Category Archives: International news

International news

Putin won’t surrender, however …

Let’s not be swept away by reports of how Russian invaders are being “bogged down” in their advance toward key cities in Ukraine as this hideous ground war slogs on.

The Russian army is not about to raise the white flag of surrender, accept terms dictated by Ukraine and then skulk back across the border to the Motherland. However …

This is not to dismiss the tons of good will and support that is falling on the Ukrainians who are fighting for their lives and for the life of their sovereign country. The love is coming from throughout the world.

President Biden is tightening the economic screws on Russia, its oligarchs and certainly on the dictator, Vladimir Putin, who well might have reached a bit beyond his grasp by invading Ukraine in an effort to reel the nation back into what is left of the Russian empire.

Intelligence reports tell us of morale problems among Russian soldiers who marched into Ukraine believing it would be a cakewalk. We hear about Ukrainian forces shooting down Russian aircraft (fixed-wing and helicopters). The ghastliest reports of all tell us of Russian ordnance falling on hospitals, schools, houses of worship, inflicting grievous casualties on helpless civilians, including children.

Vladimir Putin doesn’t strike me as someone who gives a sh** about worldwide public opinion. He damn sure should care, though, about the opinion of Russians who hear the bad news from the media about what is going on in Ukraine.

Will the Russian populace rise up to protest what the strongman is doing? How inept leadership has relegated Russia to third-rate economic power status?

I don’t expect Putin to end the monstrous invasion in the next day or two. The longer this man’s military cluster-hump goes on, though, the worse he looks. As near as I can tell, Putin’s ego cannot tolerate the battering it is taking as the invasion he launched continues to fall short of the expectation he set for it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news, International news

Get set to pay … a lot!

I am swallowing hard as I ponder what I want to say about this, but … here goes. I am ready to pay a lot more for motor fuel if a U.S. ban on Russian oil can bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

President Biden is set to announce a total cutoff of crude oil from Russia. The announcement will come later today, just as the president comes to Fort Worth to talk about veterans’ issues.

Gosh, do you think he’ll field any questions about the Russian oil ban? More to the point, do you think he’ll answer them?

The POTUS has been getting plenty of pressure to “do more” to make the Russians come to what’s left of their senses. The dictator Vladimir Putin has launched a full-scale, unprovoked, bloody and senseless attack on a sovereign nation at Russia’s doorstep. Oil revenue is funding this invasion. The United States happens to be a prime consumer of Russian oil.

President Biden is about to tell the world that the nation he governs is no longer going to purchase that fossil fuel. The consequence undoubtedly will be a continued spike in the price of petroleum products.

I am prepared to pay it if it helps bring an end to the bloodshed.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

End of Russian space flights on tap?

Holy crap! I hadn’t thought of this, but one of the casualties of the Russian invasion of Ukraine might be the Russian space program that ferries astronauts from other countries — including the United States — to the International Space Station.

You see, many nations are pulling far away from Russia as it seeks to conquer Ukraine in a senseless and seemingly pointless — but bloody — invasion. That means U.S. astronauts, who have no way to fly into space, given our nation’s ending of its manned space program, will have no way to rocket into orbit.

I am an avid follower of the space effort and I want to see Americans orbiting our good Earth. I also want the war in Ukraine to cease, ending the bloodshed and heartache.

Former astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year aboard the ISS after being flown there aboard a Russian rocket, predicts the Russian space program could collapse if the Russians have no one else to take into space. Hey, we pay ’em good money to fly our people into orbit; so do other nations.

Vladimir Putin has yet another reason to call a halt to this brain-dead invasion.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

War grabs media’s attention

War has this way of grabbing everyone’s attention, even yanking other compelling stories off the front page, pushing them off the air, relegating them to “old news.”

So it is these days with a ground war erupting in Ukraine. Russian armed forces have invaded a neighboring, sovereign nation on the orders of dictator Vladimir Putin. Media around the world are reporting on it to us who want to know how this war will play out.

I am unsure how I feel about our limited attention span. I remain deeply interested in the congressional inquiry into the cause of the 1/6 insurrection. Moreover, I want to know how the House committee is progressing in its search for the truth. It will get there in due course and I plan to be waiting with bated breath when the panel reaches its finish line.

President Biden has an aggressive agenda to help boost our already-recovering economy. It is stalled in the Senate. I want to know whether the president can parlay his extensive legislative experience into working out a compromise that can push the Build Better Back bill — or some facsimile of it — to a fruitful conclusion.

There remains a boatload of issues to be resolved, if only congressional Republicans can find a way to work the Democratic president instead of obstructing him at every turn.

OK, so all of that will still be there once our attention looks elsewhere, once we remove our gaze from Ukraine. I want that moment to arrive sooner rather than later. Not because I lust for a chance to see all those matters resolve … but because I want an end to the bloodshed.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Putin = sociopath

As the world recoils in horror at the sights and sounds coming from Ukraine for the past few days, I am left only to conclude that we are witnessing the results of a dictator’s sociopathic proclivity.

Vladimir Putin launched a war against Ukraine, running up those proverbial “false flags” that suggest ethnic Russians were somehow in danger and that Ukraine was being run by Nazis.

Putin has ignored what has been considered the modern “normal conduct” of warfare. Instead of targeting strictly military installations, the Russian goon has ordered the bombing of civilian targets. Office buildings, apartments, residential neighborhoods. They all contain helpless, defenseless civilians … including children.

The sociopath is committing crimes against humanity.

For what purpose? To bring Ukraine back into the Russian fold. Putin seems to have decided that Ukraine is his for the taking. So, he’s going to take it.

This is a dangerous individual. This is the guy the immediate past president of the United States courted. He told us it would be better if we were “friends” with Putin than to face him on the other side of a shooting war. Sure thing. However, Putin acted not out of defiance of this country, but out of greed and a lust to return Russia to its recent authoritarian heritage rooted in the Marxist ideology that gave us the Soviet Union.

He seemingly cares nothing about the world’s reaction to his cruelty. My dog-eared dictionary describes a “sociopath” as someone who exhibits “aggressive anti-social behavior.”

Does that fit Vladimir Putin? Looks that way to me.

He’s a danger to the entire world.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news, International news

Keep it in perspective

I couldn’t resist sharing this item that showed up on my social media feed this evening. I never really know who comes up with these gems; I do learn something from them.

My lesson here? It is that the pain, suffering, bloodshed, misery, anxiety, mourning and grief that Ukrainians are feeling at this moment put every little petty annoyance we might have in their proper place.

Gas prices going up? I don’t like it any more than the next person. However, it is good to keep some matters in context — such as what this message suggests we do.

More than 1 million Ukrainians reportedly have fled their country ahead of the Russian military onslaught initiated by the madman Vladimir Putin. Those who have stayed behind to fight the Russians are putting their lives in dire peril.

I won’t like paying more for the fuel that goes into my truck. However, I don’t believe I should bitch about it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Tough to watch these scenes

My old age is showing, as I am finding it increasingly difficult to watch the televised images from Ukraine that show the entire world what Russian military forces are doing to those who live in a country those forces are seeking to conquer.

They make me very angry. No, I am not going to suit up and go to war, fighting alongside the Ukrainians. I am way too old for that.

I just become enraged when I hear rhetoric from those who suggest that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should just give in to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s demands … whatever the hell he intends.

Putin has launched a humanitarian crisis in Europe not seen since World War II. The Ukrainians are trying to defend their country against naked, bald-faced aggression. Putin, who once ran the Soviet spy agency the KGB, once told Barbara Walters that he didn’t order anyone’s death while serving as the Evil Empire’s top spook, that he was more of an “analyst.” Do you believe him? Hah! Neither do I.

I am not sure I can stomach much more of this, not that it matters to anyone at the center of the fight. I just am left to vent my frustration and rage via this platform and hope it somehow trickles into the decision rooms of those who are committing these war crimes.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Another ‘big lie’ surfaces

You might remember a fellow the U.S. media dubbed “Baghdad Bob,” the Iraqi disinformation minister who insisted the Iraqis were winning on the battlefield during 1991’s Operation Desert Storm even as we could witness in real time Iraqi armor being destroyed by our tanks and Iraqi soldiers surrendering by the thousands to our troops.

Vladimir Putin has ripped a page from ol’ Baghdad Bob’s book of lies by suggesting that Ukraine posed a legitimate threat to Russia, that Ukraine is being run by neo-Nazis who detest the Russians. Therein lies Putin’s supposed justification for launching an unprovoked war against Ukraine.

Just as Baghdad Bob was proven to be the fool, so will Vladimir Putin be revealed as the liar he is, as there is no Nazi involvement in Ukraine’s government. I shall remind you that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and whose family members perished during the Nazi Holocaust in the 1940s.

So, for Vladimir Putin to suggest that Zelenskyy is a closet Nazi would be laughable on its face … except that people are dying in what has becoming the largest land war in Europe since World War II. No one should laugh at anything that comes from Vladimir Putin’s mouth.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

business news, environmental news, International news, local news, national news

Long-term solution needs attention

The immediate impact of the world’s current crisis in Ukraine has been profound and powerful with the skyrocketing cost of fossil fuels — the gasoline and diesel we pour into our motor vehicles to get us from place to place.

It is affecting our plans here in North Texas, forcing my wife and me to rethink our travel plans as we move through this challenging year.

With that I want to offer a brief look at how this nation ought to deal with the immediate crisis. We ought not worry ourselves sick over immediate solutions but look ahead farther down the proverbial road at longer-term fixes. I refer to “green energy.”

We still consume a lot of oil-based products we pump out of the ground. That energy source is finite. There’s only so much of it we can remove from beneath Earth’s surface. Once it’s gone, it’s gone … forever.

Texas, though, has taken the lead on renewable energy sources, along with continuing to be among the world’s leaders in producing fossil fuels. We are continuing to invest in wind energy and in solar energy.

As far as I can tell, that old wind is going to keep blowing until the end of time. Take it from me, as someone who spent 23 years on the West Texas Caprock, I am well-acquainted with the power of wind and the potential it brings to keep the lights on. Any kilowatt hour we can generate from a wind turbine takes away what we need to produce from fossil fuel.

The Russians keep talking about cutting off oil supplies to Europe and beyond. The United States still imports some oil from Russia. If the Russians make good on a threat to cut us off, too, then the price is going to skyrocket to even higher levels.

The climate-change deniers debunk green energy as the stuff of washed-up hippies. Baloney! It is a serious alternative to the way we fuel our current lifestyle. Is there a short-term repair to the damage we are feeling at this moment? Not really. If we look at the longer term, we can keep our eyes on the bigger prize, which is the harvesting of energy from endless sources.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Warmongers beware!

Our world is full of too many warmongers who either have no appreciation of the brutality of war’s insanity or who — to put it bluntly — just don’t a crap about any of it.

Count me as one who (a) does appreciate the brutality of war and (b) gives a serious crap about its consequences.

Russian troops and tanks are battling with Ukrainian troops and tanks over who should run Ukraine, an independent nation that borders Russia and much of the rest of eastern Europe. I am baffled to the max over criticism from the far right over President Biden’s response to the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine.

For my money — and this is just me speaking — I believe the president has reacted appropriately. And yet there are those who say we should “do more” to defend Ukraine. That would be what, precisely? Send in the jet fighters? Join in defending a no-fly zone over much of Ukraine, which I should add is an act of war all by itself? Send in the thousands of troops we have deployed to Poland to fight the Russians hand to hand?

The array of economic sanctions this country has imposed on Russia will deliver serious pain to the strongman Vladimir Putin and his oligarch pals and allies. We have essentially choked off Russia from the rest of the Free World’s banking system. Joe Biden has declared there will be no Russian aircraft allowed in U.S. airspace. Our allies in western Europe have shut off the fossil fuel pipeline from Russia; yes, we already are paying the price for that with increasing energy prices.

The Russians have a lot of very deadly weapons in stock. We do, too. We aren’t going to use them on the Russians, nor will they use them on us. The “mutually assured destruction” policy has been dredged up and returned to the top shelf, as it would be pure MADness to start hurling nukes at each other.

The warmongers out there need to take a breather and let these economic sanctions play out. They’re already bringing plenty of pain to Putin and his cabal of thugs.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com