Hoth

I have authorized zee American Weather moderators to be on the highest nuclear alert.

It's so nice out. Let's keep this for the next three weeks.

At some point high energy prices will create real demand destruction, but nobody can say when that will transpire. Take 2008. The economy was already in deep recession and the banking system was imploding and oil was nearing $150. It eventually imploded into the $30s. Anyway, I wouldn't expect EVs to be some kind of haven. Charging rates are often based on electricity produced by natural gas or oil. And take a look at the commodity price trends for many EV components. Going vertical. Battery packs are going to get miiiiighty pricey.

All those bird calls I associate with spring are sounding this morning. I'm all in for an early spring this year, especially with oil ripping to $120+.

That sleet had some solid staying power though.

That's the conclusion I keep arriving at.

It has been a popular western delusion for a century that if we only figure out what's bothering some dictator or other, we can mollify them and there will be peace. The most notable analog would be Hitler. With the idea of renewed war anathema after WWI, Britain and France were perfectly willing to supplicate and appease the Germans. First, they let him ignore Versailles and rearm, then they let him militarize the Rhineland. Then, thinking that once he had reunited German-speaking peoples he would settle down, they looked the other way as he took the Sudetenland and moved on Czechoslovakia and Austria. It took Poland to be the final line in the sand that drew them in. Russia and the U.S. were pretty natural adversaries after the Bolsheviks took power. You could not have two more polar systems. Ours, based on guaranteed individual liberties, popular government, private property and a free market economy, clashes intensely with the Soviet communist model, little individual liberty, collectivization, no private property, total subservience to the State. Make no mistake that the USSR was every bit the Evil Empire, menacing not only the West, but also tens of millions of its own people. It's funny that you mention Putin being upset with us for not recognizing Russia's sacrifice in the war. I'm sure in Russian schools they neglect to mention that initially the USSR and the Nazis entered a non-aggression pact and agreed to divvy up eastern Europe between them, that is until Hitler unleashed his surprise eastern offensive. And staying in eastern Europe after the war ended certainly did nothing to soften western feelings, especially since the USSR's stated goal was to make the whole world communist. Ever since the collapse of the USSR, Russia has had but a shadow of its former influence or economic might. Its GDP is roughly half that of the state of California. It is quite important in a few areas, petroleum products, wheat, potash, ammonium nitrate, rare earth metals etc., but it is hardly an economic power of the first rank. Moreover, the wealth generated by these industries is in many cases controlled by a small number of individuals who fought and bribed and outright stole control of these industries after the USSR fell. Russia gets more respect than is owing chiefly due to its legacy nuclear arsenal, which it waves carelessly about like a kid that's found his dad's gun. That arsenal is serving as an umbrella to let Putin get away with things that might've otherwise brought about direct intervention. He has this perverse 19th century empire-building, or rebuilding, mindset and seems intent on reuniting all former Russian territories under his banner. This is wholly contrary to the international order presided over by the U.S. after WWII ended and a massive threat to peace globally. Putin is not rational and likely will only respect force, just like Hitler (who was frustrated that France and England weren't keen to fight at first). Hopefully intense sanctions will strangle his economy so much that some civic-minded Russian will pop him and earn the world's undying gratitude, but I wouldn't bet on it. I myself am preparing for the likelihood of considerable turmoil later in the year. Even if we somehow dodge a direct war with Russia, food prices will likely continue to skyrocket, crop yields may drop due to the loss of imported fertilizer supplies from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and Phosphorus supplies get swallowed up by the Chinese. I wouldn't be surprised by a reprise of the Arab Spring, and considerable upheaval caused by inflation even in wealthy western nations. There was that joke circulating about 2022 being "2020 Too", and I can't thinking that may be apropos at this moment. Instead of pestilence, it may be war, financial upheaval, inflation and famine instead.

Yep, they have a curious infatuation with strong-man leaders, even when those leaders have historically gotten them slaughtered by the millions.

The foreign minister says a full meltdown of that plant would be equivalent to 10x Chernobyl.

I find that hard to believe frankly. I'd be interested in reading the book, but the USSR had both a viable space program (and hence rocket technology) and tested hundreds of nukes on their soil. Their tech wasn't up to U.S. standards, but I doubt it was that derelict.

Yeah, that's what I've read. I'm not sure they would tell us if it went higher though. They wouldn't want to spark a panic or telegraph anything to Russia.

I know as the alert level increases, the AF puts more and more bombers in the air. At DEFCON2, I believe those bombers carry nuclear payloads. I hope we're not there. It's only happened twice, once during October '62 and the Cuban Missile Crisis and once on 9/11.

We're at DEFCON 3 (maybe 2?), so there should be more AF equipment in the air.

Agreed. Putin clearly believes that his nuclear umbrella provides unlimited cover for him to do whatever he pleases. "Let me take over this country, and don't interfere or I nuke you" is the gist of it. Every time there's a conflict, he ratchets up the nuclear rhetoric. At some point, someone will call his bluff, and then we will find out whether it was in fact a bluff. I put nothing past him, but we cannot have rogue regimes terrorizing the world at will simply because they have nuclear weapons. More countries will either manufacture their own nuclear deterrent, or look to the nuclear powers to supply them. None of this is good, of course, but this is the way the world seems to be going.

Absolutely. They are definitely letting Russia test the waters. They may even sit back initially if we end up at war with Russia. Let us spill our guts in eastern Europe and then hit Taiwan when we don't have the will to stop them.

I assumed that has been the Chinese plan for some time, probably in coordination with Russia. Open a war on two fronts. I was interested that some in Japan are openly calling to host U.S. nukes in the country this morning. So far I don't think it's getting much traction--totally contrary to their constitution since WWII--but watch that change if China does start menacing its neighbors.

They should. They've been piggy-backing on our defensive umbrella for decades and need to be able to defend themselves. I was heartened to see Germany make such an about face the other day.

Oh yeah, zero doubt about that.

Absolutely. Our Founders operated under the assumption that humans are inherently weak and power-seeking and therefore tried to separate powers and put in legal protections as much as possible to prevent the new nation from slipping into absolutism. But they also believed that their experiment was destined to fail eventually, as power has a way of creeping into areas it originally had no claim to. One of my ancestors attended the Philadelphia Convention to dream up the Constitution and wound up not signing the document initially because he feared having too much power in a single executive officer. He wanted three since it smacked less of monarchy. But yes, humans are inherently competitive, territorial, covetous creatures, which is dangerous when annealed to higher intelligence.

Russia has been a boil on the world's ass for a century. Quite frankly, if Putin really starts of some shit and we have to go over there, I would not grieve to see Russia carved up into a bunch of small democratic states. I'm sure there are plenty of ethnic groups who wouldn't mind self-governance. Certainly folks in the eastern part of the country have expressed such feelings at times.

I'm with you there, but these things are out of our control. All it would take is a miscalculation on either side, and we're all swept in a great cataclysm of our age. It really has amazed me how recent years roughly parallel the '30s. Starting with the Financial Crisis. There's your 1929. We managed to avoid a full-blown depression in '08, but at a great cost, which sowed discord and wealth inequality and forged a path forward for populist, authoritarian leaders across the globe. We see seething internal disension, much like the '30s. People forget that Hoover had the National Guard rout 20,000 starving veterans with bayonets on the National Mall back then. As many in the U.S. and Britain during the '30s idolized Hitler as a model for strong leadership, many Americans in both the GOP and far left of the Democratic Party seem to like or at least empathize with Putin. Strange how all that was old is new again. And worrisome.

Putin and Lavrov have repeatedly asserted that you can. They've said several times that borders change over time. The modern notion that national borders are static from now on is not part of their way of thinking. And, by the way, you can bet that Xi Jinping shares that sensibility. The world is rapidly becoming a very dangerous place.

If we completely blew the tits off the world and humans disappeared, the world would still be teeming with life in a century or two.

Much as Hitler's expansionism started with the goal of reuniting Germanic peoples under one national banner, and then creating lebensraum in the East for them, Putin seems bent on redrawing modern borders to conform with the old Russian Empire.

Saw this one yesterday. Still cracks me up: