Showing posts with label ukraine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ukraine. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 29, 2026

All Right, You Primitive Screwheads...

In the words of the immortal Bruce Campbell, playing Ash Williams in the 1993 film Army of Darkness...

All right, you primitive screwheads, listen up!

An innocent man does whatever it takes to prove his innocence. He does not do whatever it takes to gain immunity from prosecution.

A President who has just faced an assassination attempt does not worry about his shoes, pump his fist, yell, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" or promote a ballroom project. A President who staged an assassination attempt does that.

When people tell you, "The Supreme Court is on the ballot," believe them.

Bernie Sanders was not robbed by the Democratic National Committee. Quite the opposite: Just by letting him into their Primaries, they bent over backwards to accommodate him. He wasn't robbed by the DNC. He was rejected by Democratic voters, who knew that he had been talking trash about their Party for half a century.

What Israel is doing is Gaza is bad, but it is not genocide. It is in response to an act of genocide.

What Russia is attempting in Ukraine is an attempt to not only conquer the country, but to wipe out its culture and impose its own. That is genocide.

The new Yankee Stadium is not a "little league park." The proof of this is that the Yankees can hit anywhere.

Derek Jeter was an excellent defensive shortstop. Your "defensive metrics" are meaningless.

Large amounts of money were never going to be enough to save the Mets.

"Wins Above Replacement" has no value. Actual winning has value.

No one has ever proven that Roger Clemens used steroids, and David Ortiz and Barry Bonds did each fail a steroid test.

The two biggest wastes of time that ESPN covers happen practically back-to-back: The Masters and the NFL Draft.

Aaron Rodgers may still be talented, but in the ways that matter, he is a bum.

The Liberty Mutual commercials -- both the ones at the Statue of Liberty and the LiMu Emu & Doug ads -- have run their course, and it's time to retire them.

Speaking of TV commercials: If it takes longer to mention the side effects of a drug than its benefits, and you need people to dance in your commercial, it's time to pull the drug. And the commercial. And do more testing on both.

That said, Zepbound has worked for me. I've lost 20 pounds. That said, I don't know if it, or any other drug, is right for you. Talk to your doctor.

Charles Barkley has lost over 100 pounds on a different GLP-1 drug, but just because a celebrity uses a product doesn't mean it's good. Shaquille O'Neal endorses Icy Hot, but it did nothing for me.

East Brunswick needs a Wegmans. I'll settle for New Brunswick, North Brunswick, Sayreville or Old Bridge. Manalapan, Woodbridge, Bridgewater and West Windsor are just too far.

It's "I couldn't care less," not "I could care less."
 
The past tense of "slay" is "slew," not "slayed."
 
Some of you literally don't know what "literally" means.
 
I'll relax when I'm ready. Telling me to relax makes me less relaxed.
 
And Dunkin tastes better than Starbucks. And it's cheaper, too.

As you were!

Sunday, April 26, 2026

April 26, 1986: The Chernobyl Disaster

April 26, 1986, 40 years ago: The Number 4 reactor explodes at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine. It is the biggest nuclear accident in human history.

The accident occurred during a test of the steam turbine's ability to power the emergency feedwater pumps in the event of a simultaneous loss of external power and coolant pipe rupture. Following an accidental drop in reactor power to near-zero, the operators restarted the reactor in preparation for the turbine test with a prohibited control rod configuration.

Upon successful completion of the test, the reactor was then shut down for maintenance. Due to a variety of factors, this action resulted in a power surge at the base of the reactor which brought about the rupture of reactor components and the loss of coolant. This process led to steam explosions and a meltdown, which destroyed the containment building.

This was followed by a reactor core fire which lasted until May 4, during which airborne radioactive contaminants were spread throughout the Soviet Union and Europe.

In response to the initial accident, a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius exclusion zone was created 36 hours after the accident, from which approximately 49,000 people were evacuated, primarily from Pripyat. The exclusion zone was later increased to a radius of 30 kilometers (19 miles), from which an additional 68,000 people were evacuated.

Following the reactor explosion, which killed two engineers and severely burned two more, an emergency operation to put out the fires and stabilize the surviving reactor began, during which 237 workers were hospitalized, of whom 134 exhibited symptoms of acute radiation syndrome (ARS).

A United Nations committee found that to date fewer than 100 deaths have resulted from the fallout. Model predictions of the eventual total death toll in the coming decades vary. The most widely cited study conducted by the World Health Organization in 2006 predicted 9,000 cancer-related fatalities in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

North America was lucky with Three Mile Island in 1979. Eastern Europe was not so lucky with Chernobyl in 1986.