October 14: Did we miss the exit in Ukraine?

In which, President Biden tries to ratchet down the nuclear talk while Putin ratchets up the missile drops, and Saudi Arabia and the Biden administration get in a tiff over oil prices

Did we miss the exit in Ukraine?

Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities continued this week in retaliation for the bridge bombing of last week, and bitter fighting continued on the ground along the line of Ukrainian advance.

NATO’s response to the increased tempo of missile strikes (some launched from those Iranian drones we mentioned some weeks back) was to move to support Ukraine’s missile defense systems. The EU, for its part, took one step closer to spearheading a training mission for the Ukrainian military.

In what appeared to be an effort to tamp down talk of nuclear escalation, President Biden backed off earlier comments on “nuclear armageddon” to refer to Putin as a “rational” person who would never use nuclear weapons. It’s rather an overcorrection, but at least signals something of a downgrade in the extreme rhetoric that came out of Biden’s comments last week. 

That may be Biden trying to find an off ramp as Putin meets with Turkey’s President Erdogan in Kazakhstan to allegedly discuss peace options. However, Russia appears to be doing little on the ground to deescalate the fight in Ukraine, or even de-escalate its diplomatic crisis with the US and Europe. Alleged cyberattacks with Russian origins hit critical infrastructure in both Germany and the US this week.

While Putin may be trying to get any advantage he can, his window of opportunity is clearly closing as the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory, and up to now quiet allies China and India both called for de-escalation.

So, it appears we haven’t missed the exit so much as we’re looking for it.

Correcting the Covid chronicle

Throughout the Covid pandemic, readers will recall that I frequently commented on the lack of wisdom and logic that seemed to undergird much of the public health policies and rhetoric adopted during that time.

As the pandemic fades and Covid becomes the manageable seasonal illness many were publicly pilloried for suggesting it would become, it was amazing to me to see multiple stories emerge this week of very public corrections to the official record on Covid, especially in the arena of vaccine efficacy.

Florida’s surgeon general reported on state-level data in the Sunshine State that indicated that the vaccine appeared to trigger severe cardiac reactions in an unusually high number of young men.

A leading Pfizer executive acknowledged in a hearing at the EU Parliament that Pfizer never tested their vaccine’s effect on Covid transmission. Remember, this was a big reason why people were “encouraged to get the vaccine - to tamp down transmission. Not only was there literally no data to support such a belief, but it was apparently never even part of the plan in vaccine development.

The cherry on top has got to be none other than the world chief vaccine evangelist Bill Gates suddenly coming to the conclusion that the pandemic was actually never that bad to begin with.

What we’re seeing happening before our very eyes is data science undermining the public narratives about Covid pretty consistently, and many of the major purveyors of those pernicious public narratives moving into “CYA” mode. I would suggest they follow this gentleman’s lead instead because the consequences of how this pandemic was handled go beyond mere “oops, my bad” affectations.