Quarter of Britons housing Ukrainian refugees want to end arrangement after six months - "raising the prospect of thousands of refugees being made homeless... A quarter of those blamed cost of living concerns for prompting them to rethink their commitment to the scheme, which was launched in March and has seen about 75,000 refugees arrive in the UK. Sponsors agreed to provide accommodation in their own home for a minimum of six months, receiving £350 a month from the Government for doing so... almost all sponsors said they had provided support and help to their guests that went beyond the official arrangement."
03 The transformative power of culture in Ukraine - "Ukraine’s cultural and creative sectors have flourished since the Euromaidan revolution, helping the country to counter divisive Russian narratives and develop a greater sense of national identity. Culture has been central to the state’s response to the threat from Russia since 2014. As Russia has continued its hybrid warfare against Ukraine, and has sought to create identity cleavages in society by promoting divisive historical and cultural narratives, Ukraine has demonstrated a high degree of resilience to this threat by pursuing a more robust identity policy through the activities of state institutions in the field of culture and identity."
From 2020. Looks like culture makes a difference
Amnesty International accuses Ukraine of endangering civilians and violating humanitarian law - "The human rights NGO said Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv had in some cases established bases and operated weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals. The group said such tactics violate international humanitarian law as they turn civilians into targets for Russian strikes. “We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said. While the group said the practices “do not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks”, Dr Callamard added: “Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”... “Militaries should never use hospitals to engage in warfare, and should only use schools or civilian homes as a last resort when there are no viable alternatives.” The group claims it submitted the findings of its research to Kyiv on July 29 but the Ukrainian government had not yet responded."
The "Slava Ukraine" people are going to be very confused and/or upset
The Ukrainians learnt a lesson from the Palestinians
Maga girl🇺🇸🇺🇸 on Twitter - "Can some one explain me why putin would go through all that trouble to get Trump elected if he was just going to wait until biden was in power to attack Ukraine anyways???"
Trump calls the Russian invasion 'a holocaust,' urges Russia to stop fighting
Clear proof he's Putin's lapdog. This must be 4D chess
Facebook - "Putin he’s getting rid of the Nazis in Ukraine by *flips through deck* bombing Holocaust memorials. “But what about the Azov battalion guys?”"
Russian forces damage Holocaust memorial site, Ukraine says - "Russian forces damaged a Holocaust memorial near the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s ministry of defense said Saturday, the second such incident since Russia invaded Ukraine a month ago... "The Nazis have returned. Exactly 80 years later," the ministry posted on Twitter on Saturday with a photograph of the memorial’s damaged menorah. NBC News could not independently verify the photo... the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center noted the damage to Drobitsky Yar."
Meme - Russian Soldier: "QUICK, DEPLOY A SMOKESCREEN To COVER OUR ADVANCE."
"BUT WHAT ABOUT AZOV"
Facebook - "“What about”, 2022 leftist edition. The United States has far more volunteer militias either explicitly or vaguely aligned with Klan ideology. If Mexico invaded South West Texas and these volunteer battalions fought to repel the invasion, this would not therefore justify the invasion there either. And the fact that Ukrainian nationalists have one seat in Parliament is also irrelevant. We have about as many wackos in our own Congress who repeat white nationalist talking points, including Ilhan Omar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and until very recently Steve King.  "
Jean Michel Leficus on Twitter - "J'ai envoyé 3000€ par western union a Anastasia, jeune ukrainienne en détresse, afin qu'elle puisse fuir Abidjan et la guerre. Anastasia je t'aime."
NATO countries including Canada thwarting new nuclear weapons ban treaty | The Star - "With the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons now in force, NATO countries are nuclear outlaws. Canada should leave the alliance, join the ban treaty and get on the right side of history."
Written a year before the Ukraine war
Vladimir Putin may just have made the error that ends his bloody rule - Con Coughlin, 24th February
The West is beating Russia at its own game - Con Coughlin, 3rd April
Putin’s war has been a fiasco. It’s about to get worse - Con Coughlin, 21st April
Humiliated Russia faces an epoch-defining defeat - Con Coughlin, 5th May
Total victory over Putin cannot be bought cheap - Con Coughlin, 12th May
Putin could be about to pull off a shock triumph - Con Coughlin, 26th May
A divided West is giving Putin a second chance to win - Con Coughlin, 2nd June
Britain must be prepared to go to war with Russia - Con Coughlin, 23rd June
Vladimir Putin has the flailing West over a barrel - Con Coughlin, 21st July
Meme - Rachel Vindman @nats...: "For those who need a reminder.
UKRAINE HAS ITS OWN HISTORY
UKRAINE HAS ITS OWN CULTURE
UKRAINE HAS ITS OWN LANGUAGE
UKRAINE HAS ITS OWN NATION
UKRAINE HAS ITS OWN TERRITORY
UKRAINE IS A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY
UKRAINE IS NOT A "PART OF RUSSIA", IT WASN'T AND WILL NEVER BE"
Cozypilled varun @varun...: "replace the word Ukraine with America and it would be considered hate speech and white supremacy by these same people"
Russia names ‘America’s weakness’ - "Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov has previously denounced claims in Western publications that Russia is planning to invade its neighbor as mere “hysteria” being whipped up in both the Anglo-Saxon and Ukrainian media. Previously, he said that “the movement of some of our military equipment or army units across the territory of the Russian Federation is exclusively our business” and poses no threat to its neighbors."
This aged well
The U.S. Sent So Many Missiles to Ukraine That It Depleted Its Own Stockpiles - "The Department of Defense is now becoming a victim of its own success, however, having delivered so many weapons to Ukraine that the shipments have made a visible hole in the U.S. military’s own wartime stockpiles. Officials are already negotiating for brand-new shipments, but some weapons—out of production with no easy way to start building them again—won’t come easy... The stockpiles are maintained worldwide to ensure the armed forces can respond to emergencies across the globe—from Russia in Europe, to China and North Korea in Asia— and even respond to multiple emergencies simultaneously. The United States, Poland, and Estonia have sent Javelins to Ukraine, weapons that all three countries will eventually need to replace. The Javelin missile, first issued in the mid-1990s, is still in production. To replenish those stockpiles, Lockheed Martin is set to ramp up production of the Javelin from 2,100 a year to 4,000 missiles a year. Although that sounds like a lot of missiles, it would still take two years at that rate just to backfill America’s Javelin inventory. The company will also require additional time to set up the supply chain to provide parts for the missiles, no small feat considering the global shortage of semiconductors, which the Javelin’s guidance system is reliant upon. Another lag in the schedule is a lengthy delivery time, which is currently 32 months— meaning missiles are delivered 32 months after the missiles are ordered. Unless this is shortened by boosting production, it will take nearly three years for the first new missiles to get to troops in the field. Producing more Stinger missiles will be trickier. Stinger was first introduced in the 1980s, and according to Cancian, the U.S. ceased buying the missiles in 2003. Raytheon’s Stinger production line was sustained for another 17 years on overseas orders, but finally closed in December 2020. The Stinger is a decades-old part design that is obsolete by modern standards, and many of its components, including microchips, are no longer in production... Replenishing the supply of Stingers and Javelins will take months to years. Fortunately, demand is now reduced. Thanks in large part to both weapons, the Russian Army is in shambles, and is only a threat to its smallest neighbors; Russia’s difficulties might well make China think twice before making the decision to invade Taiwan. The U.S. and its allies may have bought themselves some time with their decision to send arms to Ukraine."
Some people were claiming that the aid sent to Ukraine didn't mean anything because it was in the form of arms, and didn't actually cost anything
The Russian Army Is Running Out Of Tanks For The War In Ukraine. These 60-Year-Old T-62s Are Proof. - "Russia is running out of tanks. Well, working tanks. In fact, the Kremlin keeps thousands of old armored vehicles in long-term storage. But many of them no longer are usable... The T-62 is an obsolete tank. The 41-ton tank with its 115-millimeter main gun and steel armor was in production in the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1975. It was the USSR’s most important tank until the T-72 entered service in 1969. The Soviet army in the 1980s began shifting the T-62 to second-line units. The Russian army fully retired the type in the 2010s, by which time the T-62—a contemporary of the U.S. Army’s M-60—was hopelessly outmatched by modern Western tanks... That the Russians are reactivating T-62s lends credence to what historian Chris Owen explained in a recent Tweet thread: that many, if not most, of the roughly 10,000 tanks in storage in Russia no longer are in any kind of working condition owing to the ravages of weather and time. Some T-62s are usable because they’re simpler than more modern types are, with fewer delicate electronics. Also, there are more of them and thus a greater chance a few battalions’ worth of T-62s escaped catastrophic rust. The shift to T-62s is happening as Russian industry struggles to import from Western countries the high-tech components that modern tanks require. Russia's only tank manufacturer, Uralvagonzavod, halted production back in March... It’s not for no reason that the Kremlin has been paying the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian mercenary firm, to round out depleted army formations and even pilot air force planes... Ukrainian air-defense troops in eastern Ukraine shot down a Russian Su-25 attack jet. The BBC confirmed the man who died behind the Su-25’s controls was Kanamat Botashev. The 63-year-old Botashev was retired. He left the Russian air force as a general back in 2012 after “borrowing” an Su-27 fighter—a type he was not qualified to fly—and crashing it after a brief, acrobatic joyride. Following his retirement, Botashev reportedly signed on with Wagner, which hired him out to the air force"
Unable to even fix its own tanks, Russia's humiliation is now complete - "New laws paving the way for Moscow to essentially mobilise the economy and the national workforce mark a serious turning point in events. There are two bills making their way through the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. The first gives the Government powers to force businesses to contribute to the war effort. Authorities will be able to order factories to accept state defence contracts and redirect production towards military needs - vehicles, equipment, munitions and other vital hardware. The second is just as extreme. Changes to labour laws hand the state the right to greater control over the workforce. Amid a shortage of specialist employees, officials will be granted powers to impose measures including night shifts, weekend and overtime work to enable businesses to fulfill the state’s needs... the Kremlin unveiled £24bn of spending cuts over the next three years in anticipation of a severe recession... With the Kremlin increasingly isolated from the international system, supplies are so strained that the Russian president has been reduced to issuing orders to the private sector to fix his broken and battered tanks. This is an admission that Moscow is critically short of the basic equipment and materials needed to fight a war, which in turn shows that it is unable to fight a war in the way that the West could. Even Moscow has given up trying to pretend publicly that all is well. “The burden on the Russian defence-industrial complex has increased significantly”, deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov conceded. The new bills talked about the “short-term increased need to repair weapons and military equipment and ensure supplies”. Perhaps most crucially, it has admitted for the first time that the impact of sanctions is beginning to be felt"
Clearly Yuri Borisov is a CIA agent engaged in psy-ops
Russian military hunts for recruits at Siberian half-marathon in desperate bid for manpower - "One of the main requirements was that individuals must be Russian citizens and between ages 18 to 40, however, Russia has since discarded its military age limit. Possibly yet another sign of desperation from Putin but Andrey Kartapolov, co-author of the bill explained that the rationale behind it was to make it possible to attract “highly professional specialists” according to Al Jazeera. A note accompanying the legislation stated that such a level of expertise comes between the ages 40 and 45."
The anti-war conundrum of Ukraine
Amazing. So much to unpack here. Among other things, this is the first time I've seen Syria and Yemen being counted as part of the War on Terror and clearly if a Islamist terrorist kills a civilian in Iraw, this is the fault of the US just as much as it's the fault of Russia when its soldiers kill Ukrainian civilians
Celebrating Another Sort of Pride: Displacing Patriotism into Ukraine - "In most countries, flying the national flag is not controversial. Singing the anthem, or pledging allegiance, is not habitually accompanied by a shuffling sense of embarrassment... In the past, “God Save the Queen” was routinely sung in schools, at church, even in cinemas. Our principal television channel, BBC One, used to play the anthem every day. No longer. Recent surveys have revealed that 35% of Britons think their county is “something to be ashamed of,” while only 24% think it is “something to be proud of”; 66% of people confirmed that they neither owned Britain’s national flag or “anything with the Union Jack flag on it”; 27% said they were either “not very proud” or “not proud at all” to be British. Of course, millions of Britons retain a sense of national pride. But the farther up the social scale you climb, the more patriotism will fade in favour of disparaging attitudes towards the country, culture, national achievements, and history. Who can forget the political furore caused when Emily Thornberry, then Labour’s Shadow Attorney General, sneeringly tweeted a photograph of a house in a working-class area decked in George Cross flags? She was forced to resign, but only because she was caught publicly expressing the condescension towards poorer people and their ghastly national identity that was commonplace in her private social milieu. It has only worsened following the Brexit vote... Regularly, I have conversations with local people who have nothing but negative things to say about their country. A recent dinner party guest, who lives around the corner, told me that even though he was born and raised in Britain, he did not identify as British at all, but simply as a European. In his mind, Britain was a racist, jingoistic little island, beset by bland food and bad weather. I lost count of the number of times he derided his country that evening. He focused on our part in the slave trade, rather than our role in abolishing it; our supposed xenophobia, rather than our characteristic tolerance and our cosmopolitan cities. He even cited the popular meme: “Being British is all about driving a German car to an Irish-themed pub to drink Belgian beer, then going home, buying an Indian take-away and sitting on a Swedish sofa, in front of a Japanese television, to watch American shows — all the while being suspicious of anything foreign.” This, I thought, was the wilful disassembly of the national pride that gave our antecedents the grit to pull together to fight tyrants of the past. (Needless to say, almost any culture, not just that of Britain, can be caused to shimmer and evaporate in precisely the same way — but it seems that only the Britons are at it.) Another local friend baulked at the idea of celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee last weekend... It all made me think of Ukraine. At the start of the war, Britain was overwhelmed with a sense of solidarity for the victims of Russian aggression. Overnight, the blue-and-yellow flag appeared on every street... Beneath Britain’s outrage and solidarity, I think, there was a taboo sense of relief in our collective psyche. Finally, we were allowed to express our patriotic instincts, albeit vicariously... Ukrainian nationalism has many ugly sides, but the past three-and-a-half months have shown above all that for a country to survive, both metaphorically and literally, it must believe in itself. Imagine if Ukrainian society had been so dogged with self-loathing and self-doubt as Britain. With so many citizens accustomed to denigrating their own country, refusing to identify with it, and feeling queasy about rallying to its flag, the nation would never have pulled together in do-or-die defiance of Putin. Fighters would have fled; the country would have been quickly overrun. The world would have been deprived of the most striking and inspiring contemporary example of patriotic heroism and self-sacrifice... For years, Putin has been following Lenin’s famous foreign policy maxim: “You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.” Since February, he has been pushing and pushing at what he perceives as the West’s mush. So let’s get out our Union Jacks permanently. Let’s stop talking our country down. A solid, unifying national identity will be vital if Britain and the West are going to find their steel."
Of course, we are still told that liberals don't hate their countries. This seems to be an Anglo disease, though
Tim Young on Twitter - "Just a reminder that we've sent more than 15x the amount of money Trump asked for to complete our border wall to the Ukraine to defend their border."
Facebook - "So, everyone who told me there was no way Putin would invade, how’s it going right now?"
They just blame the US for "provoking" Russia
Matt Walsh on Twitter - "I’m so glad that the west gave up on energy independence because Greta Thunberg yelled at us. That’s really looking like a smart move today."
Was Canadian General Trevor Kadier Arrested At Azovstal?! - "If Russian forces did indeed capture Cadieu, they would have paraded him on Russian TV, just like they did with two British volunteers they captured – Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin. Yet the Russians did no such thing. In fact, the only “sources” of these claims are no-name blogs in Russia and China, as well as WhatsApp and Telegram groups, and random people on Twitter and Facebook. There is simply no evidence of Cadieu being captured by Russian forces. Not even a picture."
Tucker: Weak people call for censorship - "PSAKI: If you are digesting Russian misinformation and parroting Russian talking points, you are not aligned with long-standing bipartisan American values, which is to stand up for the sovereignty of countries like Ukraine but others, their right to choose their own alliances, and also to stand against very clearly the efforts or attempts or potential attempts by any country to invade and take territory of another country. That applies to Senator Hawley, but it also applies to others who may be parroting the talking points of Russian propagandist leaders.
CARLSON: So obviously, that's completely ignorant because she is completely ignorant. Go back to Oberlin, honey. But what's so galling is to be lectured as unpatriotic by people who affirmatively dislike the country, who think its history began in 1619 in sin, who accused America of being systemically racist, who don't like America are whipping around and attacking anybody who has honest questions unpatriotic. It's outrageous, actually. They have no right to do that."
Ukrainian Women Raise £570,000 For Their Nation's Troops By Selling Nudes - "Nastassia Nasko has rallied women in Ukraine to get behind their soldiers with a project named 'TerOnlyFans'."
Japan warns Ukrainian evacuees against work at adult entertainment establishments | The Japan Times - "Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa said Friday that there have been cases in which Ukrainians who have fled to Japan were working in hostess clubs and other adult entertainment establishments, warning that such work is not allowed under their visa status."
Meme - Illia Ponomarenko: "*sighs* Priorities: standing next to the grave of 6 young men, with her country under siege, she advertises herself."
Misogyny!
Antony Beevor on the Russian revolution | HistoryExtra - "'You've alluded to the fact that some of the places being fought over there and have been fought over recently in the Russia-Ukraine War. But how far do you think the civil war does prefigure the events of today or actually is not really a sensible parallel to be making?'
'I don't think one should make too many parallels at all. There are lots of superficial parallels that one can make. I mean for example, one of the most important ones was that we never expected Putin to invade, partly because rather like in the late 1930s, in say the time of Munich, the British and the French could not believe after the horrors of the First World War that anyone would ever want another World War or another battle in that particular way. They totally failed to understand that Hitler was determined to have a war. And in fact was angry that Chu-, that Chamberlain had given it at Munich and he'd been deprived of his war against Czechoslovakia. Now, this is the thing. We always fail to understand dictators. This is the problem. Dictators don't think like generals. One can put oneself into the boots of a general and get a rough idea of how they see things. But a dictator is very very different. But to go back to the Russian civil war, there one has to see or concede the way that in fact this was the moment when Ukraine was starting to develop a more modern nationalism. Now this was very much more a nationalism coming from intellectuals. So there was already a Ukrainian culture in the countryside, in the poetry and in a lot of the literature. But then they, with Petura [sp?] and with the Ukrainina Rada [sp?], there they really did want to take Ukraine forward to create a completely different state. And they'd been given the opportunity, this is what Putin's been raging about. With Lenin almost gave away Ukraine at that particular stage, rather like with Finland, the Bolsheviks thought that there was going to be no trouble about allowing a certain amount of autonomy or independence to these former nation states of the Russian Empire, because the World Revolution would bring them back under control. And that's where they made their great mistake'"
Open Letter to Noam Chomsky (and other like-minded intellectuals) on the Russia-Ukraine war - "Pattern #1: Denying Ukraine’s sovereign integrity
Pattern #2: Treating Ukraine as an American pawn on a geo-political chessboard
Pattern #3. Suggesting that Russia was threatened by NATO
Pattern #4. Stating that the U.S. isn’t any better than Russia
Pattern #5. Whitewashing Putin’s goals for invading Ukraine
Pattern #6. Assuming that Putin is interested in a diplomatic solution
Pattern #7. Advocating that yielding to Russian demands is the way to avert the nuclear war...
Arguably, any concessions to Russia will not reduce the probability of a nuclear war but lead to escalation. If Ukraine falls, Russia may attack other countries (Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Finland or Sweden) and can also use its nuclear blackmail to push the rest of Europe into submission. And Russia is not the only nuclear power in the world. Other countries, such as China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea are watching. Just imagine what will happen if they learn that nuclear powers can get whatever they want using nuclear blackmail."
The enemy of my enemy is my "friend"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Russian threat ‘far from over’ - "If Russia invaded Ukraine, there would be a whiff of Munich, because what we know in Munich in 1938, was, first of all, the story that's often talked about is the appeasement which was where Britain has not been in this process, in fact, has been at the lead of making sure that we don't compromise our principles. But the other part of Munich was all along Adolf Hitler had a plan to actually invade large parts of Europe. And my my point had been that if all along, President Putin invades Ukraine, then we will have effectively been spending a lot of time and effort around a false flag or a straw man proposition... we should be very careful that we're not following a straw man, when all along Russia was planning to invade Ukraine. Now we know all along. President Putin has ambitions for Ukraine, because he wrote it himself in an article last July."
Watch | Facebook - Radïo Belarus: "Patrick Armstrong: Russia is not going to invade Ukraine. Russian buildup along the border is just an American nonsense propaganda."
The Russian Sanctions Regime and the Risk of Catastrophic Success - " Scholars who study the effects of economic isolation on states — whether through sanctions, wartime blockades, or other mechanisms — find that economic isolation rarely causes its targets to capitulate outright. Rather, economic pressure can lead states at war to adopt riskier strategies, often involving escalation. Call it economic inadvertent escalation. Because economic pressure takes time to work, targets can anticipate their worsening situation before it reaches a crisis point. Once a future crisis seems inevitable, leaders face a closing window in which to try to avert the disaster they see coming. In such situations, they may decide they have little to lose if escalation provides even a small chance of improving their situation. Such calculations have not just affected the Japanese. Allied economic warfare drove Germany to adopt risky, war-expanding strategies in both World War I and World War II... There is likely no way to effectively pressure Russia without some increase in the risk of escalation. Policymakers need to weigh the escalation risks of severe sanctions as they make their choices... it is vital that Western leaders combine sanctions with off-ramps for Moscow, especially if the conflict drags on. Both the Japanese in 1941 and the Germans in 1916–1917 attempted negotiating with their isolators before choosing escalation. On the other hand, in both cases, domestic political constraints, which the economic isolation tightened, contributed to diplomatic failure. Western leaders should consider the circumstances under which Putin might calculate that he would be better off acceding to Western demands than continuing to defy them, which may include face-saving outs"
As Russian Troop Deaths Climb, Morale May Be an Issue - The New York Times - "Pentagon officials say a 10 percent casualty rate, including dead and wounded, for a single unit renders it unable to carry out combat-related tasks. With more than 150,000 Russian troops now involved in the war in Ukraine, Russian casualties, when including the estimated 14,000 to 21,000 injured, are near that level... One recent report focused on low morale among Russian troops and described soldiers just parking their vehicles and walking off into the woods."
From March
What Foreign Fighters Are Seeing in Ukraine - The Atlantic - "If the costly main battle tank is the archetypal platform of an army (as is the case for Russia and NATO), then the archetypal platform of a navy (particularly America’s Navy) is the ultra-costly capital ship, such as an aircraft carrier. Just as modern anti-tank weapons have turned the tide for the outnumbered Ukrainian army, the latest generation of anti-ship missiles (both shore- and sea-based) could in the future—say, in a place like the South China Sea or the Strait of Hormuz—turn the tide for a seemingly outmatched navy. Since February 24, the Ukrainian military has convincingly displayed the superiority of an anti-platform-centric method of warfare. Or, as Jed put it, “In Afghanistan, I used to feel jealous of those tankers, buttoned up in all that armor. Not anymore.”... Russian doctrine relies on centralized command and control, while mission-style command and control—as the name suggests—relies on the individual initiative of every soldier, from the private to the general, not only to understand the mission but then to use their initiative to adapt to the exigencies of a chaotic and ever-changing battlefield in order to accomplish that mission. Although the Russian military has modernized under Vladimir Putin, it has never embraced the decentralized mission-style command-and-control structure that is the hallmark of NATO militaries, and that the Ukrainians have since adopted. “The Russians don’t empower their soldiers,” Zagorodnyuk explained. “They tell their soldiers to go from Point A to Point B, and only when they get to Point B will they be told where to go next, and junior soldiers are rarely told the reason they are performing any task. This centralized command and control can work, but only when events go according to plan. When the plan doesn’t hold together, their centralized method collapses. No one can adapt, and you get things like 40-mile-long traffic jams outside Kyiv... Napoleon, who fought many battles in this part of the world, observed that “the moral is to the physical as three is to one.””