Bright, sunny late-afternoon Tuesday here in California’s Central valley — windy and a bit still on the refreshing side even with Thursday and Friday forecast for 90-degrees or worse. We’ll take our cool when and where we can, plenty of time ahead to lament the heat.

As the Ukrainian situation gets uglier and uglier, the question of an all-out world war is thrown into the conversation:

Haven’t heard the pentagon press corps ask questions like this because > https://t.co/FWrLOt24Lb https://t.co/RM1dFxV2Rz

— Oriana Pawlyk (@Oriana0214) April 5, 2022

Story from David Badash at The New Civil Rights Movement late this afternoon:

In a stunning moment during Tuesday’s White House press briefing a CBS News reporter all but urged the White House to declare war on Russia in response to the war crimes the world has now seen in Bucha, Ukraine, and other parts of the country Vladimir Putin has waged an illegal war against.

CBS News correspondent Steven Portnoy asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, “why shouldn’t the images of the atrocities for Bucha compel a worldwide unified coalition kinetic response?”

Somewhat stunned, Psaki appeared to respond as if she might not have correctly understood what Portnoy seemed to be asking.
“Do you mean a military war? Tell me more about what you mean,” she said, offering him the opportunity to correct his remarks.

“Sure,” Portnoy responded confidently.
“A military response led by the United States and the international partners.”

“As in bringing military troops on the ground from the United States and NATO?” she said, confirming the worst.

“Well,” said Portnoy, who is also the head of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
“The President’s described outrageous things you call them ‘atrocities,’ you’ve said, ‘perhaps we should brace ourselves for worse.’ Why not?” he asked, as if the threat of attacking a nuclear power was not an issue.

“I think what the President’s objective is, and his responsibility, is to make decisions that are in the interests of the United States and the national security of the United States, and the American people. And that is not to go to war with Russia,” Psaki said, almost angrily at having to explain this very basic concept.
“It is to do everything in our power to hold them accountable. To support efforts through international systems to do exactly that. And to provide military assistance, security assistance and support to the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government. That’s exactly what we’re doing. But it is not in our interests or in the interest of the American people for us to be in a war with Russia,” she concluded.

Even a regional conflict could blow apart into a worldwide shooting war in just a few minutes, add nuclear weapons, and the shit hits the broad fan real hard and fast.

Meanwhile, life out of this world continues and it could be in a seemingly airtight bubble — NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei on those Russian cosmonauts who arrived at the International Space Station two weeks ago wearing yellow and blue (via The Washington Post this afternoon):

As for the Russian crew members who recently joined the space station wearing yellow-and-blue suits, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, he said the outfits were not meant as political commentary. Instead, all three members went to the same university, and yellow and blue are the school colors.

He said the cosmonauts “had no idea that people would perceive that as having to do with Ukraine. … I think they were kind of blindsided by it.”

Vande Hei had nothing but good to say about the Russian cosmonauts and the Russian space program. Seemingly back at you with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov saying ‘“people have problems on Earth … on orbit we are one crew,”‘ and the ISS ‘“a symbol of friendship and cooperation and like a symbol of the future of exploration in space.”‘

Another day and here we are once again…

(Illustration out front by Taylor Callery, and found here).