gehringer_2

indeed. There is a human factors engineering issue here that I think traffic designers in places like A^2 that try to be aggressively bike/pedestrian friendly ignore at the peril of those very pedestrians/riders they think they are helping. When when pedestrians and bikes appear in a driver's visual field in the company of other larger, faster moving vehicles, the human brain is simply *never* going to assign the same attention weight to the those smaller slower objects. That is just the reality of human perceptual hardware, and when traffic designers try to manufacture more *rights* for peds/bikes on the existing road system without actually creating structural spatial isolation, it's bound to increase the danger to the very people they are trying to prioritize.

There is view among some cyclists I have ridden with that you need to 'take the space' the law allows you. My take is the that law on paper can't trump the laws of physics, which say you are pretty much dead when the other guy doesn't know the rules you want to play by....🙄

And I'm sure he got a lot of pushback from the intelligence services about it, but in the end, the purpose of intelligence is to win, and when you get to a point where secrecy isn't helping you win you have to be able to zoom out and understand the bigger picture.

reports of a another huge convoy of Russian vehicles on the move toward Kyiv.

More or less the same issue with bus stops at corners, which is where they love to put them in A^2. Are you walking or waiting?

Not that it's in any way good, but the situation up there would be have been more critical before Space-X.

Gerasimov/Milley was also an established back channel communication link. If he is gone that link is lost as well.

The Russians would do well to take note of something Li Yuan recently said in a NYT piece: "to the Chinese state, everyone is a tool that serves a purpose until it does not."

this all just goes to show that delusion always plays as big a part in Human activity as reality (as if anyone watching US politics in the last 10 yrs needs to be reminded of that....). The status quo ante in Ukraine wasn't costing a single Russian's life or putting any Russian's livelihood at risk, wasn't even costing Putin's buddies the odd Ruble, but the is world plunged into hot conflict over a fantasy about lines on maps in one man's fevered brain.

Going back to at least Deng, China's view has been that stability is of paramount importance in the world - both because they are afraid of being infected with internal chaos, and because it's bad for business. Xi is already somewhat an outlier to that though.

If so Xi is as crazy as Putin. Then again, when you share a long border with a crazy man you probably don't mind seeing his armor cut up on the other side of the continent either.

Putin may be worried he doesn't have much time. Weapons are beginning to pour into Ukraine. Germany announced 500(!) Stingers and 1000 anti-tanks units (TOW/Javelins?). The fact that the Russians can't fly high means you put 500 stingers in theater and you can make your own no fly zone. Has there been a war yet where the *defending* side actually had the full benefit of 1st class Western miniaturization technology?

each night that comes with Kyiv still standing is another day for the Ukrainians to build out and organize resistance from exile, and another hammer blow in the forging of a national identity that will feed it. Putin may win on the battle field for a time, but the blood he sheds does nothing but fertilize the growth of Ukrainian nationalism. Interesting parallels here to the American revolution. The colonies were full of Englishmen, with history and ties to England not unlike those between Ukraine and Russia, but the actions of a wayward King forged an enduring new national identity despite that.

well, one thing is for sure, Putin's claim reported by the NYC that things slowed because he 'paused' the Russian advance to explore peace talks is load of nonsense.

appears one paper centers on genetic fingerprinting and the other on case spread geography. The genetics focused paper is over 75 pages.

Language curmudgeons of the world, unite!

Good people on both sides

hasn't learned the 1st lesson of urban warfare from Iraq: the more rubble you make, the more difficult it will be to take or hold the ground. And it would appear that "Russian precision munition" may be even much more of an oxymoron than in the US case.

At some point you have to wonder if the Russian General staff is going to hold all in with Putin. It's one thing to roll into to town and take over the government with almost no shooting as in Checko '68, or even to shoot at Arabs or Chechens, this is asking guys from Ohio to go to war with Missouri when the guys in MO are shooting back.

Methinks they are not too interested in winning back America's suburban housewives.....

this is the continuation of a long story with many chapters. For instance, when the Bolsheviks took control after the October revolution, they demanded allegiance from the Armenian Patriarch in Yerevan as condition for not destroying the church in the Armenian SSR. In response to his capitulation, the Armenian diaspora set up a new church in exile with a Patriarch in NYC. I don't know this story but in fragments of memory but apparently there was even an assassination or attempt at one carried out in NYC in the 30's - I think of a representative of the co-opted Bolshevik church. (If you wondered why a community like Detroit would have two separate Armenian Orthodox churches, Southfield and Dearborn, there is your answer.) But in any case, there is no doubt that from the beginning Putin has seen his re-rehabilitation of Orthodox church after its general suppression under communism as a significant tool of his politics. The recognition of the national Ukrainian Church by the Greeks was fairly big news when it happened and Putin was PO'd at the time and the article is surely spot on that it's just one more thing that sticks in his craw. What the article misses however, is that even he takes Kyiv, the Church may decide to go into exile, like the Armenian church did. Putin would be left in possession of the architecture, while still losing the soul of the institution.

so to be clear, the take is that they have deserted?

the Indian armed forces are pretty much in a state of disaster are they not? I wonder if Xi may have sent Modi a message reminding him of his inability to defend his northern borders.

and this is exactly where the baseball owners are stuck in some kind of feudalist fantasy. You aren't Lord of some manor above being examined. Open the books, make a deal on the total revenue split, and have long term peace to work on improving the marketing of the game for the profit of all. But as long as the owners continue to carry on like mafia dons afraid to be audited, the players will never, ever trust them.

Putin may yet manage to rouse Germany from its slumbers.