I absolutely do not trust local accounts that there has been no radiation leakage from Zaporizhzhia.
I'm not saying I'm certain it's leaking, only that the history of nuclear power, and every nuclear accident, has been shrouded in lies in the US and Japan as well as Russia, where disinformation is a form of currency. If the fuel was not loaded, and didn't catch fire, it's probably looking pretty good at the moment.
From Yahoo:
"More broadly, experts expressed worries about access to real time data necessary for gauging the radiation situation on the ground.
The official website for radiation readings at the Zaporizhzhia site was not immediately accessible as of Friday afternoon, Lyman said."
Certainly my reaction to fuel prices is to not drive. Neither my van or wife's car use much fuel or pollute if we don't turn them on.
Combining trips and such if we need to carry stuff, riding bikes when we are just going out for quick errands, little things like that, that seemed like a PITA originally, but not so much now.
Bad weather is still a PITA, though. It's been pretty nice the last couple of days so I was able to ride two days in a row, but still running the woodstove at night.
Oh, yeah. I drive so little already that when I do drive, it's a rare treat. The CRX gets 55 MPG at 65 and 50 MPG at 80 MPH, so he almost doesn't need gas, but I do give him a tank of premium every now and then as a treat because he's such a good boy and costs me so little, passed SMOG with tremendous numbers.
Let Putin be, nobody is killing him.
Look US evaded Iraq and hunted Qaudaffy. RUSSIA did not meddle in It .
It is true that the Iraq war had a false-flag justification that was equally inane, and a lot of innocent people died there. However, it's not logical to suggest that because they didn't meddle with us then, under a more corrupt US administration, we shouldn't meddle with them now. Even if the conditions were identical-- and they are not, it's a valid comparison, not a perfect one-- just because we did something cruel and stupid and Russia didn't intervene doesn't mean that when Russia does something cruel and stupid, we shouldn't intervene. The judgments will be by public opinion, sure, but there is no etiquette in war.
To me, the question of whether we should intervene or not is a strategic one. There are really significant risks to doing nothing as well as to action. Getting more involved could cause all hell to break loose, and so could staying out. I do not feel I have enough information to have a sensible opinion. If we could prevail quickly, with only a limited nuclear exchange, that might actually turn out to be the lesser of many evils, and it completely freaks me out that this even crossed my mind. But the results of sustained criticality at a nuclear power plant accident are not to be underestimated. We have no idea what the hell is going on under Chernobyl and Fukushima and no way of finding out. Both have had periods long after the accident when radiation spiked dramatically, and we have no idea why or what they will do 10, 20, 50, 200 or 2000 years from now. (Okay, 2000 is a bit of a stretch!) The exclusion zones ain't such a great place to be, despite goofy media reports suggesting that they really just turn into wonderful wildlife sanctuaries with a few funny-looking trees, and a squirrel or two with a third ear.
There's a huge wildcard in all this -- if the conflict healed partisanship in the US and resulted in a more unified Nato... maybe that leads to a way out of this, if it would make a difference, though I can't begin to imagine what that might look like.
If partisanship departed from EBR, I'm sure we could easily take over the world and be on our way to Mars in no time, but forgive me for belaboring the obvious-- and gallows humor during a terrible humanitarian crisis.
I guess an EMP pulse from a nuclear detonation would fry an eBike controller, huh?