If you haven't been paying much attention to international news you might not have noticed that civil war in Syria took a sudden turn over the past 2 weeks. The conflict, which launched as part of the Arab Spring protests in 2011, had been at a stalemate for years. Syrian dictator Bashar Assad quickly regained control of most of his country with ( Read more... )

Since I wrote about NATO and international politics yesterday with Sweden's bid to join NATO moving forward, a few months after Finland's bid to join moved forward, it's been in the news that Ukraine is pressing its case again to join NATO. During the NATO summit in Vilnius this week world leaders have paid lots of lip service to supporting Ukraine ( Read more... )

In recent news about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Turkey dropped its opposition to Sweden joining NATO.

"LOLWUT?" you might ask. "How is Turkey's opposition to Sweden joining an alliance a matter of Russia's war on Ukraine?"

The fact is, Sweden's effort to join NATO is entirely about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Sweden, like its neighbor ( Read more... )

Turkey today ratified Finland's petition to join NATO. The vote in Turkish parliament, which was hardly a sure thing, now goes to president Tayyip Erdogan, who has signaled he will sign it. Erdogan's approval was also hardly a sure thing. He demanded, and won, a few concessions from Finland as a condition of the vote. Turkey is the last of 30 NATO ( Read more... )

Today marks the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The war, still ongoing, began on 24 Feb 2022 when Russia rolled tanks and soldiers across the border with the intent to crush Ukraine's government and annex the country's land ( Read more... )

In my previous blog about the HBO series Chernobyl I wrote about "The Cost of Lies, The Futility of Truth". Scientist Valery Legasov led the Soviet delegation at a UN IAEA conference held in Vienna in August 1986. As I noted previously Legasov shaded the truth. He not only left out of his report the fact of design flaws in the design of the Soviet ( Read more... )

The fourth episode of HBO's miniseries Chernobyl (2019) is entitled "The Happiness of All Mankind". It's a slogan from a propaganda banner left hanging at a civic center in one of the towns in the exclusion zone near Chernobyl that were evacuated after the nuclear reactor explosion. Showrunner Craig Mazin notes that the banner is described in first ( Read more... )

1:23:45 is not just a series of consecutive numbers. It is a time that will live in infamy. It is the hour (and minute and second) of the morning on April 26, 1986 when reactor #4 at the Chernobyl power plant in the former USSR exploded. It is also the title of episode 1 of Chernobyl, a 5-part HBO miniseries we binged last Friday.


( Read more... )

Last night Hawk and I watched the HBO miniseries Chernobyl. It's about about the 1986 nuclear accident at the Soviet power plant Chernobyl near the city of Pripyat in what is today Ukraine.


( Read more... )

When I arrived in Las Vegas yesterday I went to my hotel before the afternoon portion of the trade show. This trip I'm staying at the Conrad hotel, in the ResortsWorld casino complex. It's on the Strip. Surprisingly I found a really good for it when I booked several weeks ago. Usually all the big Strip hotels are $500/night during this trade show ( Read more... )