Every day we grow closer to the Russia-Ukraine conflict escalating into a full-blown world war.
Yesterday a Russian fighter jet collided with a large U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea, in a rare but serious incident that triggered a US diplomatic protest and raised concerns about the possibility that Russia could recover sensitive technology. American and Russian officials naturally had conflicting accounts of the collision between an MQ-9 Reaper drone and the Russian Su-27 fighter jet — each blaming the other. It’s not clear if the collision was an accident or intentional, but both sides agree the Russian aircraft was trying to intercept the drone.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the US drone was flying near the Russian border and intruded in an area that was declared off limits by Russian authorities. The Russian military scrambled fighter jets to intercept the drone, claiming that “as a result of sharp maneuver, the U.S. drone went into uncontrollable flight with a loss of altitude and collided with water surface,” which is an interesting way to say it crashed into the Black Sea.
Mind you each Reaper drone costs about $32 million. You can forget about student loan forgiveness, we’ve got drones to pay for. The coming days and weeks will determine how egregious an offense this was, but in the meantime we can all rest easy knowing that World War III is just around the corner.
Side Items
What Can Reparations Look Like?: A city-appointed reparations committee in San Francisco was tasked with answering a tough question: What would it take to atone for the centuries of US slavery and generations of systemic racism that continue to keep Black Americans on the bottom rungs of health, education and economic prosperity, and overrepresented in prisons and homeless populations? Some of the possible options include payments of $5 million to every eligible Black adult, the elimination of personal debt and tax burdens, guaranteed annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years and homes in San Francisco for just $1 a family. All of these options are a good start, but none of them are true justice
When the Levee Breaks: The first paragraph of this LA Times article tells you everything you need to know about the devastating flooding happening in California right now. “Officials had known for decades that the Pajaro River levee that failed this weekend — flooding an entire migrant town and trapping scores of residents — was vulnerable but never prioritized repairs in part because they believed it did not make financial sense to protect the low-income area.” The article goes on to quote an Army Corp of Engineers project manager who says, “If you exclusively looked at benefit-cost ratios you wouldn’t fund projects in areas that were typically lower-income.” Apparently they’re saying the quiet part out loud now
Erling Haaland Can’t be Stopped: You can not hope to stop him, you can only try to contain him. The Man City forward scored five goals yesterday in a Champions League win over RB Leipzig, helping the Mancs progress to the quarterfinals of the European competition. He may prove to be the missing piece that helps Pep Guardiola win the only trophy that’s eluded his grasp while at Manchester City. Or he might have to settle for proving that he’s the most effective and lethal goal scorer in a generation