Why Russia Has the US by the Shorties Over Ukraine

One word: Afghanistan.

The "Northern Distribution Network" runs through Russia. The Pakistan route has been unreliable.

The Administration has said that it would be "grave mistake" for Russia to move on Ukraine. But our interest in keeping the northern supply lies to Afghanistan open will probably surpass any annoyance that we may have over whatever Russia does to Ukraine.

Ukraine isn't bound to us by any treaty that I am aware of. With Yanukovych claiming that he is still the rightful president of Ukraine, if he invites the Russians to act, they may have all the cover that they feel that they need.

UPDATE: In a comment, Snowdog posted a link to a Daily Mail story which claims that the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 obligates the UK and US to go to war over Ukraine. The problem for the Daily Mail is one of reading comprehension. The text of the Budapest Memorandum does no such thing. All it pledges us to do is not use an economic lever against the Ukrainians, to not nuke them, to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity and, in the event of aggression against Ukraine, to trot immediately to the UN Security Council and seek a resolution to do something.

Which, as everyone who signed the Memorandum knew in 1994, and which the Daily Mail could apparently not comprehend now, would mean nothing if the Russians moved into Ukraine. Because the Russians have a permanent seat on the Security Council and have the power to veto anything that is being considered by that august body.

Go read it if you like, and judge for yourself. It's not a long document.

Because It's Friday

Finnish steam:

Our Comfortable Black Hole

Are we living inside of a black hole?

As I gather, this is the concept: At the center of a black hole is a singularity. Singularities are thought to be extremely dense and extremely tiny.

But a singularity can explode. One did, nearly 14 billion years ago, and we live in the universe that was created by that event.

So suppose that the singularity at the center of a black hole did explode. Since nothing that moves slower than the speed of light can (in theory) escape a black hole, would the resultant universe be contained inside of the event horizon of the black hole?

If somehow we could slip past the event horizon of a black hole and then return, would we discover that what we thought to be a black hole was instead, another universe? And if we could travel faster than the speed of light and go beyond the edge of our own universe, would we then find ourselves in a much vaster universe?

Or would crossing the event horizon of a black hole, or of our own universe, be a dimensional shift and the size of the new universes that we found ourselves in would seem to be about the same as our own? Is the "final frontier" truly that final?

Would the heat death of the universe, from another viewpoint, be the same as the evaporation of a black hole?*
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* Not that I understand any of the math.

Take Away Barney Fife's Bullets, Please

Because they're now shooting senior citizens for the heinous crime of being disabled:

A police officer in South Carolina shot a 70-year-old motorist who was reaching for a cane during a traffic stop because he thought the man was grabbing a rifle from the bed of his pickup truck, investigators said. The man was expected to survive.

I suppose this could be good for a rant of how this shooting is Yet Another Example of How the Police Regard Themselves as an Occupying Army.

But let's take another tack and call ol' Barney into a classroom.

OK, Barney, let's do a bit of visual recognition training, shall we? Ready? There will be a test at the end.

Happy Mahashivaratri

(What it's about)

I wonder if in India, whether or not they have a cable news network that is shrieking about the "War on Mahashivaratri". I would not be a bit surprised if they do.

A Bit of Humor for Farmer Frank

ST. LOUIS—Agricultural biotech giant Monsanto unveiled its latest strain of genetically modified corn Wednesday, claiming that the new, hardier seed yields 400 percent more litigation against small independent farms than the company’s previous GMO products.

Might be humor, but it's awfully close to reality.

A Real CLM (and Always Will Be), and Other DoD News

NAPLES, Italy — The Navy relieved the commander of the USS Taylor on Tuesday, about two weeks after the Florida-based frigate ran aground in the Black Sea.

Not much to say about that one.

On another note, there's probably lots coming out about the planned postwar defense cutbacks. Anyone who didn't see this coming must have been smoking a lot of crack, for that's just the way it is.

No big surprise that the Army is going to take it in the shorts. They always do.

 What's also not a surprise is that the Air Force is going to try, yet again, to kill off the A-10, the best ground attack airplane in the world. Because the Air Force has always hated that airplane. It's not supersonic, it doesn't have swept wings and its not designed for air-to-air combat. So rather than having an airplane designed for close-air support, and one that is built to take the punishment such a role can mete out, the AF will probably want to use the F-35 for CAS.

Right. Use a $300 million dollar airplane for CAS, my ass. They're not ever going to fly it close enough to the ground to get shot at by a MANPAD, let alone a Dushka or some flavor of ZSU. The only utility for CAS that the F-35 will have will be the same as another drone: Dropping smart bombs from very high up and far away.

Better that they take the A-10 and give it to the Army.

The stupid zoomies also want to scrap the U-2s, even though the drone that those fools planned to replace them with turned out to be more expensive to fly than a U-2.

(And let's disestablish the Air Force, while they're at it.)

In Lieu of Whatever

Minus fifty couth points if you thought of this while listening to the Liberty Bell.

"Fuck You For Your Service"-- Stay Classy, Wisconsin Los Angeles

UPDATED: Title changes as El Putzo worked out of Randstad's Los Angeles office.

So there's this putz by the name of Sergio Ortiz, a recruiter at Randstad, which was contracted to run the hiring for some company in Stevens Point, WI. A young Army veteran named Gabriella Barrett applied for a customer service job at the company.

Sergio Ortiz, in an email exchange, told her that he didn't understand why she had listed her Army service time, as that was meaningless to him. When she got into a discussion about it with Ortiz, he wrote her in an e-mail: “I believe you choose to go into the Army for a paycheck not my freedom. So you will not be getting a thank you from me. I would have freedom regardless of your voluntary service.”

Nice going, Ortiz. The draft ended in 1973. Everyone serving since 1975 has done so voluntarily, as well as those serving since 1946 in the Navy and Air Force. All of the men and women who came home from Iraq and Afghanistan in transit cases volunteered to go. The men and women in the military and VA hospitals all volunteered to go over there. The men and women who will deal with injuries for the rest of their lives, including closed-head brain injuries, all volunteered to go. Besides the casualties of the two most recent wars, the Marines killed in the Beirut bombing, the airmen killed in Khobar Towers bombing, the men and women who were killed or maimed in actions large and small, the aircrew of Ranger 12, the crews of the USS Thresher and Scorpion and those killed or injured in training accidents of one kind or another all volunteered.

No doubt it goes deeper. If a firefighter were to save Ortiz from a burning building, ol' Sergio would probably just harrumph and say "yer only doing yer job."

And I'll bet that he's a shitty tipper, as well.

Anyway, as soon as this story hit, the folks at Randstand burned skid-marks in the carpet as they rushed to shove Ortiz out the door. Might have something to do with the fact that Randstand is a Dutch company, and if it hadn't been for the U.S. Army, the language spoken today in their headquarters town of Diemen would be German (or Russian).

Here's the thing, kids: You can be an asshole. But if you're an asshole and you go on record in a company email as being an asshole, you might end up being fired. And as JayG points out, that sort of digital stupidity will follow you forever.

Ukraine: Russians Laying the Groundwork?

Ukraine's new acting government is not legitimate, Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has said. "If people crossing Kiev in black masks and Kalashnikov rifles are considered a government, it will be difficult for us to work with such a government," the prime minister said. ... "There is a real threat to our interests and to the lives of our citizens," he said. "There are big doubts about the legitimacy of a whole series of organs of power that are now functioning there."

In other words:

"They've got to be protected, all their rights respected, `till somebody we like can be elected."

Medvedev doesn't say a word without Putin's approval. The drums are beginning to beat in Moscow. There will be some incident in Sevastopol or elsewhere in eastern Ukraine which will serve as the justification for a Russian intervention.