It was difficult to get sleep last night knowing that the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe was at that moment being shelled by artillery.
I messaged my son across the Pond to say at least I wasn’t really worrying about Covid any longer!
He shared in the black humour.
Just for the record, my firstborn was the only person in my well-read network that was not surprised by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Indeed, he predicted it some time back.
When I asked him why it would happen he respectfully took his oul Da through the rationale behind it.
Essentially, explained my lad, Putin had an unsustainable military vis-à-vis the Russian economy.
Essentially time was running out and he had to use it now to fulfil his Czarist fantasy.
Last night we agreed that the comparison now with the Winter War was almost too perfect.
Putin is fond of relating a tale from his impoverished childhood in St Petersburg, then it was Leningrad, of what happened when he cornered a rat.
All of this is too contrived to evade the wary eye of a literary editor were it to appear in the manuscript of a novel.
The idea of the deranged dictator reaching for the nuclear button as his options close off is the stuff of a work experience Tom Clancy.
What is more likely is a deadly dénouement to something akin to Able Archer 83.
The hinge factor…
They say that some simple organisms will survive a full-on nuclear exchange.
That’s comforting.
On Planet Fitba if the mushroom clouds ever blackened the sky, I can imagine one of the People in a bunker still obsessing about “Fenians”.
Over the last couple of days, I’ve spoken to a couple of folks who were at McDiarmid Park for the visit of Sevco.
One of them said that the karaoke by the visiting fans was “the worst I had heard from them in ten years”.
Dear reader, this person would not pass muster, in the eyes of the Ibrox klanbase, as a “Fenian”.
However, he knows hatred when he hears it.
On a cursory examination of the match reports from Sevco’s narrow win in Perth I couldn’t find any mention of the behaviour of the away fans at the match.
Not even the state broadcaster in Fair Caledonia mentioned it, which is baffling.
The vehemence and volume of the racist singalong at Perth even made it onto dignified message boards.
Just in case there was anyone in the Stenography Corps who wanted to try and do some journalism it was necessary to get the PR operation morning.
Yet another invoice?
Don’t expect any political challenge to this racist subculture from the Labour Party.
Mr Sarwar obviously has a very specific demographic in mind with this dignified nomination.
He clearly, has great faith in what Unsurpassed Dignity can deliver at election time.
I have to admire his ambition if nothing else.
I asked my buddy who was in Perth what he thought could be done about these racist recidivists among the Ibrox klanbase.
His quip was characteristically dark:
“Send them to Australia!”
I was grateful to him for his wit and humanity.
At times like this, all we helpless onlookers have left is humour.
Discover more from Phil Mac Giolla Bháin
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I really never have understood this Russian fear of being cheek to jowl with Ukraine If it decides, as it’s fully entitled to do as a sovereign state, to apply for NATO membership. It already borders Latvia and Estonia, and if recent reports are accurate Finland may also soon be a member.
FFS there’s only 55 miles between the US mainland and the Russian mainland across the Bering Strait. 2.5 miles or thereabouts between the Diomede Islands. It’s possible in winter to walk between Russia and the US.
What? No comments re the above? I wonder why? Stick to talking about Celtic, the board, Sevco, Big Mike, Sevco’s accounts etc, or even recent Irish history. For as any good editor will tell a writer, stick to what you know.When you, personally, stray from these core subjects, you constantly you seem a bit lost.
If I was a Rangers fan I would be very concerned about traveling to Belgrade under the circumstances. Any entity perceived as “western European” might not be made very welcome
So, Putin had to have a war to justify the expenditure on the Russian military? Jesus Christ I’ve never heard such unadulterated nonsense. The more observant commentator, or dare I say, astute, commentator, ie one who has not swallowed the western narrative hook line and sinker, would be quick to note that Mad, Bad, Vlad, has militarily tip-toed into Ukraine, unlike the US/NATO tactic of obliterating everything in sight, dismantling governmental institutions, and so guaranteeing chaos as in Iraq, Syria,Libya, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and let’s not forget, please let’s not forget, the ‘carpet bombing’ of Vietnam, the dropping of chemical weapons on that country (Agent Orange), and the dropping of atomic bombs (two of them, just to make sure) on a country that was trying desperately to surrender. If one fights wars to justify military expenditure, one uses up as much military hardware in said wars, so that it needs replacing—justifying even more military expenditure -see US Military Industrial Complex as perfect example. Mad Bad Vlad has done no such thing—-he certainly has not been shelling any Nuclear plants, especially not in that part of Ukraine where the ethnic Russians are concentrated. Jesus Christ, think!!!! Oh, and by the by, not only do the Russians now control that plant, they’ve even allowed, er, the Ukrainian flag to continue fluttering above it, and the Ukranians who ran the plant to , er, continue running it! So you really did lose sleep needlessly.
Oh, and no mention of Senator Lindsay Graham’s call for someone to assassinate Mad Bad Vlad? What I don’t understand is why anyone would need to assassinate Mad Bad Vlad, if, as we are told, the Russians are losing the war, or their advance has been stalling, or they are in disarray, being killed in their thousands, and finding incredible resistance from the brave peoples of little Ukraine? The fact is the Ukrainian army has been encircled since about day two, as have the major cities. The fact is the Russians have created safe passageways for civilians—-in the sure and certain knowledge that military personnel will also use them—but without their armaments. The fact is, this was exactly the tactic they employed in Syria, so that the Jihadists used the passageways and are now penned up in Idlib. In the Ukraine, the plan is to herd them into that area around Lvov. And talking about Syria, remember those guys that went about beheading folk? Have you noticed that’s happening so much now? And do you know why? Because Mad Bad Vlad’s Air Force put a stop to it, that’s why.
Mad Bad Vlad has, unlike the US/NATO warmongers, no intention of destroying Ukraine. What he wants is a neutral Ukraine, that is free of the influence of the Neo Nazi’s that surround ,and dictate to, Zelensky.
Oh, and have you noticed that the much trumpeted disconnecting of Russia from the inter-bank SWIFT messaging service hasn’t been, er, as complete as we were promised. No, two Russian banks have been exempted, they are the ones that receive payments via SWIFT for the gas and oil that Russia sells to the west. For the gas and oil that Russia continues to sell to the west. For the gas that continues to flow through the Ukraine pipeline (and some of which they were known by the Russian to be syphoning off even before this conflict began).
There is so much you clearly do not understand about this conflict. And, hey, the last thing I would do would be to attribute ‘insight’ into what’s going on to a person, simply because they live ‘across the pond’. Anyone in that neck of the woods who wants a handle on things, should tune into The Jimmy Dore Show, The Intercept, The Grey Zone, Push Back, and Useful Idiots, to name but a few. But they’d better hurry as those stalwart defenders of democracy and free speech are likely to cut them off, just as they did with RT. And again, I ask, why the need for censorship when you’re winning the ground war? Answer—-because they are most definitely not.
Moscow IS claiming to be in FULL control of the nuclear plant. So much of what you’ve written is just naked whitabootery, and that is not constructive or helpful in ANY way in ANY discussion.
If you want to point to press censorship take a good look at Russia. We can openly criticise our government. Try doing that in Moscow!
Phil, you often bemoan the state of our MSM, that they tell us half-truths, simply what suits them, or downright lies. You also give specific examples, often Sevco-related and Ireland-related.
I’m therefore surprised that you seem so ready to accept the narrative surrounding the Ukraine conflict.
Have we forgotten the lies of Iraq? Of Palestine? Of Syria? Of Ireland?
Do we believe that we are justified in arming Saudi Arabia to slaughter one of the poorest countries in the world, in Yemen? Do we turn a blind eye to Yemen, while pocketing the dirty Saudi money, and simultaneously condemn Russia for trying to repel the ever-expanding NATO from its borders? Do we condemn and pontificate about those nasty Russians, while we balance precariously on our high horse of hypocrisy?
We all know that the first casualty of war is truth. Are we to believe all that we’re told by the BBC, CNN, Sky News etc while, in the name of freedom, we ban the other side of the story from RT?
Are we so accustomed to media manipulation and propaganda that we don’t even see it any more?
Just read a new excuse for what happened to Rangers in the comments section of the Herald in a article about Kris Boyd thinking that sectarianism in Scotland had gotten worse and the game in Australia shouldn’t go ahead. Apparently, it wasn’t an engine room subsidiary that went bust, it was a custodianship that was sold alongside the basket of assets that was taken back by the SFA and granted to Sevco.
So the SFA decided that Third Lanark and Airdrie’s custodianship would be taken away, but Rangers custodianship would be handed over to another custodian company.
We’re looking at the beginnings of a sphere of influence becoming reinstated(USSR) The rate of change might be the issue for neighbouring regions(Warsaw Pact).
Reclaiming Crimea seems to have become a trigger point for a lengthy expansionist outlook, I think.
Some notes the lad might help enlighten you on.
Cheers
Nope. Australia isn’t far enough away but there is a special place in the depths of Hell for those bent on perpetuating a world of bigotry, hatred and racism. HH
Labour are clearly trying to win back the bigots vote from the tories. What they don’t seem to realise is that after Irish Catholics & Catholics, Asians/Muslims are next on the list of people the Klan hate.
So they will need a new leader of the party.
Nato really need to step up for Ukraine. If they are too scared of Russia to impose a no fly zone, they should at least give them an airfield in Poland fully stocked with fighter jets for the Ukrainian Air force to use.
What can be said about America, UK & their Allies. Any wee country that something starts in , they are first over to defend democracy. Yet when it’s against a military of similar standing they shit themselves and decide to sit this one out. Its embarrassing and will embolden Putin
This on Ibrox Radio today:
“It’s only folk songs. Folk the pope 😂”
Credit where it is due. Jordan Campbell who covers Rangers for The Athletic wrote about it for several paragraphs. Perhaps the most explicit line:
“ But although a negative reaction from a portion of fans was to be expected given the intensity of the rivalry, there was a sizeable percentage inside the stadium who vented their frustration in a sadly familiar way by opening the ugly, sectarian songbook at more pages than it has been in years.”
I would suggest that the chap in the Athletic should expand his lexicon:
He should start with “anti-Irish racism”.