The decimation wrought by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 2022 Feb 24 has been immense. Ukraine has crumbled, its economy severely damaged and its people scattered across the EU and the Western world. On one hand Ukraine has a bully neighbour intent on destroying it, while on the other Western countries have continued to provide Ukraine with enough weapons to continue its fight, the result being even more destruction of Ukraine. Ukraine’s predicament has had many other global implications, almost all bad.
The Covid-19 pandemic slowed down the world economy by messing up supply chains, but the real kicker to the world was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the West’s response to it. Decisions by the West early in the invasion clearly helped Russia and decimated Ukraine, but no country and people will get off Scot-free. As oil and gas, and wheat prices skyrocket, coupled with supply chain problems with China, the world will soon welcome a global recession.
In an act of cowardes the West is allowing Ukrainians to die at the hands of Russia. There are protests and finger pointing by the West, and there are sanctions against Russia, but this has not stopped Putin’s punishment and killing of innocent Ukrainians. I had thought that such worldwide organizations such as the UN would be able to prevent such war atrocities, but this has not happened. It has been a long time since WW2, and we, as a species, seemed to have not learned very much.
I’m not old enough to know if human rights atrocities are common in today’s world. It seems like all the bombings in Russia and China’s destruction of their indigenous Uighur minority is well tolerated in the world. I have no experience in such matters, so I’m learning. This is what you get when you’ve not lived through a war.
I don’t know as I’m not old enough, and so I’m asking. I’ve not been through a war before. All these international human rights agreements between countries really useful an enforceable? We are witnessing wanton destruction and killings of Russia bombing Ukraine, as well as the more opaque China destroying their indigenous Uighur population.
Russia bombs Ukraine, destroying cities, killing and injuring countless people. Russia is a member of the UN Security Council, as is China. Both are also part of the UN Human Rights Council, and have been the chair on numerous occasions. Why is Russia and China able to chair these UN councils when they so easily violate the very principals of their council?
One of the base principals of any species is to procreate. “Be fruitful and multiply” Genesis 1:28. This value is ingrained in every species, and rightly so, because without it the species does not continue. The opposite of this tenet is to indiscriminately kill: We call this genocide. Genocide is the indiscriminate killing of a group, regardless of who they are, what they have done, how old they are, to kill because they are a member of a species. When Russia invaded Ukraine and proceeded to launch missiles to indiscriminately destroy civilian and military targets, lots of people died. This is genocide.
Talking to work out differences of opinion can give you great results that are acceptable to all parties. It is the premise that the United Nations and even the European Union has been built. That said, all these discussions do take a lot of time, and can be very bureaucratic. Going to extremes, having so many discussions can be used as a tool against one of the parties. This is a manipulation of one party over another. This is where I think the UN has sadly gone so wrong.
Recently I have been observing a different WordPress spam technique that uses WP trackbacks. This technique has some interesting characteristics that are unlike other types of spam, so my usual clues as to origin and banning method did not work. Fortunately this technique also has some unique characteristics that can be used to ban them. Fortunately.
WordPress Trackbacks
When one WP site links to another WP site, the WP sites communicate with each other using a method called trackbacks. The first site sends a trackback request to the second site. The second site posts the trackback as a special comment, which invites the user to click through to the first site. These trackbacks are automated, making it convenient for both sites.
