UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR (SO FAR): The world's weak leadership isn't up to the Ukraine crisis.

It does appear to me, though, that ordinary citizens are beginning to move where our 'leadership' fears to tread. Actions matter; strongly worded statements do not.

ROOTING FOR PUTIN? No, but....

It's the Diplomad, so read it all.

SO THAT'S WHY THE STEREO WON'T WORK....

SPRINGTIME 2022: Week 1 begins with Tuxedo the cat and his favorite bush, which last year (and again this year) was the first to bud out.

Here's my usual pond view from the deck.

This year, however, it's the entire pond, almost completely unobstructed. We've had a number of trees taken down and brush cleared as part of this year's landscaping project. We're hoping that as the trees leaf out, it'll be mostly canopy with a good view underneath as all the smaller stuff has been cut down and moved out.

Here's the barn and our (hopefully soon to be) new front yard. We had about 10 trees taken out, including (sadly) the massive pine tree next to the garage and the two oaks from which the grandchildrens' swings used to hang. This week, God willin' and the creeks don't rise rains don't come, the landscapers will be out to flatten, slope, and fill in with new soil so we'll actually have a yard. Then replace the fences and gravel in a new driveway.

For the first time ever: our creek! This picture was taken about halfway down the stair to the pond. It has always been so overgrown that even in the winter the creek was invisible from anywhere except the back side of the dam. The slope of the mountain is too steep to see the creek from ground level at the house, but from the loft we now have a great view.

Here's Tuxedo on the pond freeway as I look back at the house from the same place the previous picture was taken. All the trees/brush that obstructed our views have been taken out, and I'm very slowly cleaning up the litter into 'erosion control' dams.

Here's what it looks like from the pond's dam. You can see the downed tree trunks that I'm moving ever so slowly at the left toward the bottom of the picture. As I mentioned to my neighbor, "that slope is approaching, if not over, 45 degrees (and I'm not yet at the really steep part). If I'm clearing from the topside, I'm sitting facing downslope; from the other side I'm kneeling facing upslope. If I'm upright, I'm praying to be sitting or kneeling...."

Here's a pretty good view from across the pond. To the left is the untouched part of our property -- generally speaking, on the other side of the creek from the house, and on the right is the cleared area. It would be nice to clean up that area that still obscures some of the house, but as a practical matter it would take a major investment in heavy equipment just to get in there....

Finally, a last picture from the pond, looking across to the fountain. The buds in the foreground are (I think) from a small, lonely tulip magnolia growing right at the edge of the pond.

Here are last year's opening pictures for those interested. Come back next week as spring continues....

BECAUSE INSIDE EVERY LEFTIST IS A TYRANT SCREAMING TO GET OUT: Why is the Left such a cesspit of racism?

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION (AND NATO) may not be supporting Ukraine, but Americans sure as hell are.

MY FAVORITES from PowerLine's Week in Pictures this week:

On Ukraine:

On America:

On the economy (it must be in California):

And Supreme Coronavirus Authority Dr. Anthony Fauci has gone missing....

Now go see them all.

SALENA ZITO: It's the my culture, stupid.

JUST IN TIME FOR THE MID-TERM ELECTIONS: A new Covid variant has arrived.

THE DIPLOMAD ON THE SOTU SPEECH: The Mummy mutters.

IT'S EARLY YET: Dumbest statement of the year.

I'D RATHER HAVE MEAN TWEETS: $5/gallon gas is coming.

SO NOW WE KNOW: Martin Luther King was a white supremacist.

He was merely smart, something which cannot be said about today's credentialed wokesters.

HE'S BEING KIND: We’re governed by grifters and dullards.

RUSSIA WAGES WAR, Pentagon wages gender identity training.

Lede from Instapundit. As noted, you really can't make this stuff up.

THE DIPLOMAD ON UKRAINE: Not much makes sense.

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE OF POLL REVERSE: NYC mayor announces tentative end date to city’s vaccine, school mask mandates.

"The mid-terms are coming! The mid-terms are coming!"

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The crowded road to Kyiv.

One of the oddest commentaries about the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the boilerplate reaction that “borders can’t change in modern Europe” or “this does not happen in the 21st century.”

But why in the world should the 21st century be exempt from the pathologies of the past 20 centuries? Are we smarter than the Romans? More innovative than the Florentines? Do we have more savvy leaders than Lincoln or Churchill? Are they more mellifluous than Demosthenes? Does anyone now remember that some 130,000 were slaughtered just 30 years ago in the former Yugoslavia, as NATO planes bombed Belgrade and nuclear America and Russia almost squared off?

Has globalization, the “rules-based order,” the Davos reset elite, the “international community” so improved the very way humans think that they have rendered obsolete the now ossified ancient idea of deterrence? Will the Kardashians and Beyoncé tweet our pathway to global peace?

How about transnational NGOs? NATO? WHO? The U.N.? Are all their recent records of service proof of our more exalted modern morality? Will some new engineered Wuhan virus alter human nature, end its innate ancient pathologies, and so eliminate war as we knew it? Are we not the League of Nations because Putin is now chair of the Security Council?

In truth, anything can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time — and has and will until the end of time.

So let us walk down the crowded road to Kyiv.

It's lengthy, but worthy of a careful read.

PowerLine comments.

BLACK HISTORY I learned at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) 2022.

DEMOCRATS WILL TRY to retroactively change their COVID-19 response; don't let them.