Antakya? Never heard of it before the recent earthquake that devastated SW turkey and NW Syria. Oh you mean Antioch? Heard of that. Dates back over 2000 years. The Greeks, Romans, the Crusades – very well documented. Why do we who speak English call Antioch by its new Turkish name Antakya? We dont do that for all sorts of cites so why Antioch? By the way, Antioch has a long history of huge earthquakes that did severe damage. The one in 119 AD devastated the city so its nothing new. The people of the region are right to level anger at builders who used cheap materials and did not follow construction laws that were put in place precisely due to earthquakes. The ire should also be directed at the government that allowed builders to skirt the rules to save money. The likelihood will be that even more construction rules will be made into law – BUT as time passes they will also be skirted or set aside from pressure to make more money. People forget and dont think long term. The reality is that the cost of reconstruction will far out weigh whatever was saved by using cheaper materials and skirting the laws.

This evening I had the misfortune of flipping across my TV channels and came across an interview between Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson on FOX which sounded remarkably like what was being said about Winston Churchill when he was warning the world about Hitlers true intentions. People forget that Churchill was called a war monger and ridiculed for his warnings. As Nevil Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister said “Mr Hitler is not the problem, Winston Churchill is”. Nevil Chamberlain did not want a war – his intentions were noble – But by trying to avoid a war he made it inevitable. In Fact his “good intentions” could be said to have led to World War II. “Peace in our time”? How long did that last? It doesnt take a lot of brains to ask the question “what if we give in and let Putin win?” What then? Well, history has given us the answer over and over again. Only the naive choose to ignore those lessons. Tulsi Gabbard is naive just like Chamberlain. And just like him choses to be blind to the obvious. We know Tucker Carlson does not believe what he says on Fox so no point thinking he is naive or stupid. Still, why give voice to a nut like Tulsi Gabbard? How is that going to earn you more money? Or enhance your star power on Fox? Its a mystery – legacy? well that ship sailed long ago. I guess he it thinking take the money now and hope for the best. Hitler said very clearly what he intended to do. He wrote a book about it. Putin has stated publicly what he intends to do. He has not made it a secret. Xi has also said what he intends to do. We did not take Hitler at his word. We learned from that terrible mistake. Thankfully most Americans and Western leaders take this new crop at their word. We are not about to let Ukraine become another Munich. We know what appeasement leads to.

The Russian play book is at work now in Moldova. Russian operatives are stirring up descent and pro Russian propaganda against the current government that is pro Western and has applied to join the European Union. There is already a break away pro Russian region on the boarder with Ukraine that actually has Russian troops and stockpiles of weapons there. The Baltic states know the playbook all to well. So do the Poles. No wonder the further east you go in Europe the more anti Russian it becomes.

For those of us that were thinking that the Fox “News” hosts could not really be believing all the nonsense from the Trump camp about stolen elections etc, it was a great relief to hear that they do NOT believe those wild ideas. In fact they thought the protagonists were nut cases and Trump himself out of control if not delusional. To learn they said on air what they did was just for the money makes sense. We all do it in one way or another. What it also shows us is the degree to which the Fox pundits and Rupert Murdoch himself would go for that money. What an irony for a company called the “News Corp”.

Russia has been trying to justify its invasion of Ukraine by pretending that it is still a superpower with a “natural” sphere of influence which it claims Ukraine is within. However, if Russia is a superpower so is Great Britain and France who also have nuclear weapons and who also in the past claimed “spheres of influence”. Both Great Britain and France have had to come to terms that they are NOT superpowers anymore and they do not have natural spheres of influence. Russia needs to do the same. It is NOT a superpower. It has nuclear weapons but so do 9 other countries. It’s economy is 9th in the world. As Putin has recently demonstrated, its army is in a sorry state. Putin is under the illusion that Russia should be a super power with a natural sphere of influence. It seems Roger Waters has bought into that misconception. The reality is that the days when Russia could be considered a superpower are long gone. Hell, they are reduced to buying weapons from Iran! If Putin remains and this old thinking persists it will never be again. Roger Waters should study history and look to the future and NOT the past as Putin is doing. Lets face it, if there is a sphere of influence at work it is the EU much more than Russia, and Ukraine belongs more in the EU than it does with a tired country like Russia. Russia is too much of a looser for a country like Ukraine to want to be part of. They know better. So do the Poles, Baltic States, Finland etc. They have seen Russia first hand. They have lived it. And they reject it totally. The shame is that Putin is perpetuating a myth that holds Russia back. Old think is not what Russia needs. Like Ukraine, Russia needs to look to the future and Putin is not it.

For all the complaints about the “over reach” of government as it relates to regulations, when we see the devastation in Turkey we should realize all those building regulations, building codes and restrictions all have a reason. If a 7.8 earthquake happened in LA, there would of course have destruction BUT nothing like what we see in Turkey and Syria. No doubt Turkey had building codes, but they were likely never enforced nor were they strict enough. In Syria, it is unlikely there were any. It costs money to build safely especially in an earthquake zone. Watch: when buildings are built again in the area how many will incorporate regulations to prevent this happening again? Few if any. The shame is that it WILL happen again.

For all the talk by Putin and his spokesmen that Russia is going to win the war in Ukraine, the penny has still not dropped that the West cannot afford to let him win so he is destined to fail. No wonder he wears bullet proof vests everywhere. He is going to be assassinated as the only way out for Russia. There are a few like Trump who call for an end to the Ukraine war and the US putting money into the “real challenge” ie China without realizing that China is looking at what we do in Ukraine to either encourage or discourage them taking Taiwan. End the war in Ukraine is code for letting Putin claim a win. Not surprising Trump would say this as a long time Putin admirer nor for the Trump supporters in the Republican Party who care more about wining elections than what’s good for America. The point is that what we spend in Ukraine is a drop in the bucket and vastly cheaper than what we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a cheap way to keep a hostel power in check, learn about war in this century, and no American lives lost. Our defense industries love it. They need a reason to develop more and more advanced weaponry and Putin has given it to them on a plate. AND, it has woken up the Europeans to the need to build up their armed forces and spend more on defense. Trump correctly tried to get Germany etc to spend more and failed. Putin did not fail. And Finland joining NATO! Wow. everything Putin did not want to happen has happened or about to happen. What a win it will be for the Russians when he is finally eliminated. A huge sigh of relief will envelope the world and Russia can be on a winning streak again. China meanwhile has nothing to loose just sitting it out. They can keep the pressure on Taiwan and do nothing. Play the long game. Go to war, and as Putin found out, you may not get the result you bargained for. And for us in the USA, we can see Trump, his cronies and whatever their ideology was finally fade into the past. Hopefully the Republican Party will once again be a party of good sense.