However sympathetic you are to the populist cause, however “realist” on Ukraine, it is impossible to defend the head of the world’s most powerful nation putting out reckless semi-literate screeds like this.
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Samizdata quote of the day – oh FFSFebruary 19th, 2025 |
 71 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – oh FFSLeave a Reply |
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Let’s see, Trump has begun the rout of the Deep State and not just in the US, has uncovered trillions of dollars in waste, has fired people from government “service” for the first time in a Century, is building the border wall, has begun deporting illegals by the thousands (millions soon we hope), and has done end runs around all attempts to stop him.
I’ll take Mr. Sayers’ version of “semi-literate” and “screed” if it produces results like that!
Just because Trump is right about some things, Greg, doesn’t make him any less wrong about other things.
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Trump is not a fool and he is trying to provide a good future for us all, particularly the USA. He believes, with some justification, that because of net bad government by the western nations, over recent decades, the future is bleak. So he has devised a foreign policy tactic to bring about corrective action by other nations. One could call it “the cat amongst the pigeons tactic”.
Trump makes, what appears to be an outrageous statement, that is intended to stimulate other governments and peoples to take action and responsibility to ensure a good outcome for all, particularly the USA. Examples of this tactic are: Greenland, Panama, tariffs and now giving in to Putin. This tactic, may or may not work, and it may or may not be true. I live in hope.
Agree, Perry. The next shoe to drop for me is spending: unless he cuts the Fed budget by about a trillion dollars (we’d still be deficit spending even if that happened!!!), I’m not quite all in. Although the systemic things he’s doing will have positive impacts there for years to come (I hope!)
And up until a few years ago, I would NEVER leave him alone with my wife or daughter. I think he’s too old now to worry about that…maybe?
And what David Roberts said at 10:33pm. I also live in hope…then again, I had high hopes for what Reagan might achieve.
We’ve given 350 billion to the Ukes, half of which is unaccounted for according to Z-Man, to support a war which is the end result of a coup the CIA threw to cover up a money laundering scheme that benefitted the Bidens, which is double all of Europe combined. By all means, we should just keep shoveling money to him.
The money train is over, Europe can support Ukraine from here on out, or Z can grab his gold, fly to Zurich, and hope he never gets a polonium-laced meal courtesy of the Russians. It isn’t like the countries of NATO have been pulling their weight for all these years so they can use that cash they saved to spend on Zelensky.
Europe generally wants America out of its affairs and this is one of those affairs. Brussels can figure it out.
Second-best way as a desperate supplicant to have a positive effect on the beliefs and actions of someone like Trump is to call him reckless and semi-literate.
Only second-best because Zelenskyy completely dominated that competition earlier today.
It’s the Trudeau system of negotiation. Call Trump an idiot, sit back and await the riches.
Irrespective of the merits of the arguments on any side, this has all been a masterclass on self-defeat.
(It’s TRUMP, you idiots! Doesn’t require a complex analysis.)
Wrong about everything, Steven. It’s not Ukraine that can’t account for the money, it’s the US government under Biden who promised goodies which never actually made it to Ukraine.
Quite agree — with one qualification: Trump’s war on the Deep State is a thing, Trump’s appeasement is, so far, only a prediction.
It does seem to me that Trump is seriously undermining his negotiating position with such “reckless semi-literate screeds”. But who am i to teach negotiating tactics to the author of The Art of the Deal?
Still, should i turn out that i am right, i am going to scream: I told you so!
And while i was writing, bobby and Perry made other excellent points, even though on opposite sides (so to speak).
(But not contradicting each other.)
I doubt it very much Perry, but for sake of argument let’s say you’re right about not sending all that cash and weapons and whatnot to Ukraine. To the valiant and honest and not at all skimming off the top president of Ukraine, all me to say only this: “Volodymyr, you can’t spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You fucked up… you trusted us! Hey, make the best of it!”
And yes, that was shamelessly stolen from Animal House.
@PdH – oh, so what you’re telling us is that since Ukraine wasn’t actually in the loop of money-laundering US ‘aid’ to all the various places it ended up, including Hunter Biden’s nostrils, that this somehow makes Zelensky the good guy in this unholy mess? Is that what you’re telling us?
Is Putin a very bad man, an imperialist and a bully with nefarious ideas? Why, to be sure, he is. But Zelensky is no angel either, and Ukraine has been a hotbed of the most venal corruption for decades. It’s not hard to see where a lot of people would believe that the only reason that the Biden administration went so completely all-in in support of Ukraine – with billions of US taxpayer dollars – was to protect and conceal the decades of corruption and moneylaundering.
It’s easy to make fun of President Trump’s stream-of-consciousness text style, but grammar snarks aside, can you point out anything he says that is substantially untrue?
I think – and many US voters think – that both sides in this war are more-or-less despicable, and it’s a pity they can’t both lose. And I / we also think that President Trump has firmly grasped the idea that they’re both rotten apples, and that rather than take the Biden approach of picking sides, US interests are best served by ending the war, stopping the bloodshed, and stemming the tidal wave of US taxpayer dollars that we don’t have trying to prop up the particular corrupt, unelected autocrat that the last president chose to supprt. If that means dealing with Putin, well, so be it. Zelensky isn’t much better. And – since it’s US taxpayer money that’s being spent with such wild abandon on a qar that’s really not our problem, and since President Trump ran, and won, with a pledge to end the war, and since the Europeans have done the thin end of two-thirds of f**k-all to try and stop it – I really think it’s time you all shut up and let him give it a try. A little less pearl-clutching about that nasty man Putin, and a little more real-politik, if you’d be so kind.
llater,
llamas
Interesting tweet by Rand Paul today, switching from “cool on Trump” to “enthusiastically supporting Trump” because of Trump’s message:
https://x.com/RandPaul/status/1892364570221584883
Llamas, the following two axioms should be fairly obvious and unobjectionable:
1) It is a bad thing when Country A invades Country B to achieve its foreign policy objectives
2) It is not a good thing for Country C to get involved in the fighting between Country A and Country B.
Unfortunately, way too many people in parts of the right in the US don’t agree with Axiom 1 in this case, because Country B has foreign policy objectives that align with a western foreign policy establishment the right hates. They argue that Ukraine could have prevented the war by just giving in to everything Putin wanted. (Tell them that Putin could have pretended the war by not actually attacking Ukraine, and watch their heads explode.)
These same people, when faced with the Houthis attacking shipping in the Red Sea, basically wanted to throw the idea of unmolested shipping lanes overboard (no pun intended) because the foreign policy establishment was condemning the Houthis.
On the topic of US money and realpolitik let us expand our view. The assistance to Ukraine is small change compared to the historical cost in lives as well as money in combating the Soviet and Russian malevolent influence throughout the world, and within the institutions of the West. Sadly the war in Ukraine is costing many Ukrainian lives and much Ukrainian money. From a US realpolitik point of view the Ukrainians are doing a far better job at fighting Russia than the US ever has. Victory for Ukraine could open the door to a much better future.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that Trump should just turn off the tap and move on to American problems instead of this Slavic soap opera. Let them kill their own snakes.
Most Americans I know care which flag flies over Kiev less than they do which football team wins the next game. And in pretty much exactly the same “go our team” way.
$%^&* Starmer, saying we should be the guarantors of the peace. Like we were in 1994.
”It’s easy to make fun of President Trump’s stream-of-consciousness text style, but grammar snarks aside, can you point out anything he says that is substantially untrue?”
Oh, good grief!
Zelensky didn’t start the war, he isn’t a dictator, his approval rating is 57% not 4%, we didn’t send him $350 billion, and there’s no evidence he stole any of it let alone half.
“Most Americans I know care which flag flies over Kiev less than they do which football team wins the next game.”
When the nukes start flying, you will. But by then it will be too late.
“Volodymyr, you can’t spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You fucked up… you trusted us! Hey, make the best of it!”
That’s your reaction to a man whose country is being genocided by the Russian military? Then let me say, “Wow!! What an asshole!”
If Ukraine matters that much to anyone here, I’m sure you can write a personal check to fund the war effort. Or show up and volunteer to start sending rounds down range. Any takers? No? Oh, you just want your governments, and more importantly my government, to do it for you?
@mkent
Zelensky didn’t start the war, he isn’t a dictator, his approval rating is 57% not 4%,
Zelensky did not start the war that is true. But how can you possibly argue he isn’t a dictator? He eschews elections, he has completely suppressed the press, shut down oppositions parties, thrown dissenters in jail, even shut down a whole church. While forcing people, against their will, to fight in muddy trenches like a WWI hellscape. Ukraine is currently a police state. No don’t get me wrong, you might well argue that that is necessary in a state of total war. But irrespective of whether it is justified or not, he most certainly is a dictator.
As to the approval rating? I don’t know where 4% comes from but I do know where 57% comes from. Basically a randomized cell phone survey. So not including the guys who are fighting the war and a phone survey in a police state where the press are suppressed and dissent is punished by prison or death. Kim Jung Un is apparently pretty popular too. (And FWIW, I am not saying the Zelensky is as bad as Kim, just pointing out that a survey conducted in that way is COMPLETELY meaningless.)
we didn’t send him $350 billion, and there’s no evidence he stole any of it let alone half.
There is no evidence because there is zero traceability. I don’t know, in fact I don’t think, that Zelensky himself is getting rich off the war (he will do that after the war is over). But lots of people are. It is bursting at the seams with fraud. Why? Because Biden’s administration and the Neocon establishment don’t care. They just want to pump money in, make their donors rich, and burn up insane amounts of cash. And it is well recognized that Ukraine has ALWAYS, even before this debacle, been the most corrupt country in Europe.
When the nukes start flying, you will. But by then it will be too late.
You think ending the war in Ukraine is going to cause the nukes to fly? The American military has pushed right up to the line of this with Russia. It is a miracle this thing has not precipitated a nuclear war. FFS, we are relying on the restraint of a tyrant like Putin?
Fortunately it looks like Trump is going to end this thing very soon. Ukraine will have to give up Crimea and some eastern provinces and count themselves lucky it isn’t up the the Dnieper. No doubt Europe will provide some security force, and then, thanks to Trump, the whole disastrous bloodbath will be over. And with a result that could have been obtained two years and half a million lives ago.
How does Ukraine recover? Probably foreign investment sucking up what few assets they have left, but I don’t know how you recover when you have killed a whole generation of young Ukrainian men.
Over the past few years I have hired four young Ukrainian men as programmers. Oleksandr, Lukasz, Ihor and Krasin. All fantastic young men in their twenties. All talented computer programmers. They all went off to war and I haven’t heard from them. One of their mother’s emailed me to say she hasn’t heard from him either. I fear the worst for these young men, the promise of Ukraine’s future is blown up in a International game of chess.
1) It is a bad thing when Country A invades Country B to achieve its foreign policy objectives
2) It is not a good thing for Country C to get involved in the fighting between Country A and Country B.
This goes against the central principles of English and then British foreign policy for the last 500 years.
When Country A is Britain it’s fine to invade County B for any of a number of reasons, including – to forestall Country C invading first and thereby controlling useful military positions (eg Norway, Iceland 1940) or raw materials and trade (the scramble for well pretty much everywhere.) And when Country A is not Britain, then it’s fine if Country B is some sort of threat to Britain. We are often willing to provide finance.
As to No.2, I can feel five hundred dead Britsh Ministers spinning in their graves. How is one to prevent Country B achieving hegemony on the continent – the only circumstance that threatens Britain – other than by supporting Countries C, D, E and F in resisting Country B’s hegemony ?
The man is mad I tell you.
”He eschews elections…”
No, *he* does not. The Ukrainian constitution suspends elections in time of war. In addition, a free and fair election is impossible to conduct while the war with Russia is ongoing. 20% of the country is under Russian occupation. Millions of Ukrainians have left the country. Hundreds of thousands more from the occupied territories have been forcibly removed by Russian troops and tens if not hundreds of thousands of Russians have been moved in. The Russians have attacked thousands of apartment buildings, medical facilities, and grocery stores leading most Ukrainians fearful of attacks on polling places. In the one instance of an “election” in occupied Ukraine, armed soldiers went door to door, unfolded a ballot in front of people, and ordered them to fill it out in favor of secession. Those that refused were put on a list, later arrested, and never heard from again.
”…shut down oppositions parties…”
Only opposition parties funded and controlled by the Russian government, just like United States did in 1941 to organizations and political parties controlled or funded by Germany. Most opposition parties in Ukraine continue in opposition.
“…even shut down a whole church…”
Again, only a church controlled by the Russian FSB whose priests were caught spying for Russia. Almost all Ukrainians go to the church of their choice completely unmolested by the government.
“While forcing people, against their will, to fight in muddy trenches like a WWI hellscape.”
Britain, France, and the United States all had conscription during the actual WWI. That didn’t make them dictatorships or police states.
“…in a police state where the press are suppressed and dissent is punished by prison or death.”
The only “dissent” suppressed or punished in Ukraine is publishing troop movements, the location of arms factories, photos of air defense assets, and the like. No democracy has ever allowed those types of things to be published in a time of war. Ordinary dissent is not restricted. I’ve seen dozens of videos of Ukrainians calling out corruption and incompetence without fear. They don’t even hide their identities.
“There is no evidence because there is zero traceability.”
Yes there is traceability.
First of all, the total amount the USA spent on Ukrainian assistance isn’t anywhere close to $350 billion. Likely less than half that figure. Second, very little of it is in the form of cash. Almost all of it is in the form of expired or outdated weapons and munitions.
Even then, the reported value is often overstated. For example, when a national guard unit sends an old HMMWV to Ukraine the stated value reported by the Pentagon is often the value of a new JLTV, a more modern and expensive vehicle, to replace it. Similarly, when an expired ATACMS, which is unusable by the U. S. Army and would cost them money to dismantle and demilitarize, is sent to Ukraine, the reported value is actually the cost of a new PrSM to replace it. In neither case was any cash sent. It was actually spent modernizing the US military.
Finally, the Pentagon has a team of people on the ground in Ukraine tracking every major asset we give them. We know where every tank, artillery piece, Patriot, etc. is at all times. None of it “disappears” except through documented combat losses. Tucker Carlson is full of it when he says half of this stuff is sold to Mexican drug cartels. That should be an obvious falsehood to anyone paying even casual attention. That it’s not is telling and frustrating.
”It is a miracle this thing has not precipitated a nuclear war. FFS, we are relying on the restraint of a tyrant like Putin?“
Putin is a Russian nationalist who knows that in a nuclear war with the West he, his family, and his oligarchs will all be personally dead and Russia will cease to exist. Not suffer damage — cease to exist. In his worldview that is exactly the worst thing that could happen. He is not going to bring that about because the West gave Ukraine a new tank or missile or fighter jet.
“Fortunately it looks like Trump is going to end this thing very soon.”
Trump won’t end the war because he refuses to do the only thing that can end it. A ceasefire will not end the war. It will only prolong it and increase the destruction.
Ukraine has already said that they will never agree to sign over their territory or their people. They will instead acquire the weapons to drive Russia out of their territory.
Likewise Russia will use the ceasefire to rebuild and modernize its military. Then it will attempt to take the rest of Ukraine. And Moldova, eastern Romania, the Baltics, eastern Poland, and Finland. Russia will not give that up unless stopped. The only way to do that is to do the thing that Trump has said he will never do: present Russia with overwhelming firepower such that advancing to their desired borders is not just costly but physically impossible.
Ukraine has already said that unless they get either NATO membership or a security guarantee from the United States with tens of thousands of boots on the ground — the very things that Trump has already ruled out — they will acquire nuclear weapons.
Their first target may be a demonstration. Or it may be Rostov-on-Don and Belgorod. I suspect Russia will respond by nuking Kiev and Odessa. Ukraine will follow-up by hitting Moscow and St. Petersburg. **That’s** when the Russian nukes start flying every which way.
You Trumpers keep acting just like Putin, thinking you can just dictate to other people what happens to their countries. Like Putin you will learn that those other countries get a vote. They don’t have to and won’t take it lying down. Ukraine hasn’t done that yet after a three-year onslaught by the second most powerful military on the planet. I don’t think they’re going to start now because a blowhard throws a tantrum.
I am perfectly happy to pay taxes to fund Ukraine & Ukraine’s military doesn’t accept anyone over 60. Not wanting western men to get mobilised to fight Russia directly is EXACTLY why people like me (& pretty much everyone where I live these days) is all in for supporting Ukraine so a few years down the road, the next Russian move west doesn’t mean a war in Central Europe.
No dictating. No ordering about. No control, no coercion, no expectations or demands or pressure.
The damned Trumpers will just stay home.
So, no great loss if they stop.
(I think you’re overstating your case here, in anger, by making it easier for the doves to simply say fuck you and withdraw. You’re repeating Zelenskyy’s and Sayers’ mistakes, by trying to deal with Trump in the exact worst manner possible. Consider that Trump has historically been tough to predict – see Snorri Godhi above – and that perhaps he’s aiming some of what he says at Putin, and not at Z, and that the die has not been completely cast.
If so, there may be possibilities remaining for Ukraine. Unless, of course, the responses simply piss Trump off terminally.)
Then so was Churchill by that logic. And as for justification, elections now would be against the Ukrainian constitution. Do you actually know *anything* about Ukraine?
“The damned Trumpers will just stay home.”
No one’s asking them to do anything else.
No great loss to the United States, who would have paid to scrap them anyway. Clearly a great loss to Ukraine & a great win for Russia.
We are just now one (ONE!) month into the Trump presidency.
The most important post on this thread – the most salient for the next 4 years – is from David Roberts up top:
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Trump is not a fool and he is trying to provide a good future for us all, particularly the USA. He believes, with some justification, that because of net bad government by the western nations, over recent decades, the future is bleak. So he has devised a foreign policy tactic to bring about corrective action by other nations. One could call it “the cat amongst the pigeons tactic”.
Trump makes what appears to be an outrageous statement, that is intended to stimulate other governments and peoples to take action and responsibility to ensure a good outcome for all, particularly the USA. Examples of this tactic are: Greenland, Panama, tariffs and now giving in to Putin. This tactic, may or may not work, and it may or may not be true. I live in hope.
———————————
This ^^^^
Trump – like all good negotiators – Knows how important preparation, feinting, and improvisation are.
As someone who has lived up close to media all his adult life – he knows how to use it.
He came back from the last 4 wilderness years SOLELY by leveraging the power of messaging – the large numbers of people who did not trust what they were being told, and considered him important/intriguing enough to read his Tweets.
He knows how important it is to go on the offense in media – to ignore, or even better, discredit and shatter your opponents’ framing of issues, and get your messaging to stick.
Tariffs, Greenland, Panama – he has changed the map, changed the discourse, changed what is possible, got in his opposition’s heads — without spending a penny.
What a great Return on Investment!
He spun a modest real estate portfolio into an empire – in one of the world’s most cut-throat markets.
He graduated from Wharton school of business.
Despite the accent he is no dummy.
You can keep wringing your hands (or sniffing and sneering) for the next 4 years – or you can identify his working methods.
Truth! I voted for him, but not to pander to Putin.
So far, all we’ve had are hurty-words. I live in hope that this is an opening gambit in a chess game that I don’t understand the rules of from the author of the Art Of The Deal.
The proof will come when we see what sort of ‘deal’ we end up with.
I think this will be an interesting SQotD to return to a year from now.
The war is now a stalemate, a bloody mess of attrition with no end in sight. And yet everyone is still babbling on about military approaches, as though more guns, more bombs, more tanks, more planes, will somehow bring success – whatever that is. The lure of warmongering is strong.
American taxpayers are tired of pouring vast sums of borrowed money at a problem they didn’t cause and which they don’t see as having a direct impact on them. mkent, in his airy dismissal that ‘nobody’s asking them . . ..’, quietly passes over the fact that ‘they’ have been forced to spend untold billions in supporting this war. And many of them harbour a strong and maybe justified suspicion that the reason Biden and his warhawk cronies were so gung-ho to support Ukraine is that he and his family wete up to their nostrils in decades of Ukrainian corruption.
Putin started this war because he calculated that exonomic conditions were favourable for him to do so. He had Europe over a barrel when it came to energy, which is why the European response was so half-hearted in the beginning. But even Putin could not have imagined that the European response would evolve into the insane craze for ‘Net Zero’, the destruction of their own economies, and an increasing struggle just to keep their own lights on.
The war started because of economic conditions, and economic conditions will end it. Not shiny aluminum and green paint, and not the armchair generalling of a thousand Internet strategists playing their games of Stratego while hundreds of thousands of young men are killed and maimed. Russia lives and dies by a half-a-dozen resources – cut off the cash flow, and it doesn’t matter how much Putin wants to keep fighting, he can’t spend money he doesn’t have. Biden and the Europeans couldn’t countenance these solutions because they don’t comport with their worldview of Net Zero and No More Fossil Fuels. President Trump doesn’t give a single s**t about any of that, so maybe he can succeed where everyone else has failed, and will continue to fail. I think it’s a better chance than what we’ve been doing the last three years.
llater,
llamas
I’m a lot more incensed about European politicians(and arguably the British ones are the worst offenders) who bluster like they are Winston Churchill and pretend to be tough guys when they’ve actually ran their own militaries and industries down to the level where they can barely defend themselves. Several decades of this level of unrealism is a lot more outrageous than Trump’s social media.
Yep, but I look at it not so much along the divide between good and bad, but the one between smart and stupid. While Zelensky is clearly on the more-good\less-bad side of the former, he is squarely on the far end of stupid. Also and to be fair, very unlucky, but mostly very, very stupid.
You’re missing the point Perry. You aren’t doing enough. If you’re too old/fat/whatever to tote a rifle, you can still work in a Ukrainian hospital or volunteer to work for some NGO that’s over there. Join the Red Cross and pour coffee for the brave men keeping back the Russian hordes. Open ammunition crates to give the valiant defenders of Europe a fighting chance. Keep those intrepid soldiers in the field by doing the grunt work behind the lines. You can do far more there than you can from your recliner my friend.
And your taxes just aren’t enough. You should empty your bank account too. Just break out your check book and in the line that says “pay to the order of:” put Ukraine, or better yet just send cash. That cuts out the middle man you know. I have no doubt it will go to good use.
After all, isn’t their dauntless defense of your homeland by proxy worth a little sacrifice on your part?
One thing that we can all be grateful for, is that Trump is nowhere as dumb as most of the commenters who support him here.
Actually I’ve sent a great deal of my personal money to a kinetic charity in Ukraine that provides drones. So fuck off, Steven R, you piece of shit.
Largely off topic, but even so: a question, or issue, that has always confounded me.
Namely: In his post at 7:18 AM, bobby b used the formulation “the die has not been completely cast.”
I’ve long wondered what the origin and meaning of this is. Is it referring to multiple dice being cast, “die” being the plural of “dice”? But isn’t “dice” itself a plural term? After all, who refers to single one of the objects as “a dice”?
Or is the die/dice formulation a mistaken substitute for “dye”? E.g., once the dye is cast (in process of coloring fabric), the outcome is fixed.
Or does “die” refer to the moulds in the metal manufacturing process (as in “tool and die”): once the mould is formed, it cannot be changed.
In any case, is it not incorrect to say that the die/dye has/have “not been completely cast”? The die are either cast or they aren’t. There is no interim (incomplete) stage. In the same sense that there is no such thing as being partially pregnant: you either are or you aren’t.
Am I making any sense at all?
See, I understand this already. And you articulate it in a way that makes sense.
mkent, however, speaks of those arms in a disparaging tone – choosing to speak much as Zelenskyy has been choosing to speak – eff you, pay me. My point – “so they’re useless” – is that that’s a poor way to convince.
I’m only talking about process, about how to communicate with Trump. It seems basic, but everyone seems to think that you deal with Trump just like you dealt with Obama. That’s clearly not working. The mkent/Z approach is counterproductive.
Yep.
“This phrase comes from the Latin “alea iacta est” which translates to “the die is cast,” often attributed to Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon river, signifying a point of no return in a decision with irreversible consequences.”
(It would puff my ego to pretend that I knew this before I went to Google after reading your question, but . . . no. I’ve just always used the phrase as a way to say that thinking is still going on about a future path, consonant with my limited knowledge of the metal casting process.)
(I should add: when you make a die, you usually design a positive – a model of what you want to produce – and then you cast or cut a die around it – the negative. That might involve many steps and attempts. Once the die is cast for good, you start using it in production of more positives.)
@IrishOtter49
I’ve long wondered what the origin and meaning of this is. Is it referring to multiple dice being cast, “die” being the plural of “dice”? But isn’t “dice” itself a plural term? After all, who refers to single one of the objects as “a dice”?
It is an English translation of the Latin Alea iacta est, a statement made, supposedly anyway, by Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon with his legion, in defiance of the Senate and committing himself to his Imperial ambitions. It refers to a gambling dice (die), though it is a curiosity of English that the alternative meaning of solidified metal, has largely the same meaning. It is effectively synonymous with “crossing the Rubicon” because that is where the phrase originated. You’ve made your choice and you are stuck with it, regardless of the consequences.
FWIW, outside of this idiom, I think using “die” as a singular for dice is a little pretentious. Dice means singular and plural to the vast majority of English speakers. And English language is, and always has been, a bottom up thing. In fact I think in that sense English is very libertarian — generated in the free market of conversations rather than top down by the elites like the Académie Française.
Ha! And the great thing is, both explanations work well!
Of course I know that the quote in question is attributed, perhaps apocryphally, to Caesar, who supposedly uttered those famous words after illegally crossing the Rubican with his legion. What I don’t know — in fact, what nobody knows — is whether he was referring to gambling dice or coloring dye. I’m familiar with scholarship advocating for either explanation. In any case the meaning was the same: once cast, whether die or dye, there could be no going back to things as they were.
Caesar was a soldier, speaking to other soldiers. I don’t doubt what his reference was.
“Dice means singular and plural to the vast majority of English speakers.”
I’d like a citation on that. I use die as the singular of dice, and I don’t recall anyone using ‘dice’ for a single die. Now maybe I’m skewed by being plugged into the table-top RPG and wargaming culture, but I don’t think I’m that skewed.
It refers to a gambling dice (die), though it is a curiosity of English that the alternative meaning of solidified metal, has largely the same meaning
It’s not really a curiosity it’s simply an extension of meaning by analogy. “Cast” at its most basic means throw, but in some contexts when you cast (ie throw) you create a pattern, for example when you cast some bones on the ground to tell a fortune (as one does.) Weather forecasters do this too, throwing out some speculations about the likelihood of rain to give you a summarised pattern of tomorrow’s weather.
So cast is extended from the act of throwing to the pattern that results from the throw. Hence metal casting – you cast (ie throw, or more likely carefully pour) some liquid metal into a container and so create a pattern – the cast. Likewise luvvies on the stage are the result of what you throw onto the stage.
Exactly.
The endless regurgitation of Russian propaganda points by those who want Ukraine to surrender to Putin is appalling.
The U.K. didn’t have an election in 1945 until European combat ended.
Having a poll when a fifth of your country is being bombed and shelled isn’t realistic.
Zelensky’s approval ratings remain relatively high. They’ve fallen but the figure Trump spouted is so obviously a lie that you have to wonder about his sanity.
Trump may achieve some good during his tenure. Unfortunately, Ukraine isn’t an example as far as it looks right now.
Well Perry at least you’re allowing comments that question the conduct of the war so if nothing else that’s progress. Is there an endgame that doesn’t involve war for the next decade?
You seriously think Russia has the economic wherewithal to fight a high intensity war for the next decade, Bruce?
A plausible scenario:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/02/the_trump_strategy_for_ukraine.html
Who’s Bruce?
“Yevgeny Progreszhin”
👍
Llamas:
American taxpayers are tired of pouring vast sums of borrowed money at a problem they didn’t cause and which they don’t see as having a direct impact on them. mkent, in his airy dismissal that ‘nobody’s asking them . . ..’, quietly passes over the fact that ‘they’ have been forced to spend untold billions in supporting this war. And many of them harbour a strong and maybe justified suspicion that the reason Biden and his warhawk cronies were so gung-ho to support Ukraine is that he and his family were up to their nostrils in decades of Ukrainian corruption.
I am sure US and other taxpayers are fed up about it. That Joe Biden and his family are a bunch of lowlifes also appears a true fact.
A problem is that former President Biden and many others made no effort to explain why it is in the West’s strategic interest to contain Putin’s goal of restoring the borders of the old Soviet Union thereby snuff out the semi-free/free states of the Baltics, Ukraine, Georgia, etc. Much of the political class of the West has done a weak job of explaining why containing this thug is important and worth spending resources on. And to some extent, JD Vance was right to say that societies that are crap at defending freedom in their own turf aren’t good at making the case for it internationally.
If Ukraine is turned into a puppet state, then sooner or later Putin pushes closer to central Europe and all that implies. It is a huge roll-back to the gains in freedom and the rule of law that took place, however unevenly and partially, since 1990 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. A strong, prosperous European landmass is a good thing for North America, not just because it creates a big market for American exports (although it does), but because it produces a far less volatile world in general and provides fewer places in which ugly forces flourish. Containing this stuff is like an insurance policy.
I fully understand that America wants to focus attention on places such as Pacific Rim, etc. And US resources aren’t unlimited. The US now pays more on national debt interest than on defence, and many other countries are in the same boat. Europe definitely needs to expand military capabilities.
Another thing the West could and should have done is weaken Putin’s regime not just by sanctions and so on, but by doing what it can to work with dissident groups inside Russia, and offer opportunities wherever possible for Russians, such as those with valuable skills, to leave. (I get that there could be issues there.) Western countries haven’t done that sort of thing enough. There are millions of good Russian folk who must wonder themselves when this nightmare will end.
Douglas Murray drops some truth bombs.
https://nypost.com/2025/02/20/opinion/putin-is-the-dictator-and-10-ukraine-russia-war-truths-we-ignore-at-our-peril/
Johnathan:
… including an increased risk of nuclear war.
Justin Bronk drops some truth bombs.
https://youtu.be/DCBEMTbUif0?si=szpoyJGhUY4jCuct
I am still hoping President Trump is going to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but it looks like he doesn’t even have a hat.
Alisa’s link at 11:53 am is of interest, but Ukrainians might well wonder why they should trust Western Europe and the US to re-arm them, as the author implies.
Given the Vietnam experience, that would be a foolish trust.
Also, the author writes:
But, to substantiate this claim, he links to an article that explicitly says: no money is missing. You might well doubt the latter claim (i know that i do); but to link to the latter claim in order to substantiate the former, is an excursion, however brief, into “retard” territory.
Z is simply the wrong guy for this stage of Ukraine’s relationship with the US.
He probably shouldn’t have shown up in the US campaigning for Kamala and trashing Trump.
He probably shouldn’t have publicly insulted Trump since then.
He appears to know nothing about the psychology of persuasion, especially the persuasion of someone like Trump.
Trump is just . . . Trump. You cannot deal with him (successfully) as just another fungible politician. Z is out of his depth. Maybe he’s the perfect military and social leader for U, but he needs a different statesman for his international relations. He’s blowing it.
And given Ukraine’s own experience with giving up their nuclear weapons, for that matter. A smart leader shouldn’t trust any foreign power – what he should do is take the least-bad option available at any given moment, instead of biting the hand that offers him that option.
Regardless the various links discussing this or that amount of money that did or didn’t go missing, do I think Zelensky is corrupt, by whatever standard? I have no idea. Do I think he’s smart? Nope.
To follow up on that link I posted earlier, I don’t think that Trump is throwing Ukraine under the bus – but he could well be doing it to its current leader.
@David Roberts
I am still hoping President Trump is going to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but it looks like he doesn’t even have a hat.
You might not like his hat, or think his rabbit isn’t very cute, but it seems pretty clear what is going to happen here. The war will end. Russia will retain some eastern provinces and Crimea. There will be some peace assurances, for what they are worth, and I’d guess a European force will provide some security in Ukraine. The US, and maybe Europe, will provide lots of rebuilding money most likely in a “deal” that gets the US something in return. Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO. And that’ll be an end to it. It is the same deal that could have been struck two years ago.
To what degree sanctions against Russia will be lifted, I don’t know. I suspect Trump’s inclination is to lift them in large part, but I could be wrong, and on that Europe also gets to make their own choices.
We might not like it, but that is what it is going to be. And hopefully Ukraine can try and rebuild from this cataclysm that has befallen them, and the rest of the world can get on with peace, growth and trade.
And, of course, business will be very good in both Ukraine and Russia, if your business is making coffins or digging graves. Perhaps the millions of young South American men who have been trying to flood the United States can instead redirect themselves to Ukraine. Because there will be a massive shortage of young men, and lots of American money floating about to pay them.
It will not be the end of it.
Preposterous. Utterly preposterous. Have you actually been following this conflict from the Russian side of commentary? Russian generals were still talking about “on to Odessa & then Moldova next!” two years ago.
Come on, let’s give him a break!
His achievements are astonishing, given that he is a comedian by trade.
Jack Weatherford, in his remarkable (if partisan) biography of Chinggis Khan, claimed that the latter’s rise from humble conditions was matched only by Jesus.
Zelenskyy, as well as Jeanne d’Arc, are not quite in that class, but still quite remarkable.
Even independently of his background, i think him the most admirable European leader at the moment. With apologies to Meloni (who supports Ukraine); but not to Orban, who seem to me to be making Hungary hostage to Putin’s whims.
That is how i know that **American** libertarians are too insane to understand the concept of incentives.
And yet Italian defence spending is declining under Meloni, while Hungarian defence spending increases under Orban.
Not going to argue with this. His achievements have been remarkable even had he been an accomplished military leader prior.
But I still say that, for the specific purpose of going out and making his case to the world – to Donald Trump, with all that that entails – he’s not the right person.
Or at least he’s not doing that part very well.
Good lord, he came over from Ukraine and, as a foreign leader, he campaigned in our presidential election against Trump. How did he expect to get along with him now?
He’s become Trudeau 2.0. Cue up the Trump commentary about Ukraine becoming the 52nd state.
I’m not excusing Trump’s personal reactions to these people, but it is what is. Arguments about which side is good are a bit useless now. The talk ought to be about how Ukraine makes a Trump rapprochement. Or, if that fails, how to deal with a hostile Trump from this point on, I guess.
Martin: I take note. I am also aware that Orban has been perhaps the strongest supporter of Israel in Europe.
— bobby: Diplomacy seems indeed to be Zelenskyy’s weakest spot.
To be fair, however, Trump’s absurd claims, such as Z having only 4% approval rating, seem to play well domestically — indirectly, by stirring outrage — but the long-term result in international relations remains dubious at best.
A frightened Europe that defends itself rather than makes us borrow the money to do it is BEST for the U. S., far better than the current protectorate situation.
I have no fear that Russia can do anything at all to hurt my country in any meaningful way. I fail to see a difference for me whether the Russians control Berlin* or the huns do. Far worse Soviet tyrants did for almost fifty years and it didn’t do them so much good. Like any colony, it was more trouble than it was worth and it would be again.
*I would hate to see it in the east though. But like a starving African child, it’s not enough of a personal problem to make me act or try to compel others to.
Indeed.
I have already commented on this – on another thread.
President Trump was provoked (he was insulted first), and he responded with words (rather than with actions – which would have been much worse) – nor were the words “semi literate”.
If you want more military aid – stop attacking the person who signs the cheques.
As for the rare earths and other minerals – presently they are worthless, as they can not be safely worked. The agreement is not really about earning the United States any money (not for years – if at all), it is more a gesture of good will – a thank you for the vast sums spent on Ukraine (before anyone points it out – I know a lot of that was stolen by corrupt Americans and never even reached Ukraine).
bobby b – Z has been treated like a rock star for years, he has been cheered to the skies in a vast number of establishment venues, he would have to be a saint for all this hero worship not to go to his head.
But the bad blood goes back a long way – to the second Impeachment effort, President Zelensky did not produce the information on the corrupt activities of the Biden family and their associates in Ukraine (basically he covered it up), and a Ukrainian Colonel (who was in an American uniform – he was serving in the United States Armed Forces, and had taken the oath) directly acted for the Democrats.
This was before Mr Putin’s invasion of 2022 – years before. President Trump had given Ukraine a lot of assistance back then (2017 to 2020) – and felt betrayed.
It is not impossible to get the relationship back on track – but the attacks on President Trump have to stop, if there is to be any chance of military aid to Kiev continuing.
No more attacks – no more insults. Have a shave, put on a suit and tie – and use some charm.
And, yes, make thank you gestures – such as signing agreements or rare earths and other minerals, after all this will not involve any real payments for years (if ever). It is a gesture – to show that you are a friend and deserve more military support.
Actually, Zelenskyy looks better with a short beard and a tight dark-green sweatshirt.
Some questions and ideas from George Friedman.
https://youtu.be/s-okIcAADYE?si=R7rtmdtfpHyxZBcv
He looks like an empty suit whether he wears one or not.
Thanks for Paul’s long memory, although I’m not even sure that I was aware of those details. To Z’s possible defense, he was probably put between the rock and the hard place by whoever called the shots in Ukraine back then (and still does?).
Thanks for that video David, quite instructive.