TIL what a “hoser” is.

In Canadian pop-culture, it’s a term used to describe the type of personality that former president Trump tends to embody — the brand of bombastic extremism that makes up the personality of people who currently occupy the center of the Canadian populism movement: think loud, uncouth and skeptical of facts, precedent and the government in general.

This (below) is a tweet from over the weekend from the Russian Embassy in South Africa. It’s an example of the dynamic I was talking about yesterday. U.S. diplomats have apparently told NATO allies, based on U.S. intelligence, that Russia had set February 16th, Wednesday, as a possible or probable invasion date. This is at least consistent with various moves by the U.S. and NATO allies over recent days — pulling out dependents, canceling civilian flights and such. Here Russia is denying it has any plans to invade on Wednesday and claims that the warnings are part of a U.S. plot to create a provocation which justifies NATO military action inside Ukraine. This is the kind of wrong-footing I’m talking about.