Maybe We Shouldn't Buy Any Green Bananas, For Now

This morning, I went for a hike in a forested park that is owned by a local open space association. The wind was up, a little bit. The temperature was a little lower than average for this time of year. As I walked down one of the trails, a female dove landed about fifteen yards in front of me and began foraging at the edge of the trail. I stopped to watch her, then moved up a little as she walked along the edge, stopping to nab something here and there. Eventually, I wiggled my trekking pole and she flew away.

The Sun was shining through the trees. Both the trees and the ground cover were beginning to green up. Other birds were chirping. The other sounds were the wind moving through the trees and distant traffic.

I live fairly close to two possible nuclear targets. Assuming a 800kt warhead, depending on which one gets hit, I'm in either the thermal zone or one of the overpressure zones, maybe both. It occurred to me that there is a non-zero chance that neither I, nor the park in which I was hiking, will see another spring in anything close to the same condition as today.

And then, I read this:

Vladimir Putin has been working himself up to do...something. V-E day fell on the ninth of May in Moscow, just a minute after midnight, and it's still a big deal in Russia.

I expect that by the end of that day this year, Russia will have taken some kind of dramatic action.

I sure hope that she is wrong. The West is doing what it must, there is nothing to be gained by letting a European dictator conquer his enighboring nation due to claims of lebensraum or ethnic unity. Sooner or later, such a dictator has to be dealt with, militarily, and sooner is better.

Putin is a bully. One thing life teaches everyone, eventually, is that bullies only respect a mailed fist. That was true in Arkansas Missouri and it's true here. But Russian history has shown that Russian leaders who lose wars don't survive in office for very long. It's not impossible that Putin may decide that, rather than be turfed out to a remote dacha (or be shot) that he would rather pull down the rest of the world with him.

Well, as RobertaX says, we'll probably know in eleven days.