Donating a small amount of money to the Red Cross won’t make a huge difference, but it could help one victim of Putin’s war on Ukraine. Use this link to donate.

The role that every young actress wants right now is the lead in the Madonna’s autobiographical film, according to Jeff Sneider. I think Lady Gaga would be a good pick.

“The blast wave can last for significantly longer than a conventional explosive and is capable of vaporising human bodies,” the Guardian writes.

“Satellite photos show a convoy of Russian forces north of Ukraine’s capital stretching for 65 kilometres,” Euronews reports.

“In a lengthy telephone call, Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron that ‘the demilitarisation and denazification’ of Ukraine and Western recognition of Russian sovereignty over the Crimean peninsula were prerequisites to ending fighting in Ukraine,” Kyiv Post reports.

Putin is mentally ill.

This from Twitchy is perhaps not a scientific approach, but Putin’s table says something about his mind.

Putin is increasingly operating emotionally and likely to use all the weapons at his disposal, including nuclear ones, Russia expert Fiona Hill tells Politico.

Scary stuff.

“It wouldn’t make any sense at all,” Marc Finaud of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy tells Deutsche Welle. “If the goal is to take Ukraine, Russia doesn’t want to occupy a pile of radioactive debris.”

“Putin has united Europe as never before,” Denis MacShane writes.

Yes, if there’s anything positive with this senseless war, it’s that the EU has become strong and united.

The UN refugee agency warned that Europe would soon face the largest refugee crisis this century. About 660,000 refugees have fled Ukraine in the past six days, an increase of more than 150,000 in the last 24 hours.

Just listened to President Biden’s speech and the thing that I noticed the most what how he described Putin as a dictator. That’s new, I think.

Several scientific studies presented in the journal Nature suggest that the Chinese marketplace was the place where Covid-19 infected first human.

To no surprise to anyone, the five are Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Syria, and Russia itself.

“According to the Swedish Armed Forces, the violation was brief, but Swedish Jas 39 Gripen jets were scrambled to document and photograph the two Su-24 and two Su-27 fighter jets,” The Local reports.

Madness.

According to the head of UNHCR has more than one million people fled Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country last week.

“Senior Chinese officials requested at the start of February that their Russian counterparts delay plans to invade Ukraine until after the Winter Olympics in Beijing had concluded,” Deutsche Welle reports.

Russian troops tell their captors they are being used as cannon fodder. “Nobody wanted to fight but we were told that we would be enemies of the state and because it’s wartime we might even get shot,” one of them says.

Thomas Friedman:

And what strikes me is Putin thought this was going to be a cakewalk, that he actually believed his own fantasy, that there are a bunch of Nazis running Ukraine, as soon as he came in the Ukrainian people would want them evicted, they would throw flowers, etc.

And now that that hasn’t happened, Lulu, it is very clear Putin has no Plan B. Because there is no Plan B.

NewsGuard, an organisation monitoring the trustworthiness of news and information, has identified some lies Russia’s propagandists spread. These include:

1. Russian-speaking residents in the Donbas region of Ukraine have been subjected to genocide.
2. Polish-speaking saboteurs attempted to bomb a chlorine plant in Donbas.
3. Ukrainian forces bombed a kindergarten in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, on 17 February 2022.
4. Russia did not target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine at the start of invasion.
5. Nazism is rampant in Ukrainian politics and society, supported by authorities in Kyiv.
6. The west staged a coup to overthrow the pro-Russia Ukrainian government in 2014.
7. The US has a network of bioweapons labs in eastern Europe.
8. Nato has a military base in Odessa.
9. Crimea joined Russia legally.
10. Modern Ukraine was entirely created by communist Russia.

It’s all lies.

The leftover rocket will smash into the far side of the moon at 9,300kph a big punch that will carve out a crater.

If Putin wanted to weaken NATO and EU, he failed.

Today, Russian forces took control of Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, after their attack on the site sparked a fire and fears of nuclear meltdown.

This according to a new study that included 386 people. I get tired just thinking about weight training.

According to new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, two colliding dead stars might spark enough energy to create a subdwarf covered with helium-burning ash.

A new study published in Nature Medicine suggests that a one-time, 36-pill treatment can help some allergic adults to safely eat peanuts.

Finally some good news from Ukraine! The Washington Blade reports that one of Russia’s nastiest homophobes has been killed.

Besides the numbing sadness of the war itself, it’s such a waste to see Russia being humiliated by the plague of dictatorship. Russia could be a great country, but it must rid itself of the idea of a tsar. Putin must go.

“This is the ultimate ‘madman’ sanction in nuclear tactics; if you cannot rely on your opponent to act logically to his own advantage, you are frozen in place, waiting for his next move, unable to take risks by direct intervention,” Ian McEwan writes in the Guardian.

“These sanctions that are being imposed are akin to a declaration of war but thank God it has not come to that,” the Russian dictator said in a bizarre, televised event yesterday.

In a new film, The Crowded Room, 35-year-old Emmy Rossum is the mother of a 25-year-old Tom Holland. Jaime Lorite thinks these castings are strange and sexist—and I agree.

Denis Kirejev has now been killed by Ukrainian intelligence service, Swedish newspaper Expressen reports.

According to official Ukrainian numbers, Russian forces have lost 1,000 troops a day. These are young men losing their lives for madman Putin.

John Fund of the National Review writes:

Stalin believed that his troops would be marching into the Finnish capital of Helsinki within two weeks. He even had the great composer Shostakovich write a musical piece to be played at the celebration of his conquest. Outgunned, outnumbered, and taken by surprise, Finland seemed bound for a rapid surrender.

But as in Ukraine, the initial advance by the invaders was a shambolic mess. The Finns used guerrilla tactics to isolate the Soviet units, surround them, and then destroy them. Civilians made Molotov cocktails—named after Stalin’s foreign minister—as a cheap way to disable tanks. Many Soviet tanks that made it through the Finnish defenses outran their supply lines and couldn’t proceed.

The war in Ukraine has gone on now for nearly two weeks. No end in sight. Normally, I’m a news junkie, but now I feel increasingly numb emotionally. It’s all too horrific to take in. Too many faces in despair on TV.

Good news! President Joe Biden announces that America will ban oil imports from Russia. I’m all for free trade, but in war the enemies of liberty must be shamed.

A video from Adam the YouTuber. Some takeaways:

1. We know what Russian plans were, based on captured documents and a pre-written report of Russia’s glorious victory accidentally published on Kremlin’s server.
2. Russia expected to be at the gates of Kiev in three days and have everything conquered in two weeks. After almost two weeks, they haven’t achieved any of their major objectives. All major cities remain in Ukrainian hands.
3. One reason they didn’t is that NATO alerted Ukraine to impending Russian action slightly before it began, so army units were already dispersed from bases.
4. Russia didn’t have enough trucks to begin with and have already lost 200 more.

As part of its latest attempts to justify its invasion, Russian officials are once again pushing a false narrative that Ukraine is developing biological weapons with the assistance of the United States.

Yesterday, the Polish government came out with a plan to transfer its Russian-made fighter planes to an American military base in Germany, with the expectation that the planes would then be handed over to Ukrainian pilots trying to fend off Russian forces. However, the Poles didn’t run that idea past the Biden administration before going public with it, and the Pentagon quickly dismissed the idea as not tenable.

Ukraine needs these planes!

As with everything else in Putin-land, this was dismissed as a Western lie until it became impossible to deny.

Putin unleashed fresh hell on Ukrainian civilians, this time targeting helpless mothers and babies by bombing a maternity hospital. I find no words.

Is it an octopus—or an extraterrestrial alien? A new study published in the journal Nature yesterday.

…so I’m listening to Mahalia Jackson.

The scale of the destruction in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol at the hands of Russian forces has emerged in new satellite images that show devastated buildings.

According to Associated Press, Western officials say the most vulnerable countries could be those who are members of neither NATO nor the EU.

Bad news! Earlier today, Russian forces rolled their armoured vehicles up to the northeastern edge of Kyiv, coming closer to their goal of encircle the Ukrainian capital.

The minimalist art “5x6art” posts on Twitter is really cool—check it out.

That Putin wants to go full-blown Soviet communism is hardly a surprise. He wants to be Stalin. Nor is the complete failure of all countries that have nationalised companies en masse. Socialism simply does not work.

“If the Holocaust was a final exam for humanity in the 20th century, then we have failed that exam,” Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin writes.

This is just a silly story from Texas, but who names their pet pig Bacon?

Putin has given the green light for up to 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to be deployed alongside Russians in Ukraine, the Guardian reports. This allows Russia to deploy battle-hardened mercenaries from the conflict in Syria without risking additional Russian military casualties.

This is simply grotesque behaviour from a pathetic coward.

Seen in red are the countries Russia has labelled unfriendly. Seen in green are the top democracies according to the Democracy Index 2020.

“It is clear that Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to NATO, which is primarily a military organisation, would have serious military and political consequences that require a revision of our relations with these countries and entail retribution measures,” the diplomat Sergei Beljaev tells Russian news agency Interfax.

He won an Oscar in 1985 for his role in the Kiss of the Spider Woman, a film that has meant a lot to many gay men.

While one fascist state is targeting the Ukrainians, another is targeting the Kurds. It’s no coincident that leaders of Russia and Iran are best friends.

There are numerous reports about Russian soldiers deserting. And about increasing numbers of people travelling to Ukraine to fight the Russians.

The Kremlin is said to have been thrown into chaos following a number of blows to Putin’s regime. Putin is reported to be furious. Good!

Putin won’t be happy about this. Not happy at all. The Sun reports that NATO has amassed 30,000 troops and 50 warships near Russia’s border for military exercises.

…because they didn’t know it was about gays. 😂

Had a really strange thing happening to me today. I was working at my desk, doing so boring accounting, when, suddenly, I got really dizzy and ill. It was really, really bad. Could hardly stand up. Everything I had eaten before came up. Then, after about twenty minutes, I felt fine again. Strange.

The Guardian writes that there are reports of Russian forces taking patients and medical staff at a Ukrainian hospital as hostages.

A trio of eastern European leaders met Ukraine’s president in his besieged capital yesterday. I like this subtle way of saying 🖕 to Putin.

Oh, with the war and all, I had nearly forgotten about the pandemic.

On Facebook, he spoke in Russian in an attempt reach beyond the Kremlin’s propaganda machinery. In translation:

“Citizens of Russia, any of you who has had access to truthful information might have already realised how this war will end for your country: with disgrace, poverty, year-long isolation, a brutal repressive system that will treat Russian citizens as inhumanely as you, occupants, treated Ukrainians. What will come next depends on your actions.

“I want to address Russian officials and everyone who is involved with the incumbent government. If you stay in your posts, if you don’t speak out against the war, the international community will strip you off of everything you have earned over the years. They are working on it. This includes propaganda, the fourth estate in Russia. If you continue working for propaganda, you put yourself at a bigger risk than you face if you just resign: the risk of sanctions and international tribunal for the propaganda of aggressive war, for justification of war crimes. Quit your jobs. Several months without a job is better than a whole life under international prosecution.”

I have just been out for a few hours. The city has suddenly woken up from months of winter dullness. The first man in shorts is a clear sign of spring. Ah…

This according to Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, known to be a notorious liar. I can understand if Ukraine accepts these terms, but surrendering to Russia risks setting a precedent for independent states in Europe. Russia is not a great power with any right to tell its neighbours what to do.

“Putin explained that he is not ‘judging those with villas in Miami or the French Riviera’ or those ‘who cannot live without foie gras and mussels or so called gender-based rights’ as long as they are ‘mentally’ with Russia,” Military.com reports.

President Bides says Putin is a war criminal. Yes, he is. Then a Kremlin spokesman says that comment is “unacceptable and unforgivable rhetoric”. Pathetic.

The Kyiv Post reports that almost 3,000,000 people have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale military attack three weeks ago.

Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian journalist who interrupted a live news programme to protest against the war in Ukraine, talks to the BBC.

According to Justin Bronk, it’s now increasingly clear that the Russian army may struggle to assemble sufficient combat power to take major Ukrainian cities.

The Kyiv Independent explains what you can do.

Russia’s utterly immoral bombardment of civilians continues on week four. Now its rockets hit western parts of the country.

This is both clever and funny. 😃

For the first time since his war began, Putin has used deadly hypersonic missiles against Ukraine. Despicable man!

Yeah, right, because the EU bombed children’s hospitals in London. No, Boris Johnson is an idiot for comparing the Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion to the British decision to leave the EU.

Who wants to stay in an isolated state with a mad dictator? Before the war broke out, only about 3,000 to 4,000 Russians were registered as workers in Armenia, but now an equal number arrives every day.

According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, a group of influential members of the “Russian elite” have hatched a plan aimed at toppling the president.

Yesterday afternoon, a man armed with knives and an axe killed two women at a grammar schools in Malmö. The school is located a few blocks from my home.

Yesterday, a Russian court banned Facebook and Instagram, calling the social networks extremist. What’s next? Banning postal services?

Homophobia is truly a bizarre phenomenon. In North Carolina, a dog has been dumped at an animal shelter after his owners decided they no longer wanted him because he is gay.

Lawrence Person explains.

The Sun writes that Oleksandr Bortnikov is the likely successor to Putin. I don’t know anything about Bortnikov, but right now it seems no one could be worse than Putin.

Japan reacted angrily today after Russia withdrew from peace treaty talks and froze joint economic projects related to the disputed Kuril islands.

Putin’s most prominent critic has been found guilty of large-scale fraud Russian court. Now he’ll spend years in prison, on Putin’s orders. Russian courts are theatres with judges serving as props in Kremlin’s drama.

The Daily Beast writes that the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill appears to be just as bloodthirsty as Vladimir Putin himself.

She was born in Czechia and came to America as a refugee. She later became her new country’s first female foreign minister.

This is why dependence on Russian energy is so bad for Europe. The dictator in Moscow has now announced that so-called unfriendly countries, which is all democracies, will have to pay for Russian gas imports in rubles.

CNS News reports that Manhattan and San Francisco are at the forefront with the highest percentages of population decline in the US.

Nick Gillespie makes the case that everyday Russians, thousands of whom have been imprisoned for protesting, are also victims of Putin’s madness.

Source: Francetvinfo.

The five most popular presidential candidates
Emmanuel Macron	29.5%
Marine Le Pen	19%
Jean-Luc Mélenchon	12.5%
Éric Zemmour	10.5%
Valérie Pécresse	10%

Intolerable people feeling sorry for themselves for being bullied after being called out for their bullying behaviour.

Haven’t written anything online the past couple of days. Been busy with other things. And I felt I had to take a break from all reports from Putin’s war against Ukraine’s civilian population.

Did not see it live myself, but the internet is full of videos of the movement when Will Smith entered the stage to punch Chris Rock. The Los Angeles Times writes that Rock and Smith do have some history.

As we all know, poisoning is something Kremlin loves to do to its enemies. Not much has happened in Moscow since Dmitry Shemyaka.

I’m a staunch dog person.

Illia Ponomarenko of the Kyiv Independent writes about how Russia recycles its 2008 playbook.

A study from 2006 suggests straight men has a preference for verbal humiliation, rubber outfits, cane whipping, cross dressing, and straitjackets.

Smith apparently slapped a reporter ten years ago. The shortness to violence is a very male problem. We must be better at teaching boys how to handle rage.

I’m enjoying the spring sun, and tonight I’m going to Copenhagen to see Euripides’s Medea.

He’s no using a covid news letter to spread lies about the opposition. No one is surprised. After all, Orbán is mini-Putin.