Does this story characterize some special abilities of IBM employees or tell us something new about the current trend in the cell phone sizes?
I don't know. I have been an IBM employee for quite a few years, but I don't remember any special training regarding safe storage of communication equipment in my digestive tract.
Oh, and the current phone I use is Galaxy Tab 7.7, and I doubt that even with IBM discipline...
So I am confused.
Anyone who considers the British Independent to be a reliable source should have his head examined. But the story is repeated by several other sources. Of course, an ex-chief economic adviser of Putin can't be considered a cast iron witness, but still:
After annexing Crimea and with troops massed on the border of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin will not stop trying to expand Russia until he has “conquered” Belarus, the Baltic states and Finland, one of his closest former advisers has said.Sounds bleak for Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
According to Andrej Illarionov, the President’s chief economic adviser from 2000 to 2005, Mr Putin seeks to create “historical justice” with a return to the days of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and the Soviet Union under Stalin.
Speaking to the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Mr Illarionov warned that Russia will argue that the granting of independence to Finland in 1917 was an act of “treason against national interests”.
Is not of any interest here, and who is Vanessa P., by the way? Better watch this (click to embiggen first):
Peter Beinart has written for The Atlantic a curios article, the real purpose of which is still unclear to me. The article is titled Vladimir Putin, Russian Neocon, which may give you a hint about the contents and subtitled: "How Russia's president resembles the American hawks who hate him most". The lede quite amply distills the contents.
This conclusion is supported by three different points of comparison:
1. Putin is obsessed with the threat of appeasement
Appeasement is, I strongly suspect, the main thread of the article, and we shall return to it at the end. However, trying to prove the symmetry of Russian (or Putin's) rejection of appeasement and the Western "hawks" rejection of same, prof Beinart is driven by linguistic similarities, disregarding the history of appeasement in Europe and United States. The appeasement during pre-WW II years, that cost many million lives in the end, the appeasement that allowed Soviet Union, China and lesser tyrants bloody suppression of dissent during the long post-WW II years, the appeasement that allows Syria and Iran butcher the Syrian population, that permits the travesty of the dictators' club pompously called United Nation - is it the same kind of appeasement that is being rejected by Putin?
Now pull the other one, prof Beinart.
As for the envy that, according to the author, some hawks feel toward Putin: I wouldn't want to argue against its existence. But if Americans today feel some envy looking at a decisive leader who doesn't dither, prevaricate and renege on promises and commitments - it must be difficult to judge them harshly.
2. Putin is principled—so long as those principles enhance national power
Beg pardon? This "principled" ex-KGB man will do what it takes to reach his goals and step on anyone who stands in his way. For many years his chief art (and occupation) was to isolate his most effective and outspoken rivals - from billionaire oligarchs to unruly reporters - and getting rid of them in a rich variety of methods all over the world. Now he turned his attention to expansion of Mother Russia under all kinds of unashamedly rude pretexts, not very different from the pre-WW II German acts of expansion. And prof Beinart calls this "principled"? Oh boy...
If this is not a cheap exercise in rhetoric, show me one, please.
3. Putin doesn’t understand economic power
Possibly, and I am not sure that Peter Beinart (or I for that matter) do fully understand the subject, both of us not being schooled in economics, as far as I am able to detect. One thing I know, though: try nurturing your economic power without being able to flex your military muscle, and let's see where it will get you in this world (that isn't very much invested in appeasement these days, at least not outside US and western Europe).
Now a general notice about the hawks that prof Beinart decries in the article. While the article itself operates mostly in some strange linguistic universe and is hardly supported by facts*, I would like to know one single thing about these menacing and frightening American hawks: how many square meters (OK, talk to me in square feet if you must) of foreign territory did they add to the territory of USA lately (or earlier, for that matter)?
On the other side of that imaginary equation: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, Russian troops massing on the eastern borders of Ukraine with plans not very clear at the moment, but menacing nevertheless. Looks like USA hawks are rather ineffective, all things considered.
And nothing else needs to be argued, really. Still, being as much Jewish as prof Beinart, I would like to add a few bits and pieces to complete the picture. Let's start with comparison of mutual likes and dislikes of Russians and Americans.
Only a Quarter of Americans See Russia as an Enemy:
Since last November, the percentage viewing Russia as an adversary has risen eight points (from 18%) while the share saying it is a serious problem has increased seven points (from 36%). The number of Americans who do not think of Russia as much of a problem has fallen by almost half – from 40% then to 22% today.While the trend, shown in the picture below, is that more Americans are becoming concerned about Russia, it's still easy to see that the current level of concern is nothing compared to the situation 30 years ago:
By absolute frequency of invocation in the Internet environment, invectives for Americans ("Amerikos", "Pindos", "Yankees" - 1.1 million mentions) took the second place, behind the Ukrainians ("Khohol" - 1.2 million mentions) and ahead of the Jews ("Kikes"/"Zhidy" - 1.0 million mentions).Wow, ahead of "kikes" - that's not an easy feat in Russia, I can assure you.
None of this is to suggest that American and Russian actions are morally equivalent. For all its errors and crimes, American foreign policy is restrained by our democratic political system in a way Russia’s is not.But the last sentence, that casual afterthought kind of turns the whole on its head:
Maybe “metrosexuality” and “mom jeans” aren’t so bad after all.It refers (sympathetically) to appeasement and to the appeasing ways of the current POTUS and his administration.
Ho ho ho. As far as mysterious headlines are concerned, this one surely must be at the top, ain't it? But everything will be illuminated shortly. Starting with this:
"I think that after all the disasters that hit Russia in the twentieth century, beginning with World War I and ending with the "Perestroika", the fact that Russia has been preserved and developed, proves that our people have one extra chromosome."The Hon. Minister of Culture isn't aware that an extra chromosome is a symptom of one of several serious disorders, one of which is Down Syndrome.
"There is no evidence that Tchaikovsky was a homosexual", Vladimir Medinsky told Interfax news agency, as he spoke about the biopic by acclaimed screenwriter Yuri Arabov.Beg your pardon? Evidence?
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact "deserves a monument."
The U.S.S.R. never occupied the Baltic states, it just "incorporated" them.
An infamous picture of a Nazi-Soviet military parade in Poland in 1939 was "photoshopped."
Anti-Semitism in Tsarist Russia has been "greatly exaggerated."More on this natural treasure, including some details about his education and scientific "career" in this article. One quote from its last paragraph:
Perhaps the simplest explanation [re Medinsky and the job he got] is given by Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Moscow-based Panorama think tank. The Kremlin, he suggests, simply couldn't find anybody else. "It's not the kind of position that people fight for. It's not easy to find a person for this post," Pribylovsky says. "Perhaps there was a competition between fools and they simply chose the most patriotic one."In any case, there are all the good reasons to suspect that, unlike most of the Russian people, prof Medinsky got more than the normal share of chromosomes.
Well, not directly, a self-respecting scholar never states anything in a simple straightforward way, but here it is:
The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) concluded their 192nd meeting on Thursday with the ruling that women are un-Islamic and that their mere existence contradicted Sharia and the will of Allah. As the meeting concluded CII Chairman Maulana Muhammad Khan Shirani noted that women by existing defied the laws of nature, and to protect Islam and the Sharia women should be forced to stop existing as soon as possible.Which, of course, leaves only one solution, unless one doesn't want to end up like this:
And you thought that our life doesn't have a place for individual expression of a genius. Here you are:
Men in North Korea are now required to get the same haircut as their leader Kim Jong-un, it is reported.How about that:
The state-sanctioned guidelines were introduced in the capital Pyongyang about two weeks ago, media reports say. They are now being rolled out across the country - although some people have reservations about getting the look.
Regarding this picture (click on it to read the text):
Of course, most of us are joking about Vladimir Vladimirovich and his carefully nurtured and hitherto carefully concealed plans for restoration of the great empire. The jokes could come in different form and size, like that one, already published:
Moscow’s annexation of Crimea was condemned worldwide, but some people in Alaska apparently are yearning for the days when they, too, were part of Mother Russia.This petition is, almost surely, a joke (more about jokes later). Another call for joining the growing empire came from a totally unexpected direction: so called Palestinian Information (yeah, sure...) Center - a Hamas mouthpiece - published an article in Russian (I couldn't find an English version, so to save some time I have used a close enough report from Voice of Russia):
A petition on the White House website created by “S.V.” of Anchorage is calling on Alaskans and others to "vote" for Alaska to secede from the U.S. and become a part of Russia.
According to online reports, the treaty on Crimea being accepted into Russia has prompted the setting up of an initiative group that will draw up a proposal for the Palestinian enclave in Israel to hold a referendum on joining the Russian Federation, too. This is reported by the Russian-language version of the Palestinian Information Center.Etc. Of course, you may say, this is a joke too. Indeed, as one commenter succinctly expressed his attitude to the story elsewhere:
The initiative group comprises Russian nationals making their home in Gaza. These are mostly Russian women, totaling some 50,000, who have married Palestinian men but have retained their Russian passports, the report says.
The report quotes a group member as saying that "Moscow has said it will defend Russians anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, we live in a place where Israel has threatened our lives and those of our children for years on end. But if the Gaza Strip joined Russia, we would also have a well-protected border, up-to-date weapons, perhaps, even nuclear weapons [sic]. This would make Israel and Egypt speak with Palestinians differently, the activists feel.
They are absolutely unperturbed by the fact that Russia is far away from Gaza. They point out that Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands are also far away from the UK. The activists have no doubt about the outcome of this kind of referendum, the Information Centre points out.
That would be interesting. Although I don't see Putin tolerating this "Allah" fellow for very long.Yes, jokes are cool and hopefully will last us for years to come. However, let's not forget that there's a grain of truth in every joke. I bet that patricians in old Rome used to joke about the small and disorganized barbarian gangs. Just as well-to-do XX century Germans used to joke about that small man with a funny mustache. Etc. Etc. Etc.
I would be the first to agree that by now being clever on account of the current WH and the current administration in general has become somewhat of a cheap kind of entertainment. I mean, after you have taken one shot at the fish in that barrel, how many more shots will keep you interested?
Still, Saudi prince with his flowery turn of phrase, has managed to do it in a fresh way:
We’ve seen several red lines put forward by the president, which went along and became pinkish as time grew, and eventually ended up completely white,” said Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former intelligence chief of Saudi Arabia.I would add that some of them lines have gotten yellowish a bit, what with the relentless Middle Eastern sun. But it would be just some icing on the cake and not really necessary.
And for a good reason, too, and I don't mean "drugs, alcohol and orgies". The other thing, though: the location - the archeological dig at Sacsayhuaman. And this:
Another report by volunteers working at the site stated that the Israeli youth had stolen artifacts found at the dig site and cans of spray-paint were discovered in their possession. The artifacts were reportedly discovered by the youth while they constructed illegal, makeshift shelters for the party...I am not saying "lock them up and throw away the keys". But a year (or two) of doing the menial work on that same site, helping out the archeologists could go a long way to "clear their mind"*.
Two Jews meeting on the Odessa street.
- Say, Chaim, did they have a referendum in Crimea?
- Yes.
- And what are the results?
- 97% voted to join Russia.
- And why would these 97% want to do this?
- Because they were oppressed by the other 3%.
- No, you don't say!
- You better believe it, Moishe, because Russians over there in Russia also say they suffered a lot from these 2% of Jews...
- You know, Meyer, I try not to speak Russian in the street anymore.
- Why is that, Reuven, are you afraid that these Ukrainian patriots will clean your clock?
- Nope, I am afraid that the Russians will come over to help me out.
And on a related subject. An Ukrainian naval base in Crimea is surrounded by Russian soldiers. The Russian officer is calling over to the Ukrainian commander.
- Surrender!
- Nah...
- Then start shooting!
- Nah...
- Oh well, at least let us in to warm up, it is cold like Siberia out here. Let us sleep in your barracks, be a man!
- Er... dunno... Well, OK, but for 90 bucks per head!
- Are you mad, why it is so expensive?
- Well, for sure you understand that Crimea is a resort area...
To better understand the references to Odessa, here is a map:
I think that if this is true, NSA jobs are much more hazardous for its employees' mental health than government salaries allow. That will be all, folks.
P.S. No, it is not all, it appears. Jimmuh has more insights to share (thanks to Peter The Hungarian):
But to force the Arab people to say that all the Arab people that they have in Israel have to be Jews, I think that’s going too far.Truly a great man. Or a monument to a great man that just didn't materialize. Cause of them NSA mind-bending rays. Or whatever.
Every week on Monday morning , the Watcher’s Council and our
invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum, short takes on a major
issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week’s question:What Is The Meaning Of ‘Spirituality’ To You?
Presiding over a stuttering economy and (slowly but surely) aging and dying population, with smoldering under the ashes societal issues that looked to be threatening his throne, Vladimir Vladimirovich has found a trump card that raised his popularity to unimaginable height. Western media went slack-jawed at the wondrous show of support. That card was, of course, his swift Anschluss-style annexation of Crimea. A typical sentence from a USA press:
Russian President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Ukraine's breakaway republic of Crimea has stunned the international community, but support for his actions in Russia suggest there is certain logic to what he is doing that no amount of sanctions or threats of isolation will overturn: bolstering popularity back home.
The mood in Moscow on Tuesday was supportive of the annexation, with Russian flags hanging out of windows and strangers congratulating each other on what they referred to as a "holiday."At the moment this wave seems to be overwhelming and drowning any dissenting voices. Journalists that dare voice a contrary opinion on the latest "liberation" move are ostracized, denigrated and even threatened physically in some cases. The ultra-nationalistic movements, hitherto quietly restrained, their activities curbed, are ruling the streets. Protesters are being dealt with swiftly and forcefully.
New study ranks Obama as 5th best President in history. Hard to disagree... #AggieJoke pic.twitter.com/9oDdPqWgH5
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) March 20, 2014
Sorry, guys and gals... This video contains English subtitles, but won't actually tell an awful lot to someone who didn't spend a fair portion of 1970s in the good ol'd USSR.
Dear Snoopy... This one is for you. Who said time machine was pure fiction???
Is of a slight interest to this here blog, not to mention the name being unfamiliar to this ignorant blogger. However, some other birds are, and you get an opportunity to watch one and to relax, just by clicking on the picture to enlarge it:
Strangely (or rather not), the question doesn't come from me, but from Tom Lister, the author of that CNN article. The full text of the sentence where the question is asked:
Is Russian President Vladimir Putin an opportunist, grabbing at chances to poke the West in the eye, or a clever strategist with the longer-term goal of restoring a greater Russia?I am stumped trying to understand Mr Lister. Really.
with the situation in Ukraine. The reason of the agitation: so far no possible cause to blame Israel for this was found.
Blogging will be light for the next two weeks. Practically nil. But keep watching Vladimir Vladimirovich and other shady characters, please!
This article was written by Roman Romanenko, a Russian journalist for Moscow's Echo*. Follows a Google translation, with a slight nudge or two from me.
Our address to V.V. Putin.
Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,
We've learned that you want to send troops to the Crimea, to protect the rights of Russian-speaking population.
In this regard, we have a big request - to send troops to the Vologda. We're almost all Russian-speaking here and our very rights are infringed. Our sick can not get the drugs and treatment they need, the level of our education falls every year, kindergartens and children's enrichment sections are closing, agriculture is virtually destroyed. We all suffer.
And the usurpers, who seized power in fraudulent elections, do nothing for the subject population. They spend the money on themselves, on their PR, their offices, country houses, purchase of apartments and air charters.
We'll be very grateful and guarantee that there will be no guerrilla war against the liberators. Yes, and international sanctions, for sure, will not follow.
We have learned that you are going to spend a lot of money to normalize life in the Crimea. It is a bit embarrassing, but we have to ask whether it is possible to spend the money on the normalization of life in the Vologda. Because we are in such a debt hole that there is no money for anything. And we really need bridges, roads, sports facilities, industrial parks, new jobs ...
With respect and hope for liberation, Russian-speaking residents of the Vologda region.
According to this. And I, for once, find myself in total agreement with the lady.
And in general, "you are not Hitler" could be a great conversation starter. Imagine using that on your friends:
Dear Ms ...
Please keep in mind that if you die a virgin, you will end up in the section of paradise allocated to Muslim martyrs.
I have read the CNN article Israel intercepts ship with weapons headed to Gaza before stumbling on BBC Watch post BBC employs smoke and mirrors in report on Iranian weapons smuggling ship. After reading the latter, I remembered the former and got back to check it out again in the light what the BBC Watch writer said.
Guess what: same difference. I would even dare say that the liberal (no pun intended) use of quotation marks by CNN somewhat overtakes that by BBC.
All is left to be grateful for is that they don't yet use quotation marks in word combinations like Israel Defense Forces, Israeli navy, Israeli Prime Minister. Just imagine:
I wanted to say that reading an article in Izvestia, I felt the smell of sulfur. But no, upon second thought. It was rather a curious mix of sulfur, burning fragrance candles (or whatever Inquisitors used at the time) and poorly cured leather of Soviet jackboots, NKVD issue.
OK, enough lyrical asides, here comes a quick and dirty translation of the first two paragraphs from that article, titled Anti-Russian articles by journalists will be considered a crime against the state.
State Duma member Yevgeny Fyodorov ("United Russia") is preparing a draft law on amendments to the Administrative and Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as well as amendments to the laws against terrorism and extremism. According to the author of the amendments, the purpose of the amendments is to establish administrative and criminal liability for media executives, "which allow publication of false anti-Russian information, provide information and support to extremist and separatist anti-Russian forces, including the coverage of events beyond the borders of Russia."Now, my dear reader, what do you smell?
The reason for the introduction of the bill is multiple publications in the Russian media, in which the authors, according to the MP, used incorrect historical analogies and interpretation of events in Russia and the Ukraine coup.
said the president.
Oh my, oh my... we do learn on the job, after all. So why is the third term in White House out of the question? When Putin gobbles up California, some excuses could be found, but Illinois... nah, the POTUS wouldn't stand for it.
I am pretty sure, that is.
I don't want to connect the dots, but the timing of these two failed attempts to lend a helping hand to Hamas is speaking for itself. You be the judge.
First of all, the IDF naval commandos from Shayetet 13 had a successful fishing trip in the Red Sea: an Iranian arms shipment headed for the Gaza Strip.
I don't know whether many of you remember the fiery police chief and his stated intention to arrest all of the Israeli population in that mystery of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the hapless Hamas operative and his wondrous death, caused simultaneously by suffocation, electrocution, two different ways of poisoning, tasering and unbridled wild sex. Not to mention the preliminary torture (self-torture?).
Dubai police claimed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah was behind a Monday bombing in the outskirts of Bahrain’s capital Manama that resulted in the deaths of three policemen, one of them an officer from the United Arab Emirates deployed to help bolster security in the tiny island kingdom. According to Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the culprit behind the attack had traveled to Lebanon several times over the past years and had been trained by Hezbollah operatives.So, it is obvious now to an untrained eye of a news reader that Mr Tamim didn't really intend to find the culprits in that old case, deliberately sowing misleading information and making ridiculous statements twice a day. While all the time doing solid police (and Mossad too) work, uncovering the mayhem caused by Hezbollah and similar.
A great slap on the face of the Mastermind of the Century. And kudos to Nick.
Because all you have heard and seen before is an optical illusion. So say Putin and Lavrov.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that none of Russia’s forces have moved into the Crimean Peninsula, drawing a stunned reaction from Kerry.Move along, ladies and gentlemen, nothing to see here. Case closed.
Lavrov reiterated Putin’s claims on Wednesday. Asked if Russia could order the troops in the Crimea region back to their bases, Lavrov told a reporter in Madrid: “If you mean the self-defense units created by the inhabitants of Crimea, we give them no orders, they take no orders from us,” according to Reuters.
Misrepresentation:
1. A misleading falsehood
2. A willful perversion of facts
A tough word that. Not the toughest, mind you, but early in the morning, before the caffeine started to spread through the old blood vessels, it is a challenge. So when I've stumbled on a Pravda piece titled The Misrepresentation of Sochi in the Western Media, I was kinda intrigued. The author, Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, is not a stranger to this blog. Being as he is a past master of the Pravda style misrepresentation, I've expected the article to provide some hands-on advice to beginners.
But no, the article is one long lament about the execrable coverage of the Sochi Olympic Games by American press. It starts with the sweeping:
Surprise, surprise, surprise. The US media almost without exception concentrated on toilets, light bulbs, stray dogs as much as, or more than, the sport, the celebration, the party and the spectacle which is Sochi, the XXII Winter Olympic Games. It comes as no surprise that the showing of the Opening Ceremony in the USA was a study in manipulation.So why should I raise that article from the dead almost a month after it was published? Because of another passage in it, pregnant with meaning and foreboding.
Russian security forces, like their American counterparts, work daily to help protect the lives of ordinary citizens and their right to go about their daily lives without being confronted by some demonic maniac yelling Allahu Akhbar and going to meet his virgins. The difference is that Russia does not invade foreign lands and conduct a foreign policy which walks hand-in-hand with terrorism.Yeah. It is March 4, 2014 right now, and some Russian soldiers are busy like little bees, providing brotherly assistance to the oppressed Russian citizens of Crimea as we speak. Talk about "misrepresentation " some more, folks. Please...
How childish...as if anyone in the USA these days believes a word their media tell them anyway, given that most people have access to the Net and to places where they can read the truth, like Pravda.Ru.Pravda means truth, after all, as we all know by now.
Before we have another display of butt-faced ignorance, pig-headed arrogance and unadulterated, jingoistic, xenophobic and chauvinistic bilge from Mr. Kerry and his NATO sidekicks, let us make one thing crystal clear...Etc. This is Pravda's answer to critics of Crimean invasion... oh well.
This headline of RIA - Russian Information Agency Novosti - is placed under the topic: Turbulence in Ukraine. Does it mean that Russians are still hesitating whether Crimea still belongs to Ukraine? Or are they just playing the farce out till the formal declaration of annexation I mean Crimean decision to join the brotherhood of autonomous, semi-autonomous and all these other kinds of virtual entities so familiar from Soviet times?
This schizophrenic indecision should continue for a few days, I guess. Meanwhile the pictures continue to come in, including ones from the Russian media:
