Posts Tagged ‘russia ukraine war’

Don Surber Makes the Case for Christ Without Realizing it

Posted: June 7, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, war
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The most dangerous thing in the world is an excuse.

Peter Ingemi

If you are a person who pays attention the recent stories of some Ukrainian units having historically Nazi badges is no revelation. The great Mark Felton did a video on it a while back and it was known that many Ukrainians welcomed the Nazi as liberators from the Soviets who had starved and killed them for decades.

Don Surber did an excellent piece on the subject on his substack account ( that you should subscribe to) talking about the subject. I’m not going to dive into the whole piece, although it is certainly worth your time, but for the purposes of this piece just two paragraphs and the final sentence in the second is what we’ll quote

The newspaper said, “Factions from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its insurgent army fought alongside the Nazis in what they viewed as a struggle for Ukrainian sovereignty. Members of those groups also took part in atrocities against Jewish and Polish civilians. Later in the war, though, some of the groups fought against the Nazis.”

Some. So not all the Ukrainians wanted the Nazis out. The choice between Nazi occupiers and Soviet occupiers was a tough call because Stalin had starved 6 million Ukrainians a few years earlier in the Holodomor. The older I get, the more I realize how often there are no good guys.

emphasis mine

The moment I read those paragraphs I instantly thought of the admonition of Christ at the sermon on the mount:

But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as (also) your Father is merciful.

“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

Luke 6:35-38

And this passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans:

Well, then, are we better off? Not entirely, for we have already brought the charge against Jews and Greeks alike that they are all under the domination of sin, as it is written: “There is no one just, not one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have gone astray; all alike are worthless; there is not one who does good, (there is not) even one.

Their throats are open graves; they deceive with their tongues; the venom of asps is on their lips; their mouths are full of bitter cursing. Their feet are quick to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they know not. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Romans 3: 9-18

Why, because of grievance.

Russia believes, (even if others don’t) that they have legit grievances against Ukraine and even legit fears (Hey if you were invaded by Napoleon & Hitler you might have some fears too).

Ukraine believes that they have legit grievances against Russia both current (the invasion) and historical (millions starved by the USSR in the 30’s etc) ones as well. The actual invasion is of course the easiest grievance to understand but it’s also the reason why Ukraine isn’t all that anxious to go to the table to negotiate.

But the reality is that this is not unique. China has grievances against Japan and the west, The west have grievances against China, all kinds of people have all kinds of grievances against everyone else and if you are willing to go back far enough in history you can find grievance. John Cleese might have been joking about how England should demand reparations for being invaded but that really illustrates the point that Surber is making if you look at history very often there are no good guys and that’s why Christ message to forgive and love your enemies is so important because by doing so you don’t hold onto grievance.

Holding onto grievance, on a personal, or family, or clan, or race, or state, or national level always leads to something horrible in the end, because you don’t allow an evil, either real or perceived, to die. And even worse if you hold tightly onto it it goes on for generations even when the people involved are long dead.

Taken to it’s final extent you end up with people taking grievance for something that didn’t happen to them wanting revenge against people who didn’t do it to them.

And believe me the grifter and the demagogues are just waiting to take advantage of that kind of hatred and grievance for the sake of their own power and wealth.

When you instead release grievance, when you love your neighbor as yourself you are being like God and like Christ who famously on the cross declared:

“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.“

Luke 23:34

To forgive and to let go is holy but even if you don’t do so for the sake of rightness, do so because of the price for not forgiving as the Lord’s Prayer the Our Father says:

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

emphasis mine

Forgiveness is the right thing, it’s also the smart thing.

Drones, Moscow and Does Anybody Remember The Undeclared War Between the US and Germany During 1941?

Posted: May 3, 2023 by datechguy in in Ukraine, war
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It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war 

US Minister Charles Francis Adams to British Foreign Minister Lord John Russell on the construction of Confederate Ships in England 1863

This story leaped out at me:

The Kremlin is saying this was a drone strike to hit Putin and are apparently yelling “Terrorism”. If this was a drone strike by the Ukraine there are plenty of important implications that should scare the hell out of everyone:

  1. While 200 years ago this might have been considered bad form when two countries are at war it is a legitimate target so the cry of “terrorism” is BS.
  2. If the Kremlin in general and Putin in particular are legitimate targets of war then by definition if the Russians launch drones vs the Ukrainian parliament in general and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in particular those would also be considered legitimate attacks on legitimate targets of war.
  3. Given that both Europe and the US are supplying Ukraine with arms any of those shipments would become legitimate targets of Drone or any other type of strikes by Russia as soon as they enter the war zone, that is Ukraine.
  4. This suggests that any US or European pol who enters Ukraine does so at their own risk and may in fact be considered legitimate targets of a drone strike by Russia if they are from a country supplying arms to Ukraine.
  5. What is to stop Russia from “outsourcing” such attacks by commissioning individuals to conduct such attacks in the name of Russia basically “privateering”.

And if that doesn’t scare you let’s take the next logical step:

  1. What is to stop Russia from declaring a “blockade” of Ukraine and thus making shipments of war materials legitimate targets of war?
  2. If a ship is transporting arms to the Ukraine, what is to stop Russia from claiming the contents of that ship contraband of war and either seizing it on the high seas or sinking it as a legitimate target of war?
  3. What is to stop Russia from either directly or using the “Privateering” example to target
    • arms shipments to Ukraine
    • infastructure used to transport arms shipments to Ukraine
    • leaders or parliaments of nations that vote to provide arms shipments to Ukraine

Nobody seems to be considering these possibilities all of which have the potential to not just drag us into war with Russia but to begin World War 3.

And for those fools who have not bothered to study history let’s remind everyone of what was going on for months before Japan Bombed Pearl Harbor.

All of this is not only very possible but becomes more so by the day and if it does come then no amount of clever remarks or tut tuts by folks on Twitter are going to stop it.

Given that our nation is bleeding recruits faster than Bud Light is bleeding customers the only logical and sensible move is for us to do all we can to stop this war and broker a peace because the longer it goes on the more likely those who are making a buck off the fighting will end up dragging us into a shooting war that we are not equipped nor motivated to win and against a nuclear power no less and believe me this administration and those who are getting their 10% will continue to move in that direction as long as they see cash coming their way without worrying about the cost.

Fast Under the Fedora Thoughts: Interesting Fire Sales, Exploring, RFK Still RFK, Oregon still Oregon, and CP’s no longer safe.

Posted: April 29, 2023 by datechguy in under the fedora
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I was at a major Catholic Shrine today frequented by devout Catholics and noticed something interesting.

They had a large book section in their gift shop and a very small clearance section for books. All the clearance books there were either by Pope Francis or about him.

It seems that Ron DeSantis is about to form an exploratory committee for a presidential run.

He seems to be moving slow, I think this is smart as his foes keep making mistakes that can only benefit him, the longer it’s drawn out the more missteps they’ll make.

RFK is still making news which is causing trouble for Biden, and as much as this is amusing to us we should not forget that RFK for all his straight talk on some subjects is still a liberal, still a climate change fanatic and is not going to be a friend.

While enjoying all of this we should not forget these facts.

Oregon is getting ready to legalize tents camps.

That they haven’t figured out what this will do to their state amazes me, or maybe they just don’t care.

Perhaps some conservatives simply need to make camp on the property of prominent liberals in the state. That will change a few minds.

Apparently Ukrainian drones have been targeting Russian Command Posts, This would account for the large amount of General officers among casualities.

High ranking officers had better get used to this as this will become standard operating procedure for any country at war. The old days of getting promoted high enough to get out of the firing line are gone.

Five Three Liners Under the Fedora: Robin Williams East German Women Jokes, Baseball Clocks and Starting pitching, Russia v Ukraine at a year, Catholics Been There Still Doing That, Why Would you Believe the Media on Scott Adams?

Posted: February 28, 2023 by datechguy in baseball, catholic, catholic devotions, culture, in Ukraine, tech, war
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I seem to remember Robin Williams doing a riff on East German “Women” athletes years ago. For the life of me I can’t find it on Youtube anymore. I suspect two minutes of Williams riffing on “women athletes of East Germany” would make the left’s arguments on men in women’s sports untenable.

Well now we’ve had the first baseball game decided by the game clock. Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth, tied game, 3 balls two strikes and the next pitch doesn’t come, game over. Since I’m old enough to remember two hours games my suggestion is want faster games, sign pitchers who can pitch 7-8 innings a start.

The first Anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has passed and I’ve noticed an inordinate amount of people seem to have forgot about the events at the time. For weeks before Russia moved in Biden signaled Ukraine had to give in and when the came forward he was ready to evacuate Zelenskyy. Absolutely nobody expected Russia to be on the run with Ukraine still fighting today.

The Asbury revival seems to be spreading among protestants. Baylor is now seeing nightly prayer since February 19th. As a Catholic a church that has been doing 24/7 adoration for centuries my reaction is, that’s a nice start.

Finally just a few days after again getting evidence that the media is deceiving people to push an agenda concerning COVID that same media is declaring the Scott Adams is a racist who must be shunned. My take on this is rather simple: Given the history of the media why would any sane person take their judgement on Adams, a person they hate, seriously? So I followed him on twitter.