Tom Southern, WIRED (Mar 10, 2022) writes:

The Spectacular Collapse of Putin’s Disinformation Machinery

It seems Putin has a vision of (or for) Russia as among the grand nations of the world, an assertive force to be heard and reckoned with on the world stage, respected/heeded throughout.

Of course a nuclear-weapons power with a large military is to be reckoned with.
Who in their right mind would want to invade Russia?

Ukraine seeking NATO membership violates said vision, though.
And so, Ukraine is a victim of Putin's vision (Russia isn't facing an invasion threat), though it seems unlikely they'd ever attain NATO membership.

It's not so much that anyone is out to humiliate Russia here as such, more like Ukraine is looking elsewhere than Russia, taking their own steps forward as a sovereign state.
Yet, the Ukrainians are the real victims on the ground here, not the generals in the Kremlin.

Hmm capitalism means authoritarianism, ?
I guess it can without regulatory protocols, as long as those don't turn authoritarian, right?

Anyway, government removal happens, scales/reasons differ, ..., and Russia sure stands out.
Some examples have already been posted, but we could include different examples while at it.

^{Aug 2013 • Saudi Arabia's War on Witchcraft
Feb 2017 • Iranian Regime Inciting Hatred, Persecuting Zoroastrian Minority
Mar 2017 • WikiLeaks publishes 'biggest ever leak of secret CIA documents'
Mar 2019 • Brunei to punish gay sex and adultery with death by stoning
Dec 2021 • Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, court rules
Dec 2021 • China's Xi responsible for Uyghur 'genocide', unofficial tribunal says}

You straight admitted that you don't care about the truth. — frank

Word of the Year 2016 (Oxford Languages), post-truth (Lexico) — a cultural failure.
Actually just a failure.

Haven't personally verified (darn thing is a good 70 pages)...

Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem (US Dept of State, Aug 2020)

Isn't the threat of being shot control enough? — Isaac

Not necessarily shoot. But (authoritarian) oppression, yep. Remove the rest. — jorndoe

Have the Kool-Aid "crafted Kremlin lines" dominate the airways, go viral, be spread, the news du jour, and they just have to keep the rest under wraps, minimal, inconsequential. Standard procedure, propaganda, control narratives, "seed" population, much better than shooting people is to have them on their side, ... Don't know how effective some such is in Russia; others have tried, though.

, , hmm, the story could use some improvements, and crafting it has barely begun. Maybe a blast in Donbas could set something off.

IMO this shows that Putin isn’t really a dictator, [...] military failures in Ukraine would never have happened. — Apollodorus

How do you figure?
But, sure, not "omnipotent", there is a parliament and a few players after all.
He's up there, though.



On the mad speculative side, if things start going south for Putin, his double-double-secret operative could secretly supply al-Qaeda suicide-bombers with a tactical nuke and have it detonate strategically, with plausible deniability of course, and he might be able to spin a victory out of the rubble. Not exactly likely, rather risky, I know, but, hey, he might have gone over such a scenario with his most trusted military officer.

Sweden is traditionally neutral (though a good lot of Jews found safety in Sweden during Nazi times).
Not sure if it's worth mentioning, but Sweden and Finland also have fairly close ties with Norway and Denmark.

^{Jan 7, 2022 • Foreign Policy • Swedish Foreign Minister: Joining NATO Is Up to Us
Mar 3, 2022 • Newsweek • NATO Issue in Sweden, Finland Pits Anxious Public Against Cautious Politicians
Mar 5, 2022 • The Brussels Times • Sweden plans to deepen ties with NATO amid Russian aggression}

Anyway, if Putin is going to start posturing at Sweden and Finland, perhaps even invade, then things are going to take a turn for the worse (still).
I suppose it might present two separate fronts for Russia, at least in the (seemingly unlikely) event that Putin makes a move towards Sweden and Finland.

But this makes no sense. Then why the Kool-Aid? — Isaac

Control? Just the "crafted Kremlin line" and no others?

They need the Kool-Aid precisely because their ability to just shoot dissenters is limited. — Isaac

Not necessarily shoot. But (authoritarian) oppression, yep. Remove the rest.
Alternatively, they need the Kool-Aid and just that, because they have no thought-control.
♫ or do "They"? (play theme from The Twilight Zone) ♬

There's zero reason to assume this offer isn't genuine. — boethius

Better late than never I guess?
Did sanctions have an effect of sorts? Ukrainians cause difficulties?
Anyway, seems the Nazi story fell out of favor.

, what do you think is going on?

_{Ukraine: what anti-war protesters in Russia risk by speaking out (Mar 1, 2022)
Russian police jail kids who took flowers and 'No to War' signs to Ukraine's embassy (Mar 2, 2022)
Human rights group: "serious crackdown" in Russia (Mar 2, 2022)
Putin's War At Home: Russian Government Pushes Hard To Enforce Total Unanimity On Ukraine War (Mar 3, 2022)}

A year after last year’s joint statement on the situation in Russia, authorities there have further intensified the already unprecedented crackdown on human rights. A fully-fledged witch hunt against independent groups, human rights defenders, media outlets and journalists, and political opposition, is decimating civil society and forcing many into exile.
The gravity of this human rights crisis has been demonstrated in the last few days by the forcible dispersal of anti-war rallies and pickets across Russia with over 6,800 arrested (as of 2 March 2022), attempts to impose censorship on the reporting of the conflict in Ukraine and to silence those media and individuals who speak out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including through blocking media websites, threats of criminal prosecution under “fake news” and “high treason” charges and other means. — Joint Letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in Russia (Mar 4, 2022)

_{Russia Criminalizes Independent War Reporting, Anti-War Protests (Mar 7, 2022)}

Remove others until only the Kool-Aid is left.

On Putin's to-do list?

☐ Prominent Russians join protests against Ukraine war amid 1,800 arrests (Feb 25, 2022)
☐ A few members of the Russian Parliament speak out against the war. (Feb 28, 2022)
☐ Ukraine: Russian opposition to the invasion is giving Putin cause for alarm (Mar 4, 2022)

☐ More than 4,300 people arrested at anti-war protests across Russia (Mar 6, 2022)

Individuals crossed off the list:

☑ Alexander Litvinenko (Nov 23, 2006), and then more testing was implemented at airports
☑ Here’s a list of Putin critics who've ended up dead (Mar 11, 2016)

Some crossed off the list a while back:

☑ Putin pulls plug on last critical TV channel (Jun 23, 2003)
☑ Russia's Last Independent TV Station Broadcasts 'Swan Lake' in Nod to History Before Going Dark (Mar 4, 2022)

I guess Ukraine is in progress. :fire:

Strange and unusual:

Russia Releases Bizarre Video of Space Station Breaking Apart (Mar 5, 2022)

There's a difference between moral justification and justification as such. — boethius

I thought it was Putin's justification to invade Ukraine?

Putin's ties to neo-Nazi's would not make a sound argument about justification of fighting neo-Nazi's unsound, it would just make Putin a hypocrite. — boethius

Or a justification to remove Putin or invade Russia?

Great visuals — FreeEmotion

This one might not be as interesting/relevant, but, anyway, according to "Mapped: Corruption in Countries Around the World" (Feb 11, 2022), measuring a corruption perception index:

2012-2021:

Ukraine: +6 → 32
Russia: +1 → 29

“Imagine that Ukraine becomes a NATO member and launches those military operations.” — One World News

Well, imagine Putin feeling insecure about other neighbors, and going for his "Crimean solution". :/

The reality on the ground is the predicament the Ukrainian people now find themselves in. Invasion, bombing, shooting, fires, destruction, disruptions of getting on with life (getting their kids to school), ... (while armchair commenters play blame-games). What does it mean for them? It's not like they've been launching military campaigns into Russia, or threatened with that intent.

I'm kind of thinking that, if some of Russia's neighbors look elsewhere, making Putin feel sort of claustrophobic, then there might be reasons for that. Them looking elsewhere doesn't justify Russia taking them over, doesn't justify Russian expansion by :fire:.

What nation (in their right mind) would invade Russia, would launch a war to take over Moscow? For one, that'd be rather costly. :fire:

With Putin's plan to enroll Ukraine in Russia, maybe, say, Slovakia and Hungary, become uncomfortable with the "new" nuclear neighbor. Would that then justify launching a counter-invasion into Russia?

It's all hot air, distracting from the predicament of the Ukrainian people.

God be with the people of Ukraine and Russia. — FreeEmotion

America prays for God to destroy our enemies. Our enemies pray for God to destroy us. Somebody is going to be disappointed. Somebody is wasting their fucking time. Could it be everyone? — Carlin (2008)

FYI, a couple of Visual Capitalist overviews:

• Visualizing Ukraine’s Top Trading Partners and Products (Mar 3, 2022)

• Map Explainer: Key Facts About Ukraine (Feb 23, 2022)

Meanwhile...

• BBC Suspends Journalism In Russia After Passing Of Draconian Censorship Law Attacking Independent Media As “Foreign Agents” (Mar 4, 2022)

• Russia Takes Censorship to New Extremes, Stifling War Coverage (Mar 4, 2022)

UN vote "to reprimand Russia for invading Ukraine and demanded that Moscow stop fighting and withdraw its military forces" ("non-binding")

181/193 participants

141: yes _{(Turkey, ...)}
5: no _{(Russia, Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria)}
35: abstain _{(China, India, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, ...)}

"Putin, go home. Have some Vodka. No, Russia ain't about to be invaded by foreign nations."

What does Belarus have against Ukraine anyway?
At least I'm not aware of any threats or some such (except maybe Putin has threatened Lukashenko).



Reuters: U.N. General Assembly in historic vote denounces Russia over Ukraine invasion
Al Jazeera: UN resolution against Ukraine invasion: Full text

Personally, I blame the Australians. — Olivier5

The Dutch!

Weird.

Why white evangelical Christians are Putin's biggest American fan base (Mar 2, 2022)

, such destruction. :( For centuries at that.
Please keep the informative comments up. :up:
Sure hope Ukraine won't become another Chechnya.
At least Grozny seems reasonably stable (at the moment), as far as I know anyway.
I guess the Russian empire took over now-Chechnya in the 1800s after having kicked other invaders out, like the then-Persians.

The deportations are the defining moment of the modern Chechen experience. Street names were changed and gravestones uprooted to pave the roads. A statue of General Yermelov, the favourite butcher of the tsars, was erected in Grozny, bearing the inscription, 'There is no people under the sun more vile and deceitful than this one.' Every Chechen over 60 can remember the deportations. A generation of Chechens were born in exile. — Chechnya: the empire strikes back (2000)

The TOS-1 is a heavy-duty sucker

:o

But...beer?

Putin seems to kick others around sort of effortlessly.

Old playbook, like in 1938, when Hitler kicked the UK and France around, and thus forced then-Czechoslovakia to surrender the Sudetenland.
Something like 3 million Germans lived there, that apparently were happy about being assimilated by Germany.
Well, until 1945 when they were kicked out, then they got rather unhappy the story goes.
Before the Germans moved in, the Nazi regime had spread horror stories about the ever so horrible treatment of the Sudeten Germans by the government in Prague.
Propaganda circulated, attitudes installed, population "prepared" and roused, or perhaps "kicked" about if you will, though kicked differently than the "weaklings" in London and Paris.

Not identical situations of course, but similar enough playbook-wise.
Sure hope the fallouts won't be.

Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it. — Santayana

(once again)

I just wanted to hear a clear condemnation of the coming bloodshed. That's all. — frank

:up:

, invites to discuss:

Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: ‘Is curing patients a sustainable business model?’ (Apr 11, 2018)

One of those things where unchecked capitalism can go awry (say, the tragedy of the commons being another example)?
@Isaac, for one, has aired industry scandals.
How to respond?

In the interest of including/weighing different takes, here's Tony Kevin:
Ukraine shrinks again (Feb 23, 2022)

Yet,
• did Ukraine threaten with invading Russia?
• were there regular/significant (perhaps state-sanctioned) human rights violations in Ukraine (e.g. against Russians or others)?
• did Ukraine close borders (e.g. for Russians or Russian reporters or everyone), stomp free press to (presumably) hide something?
* did the Ukrainian people at large want Russia to invade (or rescue them)?
• did the Russian people at large push (Putin) to invade Ukraine?

After all, we're talking invasion here, war stuff, plain aggression.

I haven't heard much from Russian politicians opposing Putin here, but haven't looked much either.
Should any there may be live in fear?
(I'm fairly confident Tony Kevin doesn't.)

Bluff called. — Benkei

Nice picture in a satirist Dutch newspaper today of a tank and captioned: "Russian tank drives straight through a really heavy sanction". — Benkei

It's military show of force, or shut up...? :/

Heard rumors that other countries were thinking of sending military aid to countries bordering Russia.

Couldn't Russia just join NATO? :D

How on earth would you know? — Isaac

Not going to go over your seemingly epistemic relativism once again, apparently cool with carelessness, in particular not if it could put my aging parents at risk.

Had some careless anti-masker infected my aging parents, then I'd be rather unhappy. Wouldn't you be? — jorndoe

Well?

Banned/suppressed, ? No; well, I'd prefer not to. (Might start talking about free speech for that matter I guess.) Discourse is part of figuring things out.

On the other hand, dissidents crippling moving forward is irresponsible, especially in public health, especially with a situation on our hands. (Some dissidents stop listening to others, while insisting that others must hear them.)

Had some careless anti-masker infected my aging parents, then I'd be rather unhappy. Wouldn't you be? And I wouldn't care if they waved a couple of hand-picked articles, while ignoring many others (or ignoring common sense, or being respectful, for that matter). That's what it looks like here in real life.

something like: masks can help (when used right).

, don't put words in my mouth. Add don't forget to mask up appropriately, where appropriate. :mask:


On a different note, someone out there posted this:

markdown — jorndoe

Sorry, markdown is just plain text, a simple format that can represent some formatting and links and such. Can be saved and opened as any other plain text file.

Who's 'we' here? — Isaac

We is euphemistically anyone operating bona fides. Aren't you? (Like concern for each other?)

This is the [...] — Isaac

... which together with the rest (some of which were listed), taken together, tell us where things are at. Not sure why anyone would call that pathetic. :shrug: However tediously long, Russell and Patterson make good points (also mentions *cough* motivated reasoning).

I can't access this site — Isaac

Attached as markdown to retain links.

evidence and concluding that, for you, masks are the best bet — Isaac

For me? It's a social thing. I'm not aware of many masking up when on their own. You honestly think you live in a different world, however it works doesn't apply to you?

like the truth of the matter for example :gasp: — jorndoe

... doesn't depend on he-said-she-said, rather, the discourse is to figure it out bona fides, that's kind of the reason for the discussions in the first place, resulting in practicalities. :mask:

it's downright irresponsible when there's a public health emergency that needs a serious clear-headed response. — Isaac

Irresponsible indeed. And, indeed, serious clear-headed and in everyone's best interest, concern for each other. :mask:

something like: masks can help (when used right). — jorndoe

^{(Maybe go back to covering the scandals?)}

Yet the discourse has been framed unhelpfully as a meaningless oversimplification: “masks work” versus “masks don’t work.” — Russell and Patterson

Should be something like: masks can help (when used right).
The politicized rabble and ideological opinions, don't somehow change the facts/evidence. :shrug:
So what if I have to mask up while out on the town?
Dissidence for dissidence's sake is teenage politics/behavior, mala fides.
We do our best to figure things out bona fides, like the truth of the matter for example :ghasp:, and take it from there.
Hopefully we can get over the hurdle, the sooner the better, without unnecessarily risking lives, or whatever some caution might have prevented.


^{• How efficient are facial masks against COVID-19? Evaluating the mask use of various communities one year into the pandemic (Jul 21, 2021)
• Surgical masks reduce COVID-19 spread, large-scale study shows (Sep 1, 2021)
• (meta) Do face masks work? Here are 49 scientific studies that explain why they do (Sep 17, 2021)
• Why We Need to Upgrade Our Face Masks—and Where to Get Them (Sep 30, 2021)
• What’s the best MASK to protect me from the Delta variant? (Oct 6, 2021)
• An Ocean Away, I Found Some Common Sense on Mask Wearing (Oct 12, 2021)
• How well masks protect (Dec 2, 2021)
• Face mask fit modifications that improve source control performance (Dec 15, 2021)
• N95, KN95 Or Cloth Masks? What To Wear To Best Protect Against Omicron (Jan 10, 2022)
• What Do Masks Do to Kids? (Feb 7, 2022)
• Children and COVID-19: State-Level Data Report}

Well, that's just great. :/

Ukraine conflict: Rebels declare general mobilisation as fighting grows (Feb 19, 2022)

Have you ever had your bank account frozen for participating in a protest? — NOS4A2

Do you mean those GoFundMe accounts?

... scrolled by the other day.

The protests have been so peaceful that the Ottawa had to make honking illegal in order to impose any punishment. — NOS4A2

The lives of local residents were interrupted by the noise.
There were counter-protests and locals that wanted them to quit keeping them up at night.
They spoke, were heard, interviewed, discussions took place; now they're no longer interested in that, only that others hear them.

• 5G and QAnon: how conspiracy theorists steered Canada’s anti-vaccine trucker protest (The Guardian; Feb 8, 2022)
• There Is Nothing Normal about One Million People Dead from COVID (Scientific American; Feb 10, 2022)

I'd kind of like to conclude my personal pandemic tracker, it's getting long.
Juvenile adults doing theatrics ain't helping.

, if ineffable, then what's up with all the preaching anyway...? Weird.

π is accurate, no need to start typing the decimal (base-10) representation.

π has no last decimal digit, just like 1/3 and 1/7, for example.



π = C/d

:D

:D

There are enough people out there that assent to neverending damnation, not just in the US.
Anyone that doesn't - kudos - good for you. :up:

On occasion someone asks you

Why not accept the free gift of salvation?

only to threaten with the above if someone puts them on the spot.
Call them fringe or cult if you like, or distance yourself from them.
Has little bearing on Lewis' point.

If anyone wants to witch-hunt the assenters, then they're no better.
At some point someone ought be/come better, and yaay some have. :up:

Sucks.

The observed association between diabetes and COVID-19 might be attributed to the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on organ systems involved in diabetes risk. — Risk for Newly Diagnosed Diabetes ›30 Days After SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Persons Aged ‹18 years — United States, March 1, 2020–June 28, 2021

We'd want to know if vaccination or something else makes a difference, or whether mere contact with SARS-CoV-2 can trigger diabetes regardless. Vaccination making a difference seems plausible, since a similar difference in emergence of diabetes hasn't been noticed at large, but this would have to be backed by numbers. Adding diabetes to possible effects kind of sucks; knowing with more certainty whether vaccination, COVID-19 disease or something else makes a difference would be helpful.

Who is writing your posts? [...] — baker

You need to differentiate the writer and what's written (the topic at hand).
If this was a personal heart-to-heart over an intimate dinner by the candlelight, then it might be different.
And

(don't want to veer off on a side-track though) — jorndoe

In analogy, here are some reports pertaining to a particular topic (the second coming, end-time prophecy, the rapture, "the signs", incentives, priorities):

^{• in 2006, a fifth of Christians believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime: Christians’ Views on the Return of Christ (2009)
• Millions of Evangelical Christians Want to Start World War III … to Speed Up the Second Coming (2012)
• Half of evangelicals support Israel because they believe it is important for fulfilling end-times prophecy (2018)
• For many evangelicals, Jerusalem is about prophecy, not politics (2018)
• The Rapture and the Real World: Mike Pompeo Blends Beliefs and Policy (2019)
• The Evangelicals Who Pray for War With Iran (2020)
• Evangelicals Love Donald Trump for Many Reasons, But One of Them Is Especially Terrifying (2020)
• Vast Majority of Pastors See Signs of End Times in Current Events (2020)}

Not really an irrelevant minority on the fringe. Sometimes such beliefs turn to actions turn to everyone's concern.

It's easy to dismiss such beliefs as "stupid cult", "no self-respecting adherent believes that", etc. I know (and interact with) some of them; there's more to come by than the listed examples. Fortunately, many of them respect "the law of the land", at least unless their beliefs gain some wider traction.