Don't Kill the Goose

 A long time ago in a land far away, there was a rich king who had a goose that laid a golden egg every day.  Growing impatient with this installment plan, the king decided to kill the goose and cut it open so as to get all the golden eggs at once.  As it turned out, he didn't find any golden eggs inside the goose, and now that it was dead, the goose would never lay a golden egg again.  So, it is said even unto this day, "Don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs." which means, "You've got a good thing going here, don't screw it up."

Red China is the rich king, and the U.S. is the goose that has made the king verily rich over the years.  The consensus of the articles I have read is that, while Red China has become chummy with Russia lately, they are not likely to help them work around our sanctions because then we might sanction them a well, which would be bad for business.  They seem to be trying to stay neutral in this war because they want to maintain trade relations with both sides.  Those crafty devils!

Rumor has it that one of the things Putin is asking the Red Chinese to supply is MREs, which is what they call C-rations nowadays days.  If true, this would lend credence to the theory that the Russian forces have been underfed since day one.  In the olden days before C-rations were invented, invading armies used to subsist by looting the peasants on their way to the castle.  This won't work here because the Russians are bombing everything in the path ahead of them, so there won't be much left to loot when they reach their objective.  This is called the "scorched earth tactic", but it is customary to scorch the earth behind you as you retreat, not the earth ahead of you as you advance.  Either the Russian don't know what they're doing, or they know something that we don't.  

I enjoyed Uncle Ken's little story about me putting on a show for the tourists.  I suppose we don't need to totally lose our sense of humor just because there is a war going on.