In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

From Reuters, A powerful explosion seriously damaged Russia’s road-and-rail bridge to Crimea on Saturday, hitting a prestige symbol of Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula and the key supply route to Russian forces battling to hold territory captured in southern Ukraine. . . . It now represents a major artery for the Russian forces who have taken control of most of southern Ukraine's Kherson region, and for the naval port of Sevastopol, whose governor told locals: "Keep calm. Don't panic." It was not yet clear if the blast was a deliberate attack, but the damage to such high-profile infrastructure came at a time when Russia has suffered several battlefield defeats and could further cloud the Kremlin's messages of reassurance to its public that the conflict is going to plan. This is a key event in the war, symbolically as important as the sinking of the Moskva , but strategically much more important, as among other things, it appears to have caused panic ...

After all, the field of game thbeory came to prominence when it was used to develop nuclear strategy in the 1950 s. The problem I'm seeing now is how little our policymakers seem to have learned about poker playing, and how little effort they're putting into the game. Thus we have the largely unmentioned issue arising from the Russo-Ukraine War, how Western intelligence wildly overestimated Russian military capability in the runup: Ever since Ukraine launched a successful counteroffensive against Russian forces in late August, American officials have tried to claim credit, insisting that U.S. intelligence has been key to Ukraine’s battlefield victories. Yet U.S. officials have simultaneously downplayed their intelligence failures in Ukraine — especially their glaring mistakes at the outset of the war. When Putin invaded in February, U.S. intelligence officials told the White House that Russia would win in a matter of days by quickly overwhelming the Ukrainian army, accor...

The New York Post covered an episode the other day that I noticed in a few video reports, but as the Post story notes, it wasn't reported generally because the main camera feed had already been turned off: President Biden on Tuesday ranted about the White House press corps for their standard — and longtime — practice of shouting questions as reporters were ushered out of an event focused on legal barriers to abortion and contraceptives. “They’re among the only press in the world that does this. Seriously. Seriously,” Biden told his guests as he opted not to answer any of the questions from the small daily press pool. Biden’s disbelieving tone on Tuesday wasn’t the first time the president was caught seeming to diss the press as they clamored for his attention. There's a video at the link, but it's tied to an annoying Cadillac ad you have to sit through first (an electric version for only $60K), and apparently because the main cameras had been turned off, I can...

Henry Kissinger, 99, has been making occasional public remarks since the start of the Russo-Ukraine War, and there's little question that at his age, he's sharper than President Biden, almost 20 years his junior, although he was certainly sharper 50 years ago as well. In July, as I've noted here, he backtracked on his May assessment that Ukraine would need to give up land for peace. Just last week, he gave a new assessment about China : After watching China’s “no limits” partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin fall well short of expectations, the stage is set for President Xi Jinping to tilt at least modestly toward the United States after the 20th party congress, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said on Monday. “Xi gave a rather blank check to Putin,” Kissinger said at the Asia Society in New York. “He must have thought the invasion would succeed. He must need to recalibrate.” . . . Xi almost certainly expected Putin to be succ...

For a smart guy, Elon is sometimes pretty dumb. Not only did he date Amber Heard, but he apparently froze embryos with her, whatever that was about. But just yesterday he got lots of attention when he solved Ukraine, whatever that was about: Ukraine-Russia Peace: - Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people. - Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake). - Water supply to Crimea assured. - Ukraine remains neutral. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022 If he was just trying to get attention, well, maybe he accomplished something, but at least as far as Ukraine is concerned, I'm still left with the question my co-worker used to blurt out in meetings, "What problem are we trying to solve?" Recognize that even as of this past May, when Henry Kissinger made an equivalent proposal, he was thought even then to be behind the times, and by July, he'd reversed himself. To ...

It isn't hard to search the web and find speculative maps that have been created over decades purporting to show an eventual partition of Russia -- the one above is just one such. What surprises me is that as far as I can tell, nobody at all has put anything like this up in light of developments arising from the current Russo-Ukraine War. Indeed, news reports yesterday indicated that Ukraine's application to join NATO caught the Biden administration off guard. Isn't that peculiar? Until very recently, everyone from Henry Kissinger to Donald Trump seems to have taken it for granted that there was a Russian-NATO balance of power secured by, among other things, a vague understanding that Ukraine would remain a neutral buffer, except that Russia occupied the Donbas and Crimea in violation of previous security guarantees, except this made it an even surer deal or something. If we talk about starting World War III, thinking this sort of complacent castle in the air would ...

I'm starting to see signs that the lizard people are losing patience. As I noted yesterday, the YouTube psychologist Dr Todd Grande, who with his audience sees himself as at least a step up from Dr Phil, has come out and said, "It's hard to imagine how [Biden] is fit to be president under these circumstances." I've been of the position that individual gaffes, ranging just last week from "Where's Jackie?" to the latest instance of Dr Jill giving him orders in public as he wanders around the stage, don't necessarily indicate a medical condition, but whatever they are, they've become a problem. Thus people like Bill Maher are starting to float tentative strategies : The liberal comedian and host of the eponymous Real Time With Bill Maher told his audience Friday night that although he considered President Joe Biden’s place on the Democratic ticket for the president in 2024 to be a done deal, he could “see” dumping Vice President Kamala H...