggy @ #11…
IS it possible that the current commanders of the Russian army have forgotten that the age-old list of defenses of Russia includes General Mud? Nothing like a tank on a transporter stuck in a miles long traffic jam to spell “sitting target”…
KG
He has Germany to thank for that. If Hitler didn’t declare war on the US in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack, the US wouldn’t have entered the European theater.
General comment: I’ve tried to leave things conveniently open for looking at anatomy based slurs in general. Asshole seems fine for the anally needy. I prefer behavior based insults myself.
@Tethys 15
I see it. Sorry for the confusion when I asked. I should have asked david directly.
The entire situation is just miserable. I am continually surprised and heartened by the spirit and humanity of the Ukrainian leaders, however. One story that I will never forget is this one:
In the middle of a brutal war, while under attack from a stronger attacker, entirely unprovoked attack, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN takes time to humanize and empathize with the attacking soldiers, to show how the Russian foot soldiers are just as much of a victim as any other victim in this gods-awful mess. Massive props to Ukraine and the ambassador for this.
@13 Tin Tits is the name the citizens of Kiev have given to the 160ft high statue in the center of the city,next to the memorial garden of The Great Patriotic war.
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
@16Well,the German U boats were attacking US ships, earlier in 1941 they sank a US Navy ship.
So if FDR had told adolf to knock it off,and adolf had refused, maybe that would have been enough for America to declare war on Germany.
@david
Do you really think that because you bring in another culture’s gendered things that it matters? It makes you look more cowardly.
@21 😂😂😂😂So, it’s ok for the people of Kiev to call the statue by that name,but not me?
Well, just saw that a Ukrainian nuclear power plant is on fire, after the Russians shelled it.
This has not bee a good week for a lot of reasons.
I hope this doesn’t do a Chernobyl and melt down.
Odd factoid. As most know, Chernobyl is in…Ukraine.
It can always get worse.
Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors which supply much of its electricity.
Who knows, maybe the Russians can cause more than one to melt down.
I have to say it.
I wasn’t aware that Ukraine has a large nuclear industry. The technology to keep a reactor going is more or less the same as that for building nuclear bombs.
Right about now, if I was in a leadership position there, I’d be seriously thinking about building some nuclear weapons. They are easy, based on 1940s technology. Easy enough that the South Africans built 4.
It is fair to say that no one directly attacks a nuclear power these days. Even North Korea is relatively safe from us.
We are seeing what the alternative is right now. The Russians could knock Ukraine down to a 19th century standard of living in a few weeks just by taking out the electricity grid and power plants.
•
@ ^ raven :
Heard on the midday TV news that if this reactor blows up / melts down it could be ten times worse than Chernobyl was. Aussie ABC news coverage here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/russia-ukraine-war-invasion-updates/100880512
Folks, this is why nuclear power plants esp nuclear urnaium fission ones are NOT a good idea.
@19. davidc1 :
Actually wikipedia notes thatn Ukrainians call it Батьківщина-Мати, romanized: Batkivshchýna-Máty, or Batkivshchyna-Maty or the The Motherland Monument :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherland_Monument
Incidentally :
Seems Davidc1 is really stretching to try and use gendered words that will annoy people here. BTW. Do you actully speak Ukrainian David & why not use the Ukrainian language name for it rather than an english translation of the supposedly popular alternative nickname for Kyiv’s “Iron Lady” statute?
@12. littlejohn :
So blaming the sub-editors or editors who, so I gather, do write the headlines? Don’t they count as journalists or at least working in the media too and if not what are they then? Seriously.
You say this isn’t how journalism works but it certainly looks that way to us and if it isn’t, then how is it working? What exactly are we getting wrong about this, please?
Incidentally, a meme seen on fb earlier makes some interesting comparisons to the coverage of the war in Ukraine contrasted with the largely not covered war in Yemen.Any thoughts on that?
@david
You were specifically told about your behavior at pharyngula. This isn’t Kyiv, and you will apparently test boundaries here at pharyngula.
So some people of Kyiv choose to refer to a respected person by their gendered body parts? Looks like hiding behind the people of Kyiv.
How do you feel about Mel Gibson’s “sugar t—“? david? An act of defiance by labeling a police officer by their breasts. I think that is misogynist shit.
Ironically, in 1994 Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power.
They gave up 5,000 nukes for security agreements with Russia and the USA.
And look how that has worked out for them.
@26,28,29,30😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Do you think Wikipedia is gospel,the citizens of Kiev do refer to the Statue as Tin Tits, maybe because it was a gift from the Soviet union.
Europe faces the likelihood of getting caught up in nuclear fallout, and the thing that is getting your knickers in a twist is my use of some words.
so, anyone want to take any bets on how long it is before davidc1 starts talking about Lovecraft’s cat?
davidc1 faced davidc1:
In the interest of accuracy.
(You did get the punctuation correct, though!)
—
Note that Europe faces the likelihood of getting caught up in nuclear fallout, and the thing that is getting your underwear in a twist is people reacting to your recalcitrance.
BTW, davidc1 faced davidc1, be aware that Kiev is currently deprecated (except in Russia).
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Kyiv
davidc1 @20
Much like the Lusitania in the first World War, those ships were carrying munitions to be delivered to Germany’s adversaries. It’s understandable that they were targeted. I don’t believe that alone would’ve been enough to sway Congress though.
StevoR @27
I think the lack of coverage of the Saudi war in Yemen compared to Russia’s war in Ukraine can be explained by a combination of Western bias/Eurocentrism, racism, and last but not least the fear of nuclear annihilation that the Ukraine conflict invokes that Yemen doesn’t.
@36 But what about the amurican boys being killed by them Germans?
Looks like the A&E depts around the world are dealing with a rash of cases
involving underwear being in a tangle.
@33 Is that the one that’s neither here nor there?Or is and isn’t?
Final warning, davidc1. Learn that if the word is offending commenters here more than it is people far, far way who don’t read the blog, that is a good reason to stop using it.
By the way, I’ve also added one of your favorite sexist insults to the blacklist, so if some of your comments stop appearing here, you’ll know why.
Good.
Ok,Doc,it’s been fun while it has lasted,take care,I wish you and your family all the best.
As for the rest of you,you can all fuck off,then you can fuck off a bit further.
Walter Solomon @37: Both wars have been going on since 2014, with thousands killed in each. I’d guess that the coverage has been about the same until the recent all-out invasion.
davidc1
Don’t be such a sore loser.
Thanks again, PZ.
Rob Grigjanis @43
Since 2014, Ukraine, Syria, and Yemen all received more attention than both the US war in Afghanistan, which only popped back into the news when we pulled out, and certainly much more attention than the unending US drone program.
All three of those things also received more attention than the Huigers in China, Rohingya in Myanmar, and Boko Haram and SARS police force in Nigeria.
davidc1
I don’t get it. What’s so wrong or hard about not using gendered terms in a context which could easily be misconstrued as perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes? What an odd hill to die on. It’s just like white Americans who die on basically the same hill when they demand that they be allowed to use the n word. That’s what you’re doing right now.
Re: davidc1 @ #42…
My but those grapes are sour, aren’t they?