Posts by Russell Brown
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Couple more, just as the last walkers were arriving.
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The panoramas (uploaded at full resolution).
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The Auckland march was fabulous. I missed the walk up Queen Street (I was e-waste recycling), but got to Myers Park just as the final marchers were arriving.
The event in the park had a lovely vibe and the speakers were strong, positive and to the point. It was hard to get a handle on the crowd because people spread out, but certainly more than 2000.
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Hard News: The next four years, in reply to Russell Brown,
And another one.
EPA scientists are rushing to save climate data available to the public on their website, after being told it would be removed.
This is a war on knowledge. It's evil.
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Up Front: Walk This Way, in reply to mark taslov,
That is genuinely heartening Russell. I had to google and I’m pleased I did.
Pani's way cool.
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Wow. The US Labor Department's Women's Bureau has suddenly and without explanation put up a link for people to download all its resources. Which strongly suggests a fear that those resources might not be there for long. Far out. -
Meanwhile, it emerges that Trump's pick for Treasury Secretary failed to declare $100 million in assets. His excuse is that the forms were "very complicated".
Satire is dead.
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Hard News: The next four years, in reply to Bart Janssen,
The eastern European states are nervous for very good reasons, nothing about Putin’s leadership gives them any reason to trust Russia. Moreover the sanctions and changes in oil prices have put Russia in a very shaky economic position – the Russian economy is stuffed, that puts pressure on Putin and nobody is really sure how he will react. Annexing another bit of eastern Europe seems to be a strategy that Putin likes to use to distract from internal problems.
According to people who study and report on this stuff, that's exactly what has happened. Putin has used his overwhelming control of the media (most notably television) to foment a particularly toxic strain of nationalism to distract public attention from the tanking economy. (Which isn't only tanking because of oil prices and sanctions – pervasive corruption is taking down many legitimate businesses.)
It's also very bad for the people of the republics that didn't get out when the USSR broke up. Russia is really not a good place to be any kind of minority.
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Hard News: The next four years, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
True. But actually, I’d incline to the view that Europe would be more secure if the Baltics and Poland were neutral and secure by treaty (like Austria after 1955) and there was a demilitarised buffer between Russian and NATO forces.
But how would you secure such a buffer against little green men? i.e.: the forces that Russia continues to insist don't exist and aren't in Ukraine?
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Hard News: The next four years, in reply to Luke Williamson,
I’m still struggling with the evil Russia syndrome. There is nothing I like about Vlad Putin but his posturing on the borders of Europe is matched by NATO posturing. They are both adding troops and missiles, and attempting to sway bordering countries politics with equal enthusiasm.
Big difference: the countries on Russia’s border are asking for NATO protection. They’re terrified by Russia moving nuclear-capable missiles into Kalingrad.
There seems little doubt that the arrival of more NATO troops in Poland is popular there.
And Putin’s response – that Poland “is not even a European state” – will only have strengthened that view. It’s precisely what the Ukraine conflict is about.
Imagine if, today, Russia was actively recruiting countries in South America to it’s “defence” league
Estonian civilians aren't signing up with paramilitary forces because America is "recruiting" them though. It's for the same reason that Lithuania is erecting a fence along its border with Kalingrad – to try and block the expected entry of Russian special forces.
Your example of the conflict in Syria would be a prime example of casting Russia as evil but ignoring the role of the USA in the current conflict, or Europe in the development of the whole sh*t show that is the Middle East.
American adventurism has a huge amount to do, historically, with the shitshow in Syria. But it’s Russia that’s been bombing civilian populations for the past two years and Assad who’s been using chemical weapons on his own people. They’re the ones committing war crimes right now.
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