Life goes on

 Pay attention to me!  Jealous of the war in Europe, North Korea lobbed a missile harmlessly into the Sea of Japan.  Again.

Bars and liquor stores are removing Russian vodka from shelves and in some cases pouring it down the sink.  That should stop Putin.  But can we still listen to Tchaikovsky?

War in the twenty-first century:  Volodymyr Zelensky found time to "follow" Madonna yesterday after she posted a supportive video on Instagram.

The Ukrainian president told other Americans who offered to evacuate him, "I need ammunition, not a ride."  In response, Germany is sending 500 Stinger missiles and a thousand antitank weapons.  Hungary is supporting all EU sanctions and Turkey is considering blocking Russian ships from the Black Sea.  The French navy "escorted" a Russian ship in the Channel to Boulogne with its cargo of cars.  

Happy to get out from under "Partygate" if only for a while, Boris Johnson told the Russians, "I do not believe this war is in your name."  In Russian, which was, I gotta say, impressive.

For those who couldn't get into CPAC -- imagine! -- Nick Fuentes organized America First Political Action Conference in Orlando, the Nuremberg of the South.  His star attraction was Empty Greene, who claims not to know about his white nationalist views but has little else to occupy her.  "Now they're going on about Russia and Putin is Hitler -- they say that's not a good thing," said Fuentes (three guesses who "they" are).  Greene told the brethren they must "stop the Democrats who are the Communist Party of the United States."  She then said she is opposed to Putin and threw in some tested laugh lines ("Fire Fauci!  Investigate Hillary Clinton's campaign!  Lock her up!") and an attack on this year's BLM, transgendered people, before staggering away.  (Did Fuentes provide an open bar?)

Between paying Trump's legal bills and bulk-buying the literary output of his spawn and enablers, the Republican Party may have trouble keeping the lights on this spring.  What will they do about Bill Barr's forthcoming One Damn Thing After Another, a 600-page account of his two years as attorney general?  According to the Wall Street Journal it's pretty heretical, stating that Trump has "neither the temperament nor the persuasive powers" to lead the great backward movement entrusted to him, and that "the election was not 'stolen.'  Trump lost it."  (He could have said that before the insurrection but characteristically kept quiet.)  Is it wrong that I want to read the fat-shaming nickname his ex-boss is working on?

Which is pretty funny coming from a load like Trump.  Lucky CPAC guests were treated to a junk food meal before last night's rant featuring his trademark cheap-ass Mickey D cheeseburgers.  He's always had an elaborate theory about how chain restaurant food is somehow cleaner than individually prepared meals, which could well be based on the number of people who would gladly flavor his burnt steak with various bodily substances.  Of course the Chipotle chain had to close 2,000 restaurants in 2016 after repeated outbreaks of food poisoning, but Trump probably blamed Mexico.

In other hospitality news, the Pravda Brewery in Lviv has suspended beer production and is making Molotov cocktails instead, the fastest and most impressive re-tooling since Ford shifted from cars to B-24s in 1942.  Can't confirm but I'm told the labels say "Putin is a dickhead."

Nigel Farage also showed up at CPAC before a bemused crowd that didn't quite know how to take his suggestion that they get over the "stolen election" crap and move on.  "I'm not allowed to say 'Let's go Brandon' because it's rude.  So let's go Brandon!" he added, confusing them even more.  The old man seemed genuinely hurt that his good friend Putin is making such a mess of things, and called Black Lives Matter "openly Marxist."  I always thought they did a good job of hiding it.  But then, I thought the white nationalists would have tired of the Brandon "joke" by now.  Were they trained by Pavlov?

Remember covid?  Two studies by international scientists have concluded that it originated in the wet market as originally thought, not the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  This will have no effect on the nippleheads of the "blame Jyna" axis, but perhaps it will slow attacks on Asian people in the US.  

When the USSR went out of business in 1991, Ukraine found itself with the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world.  They returned all the warheads to Russia in exchange for Crimea, over which they have already been betrayed.  So when Russia's nuclear "deterrent" forces were put on alert, the world wondered exactly what it planned to deter.  It's no secret that Putin's plan to "kick in the door" and bring down the whole structure has run into a snag, much like the German plan back in the 1940s.  So many civilians from all over have expressed a desire to fight that Zelensky announced the formation of a new International Brigade like the one that went to Spain in 1936, and the UK foreign secretary expressed support even though it would violate an 1870 law for Britons to join.  (They never prosecuted George Orwell -- they erected a statue of him in front of the BBC.)  Could Putin be crazy enough to plan a war with NATO?  Is he really suffering from a combination of paranoia and Parkinson's?  

It's far from over.