Reg

This isn’t anything out of the ordinary for him nor is it any sort of game-changer.

0.01" this morning.

Ground is wet here but surprisingly not measurable.

I just read about it. We’ve had a few of incidents like this over the years, usually only causing minor damage to electrical substation equipment with little impact on electrical services. This one looks to have been more successful. No word on a motive yet. Could be people just etching to stir up trouble on any side, regardless of ideology. We have several “Boogaloo bois” plan to blow up a few substations in the summer of 2020 but they decided to kill some police officers instead.

What did I miss?

Cloudy today but nothing else.

0.01" here

Drizzling here at 4 AM. Ground is wet. Nothing measurable at this time.

Deliberately targeting retreating troops, many of whom were known to be unarmed and traveling alongside civilians in a hurry, is a violation of the UN charter and represents a use disproportionate force against both civilians and an enemy force that was no longer in combat. Any argument you make to justify the US’s actions in this scenario or any other like it in modern history could equally be applied to Russia in Ukraine, they state they are only selecting legitimate military and infrastructure-related targets. The United States also has a tool that Russia does not have, however, that being the world’s reserve currency - the US dollar - and the absolute power that it carries with sanctions as a weapon of economic warfare. Our government deliberately starves civilian populations all the time with crippling sanctions, even preventing the delivery of medicine and medical equipment (even if our government denies it) to countries like Syria, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela because our government failed in regime change efforts in those countries. Tactics utilized against both military and civilian populations of other countries targeted by the US government are no mistake by any stretch of the imagination. In the view of the US State Department, excess civilian casualties inflicted in our military operations around the world are little more than “collateral damage” that can be simply shrugged off, ignored, or not reported on at all. If you do expose this, you end up like Julian Assange. And if your logic is that Russia is fighting dirty so Ukrainians are free to fight dirty back, then okay. There isn’t much else to say there.

1. It's impractical because portions of Ukraine are under military occupation by a hostile enemy force (Russia) and have been since 2014 (Crimea). This disqualifies an aspiring NATO member from joining because this would likely trigger Article V of the NATO clause, obligating all NATO members to militarily intervene on Ukraine's behalf. This is the same reason why Georgia never joined, as Russia has occupied South Ossetia and Abkhazia since 2008. 2. I'm referring to instances like this. Civilian casualties are not always avoidable, not for NATO nor for Russia. But even Amnesty International called out Ukraine for their tactics, specifically for establishing bases in schools, hospitals and residential areas (thereby making them legitimate military targets), a few months ago: Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians (while also being careful to note Russia's occasional indiscriminate attacks as well.)

Update. Quite the plunge in temperatures from October to the end of November. In Temecula, only Novembers of 2000 and 2004 were colder.

Ukraine joining NATO is impractical, NATO fully knows this which is why Ukraine was never accepted since their interest in the late 2000s (similar story with Georgia). NATO is waging this side of the war indirectly to the maximum extent without officially going in. There isn’t much else to say on that subject. And if your view is “but NATO were the good guys in those other conflicts and any civilians affected by targeted strikes was just an accident” then I can’t help you. NATO and Russia are following precisely the same strategy in the aforementioned conflicts, Russia was just slower to realize it and act upon it. Your last paragraph is largely speculation and opinion so I won’t comment on that part, you can side with whoever you want.

Got a little colder last night, probably due to somewhat clearer skies. 41F versus 51F the previous night.

That is where I do criticize Putin, by initiating this invasion he confirmed the fears of Eastern European countries and allowed the military alliance to strengthen against him, and likely expand even further (Finland). But then, I would also argue that NATO expansion was one of the principal causes of this war, which Russia apparently felt the need to counter in this manner (capitalizing on an already existing war in eastern Ukraine since 2014, of which Russia directly contributed to). The events surrounding Euromaidan in 2013 are very important to understanding how and why this war is now happening on this scale. As for Russia’s tactics and strategy, targeting critical infrastructure is actually a signature NATO tactic used against Serbia in the 90s, Iraq in both 1991 and 2003, and Libya in 2011. The purpose is to massively weaken the military capabilities of the enemy force - of which logistics, staging, weapons and equipment production and assembly all rely heavily on electricity and other critical infrastructure. Russia is simply copying this tactic from NATO’s playbook. That doesn’t make it right, as civilians are massively impacted as well, but there is technically an important military purpose. I don’t buy the “Russia is shelling nuclear power plants which they are already occupying” as it is very dangerous and serves them absolutely no useful purpose, even for propaganda. IAEA inspectors are present at the plant (at least in Zaporizhizhia) alongside occupying Russian forces.