Uncle Volodya says, “Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.”
Every fleeting thought is a pearl
And beautiful people stampede to the doorway
of the funniest fucker in the world
They’re here to help you
Satisfy your desire
There’s a bright future for all you professional liars
– “How To Be Dumb”; Elvis Costello
I know, I know: it’s hard to believe The Wall Street Journal (which I like to refer to, for childish reasons of my own – because that’s just the way I roll – as The Wall Street Urinal) would publish a story gratuitously critical of Russia. But on October 28th, 2014, a day which will live in infamy, I’m afraid that’s exactly what they did. For shame, Wall Street Urinal (thanks for the tip, Cartman).
“Hacking Trail Leads to Russia, Experts Say“. Mmmmm… I’m sure we’re going to want to look at that claim in some detail – but first, let’s talk a little bit about experts, because it is a timely discussion topic which has come up on a couple of occasions already, and it needs a bigger forum. Quite simply, we have arrived at a period in the history of our joint existence on the big blue marble when Mr. Hankey The Christmas Poo could be an expert whose opinion was eagerly sought by journalists, if only he had a laptop, knew how to find the Google search screen, had an opposable thumb and didn’t wear mittens all the time. H.L. Mencken, who had a considerable amount to say on the preoccupation of the American people with elevating to iconic status those who are most like themselves, must be beaming beatifically from his grave. “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin“, said he. More touchingly – and he could turn his hand to romantic and touching, for he was among the most capable writers of his generation or any other – “If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.” My own favourite, which for some reason always makes me think of Alexey Navalny; “An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.”
But the one for which he is best known, and which is the most widely quoted – “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
We’re a little too late to mark the arrival of that glorious moment – by about 13 years – but this phenomenon had a much wider application that just the office of president. Simply put, almost nobody who speaks English as their mother tongue has any regard any more for expertise earned through a lifetime of practice in one’s craft. No; the west – or at least its voice, the western press, is gaga for “reality journalists” like Brown Moses, the Englishman and life-sized dildo who leapt from obscure failed administrative drone at a nonprofit to “one of the world’s foremost weapons experts” in less than a year. Or Rami Abdelrahman, the one-man-show who is The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, which he runs out of his Coventry home with a laptop and a couple of cell phones. The United Nations consults him, and regularly and uncritically reports his casualty figures in the Syria conflict without checking anything, although he gets his numbers direct from Syrian activists with a vested interest in pumping up the body count so NATO will intervene, in horror. He and Brown Moses share several things in common – neither has any training at all in their present “field of expertise”, neither completed post-secondary education and both broadcast a narrative that has western governments liking the cut of their jib. In Mr. Abdulrahman’s case (actually his name is Osama Sulieman, just as Brown Moses’ name is actually Eliot Higgins), he is subsidized by the European Union.
Anyway, before we range too far afield to find our way back, let’s look at the Wall Street Journal article. Just keep in the back of your mind that the “experts” who say the trail leads straight back to the Russian government might well be a couple of college dropouts who spend the rest of their time playing World Of Warcraft.
Security wizards FireEye, a cybersecurity firm based in California, discovered “a sophisticated cyberweapon, able to evade detection and hop between computers walled off from the Internet” in a U.S. system. This brilliant piece of sleuthware, we further learn, “was programmed on Russian-language machines and built during working hours in Moscow.”
Stupid, stupid Russians. They went to all the trouble to bore and stroke that baby until it was humming with super-secret code power, and then pointed a trail right back to the Rodina by writing their code in Cyrillic. And, moreover, betrayed themselves even more convincingly by writing all this code during working hours in Moscow. Or Aman, Jordan, which shares the same time. Or Baghdad. Or Damascus, or Dar es Salaam. Djibouti. Nairobi. Simferopol. Or perhaps the code was written by somebody outside working hours. Is there some evidence that compelled investigators to think the work of writing spy code has to be done between the hours of 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM?
Their confidential report is due to be released Tuesday, so I guess we’ll have to wait to find out. Oh, wait – no, we won’t, because they told the Wall Street Journal (the world’s biggest fucking blabbermouths), and they posted a link to it. They’re calling this mysterious group “APT-28”. Because “Dirty Moskali Masterminded By Putin”, while it looked great on the cover, cost more to print – and we all have to think about costs these days – and sort of lacked the techno-wallop they were looking for.
I don’t want to spoil the report for you, because it is a ripping read, but I have to say up front that a lot of the circumstantial evidence which causes FireEye to blame this snooping on Russia is summed up in an assessment by one of their managers – a former Russia analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense, by a wonderful coincidence: ” “Who else benefits from this? It just looks so much like something that comes from Russia that we can’t avoid the conclusion.”
I see. Well, by God, that is evidence, no denying that. It just looks like Russia. Probably because they were stupid enough to code in Cyrillic, even though almost everyone codes in English regardless where they’re from because almost all programming languages are in English, because most popular frameworks and third-party extension are written in English, because Cyrillic characters are not allowed when naming many functions and variables, and….gee, I’m sure there was something else….oh, yeah: and because using Cyrillic would be a dead giveaway that the source was Russian, and it would be indescribably stupid to write a brilliant code that it would take a top-notch security hired gun to find, and then leave the root code in Cyrillic. The article is at pains to imply the Russians are the world’s most clever hackers. Sure hope they don’t find out how stupid it is to write their code in Russian, or they might really start achieving some success.
But this sneaky program was written during working hours in Moscow, and the 
information it sought to exploit would only be of interest to the Russian government; that’s how FireEye broke the whole thing wide open, and they’ve been onto the Russians for seven years, ever since they prefaced their invasion of Georgia with a cyber-attack on Georgia’s systems, and ultimately made Saakashvili eat his tie.
Hey, I can think of somebody else who is interested in as much information as it can get on U.S. governmental inner workings, policymaking and current financial situation. Israel. And what do you know? Jerusalem is only an hour off of Moscow time. I’m not suggesting it must have been Israel instead of Russia – perish the thought. But I hope I have adequately expressed my contempt for the doughheaded theory that it must have been Moscow because sneaky writers of dirty code adhere to regular office hours. Just sayin’.
Incidentally, the United States Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) has never been enforced against Israel, and in 2012 an amendment was introduced which (paraphrased) reads “The Attorney General may, by regulation, provide for the exemption..[if the AG] determines that such registration…is not necessary…”
After all, Israel has a long and colourful history of spying on the United States. In the early 80’s the FBI investigated AIPAC for long-running espionage and theft of government documents relating to the United States – Israel Free Trade Pact: because Israel had a purloined copy of the USA’s negotiating positions, the story goes, the USA was unable to exploit anything to its advantage because the Israelis already knew what the Americans would concede under pressure: “A quarter-century after the tainted negotiations led to passage of the US-Israel preferential trade pact, it remains the most unfavourable of all U.S. bilateral trade agreements, producing chronic deficits, lack of U.S. market access to Israel and ongoing theft of U.S. intellectual property.”
Defense department stuff? Sure, they were interested in that, too. In 2005 Larry Franklin, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman were indicted in Virginia for passing classified documents to a foreign power (Israel, although they danced around who it was by referring to it as simply “a Middle Eastern Country”) which were tremendously useful to Israel in its attempts to maneuver the USA into war with Iran on its behalf. Franklin plead guilty and received a 12-year prison sentence which was later – incredibly – reduced to 100 hours of community service and 10 months in a halfway house. All charges against Rosen and Weissman, lobbyists for AIPAC, were dropped in 2009. The United States government claimed it did not want classified material revealed at trial. So dangerous, not to put too fine a point on it, that it was better to let the criminals who had given that classified information to a foreign power go free without punishment than to risk Americans learning it who had no need to know.
Nor was that the only instance. Johnathan Pollard, an analyst with U.S. Naval Intelligence Command, was convicted of spying for Israel and sentenced to life imprisonment. That sentence has waffled back and forth, largely due to intense efforts by agencies of the Israeli government to get it commuted, and currently stands at release just about a year from now. Israel acknowledged that Pollard had spied for that country on its ally in a formal apology, and the Victim Impact Statement hints that the information which was passed endangered both American lives and the USA’s relations with its Arab allies. Details were never made public, and remain classified. However, as the referenced article points out, Israel today enjoys real-time intelligence sharing with the USA, so I guess spying on America is not really all that important after all – what’s FireEye ki-yiing about?
U.S. Navy submariner Ariel Weinmann was arrested and detained as a spy for Israel in 2006 when he reportedly deserted from his unit (USS ALBUQUERQUE) taking with him a laptop computer which held classified information. He was believed to have met with an agent of a foreign power in Vienna and in Mexico City. Initial reports said that power was Israel. Later, after the allies had time to get their heads together and agree on a cover story, Time Magazine broke a story which put it out there, with no substantiation whatsoever, that the foreign power implicated had actually been – wait for it – Russia. He probably had just become confused because Jerusalem and Moscow have almost the same working hours. Weinmann is apparently not Jewish, by the way, the name is of German extraction, or so his father says. He was alleged, by his father, to have been upset because of the USA collecting intelligence information on its allies. So, if you’re still following the storyline, Weinmann – after a naval deployment to the Persian Gulf where the Navy upset him by collecting intelligence information on its allies – stole a laptop containing classified information which presumably proved his case, and disclosed that information to…Russia. Uh huh. A nation which is not only not an ally of the United States – pretty damned far from it, in fact – but one which has no serious naval profile in the Persian Gulf. I feel kind of like I’m running on a giant pretzel.
More recently, in May of this year, Newsweek announced despairingly that Israel will not stop spying on the USA, and the USA will not make them stop. In this article, which accuses Israel of constantly maneuvering to steal American technology and industrial secrets, Israel’s espionage activities are described as “unrivaled and unseemly”. Comically, Israeli Embassy spokesman Aaron Sagui retorted angrily, “Israel doesn’t conduct espionage operations in the United States, period. We condemn the fact that such outrageous, false allegations are being directed against Israel.” No word on whether his nose immediately grew so rapidly that it put the reporter’s eye out, because Israel has already admitted to and apologized for espionage activities in the United States before.
Which brings us back to FireEye, speaking of Pinocchio. FireEye, frankly, needs a big break. Its stock is sinking as other Threat Detection commercial security companies muscle in on the market, and in May was down 65% from a 52-week high, while investors were getting impatient to see some success.
A success like this one, in fact.
Let’s go back a minute to the giddy summary by the FireEye executive cited earlier. “Who else benefits from this? It just looks so much like something that comes from Russia that we can’t avoid the conclusion.”
You know why the conclusion is unavoidable? Because the malicious code is specifically engineered to point in that direction. Who would do that? Russians who meant it to be undetectable?
You tell me.
The Kremlin Stooge 
Sadly, Mark, you shouldn’t imagine that experts are any better than non-experts. Indeed, when it comes to prediction, Philip Tetlock has shown in his book ‘Expert Political Judgement: How good it is? How can we know’ (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7959.html) that experts and non-experts perform about the same (see this article in the New Yorker ‘Everybody’s an Expert’ for a summary of Tetlock: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/12/05/everybodys-an-expert). One of Tetlock’s findings is that the more specialized somebody is, the worse his analyses will be – the very fact that he knows a lot about his narrow subject leads him to be overconfident in his judgements and so more likely to make exaggerated claims. The guy who knows absolutely nothing may be more nuanced, and so more accurate.
True enough – what is more sinister in the case of “experts” like Brown Moses, though, is that when it becomes clear he is a partisan for one side or the other (and he is), it is an easy matter to introduce the evidence he needs to make his case. For example, the New Yorker marveled that “if a rocket is not complete, he can identify it by the shards”. In Dasmascus, for example, the fake rebels tried hard to get ex-Soviet equipment introduced, and thereby make the Russia connection the west wanted. Such equipment is easy to acquire on the global weapons market, but that’s forgotten as soon as the world audience hears its country of origin.
It is easy, after a bit of recognition training, to recognize different weapons by small peculiarities which escape the untrained eye. But a part of it that is at least as important is the likelihood of that weapon being there at that time, and if other world events support its presence – in short, probability. In a few cases – Drutten, for example, spotted that the fake “Russian Army Colonel” supposedly caught on film briefing Berkut riot police in Kiev (thereby “proving” that Russia was in charge of efforts to preserve Yanukovych’s rule) was wearing outdated Danish Army camouflage that likely came from some military-surplus store – exposure of one critical fact can make the whole fake fall apart. In that instance the Ukies were greatly embarrassed, and the Russian Army Colonel was never mentioned again. Granted, the clip was itself so cheesy in its blatant attempt to put Moscow in the frame that it might not have had much mileage in it anyway, but the phony camos helped put a stake through its heart. The probability in that case that an actual Russian Army Colonel on official duty in Ukraine would wear Danish uniform was pretty much zero.
Eliot Higgins has become a “foremost weapons expert” because he can be relied on by the west to “discover” Russian weapons in places where the west wants them to be. Consequently he is fawned over and his judgment ruled infallible as if he were some sort of weapons idiot savant, because such recognition helps to establish his credibility.
And separately, but related to the issue of exaggeration, I have a new post on my blog about the crazy hyperbole currently infecting Russia-West relations: https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/a-frightening-array-of-crazy-hyperbole/
I strongly disagree with a statement you’ve made in your article: ” it is hard to see what real benefit we in the West would gain from creating disorder around the globe”.
In my opinion the global disorder perfectly benefits one country, namely the US, because:
1. The said country is dead set on preventing any meaningful opposition to its global dominance from arising anywhere anytime.
2. Under these circumstances the said country has a perfect justification of its role as global policeman, which brings substantial revenues. It is so to say a security tax the US impose on its subjects.
In order to correctly understand the goal of US foreign policy, it is sufficient to believe the opposite of what they say.
Terrific article, Mark. I’d missed this story but it does sound as though it’s yet another episode in the never-ending psych-op campaign being waged against Russia in the west. The story of Russian cyber attacks of one kind or another has been running for a while now – NATO’s General Breedlove, carrying out his main mission of expanding his organisation’s role in the world, was the first to posit the idea that a ‘NATO for the 21st century’ could see cyber attacks as a justification for invoking Article 5 of the NATO Charter – an attack on one is an attack on all – so the incremental build-up of Russia as the world’s most devious hacker is probably serving this sort of purpose.
Back to Ukraine for a moment. An iconic Kiev cinema has been destroyed in an arson attack during a screening of an LGBT film. Fortunately, no-one was hurt. There seem to be two possible explanations for the incident – either a protest against the showing of this particular film or a shortening of whatever planning process operates in Kiev in order to realise the value of the site. It will be interesting to see whether the EU reacts to this.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20141030/194834349/Kievs-Iconic-Cinema-Burns-Down-During-LGBT-Movie-Screening.html
In the long term, the EU and US will prefer the LGBT and other marginal freakish groups over nationalists.
However, instead of physical intimidation, the new coalition of AngloZionist-empowered marginal minorities will use the law to criminalize previously widely-held values and beliefs. This is usually done through “hate crime” laws — as if any crime toward a victim is done out of love…
Other means, such as the mainstream media and well-funded violent Trotskyite groups may be used against patriots as well, but this will take years, and like I said before, will only happen if the AngloZionists gain total control over Ukraine. As long as the country is hanging between the AngloZionists and Russia, the AngloZionists will use the shabbos goyim nationalists against the Moskali.
A certain Eugen Zelman is quoted in the linked article. Poor guy, he’s just trying to spread some European values. Why do these people always find me?
OMG, armies of shabbos goyim and violent Trotskyites are being targeted against true patriots! I guess that means the white race is in danger, better send Super Whitey to the rescue!
ThatJ, you are becoming a parody of yourself…
Something about Trotsky really sets you off, doesn’t it? I’m afraid I don’t know very much about him.
Hi, Fern,
There was a third theory about the theater fire, namely that it had something to do with the insurance money. Or a dispute about the land it was built on.
The LGBT movie could have been a red herring to disguise he real reason for the fire.
Although, given the homophobia of Right Sektor, who knows?
Somebody might be taking advantage of the absence of law and order.
Thank you very kindly, Fern!
The United States actually already has a unit called Cyber Command, in Fort Meade. It claims to have the ability to “conduct full-spectrum military cyberspace operations”, and its objective as with other commands is to “ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to [its] adversaries”.
I’d love to see a unit photo. I wonder if the troops all have thick glasses and trousers that are three inches too short over white tennis socks.
A very good edition of RT’s ‘CrossTalk’ on the Ukrainian elections. Peter Lavelle’s guests are Nebojsa Malic, Eric Krauss and Dimitry Babich. At one point, Nebojsa sums up the choice voters faced as ‘Oligarchs, Nazis and Nazi-Oligarchs’ which sounds like it covers a lot of the bases.
http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/200207-oligarchs-ukraine-elections-economy/
Russian Ruble Soars Over 5% On Intervention, Rate-Hike Rumors
Having made new record lows for 7 days in a row, various technical triggers, short squeezes, and rumors of Central Bank intervention prompted the Russian Ruble to rally over 5% – the biggest swing since 1998 as chatter of a very aggressive (greater than 50bp) rate-hike at tomorrow’s meeting.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/russian-ruble-soars-over-5-intervention-rate-hike-rumors
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Alan Greenspan: QE Failed To Help The Economy, The Unwind Will Be Painful, “Buy Gold”
It appears it is time for some Hillary-Clinton-esque backtracking and Liesman-esque translation of just what the former Federal Reserve Chief really meant. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the Fed chief from 1987 to 2006 says the Fed’s bond-buying program fell short of its goals, and had a lot more to add.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-29/alan-greenspan-qe-failed-help-economy-unwind-will-be-painful-buy-gold
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Is It About To Get Worse? Lakeland Hazmat Suit Orders Go Exponential, Surpass 1 Million
Almost exactly a month ago, long before the Texas Ebola fiasco, when virtually nobody had heard of a small company out of Ronkonkoma, NY called Lakeland Industries and whose only product is “industrial protective clothing for industry, municipalities, healthcare and to first responders” i.e., Hazmat suits, we asked “i) who will get sick next and ii) how bad could it get?” For the answer we focused on the recently announced order of 160,000 Hazmat suits by the US State Department which had come at a time when the CDC was urging everyone that there is nothing to fear and that Ebola is under control. Not surprisingly, shortly thereafter the Ebola situation promptly escalated and led to not only the first Ebola death and Ebola transmission on US territory, but also the first Ebola infection in New York City.
Fast forward to today when shortly after the close, and minutes after it announced the completion of another $11 million follow on offering, Lakeland surprised everyone, and especially those who are short the stock, when it released the following “Update on Business Activity Relating to Ebola Crisis” in which it announced that it has, by now, received a stunning 1 million Hazmat suit orders and rising exponentially.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-29/it-about-get-worse-lakeland-hazmat-suit-orders-go-exponential-surpass-1-million
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Peak Empire 2.0
(Originally posted at Club Orlov blog)
Based on the lessons of history, all empires collapse eventually; thus, the probability that the US empire will collapse can be set at 100% with a great deal of confidence. The question is, When? (Everyone keeps asking that annoying question.)
[ThatJ: good article, replete with data regarding the decline of the US army and economy]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-29/peak-empire-20
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As Eric Holder Supports “Wholesale Change” In Ferguson PD, This is What Is Happening In Philly
Eric Holder has voiced his strong support for “wholesale change” in the Ferguson Police department adding that it is “pretty clear” and “appropriate,” coming on the heels of a possible resignation of Chief Thomas Jackson (who happens to be white) and potential dismantling of the department. One wonders what will happen in Philadelphia after this clip of a not-white police officer abusing a black civilian reaches Holder’s ‘old’ desk…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-29/eric-holder-supports-wholesale-change-ferguson-pd-what-happening-philly
“…the probability that the US empire will collapse can be set at 100%”
That’s like saying that the probability that all smokers die is 100%.
🙂
WSJ: NATO Tracks Large-Scale Russia Air Activity in Europe
NATO Says Russian Air Activity Poses Potential Risk to Civilian Flights
BRUSSELS—Russian military aircraft conducted aerial maneuvers around Europe this week on a scale seldom seen since the end of the Cold War, prompting NATO jets to scramble in another sign of how raw East-West relations have grown.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/nato-tracks-large-scale-russia-air-activity-in-europe-1414605816?mod=WSJ_hppMIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond
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Don’t Show The “Deflation Isn’t Going To Happen” ECB Germany’s Declining October Prices
Remember when this past weekend, as part of its stress test “worst case” scenario, in all its wisdom the ECB decided not to stress test a deflationary outcome in Europe’s immediate future…
Despite the market clearly screaming “deflation, deflation, deflation”…
… because as ECB governor Constancio said “the scenario of deflation is not there because indeed we don’t consider that deflation is going to happen.”
Well, don’t tell the ECB, but according to just reported October regional inflation data for Germany, the country that is supposedly Europe’s growth dynamo is now in outright deflation:
Brandenburg CPI -0.3%, Previous 0.0%
Hesse CPI -0.2%, Previous 0.1%
Saxony CPI -0.2%, Previous 0.1%
Bavaria CPI -0.3%, Previous 0.1%
And lest someone think this is purely a “core” phenomenon, Spain also reported October CPI which was not the balmy 0.0% expected but a negative print as well, at -0.1%.
So, is it already time to rerun “the most successfull and thorough European stress test” yet? Judging by the clobbering Italian banks have gotten virtually every day in the past week, it is probably not a bad idea.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/dont-show-deflation-isnt-going-happen-ecb-germanys-declining-october-prices
I am confused , I could swear I saw articles that in the western MSM that claimed there is a massive brain drain going in Russia. Everyone just packs their bags and leaves. Apparently, not everyone left. Its weird cause with all these brain drains going on it should be hard to find someone in russia who could turn on a computer let alone write a sophisticated code that can cripple america. Weird.
Do you know what’s funny? “Brain drain” sounds incredibly un-PC, it implies the people who stay are dumb.
Hey i am just a humble servant paraphrasing the great American Press. Who am I to argue with such pillars of truth.
I know. The liberast and neocon press like to make this claim.
Well, you can take that brain drain line the way that New Zealand Prime Minister Muldoon used to whenever Kiwi emigration to Oz was mentioned: “New Zealanders who leave for Australia raise the IQ of both countries”.
Good one. The Kiwi who leaves is dumber than the average Kiwi, but smarter than the average Australian.
It took me a while to figure this one out.
I could see it speed up the Flynn effect, but isn’t average IQ supposed to remain at 100 by definition?
That’s the same Robert Muldoon who in his twilight years as a back-bencher starred as The Narrator in the Auckland production of “The Rocky Horror Show” and roles on a children’s TV show “Terry and the Gunrunners” and TV commercials for a bank due to all those NZ actors decamping for Australia.
План “Б”: Россия готовит распад Украины
Plan B: Russia prepares for the collapse of the Ukraine
29 Oct 2014, 09:07
The EU has once again refused to remove sanctions against Russia . Moscow, on the other hand, did not expect otherwise and is gradually moving towards the backup plan, which should provide protection of our interests in the Ukraine and involves the recognition of the breakaway republics.
On October 28 there was hosted a meeting of representatives of European Union countries, which discussed the question of the lifting of sanctions from Russia. According to the results of this meeting, the EU did not appreciate the peacekeeping efforts of the Kremlin and concluded that “at present, there is no reason to change the EU restrictive measures against Russia”. The reason is quite simple: regular ceasefire violations; failure of the Donetsk National Republic (DNR), the Lugansk National Republic (LNR) and Moscow to return to Ukrainian border guards to checkpoints along the border; the inability of Russia to cancel local elections in the the DNR and the LNR; and failure of the governments of both republics to hold on its territory elections to the Supreme Rada. As a result, the question of mitigation of sanctions was postponed until spring, and the traditional Russia-EU summit (which was to be held in winter) has been completely cancelled.
Generally speaking, the decision in Brussels was not unexpected: for some time before the meeting, sources reported that, the situation in Italy notwithstanding, a number of Eastern European countries were pushing for sanctions and would block their removal. This decision was certainly not unexpected in the Kremlin, for at the Milan negotiations Russia had already realized that no constructive decision from the EU on the Ukrainian question was to be expected, that the goal of Europe was not to reach a compromise with Moscow, but to force Vladimir Putin to rescind the Russian position and its interests. Russia, therefore, has been well aware of the non-viability of its “Plan A”, namely the federalization of the Ukraine, and has been gradually moving towards the implementation of “Plan B”, a controlled procedure for the break up of the Ukrainian project.
Moscow has thus completely changed its attitude towards the elections of heads and deputies of the parliaments of the two republics on the Don coalfield. If, earlier, the Kremlin had called for militias to withdraw from this procedure as “untimely”, now Vladimir Putin’s press secretary , Dmitry Peskov, has said that “the election is a decision made by the leadership of these republics. These elections will take place”. Moreover, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and mouthpiece of Moscow, Sergey Lavrov, the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov and other officials have made it clear that the Kremlin not only will not interfere with elections in the DNR and the LNR, but most likely recognize them.
… the recognition is a very serious step. First of all, it will be a denunciation of the Minsk agreements and the entire peace plan in the Donbass at each and every level, warns Kiev. “These mock elections, which the so-called the DNR and the LNR have declared for early November, not only have nothing to do with Minsk Protocol of September 5, 2014, but are grossly contrary to its letter and spirit. They jeopardize the entire peace process”, said Poroshenko’s press secretary, Jaroslav Tsigalko. In fact, by agreeing disconnect the DNR and the LNR from the Ukrainian legal framework, Moscow is refusing a key point underlying the current concept of the peaceful settlement of the territorial integrity of the Ukraine. Moreover, the recognition of the election results can be not only the first step towards official or part recognition of the DNR and the LNR, but also the beginning of a more active implementation of the Moscow Novorossia project…
Meanwhile, France is struggling to pass the first Russian MISTRAL to Moscow’s control without raising the profile of the event, but Rogozin fucked that up for them by announcing the receipt of invitations to the floating-up ceremony as well as the handover of the ship.
So now Hollande is back in the crosshairs again, as European and other western nations who don’t stand to lose anything on the deal scream at him that he absolutely must cancel the contract. It plainly suits Russia to force the issue, since if France reneges on the contract it will have to pay the penalty, in cash, while France’s reputation as an arms dealer will suffer serious and perhaps irreparable damage. Russia is in a good position, having signed a legal and binding contract, the west except for France is in a good position because they don’t stand to lose anything and so can take a popular stand on principle, while experiencing the good feeling of having fucked over Russia, who probably doesn’t care since it is getting cash for nothing other than signing a contract. It doesn’t get a ship (if things keep going the way they are, although I am still confident they will get the ship), but Russia probably has gained enough knowledge to build them itself. So the only one the whole kerfuffle is really hurting is France.
It makes me laugh that the west simultaneously takes the positions that Russia is running the show in the DNR and it should back off right now, and that Russia must stop the elections in the DNR. Tell you what, guys; take a position, and stick to it. It only strengthens Russia’s position, which is denial that it is messing in the DNR. We’re not doing that, it says, and, oh, now you want me to interfere and stop them from having elections? I’m confused, here.
“I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” says Alabama-born Apple’s CEO.
As Tim Cook “Comes Out”, These Nations Still View Homosexuality As “Morally Unacceptable”
Tim Cook’s decision to openly discuss his sexual orientation is dominating the news cycle with many hoping it can be a watershed moment in the acceptance of openly gay people in the workforce. While it appears nothing but a positive in the United States, there are still stunningly many nations around the world (including Iran, where Apple is trying to sell to now) where Tim Cook’s admission is considered “morally unacceptable” by the great majority.
Will his Op-Ed affect sales?
Source: @ConradHackett
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/tim-cook-comes-out-these-nations-still-view-homosexuality-morally-unacceptable
Btw, I don’t trust these statistics. They came from different sources, using different methodologies, and depending on the pollster(s), bias is also a possibility.
I may be wrong here: this graphic was posted on https://twitter.com/conradhackett who’s a PewResearch demographer. Still, it says nothing about the methodology, or more importantly, if the global poll was conducted by Pew Research itself, which I think is unlikely. Compilling data makes the result worse for the reasons I cited above.
Another fine article Mark! The aim of the overlords is that their sheep lead the rest of the sheep. Unfortunately for them, more and more people are turned off the Pork Pie News Networks and head on over to the internet to see what other people say – not necessarily to believe what is written, but to get much better informed with facts and arguments. Unfortunately this has absolutely no effect on disastrous policies by their elected leaders. We seem to be resigned to endless wars, endless enemies and endless sacrifices (ourselves that it is, not the protected classes). How bad does it really have to get? Food riots?
As I think was mentioned more than once on this esteemed blog, on the hacker thing, I’ve read many times over the years that those who write code like to leave their ‘tag’ like graffiti artists in a bit of plain text so that they can brag about their talents. Once upon a time, these could be relied upon as honest tags, but now it is part of the disguise anyone one with half a brain writing malware/hacking etc. to keep themselves as anonymous as possible. Its the same old trick of bouncing the code through servers of an enemy nation (Russia, China, North Korea etc.) to give the appearance that they originate from there – which is of course possible. Yet, it is the United States that has by far the largest resources and command of cyber-warfare to which they provide glimpses of, usually saying ‘We never use these abilities except in the case of attack’, which is total bs.
As for NATO, they’re building up to a frenzy for something. The Lithuanian An-26 that lost comms which was intercepted off the south coast of England was headlined as ‘Russian built’ – that hoary old tool used by the PPNN to link anything to Russia, so if it is Soviet = Russia, if it walked, flew, swam or spat withing 600km of Moscow it is close enough to be defined as ‘Russian’. I’m wondering if NATO isn’t thinking of upping its minimum defense spend of 2% GDP. There have been a slew of military deals signed this last year and the US was supposed to have a military sequester, the military industrial complex pulling out all the stops to cancel it. Fear is good for business. And now there is ebola. Whoopee!
The aim of the overlords is that their sheep lead the rest of the sheep. Unfortunately for them, more and more people are turned off the Pork Pie News Networks and head on over to the internet to see what other people say – not necessarily to believe what is written, but to get much better informed with facts and arguments.
Why are you so optimistic? Do you have data about the share of “alternative media”? In my experience most people shut down the television to connect to bbc.co.uk or the local equivalent.
At least on the internet it is relatively easier to find alternative media, an option simply not available on TV. It is easy to notice that sites like this and saker are becoming significant places for news regarding geopolitical news. They are not on par or even close to the viewership of sites like bbc or fox but nonetheless they are here and people can stumble on them with some ease.
Even with BBC and its equivalents, being able to reread a previous article is akin to something not possible with TV. Some years ago, I had an ex-pat Iranian friend, who was the stereotypical equivalent of the Russian Liberal follower. The west was his be-all, end-all, and whatever the Mullahs (TM)—i.e. any branch of Iran’s government—did, was horrendous by virtue of identity. One day he got married, and was suddenly paying attention to his environment.
“The BBC has given three different versions of what happened to David Kelly within the last 24 hours!”
I have no data, but for example I always head over to google news aggregator which takes quite a wide spread of news sources from around the globe, and antiwar.com (which does a fine job of brining in the dissent pieces hidden in the MSM along with antiwar’s own work) . Every now and then the alternative news sites give an update on their readership and as far as I have seen, they have not been censored by the major search engines either.
It is my impression that over the years a) what the average person searches for is easier to find; b) pulled from more original sources (i.e. not simply re-writes); c) An explosion of interest in sites like the Kremlin Stooge and Vinyard the Saker, though these seem to be more driven by crises; d) the explosion of interest in using anonymous search engines like duckduckgo.com which is mostly driven by fear of the existing Big Brother and people not wanting to get nailed for simple curiosity for looking elsewhere. People’s curiosity can be easily helped. No more need to go down to the library and dig out old books when you can sit in your underwear in front of your computer and type away! It is true that we are creatures of habit, but also of leisure and convenience and that is what the internet provides
I shouldn’t be an optimist at all because of those very dark days during the war in the Balkans and its crazy emotional roller-coaster ride where the MSM were just repeating each other’s exaggerated or fabricated horror stories, until a chink of light appeared in 1999 and NATO after pretending they hadn’t been killing civilians in Yugoslavia were faced with direct broadcast reports and proof. They of course tried to fix this by banning Belgrade from EUTELSAT accusing them of vile propaganda(!) but the stories still got through via the Internet- antiwar.com as one of the channels.
Since then, I’ve only seen more and more alternative reporting and foreign sources appearing and growing. RT made it to broadcast in the UK and is now the third most watched news channel, though a long way behind the BBC & SKY, and you can even see now how the PPNN comments sections have become much more of a battleground. Before it was mainly commenters who agreed with the article, but its got to the point that even the world’s most widely read new site like the Guardian is squealing about a concerted effort by other states to spam the comments section with criticism. It simply doesn’t occur to them that by sheer probability, the more people that read your site the more people are not going to agree and make comments that they don’t, and add to that more and more people around the world are connected to the internet and English, however bad, is the internet and business lingua franca.
As for the Beeb, it is the default choice (like equivalents in other countries), but it doesn’t mean that people completely believe their reports any more than others. The Beeb is still living off its legacy great reputation for its reporting when it only had limited competition. I like the Beeb for everything except the news and some of its satire says a lot. Topical news shows on the radio like The Now Show and the News Quiz regularly rip in to British politicians for their hypocrisy and big business for corruption: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04mhd5q and they are very, very popular shows (mainly for those who consider themselves middle class) that go out straight after the early evening news.
So no, I can’t really prove my optimism but I feel that people are fed up with the same old lies and tricks (as they actually write in comments) and the internet provides almost perfect recall for the last twenty odd years. Will any of this change the way our leaders behave? Well they’re already a lot more careful with their words and all employ PR gurus so that no-one officially speaks off the cuff, but policy wise I think we are all in for the long haul. It clearly has to get much worse before anything happens. The world outside the West has changed very rapidly since 1989, the West superficially has too, but institutional though and behavior continues as before. They don’t know what to do any more except play safe and tread the same boards, if not simply refuse to make any changes, which are inevitable.
It’s funny but my head wants to be a pessimist, but at heart I am an optimist.
Thank you for your answer. Our disagreement is that (paraphrasing you) my head wants to be an optimist, but at heart I am a pessimist.
Then there is karl, whose head wants to be a pessimist, and whose heart wholeheardely agrees (just kidding karl).
It’s better being a pessimist: if a pessimist is wrong about what he foresees, he’s glad that he was wrong about his gloomy prediction and that everything has turned out fine in the end; if, however, his predictions turn out to come true, then he has the satisfaction of telling those who criticized his pessimism that he was right and they were all wrong.
Hope for the best but expect the worst.
It’s no disagreement at all. It’s just a different point of view. We are all different creatures of our own particular environments. I do usually expect the worst (and agree with Moscow Exile’s comment about pessimists not being surprised by how things turn out), but I think the worst is no longer an option in my opinion. ‘Doing a Serbia’ to Russia is simply not possible. It’s a) too late; b) the mistake of fighting the current conflict how they fought the last one which I notice that newspapers quote the Baltic States current military acquisitions (anti-tank missiles) based on the 2008 war in Georgia. The dumbest thing you can do in military strategy terms is to repeat your previous strategy.
The West is in an extraordinary position of historical weakness these last few years. I think Putin recognizes this and has made the calculation that despite the risks there may be for Russia, it is now or never. Half-measures are simply not an option in any way. It’s all or nothing. Sure, he’ll quite happily throw some minor/fake face saving bones the West’s way, as we have seen with the current gas dispute, but this is the time to draw the line. The opportunity will not come again and it only came this time because the West made it happen – the famous reactive foreign policy (which I think is an exaggeration).
On the point of the current Ukraine gas agreement, I wonder again what hasn’t been said, i.e. for the European Commission to stop threatening the South Stream project. The EU certainly won’t announce any retreat publicly but rather by lack of threats or follow through, i.e. silence when we would hear manic chest beating. I would love to know what is going on behind closed doors but a point I always keep coming back to over and over again over this whole crisis is that there has been a hell of a lot of noise, but very little action from the West – i.e. actions are not matched by words. What better sign of Western institutional paralysis is there? They can’t afford the risks of starting a real conflict with Russia (nukes), and they can’t sell it any more to the sick of f*$)($ng war western public. It just won’t fly. All that is left is to roar like a lion, scratch their own balls and have a siesta, ad nauseam
I mostly agree with this analysis, except my hope is that the west will return to its traditional values and stop simply paying them lip service while agitating for always more war. The Vulcans are in charge (not the ones from Star Trek), and it would be less a disaster if their intellect and strategic capability matched their greed and cupidity. Maybe we’re fortunate they are only greedy and stupid.
I forgot to mention the Czechs joining in the Russia paranoia:
Daily Toilet Barf: ‘Extremely high’ number of Russian spies in Czech Republic
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/czechrepublic/11190596/Extremely-high-number-of-Russian-spies-in-Czech-Republic.html
A secret service report claims Moscow has ramped up its intelligence gathering in the Czech Republic amid heightened fears over Russia’s covert actions in the region
“…The Czech Republic’s Security Information Service (BIS) said on Monday that Moscow had increased the number of spies working in the country, just days after an alleged Russian submarine was spotted in Swedish waters.
The report, which claimed Russian and Chinese secret service work to influence politicians and journalists in the country, comes amid greater concerns about president Vladimir Putin’s expansionist policies. …
…t coincided with the release of a new Polish security strategy that said conflict could come to Poland for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989.
“In Poland’s neighbourhood there is a risk of conflict, of a regional or local characteristic, that may involve us directly or indirectly,” the country said. War, the report said, is “unlikely but possible”….”
####
Dipshits.’Extremely high’ as compared to when? No figures, no comparatives, just FUD. One has to ask, even if this is true, why exactly would they come to the Czech Republic? Are they up to something with the USA that they have not told anyone about?
What “Vladimir Putin’s expansionist policies”? What the fuck are they talking about? Policy is established state goals which are a matter of record. Show me one place where Vladimir Putin says anything about expanding the Russian Federation to include countries which have not applied to join it.
It is worth pointing out – again – that you could pick any window in the timeline of the Ukraine conflict and discover that it was Russia who appealed to international regulatory bodies and policymakers to use their authority to stop the fighting and killing, while it was NATO who hammered its sword on its shield and called for more violence. It is NATO that keeps yelling that it faces a greater threat than ever, while it is Russia that acts less threatening than it ever did.
What I question is not that alternative sources exist (or that most news articles are accessible in the archives, as JM correctly points out).
I am rather doubtful about how many people do consult alternative media. In particular:
– is this number growing? At what rate? (there might be instead a fixed fraction of the population which reshuffles from one alternative source to the other?)
– what is the number of people currently consulting alternative media?
Of course these are imprecise questions, but I’d be happy with any definition of “consulting” and “alternative media” – provided it does not include [redacted – I am actually not even mentioning it].
Thanks, Al!
This is why the Russians want to tightly regulate foreign NGOs
How is that for a “watch” of human right?
The fact is that western human rights organizations are below contempt. Some are political tools in the hands of the Empire (Human Rights Watch), some are full of western intelligence agents (Medecins Sans Frontieres, OSCE monitors), some are lead by cynical bureaucrats who use idealistic young delegates as cannon fodder (ICRC), some are used by big business as a tool (Greenpeace) while others are quasi-official CIA tools (NED, Freedom House, Open Society Foundation, etc.).
The funny thing in this case is that the photo is not taken in Russia, but in the Ukraine, and the riot cops shown here have Ukrainian unit badges. But then, who cares anyway? It’s not like “truth” is a topic that matters to HRW…
The Saker
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com.br/2014/10/this-is-why-russians-want-to-tightly.html
“The funny thing in this case is that the photo is not taken in Russia, but in the Ukraine, and the riot cops shown here have Ukrainian unit badges”
Good catch, plus they have ‘Militsiya’ printed on their uniforms instead of ‘Politsiya’.
I couldn’t find a version online from either Reuters (note the text on the right) or HRW, so I’ve asked the saker on the blog what the origin is. Don’t exclude stopfake until shown otherwise…
OK one of the anonymous posters dug up another version, with the Ukrainian writing obscured:
Pathetic.
Sorry, anonymous at Saker’s blog.
Plus, in the Russian version of Cyrillic, we don’t even use that letter “I” in the word “міліція”.
In any case, what is that woman crying about?
Boo hoo! Did Berkut make her break one of her custom fingernails?
(I am SOOOOOO sympathetic!)
You did, prior to the spelling reform of 1917, although that would only account for the last one.
Don’t get me started on the topic of orthographic reform!
Russia needs another one now, although not as badly as English needs one!
There’s no longer a police force called “militsiya” in Russia anyway: the Russian “militsiya” became known as “politsiya” on March 1st 2011.
I think she’s one of the relatives of the dead at the trade union house massacre.
She is indeed:
Russia sympathisers vent anger at Ukraine Odessa deaths
That photograph can be found in many articles about protests over the Odessa massacre.
Rather incompetent of HRW to feature it in its anti-Russia propaganda, don’t you think?
Thanks for that BBC link with the photograph. Note that the photo no longer occurs on Reuters’ website (use TinEye image search—h/t to et Al below).
The significance is that as with the Guy Phillipe being fleetingly on the DEA website in 2007 (archive.org only reporting after 2012, and beforeitsnews having scrubbed their story of Phillipe’s accusations against Martelly in 2012) according to a now cleansed article, Reuters modifies their internal records to hide embarrasing-for-US-authorities matters. Into the memory hole!
Nah, it’s par for the course. It’s not like there’s any interest in truth and accuracy.
In that case, I am extremely sorry for my snarky comment, above.
I thought she was a fake photo that was supposed to illustrate Berkut’s ferocity.
😦
Has Human Rights Watch really sunk this low? They are really calling Russia a “new tyranny”?
Ladies, save the image, head over to google images homepage and drag and drop the image on to the search toolbar to do a reverse image search. Tineye reverse image search is a website and browser plugin that does this too: https://tineye.com/
Here it is:
Sign the Human Rights Watch petition today. _ Human Rights Watch
https://secure.hrw.org/site/c.nlIWIgN2JwE/b.9210131/k.9DF/2014_Fall_Advocacy_Glass_Curtain_TEG/apps/ka/ct/contactus.asp?msource=SES201410e3
Overshadowed by the Ukraine conflict next door, President Vladimir Putin’s repressive policies are casting another shadow over freedoms in Russia. Urge Secretary of State Kerry to show solidarity with Russia’s human rights community and take concrete action against the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown on human rights.
Sign the petition and demand Secretary Kerry to work with the European Union to call for the repeal of Russia’s repressive legislation and to support Russia’s independent human rights activists.
Petition to Secretary John Kerry.
Secretary Kerry,
Acknowledging the staggering challenges of the Ukraine conflict, we cannot afford to ignore the increasingly repressive domestic policies that have restricted the basic human rights of Russia’s citizens.
Leading up to the Olympics in February, President Vladimir Putin attempted to improve Russia’s human rights profile on the global stage by releasing a few high-profile prisoners and lessening pressure on rights groups. But since the closing ceremony, he has spearheaded the most repressive anti-rights campaign since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Independent rights organizations have found themselves under attack. The Russian government has strengthened a 2012 law requiring all advocacy groups with any funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents.” New legislation under consideration would ban these organizations—demonized as spies and traitors—from any contact with government officials.
The Cold War-era “those who aren’t with us are against us” message is only amplified by the Kremlin’s manipulation of modern tools of communication. Bloggers with large followings are forced to register with the government and abide by the same restrictions as the press, without any of its protections. Social networks will have to store data on their users for six months, and hand it over to the government upon request. The prosecutor’s office now has the authority to block any website without judicial review under pretext of extremist content, content harmful to children, or calls for unauthorized protests.
Three major opposition media outlets were shut down in March for allegedly calling for “unauthorized gatherings.” The editor-in-chief of Lenta.ru—one of the last remaining independent news sites—was dismissed shortly thereafter, and the majority of the outlet’s leading journalists resigned in protest. Informal news through Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks now comes with the threat of prison—up to five years for making or re-tweeting “extremist” calls.
These are not the acts of a government concerned with the human rights of its citizens.
We must take a stand now.
Secretary Kerry, we urge you to work in conjunction with the European Union to call for the repeal of Russia’s repressive legislation and to support Russia’s independent activists. The Kremlin’s escalating crackdown on civil society must end.
Sincerely,
###
It’s a doctored Reuters photo but you can barely read the ‘2014 Reuters’ in the corner and as you can see from the URL – 2014 Fall Advocacy Glass Curtain TEG
Thanks for that. The page is “currently unavailable”. Someone must have gotten cold feet.
There must have been numerous complaints to HRW over its use of the photo and HRW must have withdrawn it under pressure.
No, if only. That trash reposted it with the Ukrainian text on the soldiers’ uniform obscured.
That’s why I save a copy. MoFo’s are so predictable!
I’m a bit slow. And then I remembered something very useful. If something disappears from the internet, the first port of call should be the internet archive ‘way back machine’:
https://archive.org/web/
Just paste the url into the box and if you are lucky, they will have taken a snapshot of the website. In this case, it has two recent ones of the HRW website from 31/10 & 23/10 both with bring up an archived copy of the HRW article:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://secure.hrw.org/site/c.nlIWIgN2JwE/b.9210131/k.9DF/2014_Fall_Advocacy_Glass_Curtain_TEG/apps/ka/ct/*
Please take your own screen grabs people to share. One copy is not enough.
If these archive copies disappear in future, then they have been ordered to be taken down. I doubt HRW’s friends in high places would find it hard to resist such a request.
It seems to be down, allegedly something to do with maintenance. If it’s still down tomorrow… I could see them edit this site (my own comments on DISQUS have been edited by others before).
I can still access it.
Truth about the Situation on the Ukraine on Facebook has put up a screen capture of the page (found via Yonatan’s comment https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4046811478707691837&postID=3092427709505919947
to the vinyard the saker post:
https://fbcdn-photos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-0/p75x225/1527101_1566706010219412_6661928772076081451_n.jpg?oh=070282d61911725f191a298ea55b823f&oe=54DEB869&__gda__=1423637056_a90b7c7178151be0c5df89275e98db65
https://m.facebook.com/TruthfromUkraine/photos/p.1566706010219412/1566706010219412/?type=1&source=47&refid=13
Also nice of them to pretend that the Russian leadership pushes Bush II’s line (with us or against us). Although that does remind me:
It will probably come as no surprise to anyone that Viktor Orban, since angrily denouncing the west and praising Russia, suddenly has shit all over his face and is the subject of smear pieces throughout the western press. Here are a couple of examples, both from Business New Europe:
http://www.bne.eu/content/story/govt-critics-deride-hungarys-potemkin-economy
“Potemkin” is a favourite choice of the hackosphere when its intent is to insult, revile and eventually ruin its target. In this piece, even though the Hungarian economy grew more rapidly than analysts expected, hitting 3.7% in the first 6 months, Hungary’s public debt is more than 85% of GDP, and Orban is crazy out of control while Hungary is on a high-speed luge ride to hell. And BNE was able to find a couple of people who agreed, because they were not prospering personally and so of course Orban is to blame.
The last time I looked, public debt as a percentage of GDP for the Euro Area was at 103%. France, 110%. Germany, 85%. Greece, right out of the ball park at 200%. Ireland, 128%. Italy, 131%. No need to go on, I’m sure you will agree.
https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/public-debt-percentage-gdp
This piece is entitled, “The Putinisation of Europe”, and it too tunes up on Orban for his folly in supporting Russia, while pointing out Erdogan as another backslider who is going to find himself falling off the west’s Christmas card list if he does not smarten up.
http://www.bne.eu/content/story/putinisation-europe
So many deliberate partisan slurs that I stopped counting.
Barosso hopes a new gas deal with Ukraine will be signed tonight. Dave “Tough Guy” Cameron looks on (get a haircut, you shitbag), while Angela Merkel focuses the galactic good spirits with her trademark “hand diamond” Tai-Chi move and Poroshenko practices shaking hands with nobody.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/business/barroso-hopes-ukraine-gas-deal-will-be-reached-tonight-2-370124.html
These idiots are just praying that EU will cough up several billion dollars to pay Porky’s gas bill.
It’s not at all clear – at least to me – what’s actually happening with the gas dispute. The news earlier was full of cheer announcing a resolution with the IMF/EU ponying up the money to keep gas supplies transiting to and through Ukraine so it seemed like European taxpayers got to shell out again. However, it now seems that this is the Ukrainian version – courtesy of Minister Prodan – of what was agreed. EU energy honcho Oettinger is saying something slightly different….and the devil is in the detail.
“Following the talks, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said that the EU, however, has not agreed to pay for future gas deliveries to Ukraine and has not guaranteed to pay for the majority of the country’s open bills. Nevertheless, Oettinger stated that the EU together with the International Monetary Fund are currently working on a financial aid program to Ukraine for year 2015, which would help Kiev to pay for gas deliveries in February-March 2015.”
http://en.ria.ru/politics/20141031/194867338/Ukraine-EU-Jointly-Found-Financing-to-Ensure-Gas-Purchases-From-Russia.html
So, if an aid programme for 2015 is being ‘worked on’, how much money will be paid in 2014? And if the answer to that is zero, what’s Ukraine going to use to pay the $3.1.billion it has just signed up to pay to Gazprom by the end of this year? Is the EU trying to pull a fast one here by implying it will somehow underwrite the debt while planning to back away from the commitment later on? And unless money intended to pay the debt is actually paid to Gazprom by international donors on Ukraine’s behalf, it will never be used for the purposes for which it was given.
This dispute turns, as it always has done, on Kiev’s ability and willingness to pay for gas it consumes. So what has changed? Is the will and ability suddenly there or, in a month or two, will Kiev’s story still be ‘can’t pay, won’t pay’?
All I can say is that Kiev indicated it was willing to pay the first part of the debt immediately – God knows where the money is coming from for that – and they have to pay up front by the month or they get no gas. As to Oettinger trying to pull a fast one, it is clear EU diplomats will lie right in your face if they think they can get away with it. France obviously did agree to deliver the first of the Russian MISTRALs – Rogozin posted a scan of the invitation. Yet Paris said “we never said any such thing, and we have so not made up our minds”.
The EU will not want to foster any impression that it knuckled under to the hated Putin.
Whoops! I just checked for new news on the deal, and Reuters (Neuters, ThatJ calls them, it cracks me up) has this to say: “Unprecedented levels of EU aid will be disbursed in a timely manner, and the International Monetary Fund has reassured Ukraine that it can use all financial means at its disposal to pay for gas,” the European Commission said in a statement.”
What I really want to know, though, is why the papers are not making “tiny man” jokes about Prodan like they always do about Putin and Medvedev. You see what a dwarf that guy is?
The funniest thing about Prodan is his bloody name!
The past passive participle (short predicative form) of the Russian perfective verb продать (prodat – /prɐˈd̪ätʲ/ – to have sold), is продан (prodan – /prɐˈd̪än/).
In layman’s terms, “prodan” means “sold” in English.
🙂
Prodan’s name is almost as funny as that of Ukrainian Hetman Skoropadsky.
(Russian for “He who is soon to fall…”)
And there was Mr. Bessmertny (Бессмертный), but he died.
Deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s secretariat and former Ambassador of Ukraine to Belarus Roman Petrovich Bessmertny (Роман Петрович Бессмертный) is still alive and well, though.
At first glance, the deal stinks, in my opinion, because, as always, there is something very rotten in the state of Banderastan.
Here’s what this morning’s KP says:
Эттингер: Киев до конца года погасит $3,1 миллиарда долга перед «Газпромом»
Oettinger: Kiev shall repay its $3.1 billion debt to Gazprom by the end of the year
The Ukraine is ready to pay $1,451 billion now.
At the end of the trilateral ministerial meeting with colleagues from Russia and the Ukraine, Vice-President of the European Energy Commission, Günther Oettinger, told journalists that an agreement between Moscow and Kiev over gas has finally been reached.
According to the agreement, this winter Russia is going give the Ukrainian side a discount of $100 per thousand cubic metres of gas.
In addition, Kiev shall repay its $3.1 billion gas debt by the end of 2014, of which debt $1,451 billion will be settled in the near future, according to RIA Novosti, which makes reference to Oettinger’s statement.
The RIA Novisti article linked above simply states:
Results of Gas Talks With The Ukraine
Important items for the RF were approved: payment by the Ukraine of at least part of the gas debt; the mode of payment for the new gas supplies: the inviolability of the gas contract price. The contract, signed in 2009 for a period up to 2019, continues to operate.
The resumption of gas supplies to the Ukraine is able to guarantee an uninterrupted transit of gas through it from Russia to the EU
No mention, however, of how the the Ukraine is going to manage to “repay its $3.1 billion gas debt by the end of 2014, of which debt $1,451 billion will be settled in the near future“.
Dear Mark:
This was a TOTALLY GREAT blogpost! I loved it. Your writing style is superb.
I personally doubt if the virus actually exists that these flaks are yapping about.
These “security” companies probably just create fake threats in order to sell their own “anti-virus products”.
I never heard of any virus that could jump from computer to computer without using wires.
Although I suppose it is theoretically possible that somebody could create a virus that could transmit itself wirelessly.
But probably not.
I think it’s just B.S.
Thanks, yalensis – you must be my biggest fan, and your kindness is appreciated! I think I am just becoming less cautious as I get angrier at the west’s behaviour. When I started out I tried to be as neutral as possible and not to be judgmental. I really don’t care very much about that any more, although I still try to be fair.
I imagine a virus can be transmitted wirelessly quite easily among computers that are on the same LAN. Many homes, for example, have a wireless router in which all computers in the home can share data among themselves. Viruses are quite easy to transmit by email, although they are often also on an infected thumb drive, that kind of thing. I thought you would probably know, being a programmer.
It is a much-circulated rumor that Norton and McAfee spend about half their time writing anti-virus programs and the other half writing viruses to overcome them so as to build a repeat customer base out of need. I don’t know if there is any truth to it, but hackers and programmers all seem to belong to the same community. A really good fictional novel about computer crime is John Sandford’s “The Fool’s Run“: the description sounds cheesy, but it was really pretty good and included a lot of insights into how criminals steal passwords as well as how predictable the victims are. For example, most people have the same password for multiple applications, and if you get it on one low-security application, chances are you can get into secure networks as them if they are a member. In a company, most people are part of several networks. In the book, the company protected their product data six ways from Sunday with firewalls and tripwires out to here, but the criminals hacked into their mundane administration network, took control of payroll and deliveries and orders and paralyzed the company anyway.
It is totally believable that some Russia criminal group wrote some malware to try and obtain passwords or trick stupid people into handing over banking data, and Russian criminals have the reputation of being the best in the world at bank fraud, such as with phony credit cards. But the kind of bug that would be should be relatively easy to spot, and it certainly would not have anything to do with the Russian government. The original Wall Street Urinal article even stated, near the end, that sources close to the investigation said there was no evidence which implicated the Russian government.
Well, even though I am a programmer, I don’t work in the field of security.
There are a lot of specialties within programming, and I mostly specialize in databases.
Therefore, I am not an expert about this sort of thing, but I still suspect that the anti-virus company is hyping up the threat!
Yes, I guess that makes sense – I don’t know a lot about programming, and the arguments against the likelihood of Russians coding an ultra-secret piece of malware in Cyrillic came from a programmers’ forum. But those criticisms make sense to me; malware is implanted to be as invisible and non-interfering as possible, and I don’t buy the argument that programmers like to “leave their signature” out of vanity. Also, FireEye assumes in its report that Russia was responsible for a cyber attack against Georgia when there was no military value to be achieved from such an attack, and it was far more likely to have been the work of criminals, of which Georgia has no shortage itself.
Actually, most programmers DO like to leave their signature in their code.
A lot of programmers consider themselves to be artists, and if they have written a fine, slick piece of code, then they want to leave their signature on it, so that their fellow programmers can worship them.
By signature, I mean usually something in the comment section of the code, with the name of the programmer and the date, etc. I always leave my signature in my code.
But I’m talking about legitimate code, I never wrote a virus, so I don’t know whether or not virus programmers behave the same way as real programmers. If I wrote a virus (which I would never do), then I would probably not want to reveal my identity. Although, I might want to still leave behind a clue, so that other hackers could worship me. I suppose…
One advantage of maintaining the neutral tone is that it really works propagandists up emotionally when their claims are destroyed with a neutral presentation. But the bluntness of your article is a pleasure to read.
And let’s remind ourselves who does commercial espionage (and before this, Echelon, also mainly for commercial espionage):
http://rt.com/usa/nsa-greenwald-malware-infect-382/
But there’s another problem with using Cyrillic or any other characters. Most programming languages that could plausibly be used to develop viruses are compiled languages, such as C, Fortran and the like (if one codes in assembly or machine code, there will be almost no trace of variable and function names). Usually, program (virus) internal functions and variables (i.e. those used only inside the program, as the OS usually sees only the entry function of the program (main() in C) are invisible after compiling. In order to retain internal functions’ and variables’ names and separation (thus limiting optimization), usually for the purpose of debugging, one must select that such integrity be retained, e.g. with the -g flag in the GNU C compiler. If the operation were performed by a Russia governmental group, I’d imagine that someone would be responsible for making sure that such basic matters were attended to prior to release.
http://popular-science.net/a-computer-virus-spread-by-ultrasound.html
“In Germany, two researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute have created a network of illegal communication between multiple computers, using loudspeakers and microphones integrated vehicular inaudible sounds….”
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/meet-badbios-the-mysterious-mac-and-pc-malware-that-jumps-airgaps/
“Meet “badBIOS,” the mysterious Mac and PC malware that jumps airgaps…
###
Clever.
I call B.S. on this, because the BIOS is a read-only chip! How could it possibly be infected by the USB port?
Most BIOSes nowadays are either EEPROM or what wikipedia calls CMOS ram (flip-flops that draw almost no current when not switching—CMOS logic is high-impedance rail-to-rail when not switching, other than to the output, where it is low-impedance, and can thus retain their content with a large electrolytic capacitor, e.g. a few miliFarad, almost indefinitely)—the days of ROM and UV EPROM BIOSes are well past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
I know, but if they are claiming that the virus jumps into the CMOS, then I am still calling B.S. on it. The boot code would not go to the USB port for its instructions.
USB ports apparently have micro-controllers that can be reprogrammed. This has been shown to work recently. I’ll see if I can find the links to this fairly recent (last month of so) news:
Not quite, thanks to my bad memory:
Most USB thumb drives can be reprogrammed to silently infect computers
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2460540/most-usb-thumb-drives-can-be-reprogrammed-to-silently-infect-computers.html
…The problem is that the majority of USB thumb drives, and likely other USB peripherals available on the market, do not protect their firmware—the software that runs on the microcontroller inside them, said Karsten Nohl, the founder and chief scientist of Berlin-based Security Research Labs….
From Slashdot (which I highly recommend for tech stories):
Hacking USB Firmware
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/10/02/2154204/hacking-usb-firmware
“…And unlike Nohl, the hacker pair has also published the code for those attacks on Github, raising the stakes for USB makers to either fix the problem or leave hundreds of millions of users vulnerable…”
Breaching Air-Gap Security With Radio
http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/10/31/141207/breaching-air-gap-security-with-radio
##
OK, not ‘ultrasound’ but breaching the ‘air gap’.
And before I forget, there were several reports of the NSA intercepting shipments of techincal goods bought from the USA over the internet and ‘modified’ before they reach their destination. This is not. I repeat not cyberwarefare which the USA never practices. the Bill Clinton defense goes a long way….
While looking through slashdot, I’d like to come back to the story that the Russian government has hacked the Whitehouse:
Hackers Breach White House Network
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/10/29/1457219/hackers-breach-white-house-network
Trend Micro believes the Sandworm team also has their eyes set on compromising SCADA-based systems..
What the shits don’t mention, again something well practised by the professional journalist class in the West (not joining the dots), that some of you will have pricked up your ears at the mention of SCADA, is that the original anti-SCADA* (supervisory control and data acquisition) malware – STUXNET** *** – that is the basis of a lot of controlling a lot of industrial computer controlled machinery, was created to damage Iran’s nuclear program, german SCADA was used to control the centrifuges to enrich uranium hexafluoride to usable 238 (Kiril, you know about these things) and was believed to have been created by a joint US/Israeli team. Since then is has been analysed by interested parties and adapted – i.e. another weapon introduced that has/is/will produce blowback.
BTW, see this hitpiece on Kaspersky who unravelled STUXNET.****
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA
** http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/the-real-story-of-stuxnet
…“Whoever spent millions of dollars on Stuxnet, Flame, Duqu, and so on—all that money is sort of wasted. That malware is now out in the public spaces and can be reverse engineered,” says Carr….
*** http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/11/19/stuxnets_secret_twin_iran_nukes_cyber_attack
**** http://www.wired.com/2012/07/ff_kaspersky/
Mark, my comment is OT but I would love if the experts (!) here would comment on this reply that I got today on an Irish forum @ http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?p=798056#p798056.
The original post quoted from http://www.interpretermag.com/life-of-bryan-how-an-rt-columnist-tries-to-influence-the-debate-on-russia-and-ukraine/ – yet another Putin- and Russia-bashing string of accusations. However, my reply was followed by the following claims:
“There is no need to provide corroboration in that article because these are undisputed facts. In the past few months we have had the main (only) independent TV channel forced off the air; formerly independent Lenta.ru has had it’s editor forcibly replaced with someone more compliant and its entire pool of journalist resigned in protest; RIA Novosti has been effectively disbanded and replaced by a new structure under chief propagandist Dmitri Kiselov; and a new law has been passed to silence the last remaining independent mainstream print media, Vedemosti and Forbes Russia, by forcing them into Kremlin friendly hands.”
A few moments of research doesn’t help me answer, let alone refute, those claims (actually, I seem to recall a clarification here about that media ownership claim – is that foreign ownership can’t exceed a certain percentage, and that the rule is comparable to western states?) Perhaps someone here has the facts at their fingertips? If so, it would be much appreciated.
The law requires media companies in Russia to limit their foreign ownership to not more than 20% by 2016. the article points out that CTC, Russia’s only publicly-traded television broadcaster, is 75% foreign-owned.
In the USA, NBC is 100% owned by Comcast. Except for a small slice owned by Barclay’s Global Investors UK, Comcast is owned by corporations headquartered in the USA: the state, in other words. The corporate/government relationship, through an army of lobbyists, is well-established and substantiated. In April this year, Comcast deployed 76 lobbyists to work on its acquisition of Time Warner Cable.
FOX News is wholly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp. He’s a foreigner, but the USA lets him own an American TV station because he is a hardcore Republican and speaks the language of moremoney. In fact, there’s no need to go through them network by network – six corporations (GE, NewsCorp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS) control 90% of the media in America. All are American except NewsCorp. As you saw earlier, some turf may have changed hands, as Comcast was working hard to acquire Time Warner. The infographic is well worth reading: these corporations simply ignore FCC law wherever they can’t rewrite it. For example, although FCC law specified in 1995 that no company can own more than 40 radio stations, Clear Channel owns 1,200.
Rupert Murdoch took out US citizenship in 1985 so he could acquire Metromedia, a network of independent TV stations. News Corporation is headquartered in New York.
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-09-04/news/mn-23112_1_rupert-murdoch
Yeah, that’s right – I forgot. I thought he was still Australian. Well, he is, but you know what I mean.
Here’s Patrick Armstong’s take:
Human Rights Watch (one of her former fiefdoms) invites us to sign a petition protesting Russia’s “increasingly repressive domestic policies”. Why those awful Russians have – not that the petition tells us so – imitated the US Foreign Agent Registration Act of 1938 which requires “persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities.”
http://russia-insider.com/en/media_watch/2014/10/31/11-16-53am/human_rights_and_human_wrongs
Up until late 2013, there was a comparable rule – Section 310(b)(4) of the Communications Act of 1934 – which said that foreigners could not hold more than 25% ownership in a US radio or TV station if this was in the public interest. The Federal Communications Commission then voted unanimously to relax the law. Applications by foreigners to buy up more than 25% of a TV or radio station’s stock will now be decided by the FCC on a case-by-case basis.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/14/the-next-rupert-murdoch-wont-have-to-change-his-citizenship-to-rule-the-tv-biz/
http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/279502/broadcasting+film+television+radio/FCC+Clarifies+Rule+Governing+Foreign+Ownership+Of+Broadcast+Stations
Token relaxation to allow western elite members such as Rupert Murdoch buy up the “liberal” media and turn it into frothing at the mouth neocon propaganda outlets. It is self-evident that Iran, China, Russia and any other state not on the list of western club members has zero chance to buy up even 25% of the US media.
Putin To Western Elites: Play-Time Is Over
Most people in the English-speaking parts of the world missed Putin’s speech at the Valdai conference in Sochi a few days ago, and, chances are, those of you who have heard of the speech didn’t get a chance to read it, and missed its importance. Western media did their best to ignore it or to twist its meaning. Regardless of what you think or don’t think of Putin (like the sun and the moon, he does not exist for you to cultivate an opinion) this is probably the most important political speech since Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech of March 5, 1946.
In this speech, Putin abruptly changed the rules of the game. Previously, the game of international politics was played as follows: politicians made public pronouncements, for the sake of maintaining a pleasant fiction of national sovereignty, but they were strictly for show and had nothing to do with the substance of international politics; in the meantime, they engaged in secret back-room negotiations, in which the actual deals were hammered out. Previously, Putin tried to play this game, expecting only that Russia be treated as an equal. But these hopes have been dashed, and at this conference he declared the game to be over, explicitly violating Western taboo by speaking directly to the people over the heads of elite clans and political leaders.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/putin-western-elites-play-time-over
—
Thank You US Taxpayers: Russia-Ukraine Agree Terms On Gas-Supply Through March
Good news for the cold-showering, snow-covered Ukrainians… Russia has reached an interim agreement to supply natural gas to Ukraine through March according to Bloomberg. Of course, this will be paid for by more IMF loans (thank you US Taxpayer), pushing Ukraine further into debt and more dependent upon the West.
*RUSSIA CONFIRMS GAS SUPPLY RESUMPTION TERMS AGREED WITH UKRAINE
*GAZPROM, NAFTOGAZ CEOS SIGN AMENDMENT TO CONTRACT
*RUSSIA, UKRAINE, EU AGREEMENT TO COVER DELIVERY THROUGH MARCH
Terms…
*OETTINGER: RUSSIA TO CHARGE UKRAINE $385/KCM THROUGH MARCH
*UKRAINE READY TO IMMEDIATELY PAY $1.45B OF GAS DEBT: OETTINGER
*NAFTOGAZ TO PAY $1.6B AS 2ND GAS DEBT INSTALLMENT BY YEAR-END
Paid for by US taxpayers…
*UKRAINE TO USE EU, IMF AID TO PAY FOR RUSSIAN GAS: OETTINGER
As Bloomberg reports, …
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/thank-you-us-taxpayers-russia-ukraine-agree-terms-gas-supply-through-march
—
Russia Weaponizes The Arctic: Will Build 13 Airfields And 10 Radar Stations To Meet “Unwelcome Guests”
Two weeks ago, Sweden was gripped by a ludicrous panic when it dispatched virtually its entire army, navy and airforce to hunt down what according to eyewitness reports (subsequently proven to be false) was a Russian sub that had broken down somewhere close to Stockholm. There was no sub. However, one angle that made the story plausible were rumors of a recent surge to Russian military transports and support units to the Artcic, in a scramble to defend its vast natural resource deposits located close to the North Pole. And not surprisingly, this weaponization of the Artic was confirmed two days ago when a senior military commander said that Russia will build at least 13 airfields and 10 radar stations in the Arctic to safeguard the nation’s military security in the region.
As cited by RIA, Lt. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Defense Management Center said: “We are planning to build 13 airfields, an air-ground firing range, as well as ten radar and vectoring posts.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/russia-weaponizes-arctic-will-build-13-airfields-and-10-radar-stations-meet-unwelcom
—
How Long Can The Shale Revolution Last?
A new study has cast serious doubt on whether the much-ballyhooed U.S. shale oil and gas revolution has long-term staying power.
The U.S. produced 8.5 million barrels of oil per day in July of this year — 60 percent more than just three years earlier. That is also the highest rate of production in three decades.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/how-long-can-shale-revolution-last
As far as “weaponizing” the Arctic goes, these plans call for building airfields and an air-to-ground firing range, in which the weapon component will likely come in with the planes. I doubt they plan to keep a large air complement at any of these facilities year-round, and they likely just want options should they have to reinforce the region in a hurry. The radar network is not a weapon, and just makes good sense. In fact, they can call it the Russian Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). just like the USA does. I would not envy anyone posted to these radar stations. I imagine the complement will be small, maybe 20 operators and technicians plus a couple of cooks and a couple of clerks to keep pay and accounts straight, probably a few engineers to keep the airstrips cleared off and serviced.
I notice that in the gas deal Ukraine argued and dithered about for so long, Russia got its price and did not back off at all. Ukraine reckoned that something ridiculous like $285.00 was a fair price, and that the condition which made them pay up front was unfair and should be removed. They ended up paying $385.00, and still have to pay up front, as well as paying their outstanding debt. The only wiggle room left for them is if they try that shiznit again about “Oh, this is payment in full – at our figured price of $285.00 KCm. So you’re not getting any more”. They might try that when the end-of-year payment comes due, but it’d be a pretty cold time of year to be without gas.
“Russia naturally has to be paid for its gas, distasteful as it may seem” – Guardianista comment in today’s Grauniad.
Another gem from a Guardianista shit-for-brains in today’s arsewipe issue:
“Crimea was part of the Mongol empire in the 1700’s. What was it doing in Russia in the 1800’s?“
Hilarious ignorance of history. The Mongol empire was gone for centuries by that point. It was a Turkish protectorate, the Crimean Tatar Khanate. One could ask: North America was populated by various tribes of aboriginals, where are they now and what are these Europeans and other immigrants doing there now.
Wot brain drain? After reading numerous comments about the Russian “brain drain” I finally remembered that it was Jon Hellevig who showed it to be wishful thinking. Here is the link:
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics_business_media_watch_society/2014/10/30/04-09pm/brain_drain_russia_bbc_gets_it_wrong
Australia punches well above its weight in medical research, and Australia and New Zealand have both won one Fields Medal
Sorry, link is not working for me. Google russia insider jon hellevig
Good Lord Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, how the mighty have fallen!
Some ‘non-biased, politically indifferent’ sentences from the BBC article linked by Jon Hellevig:
>Russia brain drain after Putin crackdown
>increasingly harsh and reactionary
>emigration among middle-class professionals
>crackdown on the liberal opposition and independent media
>around 40,000 Russians applied for asylum
>Russia still has a smattering of independent media
>dwindling almost by the month as the Kremlin cracks down
>”The more I watched the more I became convinced that nothing can be remedied here” >”It will take generations to cleanse people’s souls of the effects of this radioactive TV”
[ThatJ: he could be talking about the BBC and the description would fit just as well]
>creating a hostile atmosphere towards journalists
>”friends of the junta” – Russian state TV’s term for the government in Kiev
>physically attacked because of their work
>[insert liberast complaint] he told liberal magazine Afisha
>Oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky
>disappointment and disbelief at how Russian society has changed over the past decade and a half
I wish I could know who wrote this propaganda piece. Since it’s the BBC, my guess would be a member of the ‘gay community’, an unhappy feminist hag or a non-gentile, or a Trotskyite (‘liberal’ they call each other, which of course they aren’t).
Tell me; do you think the United Kingdom would tolerate a large, deep-pocketed Russian NGO based in London which funded programs to educate British journalists on the formation of independent news networks, provide legal assistance to journalists to foster freedom of expression, and increasing political competition?
NED expects to be allowed to do all that and more besides, in Russia. It also expects unrestricted access to all of Russia’s dissident movements and political opposition figures.
UK wouldn’t tolerate it. And even if it did, it’s unlikely that said journalists would find a job in the mainstream British press.
If NED-trained journalists in Russia were denied access to the mainstream press, we would be reading about how totalitarian and full of censorship the country is.
In Britain, the media would tell us something totally different: that these people are Putin’s people, and thus not deserving of MSM access.
Btw, this is NED’s President: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gershman
Mention of his Jewishness was removed. I recall it was there a long time ago when I last checked the Wikipedia entry. However, it does mention this:
In 1968, he worked in the research department of B’nai B’rith, and in 1972 he served on the Governing Council of the American Jewish Committee.
B’nai B’rith, if you don’t know, is all about the well-being of the Chosen Ones:
B’nai B’rith International (English pronunciation: /bəˌneɪ ˈbrɪθ/, from Hebrew: בני ברית b’né brit, “Children of the Covenant”)[1] is the oldest Jewish service organization in the world. B’nai B’rith states that it is committed to the security and continuity of the Jewish people and the State of Israel and combating antisemitism and bigotry. Its mission is to unite persons of the Jewish faith and to enhance Jewish identity through strengthening Jewish family life, to provide broad-based services for the benefit of senior citizens, and to facilitate advocacy and action on behalf of Jews throughout the world.
Which plans do NED have for Israel, I wonder? Not many, I guess, other than America’s inbred hostile elite to which NED belongs giving full approval for Bibi’s actions.
***
[Ginsberg] It’s not 1930s anti-Semitism, but it’s a resentment. It’s a resentment of a particular evil that the Jews have done, which is the Jews have undermined WASP America but refuse to do the same thing in their own country.
You know, there’s an old joke: Three elderly Jewish Communists in the Bronx are talking. They’re in their eighties. One is in a wheelchair. So they say, “Abie Cohen, have you heard from him lately?” “Abie, he’s had some health problems but he’s living in Los Angeles in a nursing home, still working for socialism.” “All right, what about Mike Abramowitz, have you heard from him?” “Well, you know Mike is in rehab, he fell, he broke his hip, a lot of problems. But even in the nursing home he’s fighting for socialism!” So someone says, “What about Moe Goldberg?” “Oh, Moe, he moved to Israel, didn’t you know that?” “Well, is he fighting for socialism?” The guy answers, “In his own country? What kind of man do you think he is?!”
***
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2014/10/bruce-shipman-and-the-idealized-image-of-jews-among-elite-protestants/
Украинский губернатор Луганщины: «Здесь на 95% пророссийские настроения. Когда я говорю об этом в Киеве, мне не верят»
Ukrainian Lugansk Governor: “Here 95% are of Pro-Russian sentiment. When I talk about this in Kiev, they don’t believe me”.
The head of the northern part of the Lugansk region that is occupied by Ukrainian troops has complained that this region is “mentally distant from the Ukraine”.
Gennady Moskal, who was appointed by Petro Poroshenko as governor of that part of the Lugansk region which remains under the control of the Ukraine, is generally distinguished by his unexpected and accurate revelations. Back in March, when the Crimea upped anchor and sailed away to Russia and the hot heads in Kiev demanded that Ukrainian troops be urgently used against the rebels in the peninsula, Gennady Moskal (he was then a member of Parliament) honestly said, “And to fight with what? We have nothing in the armed forces to shoot with or to fly!”
Six months have already gone by since then. War has started in the Donbass. The Ukrainian army immediately created a National Guard that has learnt how to shoot and even hold power in about half of the territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. And Gennady Moskal was appointed head of the Lugansk regional state administration – precisely those districts of Lugansk region that the Ukraine controls. And it goes without saying that his staff is not in Lugansk, where the rebel militia are masters, but in the northern part of the Donetsk region that is occupied by Ukrainian troops.
And now we hear a new revelation from the political truth speaker, which he gave in an interview with the Kiev newspaper “Ukrainskaya Pravda”.
“If we are talking about Pro-Russian sentiments, they are very high: in some towns – 95%, in others – 80 percent. At the very least they are 30 percent in the Ukrainian part of the region where historically there are more Ukrainians [Ukrainians? They are all Ukrainian citizens! Clearly he considers the “Pro-Russians” as Russian aliens and not as Ukrainians – ME], Moskal complained to journalists. [Yes, his family name really is Moskal! – ME] “In Kiev I think that these people are somehow being instructed about the war and I understand more and more Bulgakov, who, in the words of his hero said that ruin starts in heads.” [From Bulgakov’s Собачье сердце – “The Heart of a Dog”: “…разруха не в клозетах, а в головах” – “…ruin is not in closets, but in heads” – ME]
“When I talk about this in Kiev, they don’t believe me. And every day I have to answer a series of questions such as: ‘Why was Yanukovych not allowed to finish a full term?’, ‘What did we need the Maidan for?’ ‘Will Putin be on a ballot list?'”
How does a Kiev place-man get on in such a “Pro-Russian designated” region, where incidentally, he had already been governor for 3 full years during Yushchenko’s ministry and the local population knows him well?
“I have no problems with the local population”, said Moskal. “They treat me very well. But the attitude that the people have towards the Kiev authorities is very negative. And I don’t know how to reduce this distance in feeling. Back in 2006, when I was head of the Lugansk administration, I told Yushchenko that this region was mentally distant from the Ukraine. They didn’t get it then, and they don’t get it now.”
They’ve never got it!
Remember how they booed and cat-called that Sunday Times journalist in a Kiev TV studio when he told them how it was in the East – and that journalist, by the way, is certainly no Russophile.
Poland refuses to say “Yes, master”:
Poland rejects US request to arrest film director Polanski
Like the tragic heroine Antigone, Poland was torn between two powerful loyalties:
(1) Unquestioning loyalty and obeisance to the lawful demands of the American Empire, vs
(2) An uncontrollable compulsion, as shabbos goyim, to defend the rights of a Jewish pedophile to express himself artistically by raping a 13-year-old.
[sorry, in #2, halfway channeling ThatJ, couldn’t help myself…]
They had to shoot Polanski’s version of Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” in Normandy and not in the author’s Wessex, where the story took place, because the paederast was not allowed into the UK lest he be arrested.
That bloody ruined the film for me, because despite the rustic beauty of Normandy, Norman country mansions, farmhouses and villages do not look like English ones.
I didn’t know that, so it didn’t ruin it for me, and it was always my English wife’s favourite film – she was mad for Thomas Hardy (no pun intended). I don’t remember if it was the Polanski version we saw, but I assume so – yes, I’ve just checked and it was indeed Nastassja Kinski who played the lead, what a beautiful girl. I loved the film, too, although I’ve never read the book. I guess I didn’t pay very close attention to the setting, and just assumed it was England.
Poland would have been well aware that Switzerland had Polanski under house arrest pending extradition to the US but released him as US authorities did not provide the Swiss with information about the original sentencing.
In the original case, Polanski was required to spend 90 days in jail and undergo a psychiatric exam (which he was expected to pass with flying colours) and on that basis perform community service for a year. All of this was legal under Californian law at the time. Polanski sat out half his allotted time in jail and on the basis of the psychiatric test results he got, prison officials said he did not need to serve the rest of the time. However Judge Lawrence Rittenband at the time sought to preserve his reputation as a “hanging judge” – he had allowed Polanski to go to Germany to finish off a film, Polanski then attended a party and was photographed sitting between two young women, the photo was then splashed all over US newspapers, putting public pressure on the judge to put Polanski away – by forcing the film-maker to sit another psychiatric test and then deciding he would put Polanski away in jail for the rest of the allocated prison time when the psychiatric test results showed the film-maker was unlikely to reoffend.
I believe that some time after Polanski escaped to France, both the prosecuting and defence lawyers applied to get Rittenband thrown off the Polanski case for judicial misconduct.
Incidentally the Swiss arrest and Polanski’s house imprisonment came some time after the US had pressured the Union Bank of Switzerland to give information about UBS bank accounts held by US citizens who were suspected of evading tax.
I can’t understand what was the point of the psychiatric test.
Nobody ever claimed that Polanski was crazy.
He is attracted to juvenile girls, that’s not crazy, just illegal!
(Actually being attracted isn’t illegal per se, just acting on that attraction, which he did.)
BTW, a few years back I read a magazine interview with the 13-year-old girl in question. She isn’t crazy, either, nor traumatized, nor a professional victim. She sounds like a regular person. For her, it wasn’t a horror show per se, nor the end of her life, just a highly unpleasant experience, when this ugly disgusting little twerp (=Polanski) rolled her over and started sodomizing her, without her consent.
P.S. she’s not 13 any more, obviously. The interview was taken much later, when she was a grown-up woman in her 30’s.
I think the point of the psychiatric test was to determine if he was attracted to very young underage girls and would rape again. The test was part of the plea bargain proposed by the lawyers for the girl (Samantha Geimer, then Gailey) and Polanski’s lawyers accepted it. Apparently the judge (Rittenband) presiding over the trial was displeased with the test result and ordered Polanski to submit to it again. He did and again the judge wasn’t happy with the test result and wanted to imprison him.
A complicating issue is that, years later, Polanski had an affair with a 16-year-old girl Charlotte Lewis who was in a film he made (“Pirates”).
They probably hooked Polanski up to an “arouso-meter” and then showed him photos of teen girls in bathing suits, to measure whether or not he got an erection.
They started with girls aged 18 and then kept going down in age, to see how far he would go.
I am guessing his readings were off the chart, which is why they had to re-do the test.
After re-calibrating the arouso-meter, they were able to measure his reactions.
Judge was so horrified by the results, that he tossed him back in the pokey.
That’s my best guess as to what transpired.
After which, Polanski had no choice except to flee to Europe, where people still believe that if you are a halfway-competent artist, you are allowed to do whatever you like in your private life. That’s how starved for art the Europeans are.
I’m pretty confident the judge just did not like the results, and so ordered the test re-done until it yielded the results he wanted. And a test like that might reveal some startling things about men in general – including the judge – if it were broadly applied. I further imagine most men rely on self-discipline and reason rather than a lack of interest to keep them out of trouble (and jail). We’re just animals at bottom, after all.
From what I know of the case, Rittenband wanted to jail Polanski in defiance of the plea bargain that Polanski’s lawyers and Gailey’s lawyers had worked out and the psychiatric tests were supposed to give him that excuse. When the tests didn’t yield the results he wanted, and prison wardens and psychiatrists said Polanski did not need spend any more time in prison (because among other things they thought more prison time might be psychologically damaging for him, because of early childhood experiences in which he was separated from his parents, one of whom died in the Auschwitz concentration camp), the judge decided to throw the book at Polanski anyway.
Incidentally Polanski was rumoured to have had an affair with Nastassja Kinski during the making of “Tess” which Kinski herself has denied. Kinski’s older half-sister Pola later said publicly that their father Klaus Kinski had sexually abused her (that is, Pola) as a child for many years right up until her late teens.
I had also read the rumours about Polanski having an affair with Nastassja Kinski.
That makes sense, from a psychological POV. Polanski is sexually obsessed with beautiful girls, the younger the better. He uses Auschwitz and Sharon Tate as excuses for his primal desire, which is basically just a sexual preference, no different from, say, an attraction to red-heads.
In turn, Nastassja may have needed a powerful “father figure” to satisfy her “daddy” issues.
Is probable that her daddy molested her sister, but not herself, for which (in grotesque paradox) she felt rejected. Because father was powerful and famous and great artist, yada yada, therefore she needed to find a comparable (sexualized) love of a powerful man, in order to validate herself as an individual.
Very screwed up people!
The bottom line is that, as I stated above, Europeans are so obsessed with “art” (even mediocre art) that they are willing to forgive artists just about anything.
Also, I believe in Europe it is customary to consider, that famous men are allowed certain perks in their private lives, and it is considered bad form when the hired help object to their excesses.
How the West lies:
1999 – Genscher: Nato enlargement to the East out of the question!
And they still say, repeatedly, that no such intention was ever stated.
The Alliance’s Strategic Concept
NATO has successfully ensured the freedom of its members and prevented war in Europe during the 40 years of the Cold War. By combining defence with dialogue, it played an indispensable role in bringing East-West confrontation to a peaceful end…
The dangers of the Cold War have given way to more promising, but also challenging prospects, to new opportunities and risks. A new Europe of greater integration is emerging, and a Euro-Atlantic security structure is evolving in which NATO plays a central part. The Alliance has been at the heart of efforts to establish new patterns of cooperation and mutual understanding across the Euro-Atlantic region and has committed itself to essential new activities in the interest of a wider stability…
NATO’s essential and enduring purpose, set out in the Washington Treaty, is to safeguard the freedom and security of all its members by political and military means. Based on common values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, the Alliance has striven since its inception to secure a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe. It will continue to do so…
Within this evolving context, NATO has played an essential part in strengthening Euro-Atlantic security since the end of the Cold War. Its growing political role; its increased political and military partnership, cooperation and dialogue with other states, including with Russia, Ukraine and Mediterranean Dialogue countries; its continuing openness to the accession of new members; its collaboration with other international organisations; its commitment, exemplified in the Balkans, to conflict prevention and crisis management, including through peace support operations: all reflect its determination to shape its security environment and enhance the peace and stability of the Euro-Atlantic area…
Through its active pursuit of partnership, cooperation, and dialogue, the Alliance is a positive force in promoting security and stability throughout the Euro-Atlantic area. Through outreach and openness, the Alliance seeks to preserve peace, support and promote democracy, contribute to prosperity and progress, and foster genuine partnership with and among all democratic Euro-Atlantic countries. This aims at enhancing the security of all, excludes nobody, and helps to overcome divisions and disagreements that could lead to instability and conflict…
Russia plays a unique role in Euro-Atlantic security. Within the framework of the NATO-Russia Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, NATO and Russia have committed themselves to developing their relations on the basis of common interest, reciprocity and transparency to achieve a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area based on the principles of democracy and co-operative security. NATO and Russia have agreed to give concrete substance to their shared commitment to build a stable, peaceful and undivided Europe. A strong, stable and enduring partnership between NATO and Russia is essential to achieve lasting stability in the Euro-Atlantic area…
Ukraine occupies a special place in the Euro-Atlantic security environment and is an important and valuable partner in promoting stability and common democratic values. NATO is committed to further strengthening its distinctive partnership with Ukraine on the basis of the NATO-Ukraine Charter, including political consultations on issues of common concern and a broad range of practical cooperation activities. The Alliance continues to support Ukrainian sovereignty and independence, territorial integrity, democratic development, economic prosperity and its status as a non-nuclear weapons state as key factors of stability and security in central and eastern Europe and in Europe as a whole…
And on and on…
Bullshit!
The primary function of NATO is the maintenance of US world hegemony.
A “peaceful and undivided Europe”, I presume, is one in which Russia is completely surrounded by NATO, isolated and lives at the sufferance of NATO mostly as a market for European goods. Whoever wrote that screed certainly knew his/her business – it is plump with buzzwords like “central to” and “at the heart of”, “essential and enduring” and “a positive force”. Certainly lets every reader know that we absolutely couldn’t do without it, and we should throw some serious money into it right away, lest it grow weak and slip away from us.
Russia refuses to suck US …
Sorry!
Russia, unlike Poland, refuses to play by US rules:
We will never play by US rules – State Duma chief
In Rusvesna (of all places!) an interesting analysis of the Ukrainian banking situation. This is a very long and interesting article.
Apparently a lot of stuff went down yesterday, with Ukraine’s National Bank. A decision was made to let the hryvna continue to fall unchecked. All regulations protecting the currency, were annulled.
All of this is connected (obviously) to the EU meetings and the gas deal, and the new IMF loan, etc.
As a result, Ukraine no longer has any trustworthy central bank, one of the guarantees of national sovereignty. Instead, Ukraine is now openly ruled by IMF, along with domestic business lobbyists.
Rumor has it that National Bank Director Valeria Gontareva put up at least a feeble resistance to the cancelling of all regulations, but there was nothing she could do.
The job of a national bank is to protect its own currency, even at the price of conflict with the rest of the economy. But now Ukrainian National Bank has been completely neutered, and can no longer protect its own national currency. This will negatively affect the pension funds.
Officially, Ukrainian bank is at 13 hryvnas per dollar. But unofficially, businesses are trading at 14-14.5 per dollar, and this will probably reach 15 very soon.
American consulate posted an exchange rate of 14 hryvnas, as the screenshot shows.
It is unclear why the office of the Presidency stopped supporting the National Bank of Ukraine.
Until recently, National Bank was, in actuality, an independent regulator, and enjoyed the support of the government. Now that is all gone with the wind. Factors probably include the demands of domestic business, not to mention intereference of IMF.
It is also speculated, that recent elections played a role. Power at the top is now shared by Poroshenko and Yatsenuk. The next stage involves their internecine struggles against one another, to divide up the spoils of victory.
P.S. – and, as one commenter quickly pointed out, Ukrainian oligarchs have made sure, to spirit any remains of any gold or valuable currencies, out of the country, leaving just junk hryvnas behind, in the banks.
Breaking news!
Zakharchenko has accused Ukrainian army of raping and murdering literally hundreds of young women in Donbass. (In occupied towns of past several months.)
In the town of Krasnoarmeisk, HQ of the “Dnepr-1” Battatlion, 400 women aged 18 to 25 just disappeared without a trace, according to Zakharchenko. The disappearances coincided with the occupation of the town by the National Guard Battalion.
Zakharchenko goes on to accuse that the bodies of 286 women were uncovered near the town, and bodies show signs of being raped. [doesn’t explain how he knows that, though, or what forensic techniques were used to examine the bodies]
Krasnoarmeisk is located approx 45 km to the North-West of Donetsk.
Without photographic or other solid evidence, it’s difficult to know what to make of this and similar allegations. Failure to support their allegations will eventually lead to a very significant loss of credibility for the leaders of the breakaway republics.
I should add that, personally, I have no difficulty in believing that mass atrocities have taken place in areas where nazi and neo-nazi fighters were stationed – it’s just in their political DNA – but documented proof is needed.
If it can be substantiated it is huge, and will drive a stake through the heart of crazy Catherine Fitzpatrick of Interpreter Mag, who criticized me as irresponsible for discussing the subject of mass graves, retorting that the only one which can be substantiated thus far had something like 9 bodies and they could not even veruify if they were all together or in separate graves.
The Dollar Decline Continues: China Starts Direct Convertibility With Asia’s #1 Financial Hub
Earlier this week some of the biggest financial news of the year made huge waves all over Asia.
Yet in the Western press, this hugely important information has barely even been mentioned.
While this is ignored in the US so far, it’s front page news in Asia
So what’s the news?
The Chinese government announced that the renminbi will become directly convertible with the Singapore dollar… effective immediately.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/dollar-decline-continues-china-starts-direct-convertibility-asia-1-financial-hub
—
Hillary Clinton: “Businesses Don’t Create Jobs” – Why She’s Never Been More Wrong
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-30/hillary-clinton-businesses-dont-create-jobs-%E2%80%93-why-shes-never-been-more-wrong
Let me stir the pot a little. I saw an interesting article yesterday that acknowledged dollar decline is inevitable – although the author forecast it would take longer than the current narrative suggests, and in this I think he is wrong – but I can’t find it now so it’ll have to wait until I get home, it’ll still be in my history. Meanwhile, have a look at this:
http://thedaytradingacademy.com/investing/gold-reserves-united-states-nearly-gone
It’s not professionally written and does sound a little wiggy, but on the other hand, we can barely trust the mainstream media not to lie to us about our own names, so perhaps some day-trader’s blog is reliable. In any case, the author asks a lot of interesting and pertinent questions. Everyone knows about the fiasco with the Germans wanting their gold back, and then suddenly and inexplicably deciding it was just fine where it theoretically is. But I did not know that the U.S. government has repeatedly rejected an audit of its gold stocks – because it would cost $15 million. I’m sure we could all offer creative and amusing lists of things the U.S. government has blown more than $15 million on. Moreover, I was not aware that the amount the government says it has in reserves has not changed in more than 30 years – the author reports this is a patent impossibility because of public records of gold sales, which record the USA as having exported more than 200 tons of gold in 2012 alone.
The author further speculates that the reason foreign governments say nothing about it – and he estimates the USA can have not more than 2000 tons left and probably considerably less although it claims to have 8,133 tons – is because the resulting panic would cause market chaos around the world, not just in the USA.
As it most certainly would, if true.
Here’s the article I was talking about. I was hitting all around it with my searches, but damned if I could find it without the words “demise” and “inexorable” in the search string.
The author believes “alarmist conclusions that the dollar is on a swift road to ruin are wide of the mark. The road will be long and at its end the dollar will not be ruined, but it will be less important“. I think it will be more rapid than he does, although the discussion in the gold story above that the rest of the world will attempt to cushion its fall out of self-interest, to avoid a market catastrophe, bears considering.
I was interested, though, in this appraisal: “Global reserve currency status has always encouraged the beneficiary nation or empire to live beyond its means, safe in the knowledge that the rest of the world must hold its currency to pay for goods and commodities.” He uses the pound sterling for example, and points out it remained relevant for years after losing its reserve-currency status. But I don’t think the UK was ever viewed with the apprehension the USA is today.
If your haven’t altered you browser history settings from default or run a cleaning program, control+H will show you where you have been. I’ve done exactly the same as you only to remember ctrl+h hours later! The other possibility is to use a online/offline bookmarking service like Pocket which is available for all browsers: https://getpocket.com/
There’s also webnotes and data collector Zotero and of course if your ass is owned by Microsoft, OneNote & evernote – none of which I have used. I’m sure there are plenty of other options but none come to mind.
When I’m at work, though, the browser history is automatically dumped. That’s why I have to wait until I get home, where I’ll be able to find different sites again. We use a different hybrid of the internet where a lot of stuff – like Youtube and Facebook – is stripped off and inaccessible, and browser history can probably be retrieved but is not readily accessible.
Ah, yes, the famous work lockdown. It didn’t occur to me. I used to run stuff of a usb stick until that was locked down too. Using notepad to plain text copy the urls is I suppose a better solution.
We’re not allowed to use USB sticks we acquired ourselves; USB sticks are provided on loan to those who need to carry their data (such as presentations, that sort of thing) which have already been rigorously checked. A friend of mine introduced a virus by using a stick he had brought from home and got in quite serious trouble. It didn’t do any harm, but they’re rather careful about that sort of thing.
I could have found it again at work, but I just couldn’t remember any of the important keywords in the search.
“The US and IMF are moving towards expectance of the renminbi to be part of a redrawn version of this IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs)” According to Middelkoop, it’s possible that a variant of such an SDR might become the World’s reserve currency, or something like it, by 2020. Anyway, I suspect this will become a well watched video by those folks in the relevant financial areas. He had some fascinating things to say about the purchase of the Goldman Sachs building in New York by the Chinese. If I remember correctly from the GS basement there is a tunnel straight through to the storage of the US gold reserves, so that the purchase of the building will allow easy storage of Chinese gold. The underlying assumption is that the Chinese, being the creditors, are in a very strong position to force change. (On the face of it, something is happening- China is now buying more gold than is currently being produced, yet gold price is dropping. This has to be with connivance of US(?) Couldn’t help but think that, simultaneously, price of oil is dropping- Chinese government loves this too.) Really need Jen to watch the (43min ) video an explain it to the duffers, such as myself.
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2014/10/21/willem-middelkoop-on-the-big-reset/
Again link doesn’t quite work for me though it seems correct- the page I get shows the post… Perhaps I should have also said that the US dollar would still have considerable weight in the new SDR…
I looked at this video again and it didn’t impress me so much. And Chinese interests bought the JP Morgan building, which is next to the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, whilst China and India together are buying gold at a greater rate than it is currently being mined.
Plus, are the Chinese really stupid enough to store their gold hoard in New York City?
Americans are known for stealing other peoples gold.
Chinese hoard would be safer for them in Beijing.
I wondered that, too. Then it occurred to me that the Federal Reserve is certainly not going to allow the Chinese government direct access to its gold, either, so I assume that corridor will be blocked up if it still exists.
I would be curious to know exactly who in China and India is buying up gold. I don’t think the Chinese and Indian governments alone are responsible for buying the bulk of the gold though they may be the single biggest buyers in their own countries – I think it is private investors as a group who are buying up most of it. Gold has a value in Chinese and Indian societies that goes far beyond its monetary value; it bequeaths status, an indication to others that its owners have really “made it” and people will hoard gold for all it’s worth regardless of how high or how low its value will go in the global commodity markets.
Also in mid-year this year, the Indian government eased restrictions on private imports of gold, probably because a lot of gold is smuggled into the country.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-rises-after-india-eases-import-rules-2014-05-22
Great article Mark and I will offer a few related observations as time permits. In the meantime, for your reading pleasure:
http://go.swifty.com/click.php?frm=ysa&loc=www.swifty.com/destinations/5042/15-countries-you-should-be-afraid-to-visit&trav=5042-ysa-de
http://mashable.com/2014/10/31/russian-action-star-ukraine/
http://www.examiner.com/article/area-51-scientist-s-deathbed-video-ufos-are-real-aliens-have-federal-jobs
Please select the most plausible article based on a rigorous criteria of research and consistency with reality. Open book and no time limit.
They are all plausible stories, especially this one:
But far more shocking — some might say more disturbing — was Bushman’s claims that aliens that had traveled to Earth were out and about, working for the federal government. The scientist said there were 18 extraterrestrials working for the government. Some of them were at least 250 years old.
Aha! that explains a lot.
By the way, the Russian press has been all over the Porechenkov story. In my view, the only thing Porechenkov did wrong was wearing the Press gear, Russian journalists are up in arms about that. Everything else Porechenkov did was okay, in my book. I particularly like, that he incensed Avakov literally into a seizure of rage. Avakov ended up like a 2-year-old in a tantrum, lying on the floor screaming in ire, and kicking his little feet spasmodically.
I was thinking that extraterrestrials working their way up through the ranks of civil service for 200+ years would place them in power positions. Since ET’s are likely reptilian (unless their planet also suffered an asteroid impact wiping out their forefathers) their psychopathology (by mammalian standards) is entirely understandable. The Bushes, Chenney, Hilary, et al are likely spawn of the reptilian overlords. It just makes too much sense!
By the way, in case anyone has not read it, from the President of Russia site, Putin’s full recent Valdai speech has now been completely translated into English:
Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club
I wonder how much of it will be misquoted by foreign hacks, as happened with this Putin speech:
Address to the Federal Assembly, April 25, 2005
where Putin’s actual words: “Прежде всего следует признать, что крушение Советского Союза было крупнейшей геополитической катастрофой века” were translated by the Kremlin translators (no slouches they in their linguistic skills) as: “Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century”.
The honest scribes of the “Free World” still regularly regurgitate the claim that Putin stated in that speech of 2005 that “the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the century”, which subtle twist on the original is still repeated ad nauseum in the comments columns of the “free Press” almost 10 years on.
I dont know if anybody saw it but there is an amazing back and forth that took place between Biden and Putin as told by Igor Shuvalov.
“Shuvalov concluded by telling us of a discussion that Putin allegedly had with U.S. vice president Joe Biden several years ago. Apparently, Biden had just told Putin that Russia was simply too weak to compete for global leadership.
Putin replied that, while Russia might not be strong enough to compete for global leadership, Biden might reflect on the fact that Russia will still be strong enough to determine who that leader will be.”
Incredibly true and powerful statement by Putin.
@ME From where I sit you have a good story to tell. Why don’t you contact, just for example, Sergey Baklykov, who hosts the “Real Russia”, series of videos- “no fake and no bullshit”. He might be able to “use you” or give you some advice.
Communists and Party of Regions were “voted out” of the Ukrainian Rada completely.
The coup has succeeded into turning Ukraine into a permanent anti-Russian state. Crimea was the price that they coup masters had to pay.
Result: Porkshanks has to share power with Arsenic who wants the war to continue to “help the economy” because he banned the people who probably hated his opponent even more. The internecine warfare in Kiev is going to be explosive.
I confess that I hadn’t taken much notice of Udo Ulfkotte’s revelations about CIA involvement in manipulating the German media- how could it ever be otherwise, for recall what was in Herman and Chomskys’ “Manufacturing Consent”. (I worry about Australia more than Germany.) Nevertheless, his interview in Russia Insider is still jolting, though a quick read. “This poison gas that killed so many Iranians was made in Germany”- the West’s nauseating barracking for Saddam in that war was sickening- is the gas that apparently destroyed Ulfkotte’s health, so that he feels free to tell the truth and provide details and names (he is dying). What is encouraging is that subscriptions to his old newspaper, The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, have collapsed , forcing the paper to fire 200 employees. This is despite the fact MS journalists are not allowed to mention his book by name, although it is #7 on the best sellers list.
http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2014/10/german-editors-confession.html#more
“Troubling Trend” NATO Warns Russian Military Aircraft Incursions Worst Since Cold War
Over the last 2 days, more than two dozen Russian military aircraft, in four groups, were tracked and intercepted conducting aerial maneuvers around Europe, according to NATO. As The Wall Street Journal reports, this activity is on a scale seldom seen since the end of the Cold War, prompting NATO jets to scramble in another sign of how raw East-West relations have grown. “There is a troubling trend… of sabre rattling” warned The White House, noting that NATO has intercepted over 100 incursions by Russia year-to-date to which the US Army chief of staff ominously warned, this is “Russian aggression,” and “we have to reassure our allies.”
A photo released Wednesday by the Norwegian Air Force shows what it said was a Norwegian F-16AM Fighting Falcon, left, accompanying a Russian Tupolev Tu-95MS at an undisclosed location
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-31/troubling-trend-nato-warns-russian-military-aircraft-incursions-worst-cold-war
So much slimy whining. High alertness on both sides makes war less, not more likely. The danger of WWIII was greatest back in the mid-90s, when the Russian armed forces and early warning systems were in such poor shape that the Pentagon might just have believed itself capable of executing a decapitating first strike.
I’m cynical enough to consider the possibility that the reason the West did not launch an unprovoked nuclear strike killing tens of millions was that they wanted Russia and its population undamaged to maintain their value for further looting and exploitation.
Russia/Putin may have had to calibrate the ratio of perceived weakness to growing capability. Perhaps the Russians concluded it was better to feign great weakness least the West figures out they better kill the upstart before they can’t. Now, there is no advantage to looking weak. Russia is to strong militarily, economically, geopolitically and demographically to fear a direct western attack.
Its often stated that the Atlanticists and the Sovereignists are in a battle for Russia’s future but I wonder if even that is overstated to mollify the West – a sort of Judo move using the West’s oppressive arrogance and self-aggrandizement to induce it to overplay its assets such as NGO’s, Ukraine, the “opposition” or sanctions. By the time the West realizes that its assets are of little real value, the war is already lost.
From the GDP data put out by GKS, I can conclude that, at least in this aspect, Russia has been making itself look weaker than it is. The World Bank seems to smells something is off and its GDP numbers in PPP terms are the highest amongst all the western estimates for Russia, but I think they are too small.
The response of the Russian economy to the sanctions is further evidence that it is not all that small. It appears to be import substituting on a very large front from agriculture to high tech. This is capacity is not some trivial feature of all economies. It also indicates that the Russian financial industry has come a long way as well.
I think that the window of opportunity for NATO to take out Russia has gone. They can put up as many bases on the Russian border as they want but they will get fuck all out of this pathetic fist shaking exercise. Some military base in Poland has no value for undermining Russia’s government or economy. It’s a dinosaur concept that just sucks up NATO taxpayer money. As NATO stations more missiles on Russia’s borders, Russia needs to launch more nuclear missile carrying submarines to patrol US waters.
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
It’s interesting that NATO uses the word ‘incursion’ since the Russian planes were actually flying in international airspace – a not insignificant fact which the NATO spokesperson reluctantly acknowledges at the very end of the ‘zerohedge’ article when they say the flights were ‘near NATO airspace’, otherwise known as NOT in NATO airspace. So, hold the front page…..Russian military aircraft flying in international airspace evidences Putin’s aggression…..
It has become routine to treat the ADIZ as the sovereign territory of NATO states. So these dastardly Russians were violating the ADIZ. Of course this zone has no standing in international law and is typically well beyond the 12 nautical mile limit of the countries yapping about incursions.
The problem is that Russia is well behind the curve in this propaganda war. It should establish a US style ADIZ extending 1000 miles from its borders and bleat about every NATO warplane that enters this zone.
“The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said that more than two dozen Russian aircraft in four groups were intercepted and tracked on Tuesday and Wednesday, an unusually high level of activity that the alliance said could have endangered passing civilian flights.”
This is what NATO is reduced to in its attempts to cast Russia as a lawless aggressor. None of the air forces of the NATO partners give a tin weasel for the thought that their mere presence in the sky might endanger passing civilian flights. Is there any reason to assume Russian aircraft just stagger around the sky, endangering civilians?
In April 2002, a U.S. Air Force Sikorsky Sea Dragon crashed on the runway at Bahrain International Airport: I’d say that might have endangered some civilians. On the 24th of the same month, a Belgian Air Force F-16 collided with an Ikarus C-42 flight trainer at the Dutch town of Sellingen – both pilots were killed, the F-16 backseater ejected and survived. Obviously no regard for danger to the public at all. In July the same year, a Ukrainian Air Force SU-27 crashed into the crowd at the Lviv Air Show, killing 85, 5 of them children, and injuring 199. The pilots – who ejected and survived – and their unit commanders were jailed, so it seems apparent they disregarded the public safety. In October, two Boeing Super Hornets of the USAF collided during combat maneuvering 80 miles southwest of Monterey, California. Here’s the map showing Monterey airport, with daily arrivals/departures from busy LAX and San Diego. Civilian air traffic? I guess there might be a little. January, 2003 – a Marine Corps F-18 Hornet crashed into the sea off MCAS Miramar, owing to an engine failure. Both crew ejected and were recovered, but you could throw a potato from there to San Diego International Airport if you had a good arm and a favourable wind. In July 2004 two Marine Corps F-18’s collided over the Columbia River 120 miles east of Portland, Oregon. Here’s Portland International, right on the Columbia River. In January 2005, a USAF Cessna T-37B collided with a civilian Air Tractor AT-502 near Hollister, Oklahoma. The civilian pilot was killed. I’m just going down the list, eliminating those crashes in which civilians were not unduly endangered because it happened during an exclusively military exercise, that sort of thing. NATO flies wherever it pleases and gives no though to endangerment of the public beyond its standard safety procedures, which are generally very good, and purpose built avoidance equipment like IFF transponders and a controlling authority which is paying attention. I’m sure the Russians do the same. I think I’ve mentioned stopping at the monument just outside Arseneev, in the Primorsky Region, to read the plaque dedicated to the bomber crew whose pilots rode their doomed aircraft into the side of the hill rather than bail out with the rest of the crew and risk having the uncontrolled aircraft hit the town. Their courageous sacrifice shames NATO’s outrageous provocations, as it continues to disgrace itself and shit all over the most basic rules of human decency.
I’d like to add the Cavalese Cable Car Disaster, when a US Prowler (flying much lower that the allowed limit) cut across the cable of a Cable Car.
Luckily there were no American tourists on board, and only 20 Italians died.
Ramstein!
Not the band Rammstein, but this:
Ramstein air show disaster
Ramstein is world’s second most deadly airshow disaster, brought to you by a NATO member air force.
The world’s worst was at Sknyliv, the Ukraine, in 2002.
Can’t blame Skynliv on NATO though, because the Ukraine is not a NATO member state, though many in Banderastan would dearly love it to be.
In the accident at the Lviv Air Show, I didn’t see the crew punch out. Did anyone? The report says they both ejected and survived, and that they and their unit commanders were jailed. If they abandoned the aircraft early, it could be argued they did not do all they might have done to minimize civilian casualties. I sometimes think air shows draw the crowds they do because of some atavistic desire to see and confront death, because they are so dangerous – they often go off without a hitch, but when there’s a crash it is frequently a big one. This, incidentally, is another forum in which the west sneers at the quality of Russian fighter aircraft, while trained analysts point out there are frequent crashes because Russia pilots are daredevils who push their aircraft to the limit.
I saw the Hurn Airshow once, kind of a warm-up for Farnborough, which is the big one in the UK. I’m pretty sure that was the last time the Hawker-Siddley Vulcan ever flew, and it was a truly awesome experience to see it. It was unnerving how quiet it was as it came across the field, very low, like a huge metallic bat, because all the noise is behind it. As it passed over the roar literally shook the earth.
Yes, there were many, many more – military airplanes are frequently operated close to the limits of their performance envelopes, and there were a lot of crashes. I saw that one, and the particular time-band I was looking at was only 2000-2009. There were a lot of others, too numerous to mention them all. Crashes which involve collisions of military aircraft and civil aviation are rare now, though, after a couple of dramatic ones when airliner travel was just taking hold. Back then there was no such thing as IFF transponders, and radios had nowhere near the range capability they do now, nor did approach radars, forget about GPS. A great fictional story about such an accident is “The Crowded Sky“, if you can ever find it, it must have been out of print for decades. It’s by Hank Searls, the guy who wrote the follow-up to “Jaws”. That was a bit of a dog, I thought, not at all representative of his talent, which seems to be focused on aircraft and airplane accidents. He is also the author of “The Big X”, which was about test pilots.
The bottom line is that crashes of Russian aircraft crewed by Russian military personnel are as rare as any other, and there is absolutely no reason to believe the civilian public is in any more danger – perhaps less – when in the proximity of Russian military aircraft as in the proximity of NATO aircraft. Both are as conscious as it is possible to be of hazards to public safety. The west also routinely labels as Russian all aircraft built by Russia. If Russia did that and lumped in all crashes of Boeing 747’s as due to American incompetence, the Boeing safety record would take a nosedive. As it is, Boeing has a worse safety record than Tupolev, but that’s mostly due to how many nations – some of them somewhat indifferent to the concept of maintenance – fly Boeing aircraft other than America.
The Guardian jumped at this story, of course: not a single day goes by, it seems, without an anti-Russian story in that rag. The Grauniad today even has an article in its “New East network” feature (which includes amongst its contributors that noisome “The Interpreter”) that originates in that “newspaper” the “Moscow Times”: the topic of the MT article is what to wear in Moscow on Hallowe’en, the line being that Russia is such an oppressive state that even kids celebrating Hallowe’en are frowned upon, goddammit!!!:
Ten last-minute Russian halloween costumes and how to pull them off
Halloween has always been a contentious topic in Russia, with politicians labelling it as a morally corrupt US influence. But if you’re keen to celebrate, The Moscow Times has some tips on how to do it Russian-style
Always been a contentious topic?
Like – forever?
No it hasn’t!
The objection by some to Hallowe’en US-style “celebrations” that do occur in Russia was reflected in this comment to the article made by, I presume, a French commentator:
politicians labelling it as a morally corrupt US influence
And what’s wrong with saying that? Because they forgot to state that [it] is driven by purely commercial motives?
They tried to force-feed Halloween on us here in France too, back in the 1990s, but have mostly given up for some years now.
(By the way, where I come from, Hallowe’en was also called “Mischief Night”, which was an excuse for hooligan behaviour. I remember once in the 60s taking every garden gate off its hinges in my street late one 31st October evening, and leaning them against the garden fences or hedges. Oh what a lark that was! Never demanded payment in kind before doing this, though. Just shows what crap businessmen English kids are compared to those in North America. Oh yes, and we used turnips for our lanterns, not pumpkins. Never saw a pumpkin until I Iived in London in 1997. There were many things that I had never seen before moving there …)
As regards the Grauniad’s reporting of the Evil Russian airforce “incursion” story, here was the coverage that rag gave on Thursday, 30th October:
Nato jets intercept Russian warplanes following ‘unusual level of air activity’
The story is straight from Reuters, and begins thus:
Nato aircraft have been scrambled to shadow Russian strategic bombers over the Atlantic and Black Sea and fighter planes over the Baltic in what the western alliance called an unusual burst of activity as tensions remain elevated because of the situation in Ukraine.
In all, Nato said, its jets intercepted four groups of Russian aircraft in about 24 hours since Tuesday and some were still on manoeuvres late on Wednesday afternoon.
“These sizeable Russian flights represent an unusual level of air activity over European air space,” the alliance said.
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
“Ring the alarum-bell!—Blow, wind! Come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back!”
(From that play about a murderous Sweaty Sock.)
But then this line is thrown in:
“A spokesman stressed there had been no violation of Nato air space…”
A non-story?
Many of the shitwits in the comments section below that article then launch into their anti-Putin frenzy, whilst seemingly taking delight at and pointing out to all the evidently crap nature of the Russian military, in that the Russian aeroplane pictured in the article is a propeller driven Tupolev Tu-95:
How embarrassing for the Kremlin. The US cruisers based in the Black Sea are equipped with nuclear weapons. Right on Russias [sic] doorstep. Notice how this point is carefully avoided by Russian propaganda outlets.
Flying around in propellor [sic] driven airplanes…priceless.
[“Notice how this point is carefully avoided by Russian propaganda outlets” – Is it really? The noted Canadian (probably a Banderite descendant) Russophobe that posted that comment probably doesn’t watch Russian TV or read Russian newspapers.]
From the same Canadian:
In Cuba they drive 1955 Fords. In Russia they fly antique aircraft. Anybody notice the similarities?
Well, that commentator has apparently never heard of these beasts:
It’s French: it’s an Airbus A400M Atlas.
And there’s this:
It’s a US aeroplane, a Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye, an all-weather, carrier-capable tactical airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft. It’s still in use by the US military.
The day before this Russian airforce intrusion shock story hit the Grauniad pages, the following tale, penned by Tintin and one of his chums, had appeared:
Sonic boom sounds over Kent after RAF intercept Latvian cargo plane
RAF Typhoon aircraft were launched to intercept a civilian aeroplane and escort it to Stansted airport after it caused concern to air traffic controllers.
The aircraft, a Soviet-era Antonov An-26 cargo plane, owned by the Latvian company RAF-Avia was safely escorted down by the military jets from RAF Coningsby – which broke the sound barrier in the process.
A Russian aircraft!
And that warrants a supersonic intercept!
Only thing was, though, that the aeroplane turned out to be a Latvian civilian aircraft delivering car parts to a Birmingham, UK, car plant.
It was reported that one of Queen Elizabeth II’s fighter pilots radioed the following to the pilot of the Soviet-era Antonov:
“I am instructed by Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom to warn you that, if you do not respond immediately to my orders, you will be shot down.”
See: The Russians are coming! UK media hypes up RAF interception of Latvian plane
Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few?
Well, how could the RAF fighter pilot have known that the aircraft was carrying starter-motors and oil-pumps and sprockets or whatever?
But here’s a small point that has come to my head: if that fighter pilot in question had actually shot down that civilian aircraft, what would have been the consequences?
If that Latvian civilian aeroplane had, in fact, been shot down, would this terrible error of judgement have indeed reported?
Do the military of sovereign states occasionally do such a thing – I mean shoot down civilian aircraft, either accidentally or with intent?
Well, the Russian military certainly does – we all know that: that’s what Empires of Evil run by a malevolent tyrant do, don’t they?
But, perish the thought, would any of the military of the Free World ever even envisage attacking a civilian aircraft?
Of course not!
Stands to reason, don’t it?
Arm, arm, and out!—
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
I ‘gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.—
Ring the alarum-bell!—Blow, wind! Come, wrack!
At least we’ll die with harness on our back. (exeunt)
(final words of Mac-Scottish-Person)
Moscow Exile, you take me back when you talk about ‘Mischief Night’ – in my bit of the UK Halloween was also called that although older people referred to the night of the ‘Lord of Misrule’. Youthful hooliganism flourished and often took the form of going into peoples’ gardens after nightfall, stealing their garden gnomes and lining them up at local bus stops. Innocent times. I HATE the commercialisation that’s been imported from the US and the underlying nastiness of children going door-to-door and threatening to egg windows if they don’t get their sugar fix or money in lieu.
We see more frequently now – here, at least – children carrying boxes for UNICEF or African Relief, and no bags for candy. That seems a pretty good compromise, although there probably is no need of it as we are already dunned to death for charity.
I must say that’s a good idea – modifying with acts of charity a corrupted by Mammon Christian festival, which in its turn modified a pagan tradition.
I’ll stick to my Saxon gods.
It’ll soon be Yuletide.
Waes hael!
🙂
Every Halloween – in recent years, anyway – the Moscow Times goes on a pro-Halloween rampage that wavers between Russians, tight-lipped, denying their modern-minded children the chance to experience an important cultural event celebrated all over the world, and joyless grey-faced Soviet wanna-be’s crushing the kiddies’ hopes to have a bit of fun in a land that frowns on frivolous fun. It never fails to make me marvel at the image westerners have of themselves – the Mr. and Mrs. North America and Mr. and Mrs. Europe are unfailingly young, hip, with-it and always open to new ideas – rapscallion tearaways who party all night and work hard all day, except on Sundays, when they go to reverently hear the message of a real God in a real church. What a crock. Westerners would lose a lot of their impetus toward the daily Russophobic crusade if they would just take a realistic look at themselves. Unfortunately, the crusade wins over a lot of otherwise kind and decent people who believe everything is abundant in the west while The Soviets (which is how they still see the Russians, and the media does nothing to correct their misapprehension) collapse from weakness against the walls of warehouses bursting with grain for The Bosses and Their Cronies, and die of starvation. To be fair, there are misapprehensions on both sides, and many Russians believe things of westerners that are simply not true, either. But the media – which boasts of instant communication and global reach – not only allows tropes to persist, but encourages them.
I look forward to The Moscow Times being kicked to the curb – it would be different if it were a western newspaper which genuinely promoted understanding, but it is not. When it talks about western subjects it has a preening, don’t-you-wish-you-could-be-me tone, and the rest of its material is relentless criticism of Russian lifestyle, government, religion, beliefs, habits and cuisine. Russians certainly don’t need to hear that from a bunch of Americans clinging on in Moscow like a tick.
As to the blood-curdling warning given the Latvian aircraft, air warnings are more or less standardized and are passed from the fighter to the other aircraft on a common guard channel which all aircraft are supposed to monitor while airborne. they usually start with the fighter addressing an unknown aircraft while it is still some distance away and is being queried because it is not showing any IFF and the direction of its travel. Military aircraft do not just fly around and warn everyone – if an aircraft is traveling in an established air corridor between two known airports, is at 30,000 feet or more and is showing the transponder code for a civil airliner, it is usually safe to believe it is a civil airliner. Warnings are to aircraft with no transponder code, closing on your unit’s position or a land destination you have no immediate reason to believe is expecting them, and several other sensible conditions. Warning One is customarily more or less of a how-do-you-do, something like “Unknown aircraft in position XXXX (bearing and range from a known navigation point), this is XXXX (identify yourself by nationality and the fact that you are a military aircraft, such as “Royal Air Force aircraft”: request your destination and intentions, over”. These warnings step up the scale to something like “your intentions are not understood, request you turn away to a new course of XXXX” to “your intentions are not understood and you continue to close my position; if you do not turn away now I will be forced to defend myself”. The warning from the fighter in this case seems a bit apocalyptic, but the RAF may have been caught on the hop and had to go straight to the Big Warning because of proximity, or else we were not told of the other warnings, although it seems odd the Latvian aircraft did not respond to earlier warnings if they were given since every commercial aircraft guards that channel – perhaps their radios were out.
An interesting article from ‘Pando’ which sheds more light on how the Maidan was organised and funded and the continuing role of US oligarch/tycoon/businessman/choose your term/ Pierre Omidyar in Ukrainian politics. In the hope someone from HRW might read this – here, in a nutshell, is why Russia – or any other country ever likely to find itself in the Empire’s crosshairs – should ban the funding of NGOs by foreign powers. Incidentally, I work in the non-profit sector so I have a little bit of knowledge here – a non-governmental organisation should be just that, independent of governments, both domestic and foreign. The question that should be asked of all these NGOs and wannabe NGOs on whose behalf HRW is doing so much complaining is what’s preventing them from raising their own funds within Russia to support their activities? Why are they not making the case for their continued existence to the Russian public?
“Ukraine just held its first post-revolution parliamentary elections, and amid all of the oligarchs, EU enthusiasts, neo-Nazis, nepotism babies, and death squad commanders, there is one newly-elected parliamentarian’s name that stands out for her connection to Silicon Valley: Svitlana Zalishchuk, from the billionaire president’s Poroshenko Bloc party. Zalishchuk was given a choice spot on the president’s party list, at number 18, ensuring her a seat in the new Rada. And she owes her rise to power to another oligarch besides Ukraine’s president — Pierre Omidyar, whose funding with USAID helped topple the previous government…co-funded with USAID Zalishchuk’s web of nongovernmental organizations — New Citizen, Chesno, Center UA. According to the Financial Times, New Citizen, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Omidyar, “played a big role in getting the [Maidan] protest up and running” in November 2013.
The president’s party tasked Zalushchik with publicly selling the highly controversial new “lustration law” …… The lustration law was passed under a wave of neo-Nazi violence, in which members of parliament and others set to be targeted for purges were forcibly thrown into trash dumps. Zalishchuk, however, praised the lustration law, claiming that the legalized purges would “give Ukraine a chance at a new life.” Shortly before the elections, on October 17, Zalishchuk used her Omidyar-funded outfit, “Chesno,” to organize a roundtable with leaders of pro-EU and neo-fascist parties. It was called “Parliament for Reform” and it brought together leaders from eight parties, including Zalishchuk’s “Poroshenko Bloc” (she served as both NGO organizer and as pro-Poroshenko party candidate), the prime minister’s “People’s Party” and leaders from two unabashedly neo-Nazi parties: Svoboda, and the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko….”
http://pando.com/2014/10/30/omidyar-funded-candidate-takes-seat-in-new-ukraine-parliament/
The problem is that HRW and AI are these same sort of corrupt “NGOs” that serve the interests of a particular empire wannabe state.
BTW, the Saudis and Qatar also export Wahabbism via “charities” and “NGOs”. People should wake up and smell the coffee.
kirill, my comment on HRW was tongue-in-cheek. Both HRW and Amnesty are adjuncts of western foreign policy.
Here’s some enlightening material on regulation of NGO’s in the United States. It starts out like a sweet dream of freedom, singing softly to you about how anyone can form an NGO and do just as they like, the U.S. government is completely oblivious to your activities and you can do just as you please.
Except. Then the restrictions start – gently, at first, like in “In general, any group of individuals may come together to form an informal organization in order to jointly discuss ideas or common interests, and they can do so without any government involvement or approval.” Oh, but wait: “Registration requirements, and forms of organization, vary from state to state, but are generally very simple, so that anyone can incorporate an NGO in just a few days at the state level. The process typically involves providing a short description of the organization, its mission, name, the address of an agent within the state, and paying a modest fee. Most states have a general incorporation statute that makes this process a routine matter, not subject to approval by the legislature or any other government official.” I see – the government is not involved at all, nothing to worry about, no restrictions whatsoever. You just have to register. With who? Well, the government. But it’s not subject to approval, which is manifestly not the same thing as the government not keeping track at all. Hey, why can I hear people talking in the NSA cafeteria every time I pick up the phone?
There’s lots of other government boilerplate designed to construct the illusion of complete and total freedom while inputting guidelines and regulations that allow the government to keep tabs on everything your organization does, depending of course on its degree of interest. But this pretty much encapsulates the heart of the matter.
“Some governments have misinterpreted FARA as restricting the ability of civil society to register and operate. On the contrary, FARA does not impose a tax, nor does it set a cap on foreign funding that an organization can receive. FARA covers all “persons,” including individuals, corporations, and associations. FARA also includes a number of exceptions, including for persons whose activities are in “furtherance of bona fide religious, scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits or of the fine arts.” FARA also exempts from registration other NGO activities, such as certain solicitations of funds for medical aid, or for “food and clothing to relieve human suffering.”
So the United States government does not restrict the activities of foreign agents – being those NGO’s whose activities are political in nature or have the potential to influence political opinion among the public, and who receive funding from foreign governments or foreign governmental agencies (“persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal”, direct from the FARA site) – because it does not limit the amount of funding they are allowed to receive, or tax said income!! Red herring, anyone?
The Russian law on NGO’s also offers sweeping exemptions for bona-fide charity and relief organizations; registration as a foreign agent is not required and printed material does not have to be vetted or labeled. The restrictions on foreign agents are indistinguishable from those of the USA – if the organization’s activities are political in nature but if it can find funding exclusively from Russian sources in Russia (not Russian oligarchs living in the UK), again no problem. If the organization’s activities are political in nature and the organization receives foreign funding, it must register as a foreign agent and published material must be clearly marked as originating from an agent of a foreign power. That doesn’t mean it cannot engage in political activity or receive foreign funding, but it of course means it will be watched, and if it crosses the line it probably will be kicked out. Just like in the USA. Those weak sisters at Memorial expect to be allowed to continue their political activity, in Moscow, on behalf of the United States Government, while funded by agencies of the United States Government, without restriction – and know better than to try operating on exclusively Russian donations.
This Orwellian presentation of reality is the same one that is used to call Kosovo a special case. We have the Court of Justice ruling at the Hague, but you are supposed to believe that is some one off special case. Until the next special case favourable to the USA and NATO arises. I am quite sure if a chunk of Russia wanted to secede then we would have full NATO recognition and demands by the UN to observe their “right to self determination”. Naturally, the people of the Donbas who are 95% in favour of seceding from Banderastan have no such rights. Sick.
Dear Fern:
Everything about Omidyar makes sense, except for his connection to Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald.
Why would a man who helped created Maidan Revolution and who is so clearly an agent of the National Security Empire, why would such a man also financially back those who leaks the secrets of that same Empire? That’s the part that doesn’t make any sense to me. Do you have any theories?
yalensis, you ask a very interesting question about Omidyar’s motives and activities. FWIW, my take is that he’s serving a similar purpose to someone like George Soros and his long relationship with HRW – it’s about controlling and shaping the narrative. Soros and HRW have defined and shaped what human rights are – and their vision of rights, which has become the prevailing vision, is something different from that envisaged by the UN. After all, if you call an organisation ‘Human Rights Watch’, it suggests that what it ‘watches’ are human rights and what it doesn’t pay attention to cannot be human rights.
Omidyar, Glen Greenwald and Laura Poitras have exclusive rights to the Snowden archive – they determine what is released, when it’s released and how it’s released. It’s another example of controlling the narrative.
Dear Fern:
Thanks, that makes more sense now.
I continue to think of Glenn Greenwald as one of the good guys.
However, it is possible that I am wearing blinders, and that Greenwald sold out for money. Or had to sell for money, maybe thinking it was for the greater good, or whatever.
In either case, Omidyar, agent of the Evil Empire, now owns the secrets of the Evil Empire, and I suppose that gives him the right to suppress any inconvenient secrets, as well as publish any that might suit his purpose.
It also gives him blackmail powers, I would think.
http://rusvesna.su/news/1414785899
Russia has blocked some BS UN denunciation of elections in the Donbas. Thick and rich hypocrisy from the UN since it recognized elections in Kosovo instantly. The UN is really, a total fucking joke. It’s location in New York is now fully consistent with its function as an appendage of US foreign policy.
I think the Donbass elections are tomorrow (2 November).
If and when Russia recognizes the elections as legitimate, then the fireworks probably start again.
It seems that NATO will fight really hard to not have the Donbass secede. It will force Porosyuk to launch a massive military campaign. The UN will be just a fig leaf for Porosyuk. Apparently, in our enlightened civilized world it is fully appropriate to resolve political differences via military means.
I really don’t think the Ukies are going to launch another military campaign. The last one was such a disastrous failure, and it has been amply demonstrated that much smaller militia units can defeat larger trained army units when the militia is fighting to defend its homeland from an invader. Any further formal battles are going to highlight the fact that the state is trying to crush resistance so that can appropriate territory the residents consider to be their land, and there’s just no way to put good optics on that for the aggressor. Ukraine has done a lot of bragging about how it is stronger now and better-prepared and trained, but I don’t think that is the case to any significant degree. It still has a massive trained-manpower problem and the interval has not been anything like long enough to resolve it. They would be far better off to merely strut and boast to make their audience feel good, without ever having to prove it and then lose again.
A really excellent piece by Alexander Mercouris entitled ‘Western media get Ukraine elections wrong. There’s big trouble ahead’. He makes the key point:-
”The low turnout in the east and the probable success there of the Boyko Opposition Bloc also incidentally explain why the February coup took place. Given the extent of Ukraine’s political divisions and the abiding hostility to the regime and its policies in the east, it is clear that without the coup and the purge that has followed it, the current government could never have hoped to achieve the untrammelled control of Ukrainian politics and society it has since achieved.”
I can’t think of many MSM journalists who’ve so concisely summarised what’s happened in Ukraine – it’s remarkable that such high quality analysis comes from a private individual blogging rather than from journalists who’re actually paid to do this sort of work. While the west high-fives itself over the elections and, particularly, the poor showing of the overtly fascist parties – see! Russian propaganda all along! – Alexander writes:-
”As for the Right Sector and various Nazi groups, the fact that they have little electoral support (a point endlessly made by the regime’s apologists) does not reduce their real political role. This is not to win elections; as militantly anti-democratic organisations they have little interest in doing so. It is to actively terrorize and intimidate the regime’s enemies.
This is the role these Nazi groups played in the coup in February and it is the role they have continued to play ever since. This gives them considerable power within the regime since there is always the threat that they will use violence in the perpetual inter-factional quarrels.”
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics_ukraine_opinion/2014/10/31/03-28-43pm/western_media_get_ukraine_elections_wrong_theres_big
I see Fitzpatrick graces the comments section to Alex Mercouris’s article with her presence.
Mercouris on the latest “gas deal”:
The Gas “Deal”: Ukraine Says It Can Pay. Can it Really?
Mercouris always has a way of cutting through everything and getting to the logical core of an issue.
P.S. – this is one of the key points that Mercouris made:
The elections confirm that Poroshenko has failed to consolidate his position as the country’s undisputed leader. The fact that his bloc came second or tied with the one led by his sometime ally and rival Yatsenyuk shows the extent to which his popularity has declined as a result of the economic crisis and the military defeat in August.
If one of Poroshenko’s objectives in calling the election was to consolidate his position at the head of the regime, then that objective has failed.
I think this point is really important. Despite the fact, as Mercouris points out, that Porky and Arsenic have virtually identical political ideologies, the whole point of the election was to consolidate Porky as the undisputed leader of Ukraine.
Instead, the elections resulted in tandem rule.
I always thought that a basket-case like Banderite Ukraine had maybe a sliver of survival as such, but only if they ended up with a real Hitler in charge, a one-man undisputed ruler whose hands were free to do whatever it took.
Now that won’t happen either, so Ukraine is kaput. I predict that Porky and Arsenic will end up fighting each other mano a mano and to the death — not over ideology, since they are identical twins in that regard – but just for sheer power.
That’s all true, but I submit it is also suggestive again of western interference – the Ukrainian elections, until Ukraine is firmly established in the EU orbit, are too important to be left to Ukrainians – and Yats is America’s choice. Kiev is still stiff with western advisers, and they mean to have the leader they want, which never was Poroshenko. Although Yats is well-off, there is nothing about him of the taint of oligarchy, while he remains an obedient western puppet and otherwise a zealot about getting Ukraine into Europe.
He was much too pally with the erstwhile Jeanne d’Arc of the Ukraine though, wasn’t he? – she who was indicted in the USA as being an accessory to ex-Ukrainian PM, Mr. Fifty-Percent Lazerenko’s mega-fraudulent activities in the allegedly successor state to Ancient Rus.
September 2012
Remember, he is the embodiment of a pure Slav and not one of those Moskali Untermenschen (subhuman) – a term Nudelmann’s “Yats” used in his mother tongue when referring to Russian citizens, which term was used in a comment of his that was posted on the Embassy of the Ukraine in the United States of America, which site chose to translate Yatsenyuk’s “subhuman” into “inhuman”.
Well, I’ve got news for that embassy staff: “They lost their lives because they defended men and women, children and the elderly who found themselves in a situation facing a threat to be killed by invaders and sponsored by them inhumans” is not English.
What Yatsenyuk said was: “Вони загинули, бо стали на захист чоловіків і жінок, дітей і літніх людей, які опинилися перед загрозою винищення інтервентами і оплаченими ними нелюдами“, which translates as “They lost their lives because they defended men, women,children and the elderly, who found themselves facing the threat of being destroyed by invaders who are sponsored by non-humans“.
Machine translators give “by monsters” for “нелюдами”.
Orcs are non-human monsters, are they not?
I think the State Department reasons that it can split Yats off from Tymoshenko quite easily; if Yats has not resigned in disgust by now, he is a slave to promises and can be made to dance to any tune. For her part, Tymoshenko is simultaneously so dramatically batty, and so obviously acting a part that she believes will allow her to continue living very comfortably without ever having to get a job, that there is nowhere near the danger she will attain a significant office that there was a decade back.
She has publicly stated that she considers herself to be the Eva Peron of the Ukraine.
Here’s I-Know-How-To-Pronounce-Sheremet’evo Ioffe waxing lyrical way back on that headbanger actress-thief:
Kiev Chameleon
Sorry, not “publicly stated” but, according to Ioffe, “admits it in closed circles” that she is Eva Peron’s reincarnation.
Actually, Ioffe is quoting Tymoshenko’s “close adviser”, Dmitry Vydrin, when she writes that Tymoshenko thinks she is a born-again Eva Peron.
It’s all bullshit, anyway, and part of the Tymoshenko roadshow, which has now become as popular as have those of Makarevich in Russia.
Ioffe, in tracing Tymoshenko’s rise to power, states:
Soon, however, Tymoshenko met a man with still more connections: regional political kingpin Pavlo Lazarenko, an ally of Leonid Kuchma, the newly elected–and notoriously corrupt–second president of Ukraine. Tymoshenko followed Lazarenko to Kiev as he began his political ascent. When he became prime minister in 1996, Lazarenko helped his disciple form United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UES), a gas-trading company that was, essentially, a lucrative money-laundering operation. According to 1999 court documents, Lazarenko gave Tymoshenko special concessions that allowed her to consolidate one-third of Ukraine’s gas sector–and about one-fifth of its GDP. The operation earned Tymoshenko the nickname “Gas Princess”.
Lazarenko and Tymoshenko are both from the city of Dnepropetrovsk. He was Dnepropetrovsk province governor when Tymoshenko first set up business with a chain of video rental shops in her home town. I believe bootleg Polish porn was a big seller in the Tymoshenko chain. I also read somewhere that “Mr.Fifty Percent” Lazarenko started off his working life as a tractor driver on a state farm.
It says in the above video that Lazarenko gave her control of the gas industry; he didn’t “give” her control, he sold it to her and his usual terms were agreed. That’s why there were questions concerning her being considered an accessory to Lazarenko’s criminal activities. Lazarenko, so as to get her off the hook, as it were, made out that she was exploited by him, in that she coughed up 50% of her takings to him. The California court where Lazarenko was tried wouldn’t buy that and indicted Tymoshenko as an accessory.
She had a sweetheart deal with Lazarenko: that’s how she became stinking rich – at the expense of “her people”, a section of which she not so long suggested should be obliterated with nuclear weapons.
Yes, he does; he is a talented writer and thinker. I wish we could see him back here, but it looks as if Peter was successful in scaring him away. That must have been his mission, since we have never seen him again, either. Either that, or the rest of us have not yet said anything idiotic enough to arouse him.
I think it’s fairly obvious that Peter stopped posting because he went away to join the Azov Battalion.
Idiot.
Ha, ha!!! That’s Major-General Peter, to you.
Idiot.
Someone has to mention the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and the threat it poses to Ukrainian railway gauges to get Peter going again. But since the AA is now a done deal, and the war in the Donbass must have destroyed much of the transport infrastructure, and lack of money, negligence and unstable politics (I can’t see Poroshenko and Yatseniuk working together for long – with the blessing of the US State Department, the Arsenick One will undermine Porky Pig and find a way to get rid of him altogether) will destroy what’s left in the rest of the country, I suppose we’ve already seen the last of Peter’s instinctive Jack-in-the-box antics.
I am pretty sure a bullying little twerp like peter did not scare away Mercouris.
Mercouris continued to post comments here even after peter did his blackmail thing.
“peter” then, with his wad shot, had nothing else except to start posting other people’s tweets, he did that for a while, then lost interest, but I doubt he joined the Azov Battalion, because even though Azov are basically cowards, they still have to do at least some token fighting every now and then, I suppose.
The US State Department, through its leading stand-up comedienne, Jen Psaki, has called upon all nations not to recognise the results of the upcoming elections in the Donbas. I love the ‘all nations’ vibel, from the mighty US to the tiniest rocky outcrop, “all” must denounce what’s happening in Donetsk and Lugansk.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20141101/194928663/US-Calls-on-All-Nations-to-Reject-Regional-Elections-in-DPR-LPR.html
Everybody hold hands and sing together:
“WE ARE THE WORLD….” (etc.)
This is quite astonishing. The islamic extremist party Hizb ut-Tahrir is outlawed in several EU countries and it even scares naive apologist Sweden a little bit:
http://www.sydsvenskan.se/sverige/hizb-ut-tahrir-drommer-om-ett-globalt-kalifat/
Meanwhile, this party is well-established in Crimea and since it’s banned in Russia, the Russian attempts to limits its influence are called discriminatory and what not. In fact, while Crimea was under Ukrainian jurisdisction these things weren’t raising any eyebrows, like the crackdown on unsanctioned Hizb ut-Tahrir rallies only last year. But now it’s a flippin’ atrocity.
And unsurprisingly, this party is one of the main subversive assets that Kiev and the West utilizes in Crimea right now.
Like Independents take on it:
Ukraine crisis: Muslim Tatars are under threat from ethnic violence under new separatist administration in Crimea
For one who is likely to be among the first to be taken away at gunpoint if the new men in power here have their way, Fazil Amazayev, was being remarkably calm. Such actions, he insisted “will unite all the Muslims here; they will make enemies of us all”.
Mr Amazayev is a senior member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic political organisation which is legal in Ukraine. However, among the first pronouncements made by the new separatist Prime Minister of Crimea and the security chief he has appointed is that it is a “ dangerous terrorist organisation” which will have to be dealt with.
Hizb ut-Tahrir has been blamed in many countries for promoting radicalism; but violent militancy caused by it is hard to find in Ukraine. And the fear of becoming sectarian targets is not just confined to activists among the Tatars: many in the community are staying away from city centres where Russian-speaking vigilantes hold sway, and some are leaving for other parts of the country.
Mr Amazayev says he is confident that the Tatars of Crimea will not let him and others from his group be picked off by the new head of security, Petr Zima, who was promoted from his previous post in Sevastopol, the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. “Zima built up a reputation in Sevastopol for carrying out raids, accusing people of being involved in extremism. But, if he starts doing that now, he will make a big mistake. The people in the [Tatar] establishment, the Mufti and the Mejlis [representative council] criticised us in the past, but now we are all facing the common enemy. And, if they do start persecuting us, we know how to survive, we have done it in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia.”
So essentially, the extremist actions and stated ideology that has led them to being banned or at the very least carefully monitored in a whole host of countries, including in the enlightened Western EU, are all irrelevant here because… Well, beause bad Russia. Oh, and they haven’t conducted any violent acts in Ukraine yet, so they’re OK. Fantastic, so the UK has no reason not to invite ISIS for some cake on Downing Street, does it?
It gets even better as this Amazayev goes on saying that they have a “common enemy” and that Syria, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia are good examples to go by. Wow, just wow.
But…Bad Russia! Shame!
Drutten, thanks for posting that – really quite shocking.
A spokesperson for Hizb ut-Tahrir had been invited to give a talk at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney last August but the lecture was axed when its title (which might not have been the actual theme or subject of the talk) was leaked to the newspapers: “Honour Killings are Morally Justified”.
This piece is about the deterioration of communal services in Kiev, under the Mayoralty of Klichko.
TRANSLATION
“The war helps Vitaly Klichko to hide his incompetence and inability to rule Kiev — he can write off all his mistakes to ‘separatists’ and ‘Moskali’,” remarked the jurist, Alexander D’ad’uk, head of the Kiev-based organization, “Kievites Unite”, at a press conference today.
“War is the perfect time for an incompetent and unaccountable government. It is precisely in war time that it is possible to abuse people as much as one likes, to raise tariffs willfully, telling people, ‘There is no water today,’ and the people remain silent. Can you imagine what would have happened one year ago, if they had raised the tariffs [on communal services] as much as they are doing now? What would have happened to the government? Maidan would have happened now. As it is, they have DOUBLED them, and everybody is silent. They will double, or even triple them again – and nobody will say a word.
“There is no hot water. For the majority of Kievites – including myself. The radiators are purely symbolic, but that doesn’t mean we won’t still have to pay the heating bill at some point. I’m just waiting to see what my October [heating] bill comes to. I have neither hot water nor heat. I’m just waiting to see what happens. And everybody is silent.
“If there were no war, people would not be silent. As it is, everybody is silent. And the government is happy with that. Because people have been frightened by the war, it is precisely in times of war that people truly limit themselves to bare necessities, and even go hungry. People suffer and endure. And it seems to me that the powers-that-be are none too interested in a quick resolution to the war. Because if the war should come to an end, then people will start to ask: ‘Why are the radiators still cold?’
“In the suburb of Nivki, a heating pipe broke. Nobody is trying to repair it, like they used to do (when they broke). If the heating in Nivki is broke, who is to blame? Damned Moskali, separatists, it goes without saying. The people are silent. Anything that goes wrong – is the fault of Moskali and separatists. The reality is that Kiev lives in a state of anarchy, and the communal services are not functioning.”
I hope all these idiot Maidan supporters and “we are all Banderites now” retards are happy with their new found “freedom”. They deserve it.
yalensis, thanks – as always – for translating this article. Apparent spontaneous demonstrations don’t turn into government-overturning movements without a phenomenal degree of organisation and direction. Look at all of the anti-austerity protests across Europe and the fate of Occupy in the US – they’ve fizzled out. The Maidan, however much it may have started as a genuine popular revolt against government corruption, was heavily orchestrated. Since those organising forces have achieved their goals – a fundamental change in the Ukrainian political scene which is unlikely to ever be reset by the results of future elections – there’s no current interest in further orchestration.
Ukrainians will find themselves ‘free’ to protest their own austerity package just like the Spaniards, the Greeks, the italians and many more but they’ll find they can change nothing. Welcome to western democracy.
Indeed, and very well said – something you share with Alexander Mercouris. I’ll bet the two of you would get on like a house on fire; he’s handy, as well, lives in London.
I can’t believe you are trying to match up Mercouris and Fern. You irrepressible shadchan , you! [google it]
I am sure these two brainiacs would make an excellent couple, but Mercouris already has a girlfriend, if I am not mistaken!
Of course I was only trying to engineer a platonic relationship – are you trying to portray Fern as a loose woman? I just see a very similar ability to take a confused mess of facts and frame a coherent narrative of it which leads to a logical conclusion, and which makes you feel smart just for getting it. It’s kind of like the first Yes LP’s – anybody with a reasonable degree of ability could go back and learn the guitar parts Steve Howe was playing then, and it would be a fair accomplishment. But he made them up out of his head, and he was only something like 19 at the time.
Spontaneous protest movements never went too far without a pre-existing organisation guiding them. This is one of the crucial teachings of Lenin, one that the West learned very well – while the people forgot it.
A crucial reason why protests in the West fizzle out is that Western rulers have know us (the society and its functioning) much better than we know them or ourselves.
That’s true. All our base are belong to them.
It depends on the population I think. Western populations are thoroughly indoctrinated to be self-centered and reluctant to help a neighbor least they get ahead (the exceptions are mostly the poor and some minorities who to a large fraction have not bought into the BS ).
Look at unions. During hard times they should be growing stronger but in the US they continue their decline irrespective of the falling standard of living. Circuses of every sort (professional sports, fashion and style, pornography and drugs) have certainly misdirected focus and energy to the great satisfaction of the elites. Why can’t unions organize resistance? Why? because the population is broken.
So how does the West organize “popular movements”? It simply harnesses the factors it worked so hard to imbue in the population – greed, power over others and elitism. The Russian opposition is a prefect example of those values in action.
The US population is the walking dead because they were engineered to be that way. The elites have achieved their fondest goal of a slavishly subservient population. Now if the elite can create in the the rest of the world’s population a similar spiritual vacuum then history could truly end and hell will be the new normal on earth.
If humanity can save itself which I believe that they will, it will in spite of the West’s best efforts.
The elites have figured out that they have to feed the masses crap and maintain a perception that their standard of living is high. The slaves are then content and worried most about their next trip to the big box store to buy some more junk.
The most subservient slaves are those who believe they are not enslaved.
Boiling frog (or freezing frog)? Acceptance of a deteriorating living standard without comment is not limited to Ukraine or war-time. I see it everyday in the US of A.
On the subject of Russia making itself seem weak. Compare the price of Project 636 diesel-electric submarines to the Japanese Soryu boats which are in the same class. China paid under $200 million for each Russian submarine but Australia will pay over $2 billion for each Japanese submarine. There is no way that the two vessels are so fundamentally different as to have a difference in price this large. What this reveals is that the cost structure in the Russian military-industrial complex is much, much lower than in western countries. So when you see an $81 billion Russian defense budget for next year, consider what is the actual potential behind it. I would say that to get a western equivalent to this budget would be at least a factor of five higher: $405 billion.
I discussed that also in a comparison between the Chinese and the American navy procurement systems, using the example of control of the littoral – the shallow-water zone close to national coastlines where it is too risky to operate submarines (generally) or large warships. This is often referred to as “the brown-water navy”. In a comparable period, the United States Navy built two 2,700-3000 ton ships at a cost of more than $600 million each, while the Chinese built eighty-three 400-ton trimarans at a cost of about $40 million apiece. the western navies are fond of the “multirole” concept, and tend to design ships that do a lot of different things, some better than others, while the Chinese tend to build cheaper units designed for a single purpose. But who do you think got more capability in this example?
You are right, having a couple of boats with super duper capabilities does not enable them to be in more than one place at the same time. But I do not think that the 636 is really one tenth the price of the Soryu. They have almost the same size and I do not see a factor of ten gap in capability. I do not even see a factor of two gap since the roles of such boats are nearly identical.
Also, I do not get the impression that the Japanese submarines are world renowned for their ability and quality. Russia is in the process of building six of them almost all in parallel with a completion time of just under 1.5 years. Instead of building a new design from scratch it will just update all of the on board systems. The cost of all six submarines is $2 billion. The price for the Soryu is way out of line with its capabilities.
Japanese submarines are actually very good, well-designed, quiet and capable, but they don’t have the reputation of, say, German boats. When I was on RIMPAC 88 in Hawaii, one of our ships (HMCS TERRA NOVA) actually hit the Japanese submarine TAKESHIO with her variable-depth sonar. It was a big incident because Japan was then not “officially” participating in RIMPAC. That’s why they sent a submarine.
Amnesty International was founded in 1961 by Peter Benenson. For some reason, he got rid of his ‘Solomon’ surname.
Human Rights Watch was founded by Robert L. Bernstein, who shares Benenson’s non-gentile background. The ‘NGO’ that he founded, for his dismay, will sometimes go beyond its function as a white, Christian-bashing organization and attack his people:
In October 2009 Bernstein wrote an OpEd for the New York Times criticizing Human Rights Watch for what he considered its unfair treatment of Israel.
Understandably, the organization was founded to serve Jewish interests and to undermine the self-protective behavior of the West as to give Jews like him a chance to network/organize and rise to the top, replacing the old elite (as they eventually did).
His criticism of HRW for the organization’s mild statements on Israel is a display of Jewish self-deception, who see themselves as nothing but the ‘light unto the nations’. This doesn’t work for the cynical eyes of gentiles like me, but for millions of Zionist Evangelicals it does, which is depressing.
HRW current executive director, Kenneth Roth, also shares Bernstein’s background. This must be due to the chronic lack of qualified gentiles, I suppose.
I think you are a pretty hard marker when it comes to Peter Benenson and the setting up of Amnesty International. I used to be a foot soldier in AI not that long after it was established and it was resolute in trying to keep to its core principles. Benenson must have been a very impressive man. The nadir of AI, I think, occurred about the time that Suzanne Nossel was appointed head honcho of its US office. Diana Johnstone, amongst others, have written relevant articles in Counterpunch, for example,
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/28/the-decline-of-political-protest/
Game
I was reading Wikipedia on multiple citizenship, when I felt the urge to edit the page.
Can you find what I have added? (no resorting to page history)
You’ll soon be on the Eastern European mailing list, where they conspire together to get you banned. They do not tolerate anything positive about Russia on Wikipedia or anything that challenges their worldview.
btw, I believe peter was one of these guys.
Hereafter I shall refer to all Eastern Europeans (Poles, Czechs, Ukes et cetera) as ‘Western Asians’.
I’m sure they’ll love that.
Ah, lemme guess, was it this bit here that looks snuck in?
” … Ukrainian law currently does not recognise dual citizenship. However there are citizens of Ukraine who hold dual citizenship. This includes state officials such as Igor Kolomoisky, who holds three citizenships. On February 8, 2014, the Rada proposed a bill to criminalize the act of holding two citizenships …”
Cut and pasted here in case the addition doesn’t last long. You should be able to tell by the time this comment appears how long that part about Igor Kolomoisky has already been there at Wikipedia.
BTW,interesting that Kolomoisky is a citizen of Cyprus – you wonder how that came about and why.
Bezler quits! No explanation given. Perhaps a bus was involved: http://lifenews.ru/news/144101
Of course, this could be a hoax.
MP.net poster is saying that Bezler was forced to quit like Strelkov was before. Mozgovoy will be next.
Strelkov says that rumours of Bezler’s resignation are true. Komsomolskaya Pravda links the resignation to stories that Bezler shot hostages. Certainly, he had a somewhat unwholesome reputation. http://www.kp.ru/online/news/1886281/
If it’s true – that he shot hostages – then its best he go immediately. He should consider himself lucky not to be executed; militiamen have been shot for less. The moral high ground is one of the NAF’s tenuous advantages, and it cannot afford to lose it or it will be all to easy for the little sympathy they have to evaporate and for the media to successfully portray them as lawless murderers.
From what I’ve read Bezler has admitted to executing members of “punitive” battalions – that is, avowed nazis – as a matter of policy. Ukie army prisoners were treated completely differently.
Whether that maps onto “hostages” above or not I’m not sure.
I’m not sure, either, but summary executions on their face are going to be awfully hard to explain no matter what the justification, if true. I don’t think Strelkov would have done that, and whatever other mistakes Strelkov might have made, the militias would not be badly served by adopting his moral code. Punishment in the next life. Becoming just like the Ukies they are fighting is only a couple of feelgood murders away.
Killing them in combat is one thing. Killing them after they are captured and disarmed is inexcusable no matter what loathsome scum they are. People can always change their ideology, and many of the members of the punitive battalions hold the ideology they do now because they have a desire to hurt people and pursuing this ideology lets them rationalize that it’s OK to do it. But you can’t abandon a hateful ideology, and atone for what you did while in its grip, if you are dead. Instead, you become a martyr to its cause for new recruits.
Colonel Cassad said that Bezler was forced to quit because Poroshenko demanded it: http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/1874505.html
Putin and Poroshenko seem to get along nicely.
Karl: you are being deceptive.
The Cassad piece that you linked does not say that. It doesn’t even mention Poroshenko’s name, let alone Putin.
You have to remember that a lot of people who read this blog and these comments cannot read Russian, therefore they depend on others to be accurate in our summaries and translations. (scold, scold: Karl, you are inserting your own [inaccurate] prognostications in the guise of a news clip]
Anyhow, here is a more accurate summary of the piece that Karl linked:
SUMMARY
Igor Strelkov has confirmed the rumours about Bezler’s resignation, which were first floated by El Muride.
Prior to his resignation, Bezler was the commander of the Horlivka arena of the insurgency.
According to Strelkov, Bezler is now considered to be “in the reserves” and has re-located to the Crimean peninsula.
Prior to his resignation, Bezler had advanced in rank all the way to General; after he returned to Horlivka, he was all set to lead the westward campaign, in the direction of Artemovsk, Konstantinovka, and Kramatorsk. This was in September; and then the campaign somehow fell apart and was delayed.
Next came rumours that Bezler would become DPR Minister of Defense, instead of Kononov. Later, after some more intrigue, Bezler came out in support of Zakharchenko. It started to become obvious that with all the intrigue going on, and the changes due to more centralization and more control over the insurgency on the part of Moscow, then Bezler was being sidelined. As he no longer fit the new reality [of more Moscow control over insurgency]. Hence, his “voluntary” resignation. Nobody actually resigns voluntarily from Novorossiya, they are WALKED OUT THE DOOR!
END OF SUMMARY
[yalensis: and now my own view. Like Muride says, it’s all part of the process of freezing up the conflict and creating a new B.T. (Big Transnistria). Pretty clear that Russia has (reluctantly) decided on this course of events. Now they have to support still another unrecognized region, like Abkhazia or Transnistria. But if they do, then by golly, they are going to make sure their own people are in charge, stable, vetted people like Zakharchenko, and not real-life kooks like Strelkov or Bezler! I think anybody who has even superficially studied Abkhazian or even Ossetian politics, will start to agree with me on this prognosis. And I believe this is the correct prognosis, and not Karl’s paranoid fantasies of some back-door deal that would result in Novorossiya being tossed under that famous bus. Putler and Porky might be best friends or even drinking buddies, for all we know, but that would have zero impact on what happens next. Just watch and learn something about Russian from-the-back-kitchen type politics…..]
The MP.net poster who posted that link claimed that Poroshenko demanded Bezler to be ousted. I guess I have to be less gullible in the future.
That was probably the guy who calls himself “Monarchist” – ha ha!
Never mind; we all need to be retaught that lesson from time to time, and we all are susceptible to getting fooled again.
Well, Russia has been actively putting “hawks” down (like Strelkov, Gubarev, Bezler and probably Mozgovoy will follow) and endorsing “doves” like Zakharchenko.
This implies that Russia is not interested in enlarging the conflict and Russia is content with cities like Mariupol, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk to remain as a part of Ukraine. Those who wanted a greater Novorossiya will be disappointed.
On the other, it seems Voentorg support has never been higher.
Likely the RF leadership hopes that the Kiev regime will implode once it can no longer use the war to justify the hardship rapidly descending upon the Ukrainian public. I doubt that will work – the ‘shocking’ reversal of Yatsenyuk’s fortunes was no doubt arranged by the usual suspects precisely to ensure that the war goes on.
Meanwhile the average Dumfukimenko just wants this all to blow over so he can go back to his regular life of mediocrity, decay, and waiting for the Armani Variags from Brussels to make the fruit trees sprout money. Until the other regions can scrape together a critical mass of people determined to choose something different, there’s not much that can be done for them.
Southerncross, ‘Dumfukimenko’ – inspired, just inspired.
Yes, that was funny – you have a way with words, Southerncross.
Thanks.
Paul Craig Roberts in RT interview. In short: according to him Putin is acting too weak and making too many concessions.
Some of my points why I think Russia made itself look weak:
– Russia is AGAIN sending gas to Ukraine without a guarantee of getting paid. Russia should have declined any deal without pre-payment of the gas. Russia should send the gas only after the whole amount of gas has been fully paid. Once Ukraine receives the gas it will just use it and NOT pay it. Ukraine will never ever again voluntarily pay Russia anything. The Kremlin should realize this.
– The price of gas is too cheap. It is basically the same that China will pay. The price for Ukraine should a LOT higher than for China because Ukraine is a hostile country to Russia.
– Russia should have made Ukraine (minus Novorossiya) freeze during the winter. Weaken the junta as much as possible by destroying Ukraine’s economy and make the life a living hell for Ukrainian citizens. Now Russia will provide Ukraine gas for the whole winter and that prevents the internal collapse of Ukraine. And it gives Ukraine a chance to rearm itself and start another offensive next Spring.
The difference is that the IMF has guaranteed payment. If it does not pay up, it cannot use the excuse that it is broke, and it will damage its reputation while Russia will look like a martyr for trusting it. And the amount is not much compared to Russia’s reserves – it is more a matter of principle.
The problem is that Russia AGAIN trusts the West (IMF). They will find a reason not to pay once Russia has sent the gas to Ukraine. And nobody cares if Russia will end up “looking like a martyr”. The Western MSM will find ways to demonize Russia and make Russia look like the bad guy even in a situation where Russia will not get a payment for its gas.
This is just a ploy to get Ukraine through the winter. Russia will supply Ukraine with gas through the coldest months of the year and again get no money. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Every source I’ve read on this subject said that the new deal required Ukraine to pay in advance for any gas it wanted.
I have not noticed this. I have read that the IMF will guarantee the payment in a case Ukraine is unable to pay, but I have not read that the actual payment transaction has to be made before Russia sends the gas.
http://rbth.com/news/2014/10/31/kiev_publishes_text_of_trilateral_gas_protocol_41086.html
“The payments for natural gas purchased during the period between November 2014 and March 31, 2015 shall be carried out before delivery takes place. Gazprom commits to deliver all paid volumes in accordance with the [2009] contract and the Addendum to it, dated October 30, 2014,” the protocol says.”.
Unless I’ve misread it, that means no payment, no delivery.
OK, that seems good to me. Hopefully Russia will stick to this contract and not make any more concessions before it actually gets the money.
I actually agree with Karl on this one. Russia would be a sucker to send any gas to these dead-beats without pre-payment. (and make sure to cash the check first, and make sure the check doesn’t bounce!)
I disagree, for the reasons I mentioned. The IMF has implicitly promised that Ukraine will have money for gas, and it is broadly understood that the west will pay for Ukraine’s gas in order to avert another Maidan, as well as its own, of course. The west constantly portrays itself as the straight shooter in this conflict, the one whose word is as good as gold. If it facilitates Ukraine’s robbery of gas and then smirks and says it was all a big misunderstanding – go whistle for it, Russia – it makes some things clear to the world that are well worth a couple of Billion. One, the west cannot be trusted to keep its word on a monetary promise, and two, the west realizes Ukraine is a pariah state which cheerfully commits fraud and will piss up a trade deal just for short-term advantage which will just leave them pleading for mercy again next year – and is willing to take them anyway. I don’t think that is (a) how most of the people of the western democracies view themselves, or (b) how they view the state that is the latest of the west’s hard bargains. It’s worth it for them to find out in terms they can no longer deny, and it would not be possible to portray it as anything other than a ripoff of Russia.
But none of the foregoing is going to happen, because the west will pay up. It dares not do otherwise.
In Shevardnadze interview with Prodi, mentioned above (or below?), the Italian seriously suggested (14:48) that the Ukrainian gas “problem” could have been solved simply by the US, the EU and Russia each stumping up $5 billion to bail out poor little Banderastan.
The effrontery of such a suggestion is mind boggling, for I am sure Prodi is well aware of the fact that Russia has been subsidizing the Ukraine for the past 20 years or so and that the Ukrainians have been persistently stealing gas destined for elsewhere and refusing to pay for its own deliveries of gas from Russia.
Prodi asks why Russia should not help bail out the Ukraine.
Is that a serious question off him?
Sheverdnadze answers him by saying in as many words: Because the Yukies are thieving bastards.
Prodi also ridicules the suggestion that the Ukraine could steal gas in transit across Banderastan, saying that there are limitations to undertaking such an action.
Really? The Germans did not think so when they stated during a previous so-called gas crisis that the Yukies were siphoning off Western Europe bound gas.
Of course, the Western narrative is that there have been previous shortages off gas in Western Europe because of Russia shutting it off, thereby using its gas as a political lever.
And the right to an energy supply, according to Kerry, is a human right, don’t forget.
That figures!
Inhuman Orcs deny humans their right to use gas.
Okay, have it your way. The clever Ukrainians once again tricking the thick, slow-witted Russians. We’ll see. I say the west will pay for Ukraine’s gas, to the penny. If you feel strongly enough about your position, you won’t mind a little wager. Loser has to post a clip on YouTube of himself singing “I’m Yours” By Jason Mraz. Is it a bargain?
Here’s the clip of the original so you can start practicing. You don’t have to wear a bathing suit; just singing it is enough. You can accompany yourself on the guitar, if you play.
Generally, I like Paul Craig Roberts’ work but I think he’s inclined to sing looney tunes lately when it comes to Russia. For example, he advocated Putin supply ISIS/IS/ISIL with the weapons necessary to shoot down US planes in Iraq and Syria so I’d be inclined to take most of his stuff with a pinch of salt.
I agree that Russia should not supply ISIS weapons since ISIS is an ideological enemy of Russia too.
But I feel that Roberts is correct here. The fundamental problem is that Russia sends gas to Ukraine without getting the money first. Again. Russia has not been paid before. Why would it be paid in the future?
The IMF can give any “guarantee” to Russia but they can just as easily decline to pay as Kiev has done before. Russia cannot force IMF to pay them anything.
Russia can try to sue Ukraine/IMF but the verdict will be made in a Western court and Russia will lose. The IMF could use the “sanctions” as one excuse not to pay.
Russia had a chance to force the West and Ukraine to make a far better deal for Russia because Ukraine is dependent on Russia’s gas and so is big part of Europe. I feel that this is another big concession by Russia in a situation where Russia was holding better cards than the enemy.
EU lodges WTO complaint against Russia over increasing import tariffs
“The European Union has filed a complaint against Russia with the World Trade Organization (WTO) contesting Russia’s heavy import duties on paper products, refrigerators, freezers, and palm oil.”
What part of Europe produces tropical rainforests? At least we know who is really responsible for deforestation, indigenous rights abuses, and child labor. Europeans like to blather on and blame others when they know they should be the ones taking the blame.
The EU is part of the resale racket. People assume that 3rd world resource exporters see the money from their exports. No, it is the parasitical colonial (they are not actually ex-colonial since they are still at it) countries in the 1st world that are raking in most of the cash as middle men.
These are relatively trivial issues that will be good practice for Russia, because it will have to be twice as smart and know the law twice as well as the EU, since the WTO appellate body is yet another western-dominated organization. And Russia might have a chance, as I see the appellate court includes members from the BRICS, although the term of the member from South Africa would have expired last year and I don’t know who replaced him.
Surprisingly, Europe appears to be acting quite responsibly on the issue of production of palm oil, although it does not of course produce it itself. But a new law which came into effect in 2013 requires that the types of oils used in food products must be stated on the label, so that palm oil can no longer go under the radar as part of the generic label “vegetable oil”. Additionally, there is a drive to use only Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO), with The Netherlands committing to 100% use; doubtless there will be pressure on the rest of Europe to follow. This is the kind of initiative that should be supported, as over 50% of products on supermarket shelves contain palm oil.
It probably does not contribute significantly to deforestation, either, unless it is to make room for more oil palm trees, because the production process does not kill the tree, extracting the oil from kernels which are its fruit and which it presumably produces on a seasonal basis. There might be grounds for complaint on child labour and abuse of the indigenous population, but fair labour practices are supposed to be part of the “Certified Sustainable” label the same as the “Fair Trade” label.
I think the issue is that cutting down and burning trees to make way for more oil palm trees is endangering the habitat of orang utang populations in Borneo and Sumatra and creating air pollution on a massive scale that reaches as far as Singapore. Also tropical soils are not fertile for very long as heavy rains leach minerals from them so after a few years they have to rest and be re-fertilised, usually with ash from dead trees burnt on new plantation land. (Java is an exception because the soils there are replenished with minerals from active volcanoes.)
You could well be right. That’s interesting, about tropical soils – we are kind of led to imagine they are incredibly rich and that lush growth is a natural offshoot of that. Perhaps the species that flourish so exuberantly do not require much nourishment and are able to draw much of their sustainment from water alone.
I’ve been told that tropical forests have never had much agriculture apart from the slash-n-burn kind where people clear out forest by hacking down trees and burning them, using the ash as fertiliser for a few crops, living in the area for a couple of years, and then moving on and repeating the process in another area when the soil is exhausted. This partly explains why among other things the tropical forest region of Brazil is still mostly undeveloped and where the major large-scale agricultural activity tends to be cattle ranching producing low quality meat for hamburgers in fast food restaurants.
The lushness is the trees growing tall in a competition among tree species to catch and trap light and water so not much of both actually reaches the forest floor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest
Certainly some tropical regions have been able to sustain rice agriculture and big populations but they have to be like Java in Indonesia or south India (both volcanic in origin) or areas in Asia like northern India, Indochina or southern China where major rivers like the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, Mekong or the Yangtze bring minerals down from the Himalayas.
What I learned from the Ukraine debacle: neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism are the ideology of the 1 % and that ideology is basically fascism.
Isn’t that really what we’ve been circling around saying out loud all this time?
There’s more to it than that, but if you had to say it in 50 words or less, it wouldn’t be half bad. I remember arguing with a dyed-in-the-wool Republican once about the textbook similarities between conservatism and fascism, especially with respect to their worship of authority, and getting nowhere although I felt sure of my position. Perhaps he is now in the 1%.
It is frankly astonishing, the difference between what “liberal” means in Europe and what it means here. I consider myself a liberal, although the Liberal party in Canada is a shambles now and there appears to be nobody in it worth voting for, while conservatives would just drop the border and adopt the U.S. dollar if they could.
Right Sector are throwing female politicians they don’t like into rubbish bins – like this one in Dnipropetrovsk.
Hard to wish for salvation for a people who would do that, isn’t it? The west must be so proud of the eager young democracy it is birthing. America stands with you!!! John McCain says so. And what is democracy, after all, but the direct expression of the people’s will? Can’t help noticing there are a hell of a lot of working-age males hanging about in broad daylight who apparently have no job other than throwing women into dumpsters. What’s up next, Geroyim? Their children?
I do believe one can detect faint murmurs of dissent in the “Free World” that basks so contentedly under the protection of US hegemony:
The West is silent as Libya falls into the abyss
It is worth looking again at film of David Cameron grandstanding as liberator in Benghazi in September 2011 as he applauds the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and tells the crowd that “your city was an example to the world as you threw off a dictator and chose freedom”.
Mr Cameron has not been back to Benghazi, nor is he likely to do so as warring militias reduce Libya to primal anarchy in which nobody is safe. The majority of Libyans are demonstrably worse off today than they were under Gaddafi, notwithstanding his personality cult and authoritarian rule. The slaughter is getting worse by the month and is engulfing the entire country.
The majority of Libyans are demonstrably worse off today than they were under Gaddafi
Well, that’s an understatement if I’ve read one recently. Libya was the most advanced country in Africa by many standards. Today is spiralling down the path that leads to Somalia.
A commenter named PETELOUD reminded people of the following grim realities under Gaddafi’s brand of socialism in Libya:
Libya, under Gaddafi
• There were no electricity bills in Libya; electricity was free … for all its citizens.
• There was no interest on loans, banks in Libya were state-owned and loans given to all its citizens at 0% interest by law.
• If a Libyan was unable to find employment after graduation, the state paid the average salary of the profession as if he or she was employed until employment is found.
• Should Libyans want to take up a farming career, they received farm land, a house, equipment, seed and livestock to kick start their farms – all for free.
• Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project, known as the Great Man-Made River project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country.
• A home is considered a human right in Libya. (In Qaddafi’s Green Book it stated: “The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others.”)
• All newlyweds in Libya received 60,000 Dinar (US$ 50,000 ) from the government to buy their first apartment so to help start a family.
• A portion of Libyan oil sales was credited directly to the bank accounts of all Libyan citizens.
• A mother who gives birth to a child received US $5,000.
• When a Libyan bought a car, the government subsidized 50% of the price.
• The price of petrol in Libya was $commentText.14 per liter.
• For $ 0.15, a Libyan local could purchase 40 loaves of bread.
• Education and medical treatments were free in Libya. Libya could boast one of the finest health care systems in the Arab and African World. All people had access to doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicines, completely free of charge.
• If Libyans could not find the education or medical facilities they needed in Libya, the government funded them to go abroad for it – not only free but they got US $2,300/month accommodation and car allowance.
• 25% of Libyans had a university degree. Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were literate. Today the figure is 87%.
• Libya had no external debt and its reserves amounted to $150 billion – though much of that was frozen globally.
What a hellhole! No wonder the good-hearted Americans had no choice but to overthrow such a monster.
P.S. not to mention something like $50 billion of gold held by Libyan banks, which somehow magically disappeared after Gaddafi’s overthrow.
Shorter: Clinton on Qaddafi: We came, we saw, he died – YouTube http://bit.ly/1udkmHh
The Pottery Barn Rule obviously does not apply in cases of regime change, and western leaders never have to pay for what they break. It is achingly sad for the people of Libya, who once had the best and most secure lifestyle in the region. But their example stands as a stark warning that this is what the west intends for Syria as well, perpetrated by the same actors.
Again!
Damned Russians are asking for it!!!!!
RAF jets intercept Russian bomber
RAF Typhoons intercepted a Russian Bear bomber as it approached UK airspace earlier, the second flypast by aircraft from Vladimir Putin’s air force in three days, the Ministry of Defence said.
Vladimir Putin’s air force no less!
The Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-95 aircraft, flying in international airspace, was intercepted by the fighters from RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland…
The impertinent blighters, flying in international airspace!
Tally ho, chaps!
Good thing David Cameron’s Air Force was there to intercept them, and it was not necessary to call on Barrack Obama’s Air Force.
Meanwhile, regional elections in DPR and LPR are occurring NOW, even as we speak.
According to this piece , turnout in Luhansk is so high… (how high is it?) …is so high that the polling stations have decided to stay open until 22:00 tonight!
At some stations, the lines to vote are said to be around the block.
There are international observers, of course, but only from “pariah” countries like Russia.
Oooh, I lied. One of the civilized countries, France, also sent elections observers.
Viva La France!
Oooh, I lied again, good thing I did a second check. According to this piece , quite a few “normal, civilized” nations have sent observers. To wit: Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Czech Republic and (OMG) even the good old USA!
Later, history might record that “They came to mock, but left with cheers.”
Or not.
I imagine they came to mock – indirectly. If they see no evidence of falsification of the vote, they will pretend to have seen massive falsification of the vote and a host of other irregularities, the famous “democracy at gunpoint” and anyone seen with a rifle (in what remains a war zone despite the “shaky ceasefire”) will be presumed to be exhorting voters to cast ballots for a preferred candidate or be shot. The west is full of shit on Ukraine and it is a waste of time to even read anything they write on the subject because they are so obviously following a contrived and agreed-upon narrative designed to get Ukraine into the European orbit so as to deny it to Russia, and for no other reason.
More signs and portents that Russia is girding up to support Novorossiya as an unrecognized statelet:
Rogozin confirms that manufacturing products exported from LPR and DPR to Russia, will not be treated in the same way as Ukrainian exports. In other words, will not be subject to “import substitution” (импортозамещению).
Recall that earlier, Russia took protective measures against Ukrainian imported products destined for Russian defense industry. Now is being clarified, that DPR and LPR products are not subject to the same restrictions. This is further evidence that DPR and LPR are being groomed to be new unrecognized states.
[yalensis: although I am personally starting to doubt that the intent is to merge them (LPR-DPR) into one unit = Novorossiya. Every attempt to merge Donetsk and Luhansk has so far failed, due to political infighting and macho men not getting along. Hence, in the end we might see not one, but two, semi-independent statelets carved out of Donbass. Stay tuned….]
Good, Russia should help create facts on the ground. NATO recognition is not worth any paper it might be written on. And I hope that NATO keeps on with this sanctions tantrum. It is the best thing to have happened to the Russian economy since the collapse of the ruble back in 1998 which destroyed the monetarist bubble suffocating Russia and paved the way for its economy revival.
Good, Russia should help create facts on the ground. NATO recognition is not worth any paper it might be written on.
Exactly. Words are defined out of shape. Fact on the ground remain facts. The naive Serbs (and I mean that affectionately) fell for that one hook, line and sinker.
On the cultural front:
The Chief Editor of Dozhd TV channel (that’s the Russian channel which promotes the neo-liberal agenda of Alexei Navalny, Evgenia Albats, and other similar types) did NOT receive a warm reception in Kiev.
Mikhail Zygar, chief editor of Dozhd appeared on a talk show in Kiev , hosted by Evgeny Kiselev.
Zygar was booed by the studio audience for being insufficiently svidomite. He had been asked for his opinion on Crimea and gave an answer that the Ukry didn’t like too much. He said he shared the same point of view with Navalny and Khodorkovsky, namely that Crimea was de facto part of Russia now, the people there mostly support it, and there is little that anybody can do about it.
Zygar complained that Ukrainian TV was just as bad as Russian TV, in that only one point of view was allowed.
Another guest on the talk show accused him (Zygar) of being almost as bad as Porechenkov, and of supporting Russian “occupation” of Crimea.
After audience booed Zygar, there was a commercial break.
When the show came back from commercial, Zygar was gone: he had bailed.
Another gem of svidomite “thought”, the people of Crimea are occupants of their own land. Just to be clear, there is no way 18,000 troops could control 2.4 million people so the “polite people” are clearly not the occupants.
Just to add, I am sick and tired of the preschool propaganda coming out the western media as it parrots the Kiev BS. Please, you fucking liars, give a single example of a Russian soldier standing on some street corner in Crimea enforcing the occupation. I dare you. This is like the those alleged Russian troops in the Donbas. Nobody can see them, they must have Romulan cloaking technology.
In many ways, the takeover of Ukraine reminds me of the original film, “Planet of the Apes”. Not that I am drawing a direct comparison between Ukrainians and apes, I don’t mean that, but I’m referring to the crowd behaviour and how it seems always to be just a flashpoint away from a violent mob. And all that is required to upset the crowdmood is that you say something that goes against its views. It is safer to just mouth “Geroyim Slava” along with the others and not stand out.