On Wordle #261, and Day 11 of Russian Attack on Ukraine...

This was fun...

Wordle 261 3/6

🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜

⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

As the Russian siege of Ukraine continues, dragging on for 11 days now, one has to wonder how long Putin can keep up the façade. The exodus of foreign businesses accelerates. Following Visa and Mastercard, Amex now suspends operations in Russia too. Weaponry is flowing into Ukraine resistance. I find it almost amusing to see that Putin whines about the West canceling Russia with all the exodus. Well, what does he expect? What a dickhead.

And finally, the public and world at large might be succeeding in shaming Joe Biden to finally consider embargo of Russian oil, just to make a stance. But read this:

    Biden has been “very clear about one thing all along as well, which is we’re not going to put the United States in direct conflict with Russia," he said, noting that "if you declare a space 'no fly,' and a Russian plane flies through it, it means we have to shoot it down."

    "For everything we’re doing for Ukraine, the president also has a responsibility to not get us into a direct conflict, a direct war with Russia, a nuclear power, and risk a war that expands even beyond Ukraine to Europe,” he continued. “That’s clearly not our interest. What we’re trying to do is end this war in Ukraine, not start a larger one.”

To be honest, if I were Putin, knowing that Biden has already blinked, it's a tacit way to tell Russia that they can do whatever they want in Ukraine, carte blanche. Statements like this, is as stupid as it comes. I simply can't believe it when I read it.

One thing Biden did right, is to cultivate an alliance of allies. Has he not laid the groundwork, I don't think the financial sanctions (particularly with the sledgehammer of banning Russian banks from SWIFT) would have come so swiftly, pun intended. 

Although Joe Biden isn't really cut out to be a wartime leader, it's a world of difference to have him in White House now when the Ukraine attack happens. I cannot begin to fathom, had it been Trump still in the White House. Instead of sanctioning Russia's aggression, Trump would have made a pilgrim trip to Moscow to congratulate Putin for a job well-done. At least finally Mike Pence has had enough, tsk-tsk'ing "Putin apologists" in front of GOP donors. This is finally a bridge too far for Pence, for what Trump did. 

On the funding side...

I must say, this generation can be quite creative to weaponize the web. People have been making bookings in Ukraine on Airbnb, though with no intention of using the reservations, but simply as a roundabout way to donate to Ukrainians who are staying to fight the good fight. Certainly it's a way for people to feel good about themselves for being able to do something about this military attack and to help people in needs. One has to wonder if it actually has the intended effects. While it might not have the intended effects as donating to traditional charities like The Red Cross whose efforts are directed helping those who are in needs, rather than those who have a bank account. 

Ukraine government has also been crowdsourcing funding which has reached $200m so far which is pretty impressive.

On Wordle #260, and Day 10 of Russian Attack on Ukraine...

It's another day in the Wordle land...

Wordle 260 5/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜

🟨🟨🟩⬜⬜

⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

The siege of Ukraine continues. This CNN coverage captures the gist of it. More fighting, more heroic acts of the Ukrainian people, in the face of Russian soldiers and weaponry. More companies are joining the exodus. 

The economic sanctions have inflicted pain on Russian economy. Remarkably, Putin continues to call the bluff. As a former KGB, he sees human weakness when he sees one, and he exploits it. The NATO Secretary-General flatly rejects the idea of enforcing the no-fly zone, and Joe Biden says similar statement that enforcing no-fly zone would draw NATO and US into all-out war with Russia, and they are still trying to appease Putin to avoid that prospect. Sensing that wobble, Putin sends out an ultimatum of sort, saying that any enforcement of no-fly zone is a "declaration of war," and anyone doing so is a "participant" to this conflict.

I'm flabbergasted. Did NATO and US not see, that this is ALREADY an all-out war? Do they seriously think that Putin will stop at Ukraine only?!? How many more countries does Putin have to invade before NATO and US think, ok it's time to act?

And to see a weak man (in such a weakened position) as Putin huffing and puffing like this - threatening, no less - demanding that NATO and US to stand down so that Russia can finish the job with Ukraine, I'm, like, WTF!!??!??!!  Are Biden and NATO really this imbecile? Is Putin really this idiotic? 

Ukraine's President Zelensky is exactly right in lambasting NATO and US, pleading them to enforce the no-fly zone in order to cut off the air coverage advantage of the Russian force. How many more people have to die before NATO will act? 

Not often do we see people standing their ground and fight for their own country, particularly when they are repressed by their own leaders. Just look at what has happened in Syria. But even in other countries like Afghanistan, even with billions of assistance, weaponry, training, those Afghan government soldiers flee even before Taliban came marching back in again. Its government leaders flee even faster than anyone else. It's so shameful. And then we have Ukraine whose leaders stay and fight with their own people, to defend their land. THAT is why Ukraine deserves the respect and assistance from the rest of the world.

Like it or not, this very hot and new Cold War is upon us. And it's not just one villain (Russia), but two (with China too). 

On Wordle #259, and Day 9 of Russian Attack on Ukraine...

Don't you just hate it when there are too many word options?

Wordle 259 5/6

⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜

⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨

⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩

⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

It's Day 9, and Ukraine is holding on to its resistance, but Russia is relentless. More condemnations are piling on against Putin, including Google suspending adverting in Russia. London Stock Exchange halting all Russian listings from trading since their value all drop to effectively zero. insurers stopping to write policy due to escalating risks. Those individual supporters of Russian attack are also getting banished, including opera singer.  Even imposing currency outflow and hiking interest rate to 20% could not stop foreign companies from fleeing the country.

Putin must be starting to feel the pain from all economic sanctions as he's coming out with more outright lies, saying that his unprovoked attack on another sovereign country bears "no ill intention."  Does he honestly think that his falsehood and empty words could fool anyone anymore? Though of course there are idiots who would tool his line, even blaming the West for starting this goddamn attack. Un-fucking-believable. But as long as China stands ready to be his backup option for a market and source of financial help, Putin probably thinks he can withstand losing the West and still does ok. The question is, how far would China stick its neck out for Russia? Those Chinese are not fools and certainly won't be foolish enough to lose their shirts for the sake of their bff in Russia.

Meantime, the West is huffing and puffing, bloviating more hot air. By jove, UN Security Council agrees to meet (as if we should be feeling so much better now....not!), though what good would that do since Russia can simply vote down any resolution in the UN Security Council, and it'll surely be joined by China. 

The former national security official Alexander Vindman has it exactly right. US really needs to impose embargo on the Russia oil, if only to make a moral stance on the matter. While it's understandable that Joe Biden wouldn't want to put boots on the ground, there is nothing to stop US from supplying air coverage with drones. Though of course if the drones take out any Russian weapons or kill any Russian soldiers, it would have escalated it into a war that drags US in. Arguably US could (and should) supply those weapons to Ukraine, and let them unleash it on the Russians. Let's see how long that sitting duck of a 40-mile military convoy can last.

On Wordle #258, and Day 8 of Russian Attack on Ukraine...

I'm on a row...

Wordle 258 3/6

🟩🟨⬜🟨⬜

🟩⬜⬜🟨🟨

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I somehow feel almost guilty. While having fun playing Wordle rather mindlessly in the safety and comfort of my home, people are fighting for their lives, their country, trying to repel enemies who have biggest guns and weapons. 

As Day 8 rolls on, more sanction took place, Russian and the Belarussian athletes are banned from Winter Paralympitc Games. Even Russian cats are not welcomed to international competition. Russia is taking the scored earth approach, shelling the Ukrainian nuclear plant, talking about the nuclear option of mutual destruction, you can't get better than this. Other former Eastern Bloc countries are quaking in their pants, knowing that they'll be next in Russia's crosshair, Moldova and Georgia hurry to submit their EU application.

While Biden is putting his team together to do something about Russia, he firmly shoots down the idea of embargo of Russia oil, this is all while the Congress has bipartisan support of much tougher actions against Putin's unprovoked attack on Ukraine. I find it rather hypocritical for Biden to push Germany to halt Nord Stream 2 (that together with the existing pipeline through Ukraine) would have had relied on the Russian energy supply for some 40% of Germany's needs. So here we are, telling allies in EU to suck it up and suffer higher energy price, while Biden uses the same reasoning to refuse the oil embargo (because that would have likely pushed up gas prices in US). 

With so many techies in Ukraine, they are getting creative, raising funds for war resources not just by traditional means like war bonds, but they're accepting cryptocoins as donation. On the other hand, Russia's credit rating has descended to junk bond territory. Serve them right.

More stinks come out of the Russian-Chinese collaboration, with news that China has requested Russia to hold off on the Ukraine offensive until after the Winter Olympics in Beijing wraps up so as not to steal China's thunder. This really stinks to high heaven. Putin and Xi deserve to go to hell, together, forever.  Though I highly doubt that their buddy-buddy relationship can last for very long, given that China will not stick its neck out for Russia, should China risk its own skin.

Serious business aside, I find this picture from Reuters figuratively, metaphorically, and more importantly, literally illustrious of Macron's efforts in trying to be the elder statesman, but failed miserably. Who could possibly communicate across such a vey very long table?!?

Reuters

On Wordle #257, and Day 7 of Russian Attack on Ukraine...

Here's a bit more luck looks like in Wordle #257...

Wordle 257 3/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨

⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Putin seems undeterred in his onward march into Ukraine. It's Day 7 since the unprovoked attack began, and there's no sign of stopping. There's more worldwide condemnation, with an overwhelming majority in UN General Assembly voting to condemn the Russian aggression. Being the toothless tiger as it is, the UN resolution has no bite to it, it's non-binding and there's no enforcement as a result. Though it's a great morale support, with 141 member nations voting for the condemnation, 5 (Russia included, of course) voted against it, and 35 countries abstained (including China which is no surprise, but India too? WTF), at least these 141 countries made a stand.

With the military campaign escalating, the first Ukrainian city of Kherson has fallen. Alarm bells rang off, and finally EU agreed to directly provide weapons and military supply to Ukraine (rather than the previous vague stance of allowing individual EU member states to take whatever actions/support they see fit). US slaps more economic sanctions against Russia. There are protests around the world, including within Russia's borders in St Petersburg. 

There will be economic pains. Russian Rubles fell by 20% in value against USD. Its central bank can't mobilize its assets frozen by US to defend its currency or economy. Putin installs currency control to ban any outflow of more than US$10,000. Moscow Stock Exchange closes. Russia would likely accelerate asset sale, but scarcely anyone would buy or deal with toxic Russian companies except the Chinese. Granted that Russia and China have been in bed for decades, it's not likely that Putin would want its strategic industries all being owned by the Chinese. I'd love to see the Russians dueling it out with the Chinese, these two deserve each other with a fight to the death.

Stateside, US Fed is still on course to hike the interest rate since inflation has no sign of abating. For more than 30 years, a few generations of folks have never seen inflation rate higher than 2%, nor interest rate that much above zero. Some blame it on the supply chain bottleneck, but I'd say, it's really about the tightening labor market where people are finally comfortable enough to quit their jobs to find greener pasture...or quit their jobs and not working at all. For a lot of folks, the low wages/salary is simply not good enough to suffer through bad bosses, poor management, and boring jobs. Let's see how far this inflation will go.

On Wordle #256, and Day 6 of Russian Attack on Ukraine

With a bit of luck, Wordle game #256 looks easy...

Wordle 256 4/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜

⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩

⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

It's Day 6 of the Russian Attack on Ukraine. More sanctions and actions came, but it's largely cosmetic. Apple stops selling in Russia. The satellites donated by Elon Musk arrives Ukraine. As expected, various crypto exchanges refuses to ban Russia from bypassing financial sanctions from the West, those money-wrapping spineless wankers. Ukraine's courageous president signs the application to officially request EU membership. It's largely cosmetic because Putin keeps pushing on, with military convoy stretching 40 miles long, shelling and attacking Kharkiv, the second-largest city of Ukraine. 

Could the help - any help - from West come soon enough to rescue Kyiv, its capital from being overtaken by Russia? The courage of Ukrainians, both average citizens and its leaders, is on full display, standing their ground to fight in whatever ways they can. 

It's shameful that the world does not do more to beat back naked aggression like this. It harks back to the First Gulf War when Bush Sr. launched the shock-and-awe lightning campaign to beat back Saddam Hussein's military incursion into Kuwait, pushing Iraq back to its own borders. Somehow I doubt that Joe Biden has the tenacity to launch any military campaign. Heck, if Biden has his ways, had Obama not made the executive decision in that war room, SEAL Team 6 would not even have taken out Osama bin Laden. Given how desperate Biden had withdrawn from Afghanistan (in the chaotic retreat last year), it's almost certain that Biden would not want to start another war for US. This is of course music to Putin's ears, betting that Biden would just use words and more words, talking people to death, but doing nothing else. And so, now is as good a time as ever to do annexation, Biden be damned.

Perhaps it comes as no surprise at all that the approval rating of Joe Biden is so low, even if he's barely one year into office, the official honeymoon period.  

I always thought, if I were born in war time, I would rather go to the frontline to fight than to hide in a hole, just to survive.

I pray for Ukraine. 

On Wordle #255, and the world learning from WWII mistakes...

As I'm playing Wordle game #255...

Wordle 255 5/6

⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨

⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜

🟨🟩⬜🟩⬜

⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

the world is grappling with the horrendous military aggression of Putin.  He's been testing the water to see how the world would react when he pushes the envelope, most notably, the annexation of Georgia in 2008, and then the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The world effectively stood by and did nothing. Afterall it's easier to look the other way and does nothing when the terrible event was happening thousands of miles away. Without any ramification, Putin now goes for a much bigger prize, attacking Ukraine which is far more valuable strategically.

I'm thus glad to see that the world is piling on harsh sanctions against Russia, meant to cripple its economy and its ability to fund the war effort on Ukraine. Not only will Russian banks be kicked off from SWIFT, but oil companies are pulling out of Russia, Russian planes are disallowed from the air space from EU and other countries, even FIFA (traditionally weak in its response, much like IOC) is kicking Russia off of the World Cup roster. Even Germany has finally come around to halt Nord Stream 2 (which would have increased Germany's reliance on Russia), and pledges to provide more military support to Ukraine government. (Germany's initial response of donating 5000 helmets has become a butt-joke.) Russia's aggression has even pushed those more neutral countries like Sweden and Finland to consider joining EU formally, and Switzerland has made the surprising stance to drop its neutrality to freeze Russian assets. US has also frozen Russia's currency reserve to prevent Russia's central bank from moving the assets to shore up the value of Rubles which is falling fast.

I have to admit, Zelenskyy (the Ukrainian president) has shown much courage, smarts and perseverance through its resistance against Russia's onslaught, and in insisting to stay in Kyiv to fight with his own people. Through it all, he's earned the support and respect of the world over. Who would have thought that a TV personality, a comedian no less, turns out to be a profile in courage. He'll go down in history as someone to remember.

We knew from history that appeasement policy would not work in preventing aggression from authoritarian regimes. (Case in point: Chamberlain and Hitler.)  At long last, the world has closed ranks in its united stance against Russia.  Most notably missing in the condemnation, is China and Latin American countries. No doubt Xi from China is watching very closely to see how effectively (or not) the world's resistance might be in beating back aggression, and what price one might have to pay in being the aggressor. Some day, Xi will do the same against Taiwan.  I'm counting on it that when that time comes, the world will stand tall again.