A Few Factoids...

I, The Chuckmeister, am intensely interested in the things going on about me.  Interested enough that I do research on those topics that captivate me.  I assume others do so as well.

But for those too busy to worry about such stuff, like you maybe, here are a few factoids you can use to unpack recent events occurring in our perilous world:

     -  Russia is a big country.  Reeely big.  So big it's 12 and 1/2 times the size of Ukraine.  Which is the size of Texas.  Now that's BIG!  

     -  Did you know that Russia inhabits fully 11.7% of all the habitable land area on Earth.  More than twice as much as Country Number Two (Canada)?  Didn't know that, didja?  

     -  Russia is so big (how big is it?), it has nine time zones.  NINE!  Yet, more than 85% of its citizens live within 120 miles of Ukraine.  That's in the far, far western part of Russia.  Everybody in the East herds yaks and fishes for a living.  Moscow, Minsk and St. Petersburg, where the Russians mainly live, are all within a short car ride of Ukraine.   

     -  You might like to know that Kyiv, Ukraine's capitol city, was founded in the year 815 a.d.  Some 1,200 years ago.  Moscow, on the other hand, was a tent city trading village on the Volga River at that time.  Russia, remember, is in Asia.  Ukraine is in Europe.  Kinda' pokes a hole in that Putin proclamation, "Ukraine is part of Russia!"    

     -  Russia's main export, in fact it's main source of income, is oil.  It has lots and lots of oil.  It is, as missed-by-some John McCain once derisively noted, "A gas station masquerading as a country."  So the higher the price of oil, the more foreign income Russia earns.  Did you know that Russia's economy is 1/20th the size of the U.S?  That's 5%!  These guys rattle sabers pretty well.  The result of which is:  Stability = low oil prices.  Turmoil = high oil prices.  Get it?

     -  Yeah.  The more turmoil it can cause in the world, you may have noted, the higher Russia can force the price of oil.  Conservatives know this innately.  Democrats don't know this, and have a defect in their DNA that prevents them from ever learning.

    - Thus, when they assume power, our Country goes straight to Hell.   

     -  Russia is also 4 times the size of China in land mass.  And up to recently, has been an enemy.  Biden's so mucked up the scene that they are now Best Friends for Life.  You see what an old buzzard who has no idea which direction's up can do to a world when you let him drive the Ship of State? 

     -  Did you know that Russia has 120,000,000 people, and Ukraine has 44,000,000?  One-third the population in one-twelfth the land mass?  We know that Russia's "replacement rate" is upside down.  It's down to 1.4 to one.  Unsustainable as a society.  Maybe Putin is trying to recruit a bunch of new citizens to rule, at the point of a gun?  

     -  Oh yeah, and China has some 1.7 Billion residents.  So many it can't feed them all.  That's why it used to buy food from us.  And Ukraine  China bought more than HALF its grain from Ukraine up until Xi's best-friend-for-life invaded a sovereign country.  Grain has yet to be planted in Ukraine.  No plantee, no grow-ee.  That's Chinese for "starve."     

     -  Ukraine was a nascent democracy.  Not perfect yet, but trying hard.  Russia is a repressive autocracy, rapidly degenerating into a full-blown dictatorship.  To Putin having a thriving democracy on its borders is a threat to its soviet-style existence.  When your serfs can watch TV from across the border and see folks living The Dream, you can't keep 'em down on the farm.  But he's sure as Hell trying...    

     -  Russia is a "cancer" on the countries of the world.  Of which, 141 just voted to give Russia the finger.  That leaves only  6 which didn't.  We could now reasonably call them the "New Axis of Evil."  They are:  China (duh!), Saudi Arabia (what, not enough gold-plated Rolls Royces?), Cuba (commies gotta' stick together), North Korea (Hermit Kingdom heard from), South Africa ( Wha?  They're blaming NATO and the U. S. for the shi*storm in Ukraine), and India.  

     -  South Africa?  Isn't S.A. a democracy?  Well, used to be, but now that's questionable.  The repatriation of White-owned land, companies and farms currently underway are worrisome.  And India?  India!!! Isn't India a democracy?  A successful democracy of more than One Billion People?  Shouldn't a democracy vote with the rest of the free world in condemning Russia?  Yeah, well, it should.  Exceppppt, if you'll take a look at the map, you'll notice that India is located smack right up next to Russia.  Like, sharing several hundred miles of border.  And I'm guessing they've adopted the old philosophy of "discretion is the better part of valor."  And valor seems to be in short supply in freedom's used-to-be best friend, India...

     -  Perhaps having a wild man on your border, thrashing about and breaking things and killing people, like India has with Russia, and 8 other countries now have as well, one might think it would have an effect on how one views the current World View.  Like maybe trying your best to sidestep the kerfuffle.  Just sayin'

     -  Russia is threatening us with nuclear warfare if we support Ukraine with offensive military weapons.  And they've got some 4,000 nukes on hand in their inventory.  We've only got 1,200.  Only!  Now then, boys and girls, each of our nukes is located either in a land-based ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) site, or located deep in the heart of a nuclear submarine.  Each of these missiles feature ten "MIRV's," or Multiple, Independently-targeted, Re-entry Vehicles, which are fancy words for nuclear bombs.  And each of these nukes is just about 10 megatons is size.  That's about 1,000 times the nuclear force of the bombs we dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  And they wiped out some 6 square miles and 100,000 citizens each.  Imagine what 1,000 times that much can do?  Times ten?  Times 1,200?  Point being, it would take about 7 nukes to destroy Russia and 4 to wipe-out America.  Buh bye, Russia.  Buh bye world... 

     -  So then, to summarize (my opinion):  We have to ask ourselves, is Putin crazy, in addition to being evil?  For if he is, he'll risk nuclear war.  And any nuke he sets off will be met with what we euphemistically call, "Mutually-Assured Destruction."  That means he sets off one, we set off 100.  Our missiles will cross paths with each other in the air, waving as they go by, and proceed to then wipe out all civilization, everywhere.  Then resulting in "Nuclear Winter," covering the Earth in a deep-freeze from which it would take the Earth at least 1,000 years to recover sufficiently to sustain life once again.**  So, if Putin's evil but not crazy, he'll never risk nuclear warfare.  And we should box his ears back with extreme prejudice starting right now, today.  

     -  I'm on the side of making Putin afraid of us, instead of the other way around.  Unfortunately, our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan rendered that impossible.  I hope we don't have to wait for a Republican Administration to turn that around.  And if so, I hope there's something left to protect.  It's nice to be loved.  But in this case, dealing with a murdering dictator, it's far, far better to be feared... 

*     The archeologists tell us that our Earth, some 4 billion years old, has seen at least three civilizations rise from the ashes, resulting in vast, technonologically-advanced societies, and then destroyed themselves in nuclear warfare.  Looks like we could well repeat history.........