[Barely a Blog] As the sentient have presumably noticed, the United States is in crisis, the country’s problems are profound, intrinsic, without solution, and worsening. When a population reaches the point of despair, even desperation, when it sees a darkening future for itself and its children, people yearn for a strong man who will forcibly put things right. Yet it is unlikely that helicopters of Marines from Quantico will descend on the White House and announce the dictatorship of some general. Military officers are too well paid and comfortable to worry about the country. It is hard to imagine an American Mussolini. Trump is a caricature and no one else comes to mind. Yet "unrest" —less euphemistically, "chaos" on the order of Mr. Floyd’s massive riots, is possible. We have seen it. We can see it again.
Consider America today. By comparison with Japan, China, Korea, it is a barbarity, a dumpster, an asylum, an abattoir, an astonishment. San Francisco loses conventions because of needles and excrement on the sidewalks. Almost weekly we see multiple shootings in stores, high schools and, now, grade schools. Murders of whites by blacks run at thirty a month, the news being suppressed. In cities across the country crime is out of control, the tax bases moving out, bail abolished so criminals are freed in hours. Stores leave to escape undiscouraged shoplifting and robbery. Seven hundred homicides a year in Chicago, 300 in Baltimore, and at least twice as many shot but survive, similar numbers in a dozen cities. For practical purposes, law does not exists in these ungovernable enclaves. Sexual curiosities, once called perversions, flourish with American embassies hoisting flags in support of transsexualism. Mobs topple historical statues. Many tens of thousands live on sidewalks and a hundred thousand a year die of opioid overdoses. The country drops math requirements and English grammar in schools, AP courses, and SATs as racist. The economy declines, jobs have left for other climes, medical care is beyond most people’s means, government is corrupt and incompetent, and wars are unending. There is actual hatred between racial, political, and regional groups. Ominously, gun sales are up.
How is this going to end well? How did we get here?
America has never been a nation in the correct sense of the word, a people sharing values, language, a culture. Rather it has been, and is, a collection of peoples having little and common and, often disliking each other. West Virginia has nothing in common with Massachusetts which has nothing in common with the Deep South which has nothing in common with coastal California which has nothing in common with Cavalier Virginia which has nothing in common with Latinos who have nothing in common with blacks.
Until perhaps the early Sixties, the regions got along with each other reasonably well because there was little communication between them. Roads were poor, the internet was not even on the horizon. Radio stations and newspapers were local, reflecting the surrounding culture and taste. The central government was remote and had little influence locally. Each region lived as it wished.
Providing a degree of commonalty was that the country was overwhelmingly white, European, Anglophone and, at least nominally, Christian. It was socially conservative, largely consisting of small towns.
The resulting culture was unsophisticated but civilized. In the suburbs of Washington (I was there) you really could leave your bike anywhere and it would be there when you came back. In summer children really could play great sprawling multiblock games of hide-and-seek after dark and no one worried. In high school in rural Virginia (I was there too) the boys had guns for hunting deer and shooting varmints in the bean fields and you could leave your .410 in the back seat of your jalopy in the school’s parking lot. Nobody thought of shooting anyone. It wasn’t in the culture. If a thing isn’t in the culture, it doesn’t happen. You don’t need policemen. The boys didn’t use bad language around the girls or vice versal and nobody even thought of disrespect to teachers. There were class clowns (I may know somewhat of this), but no real misbehavior. It wasn’t in white, technically Christian, semi-rural culture.
Then many things happened. In no particular order:
[FoxNews] Crime happens year-round, but experts say there is no other season that correlates to the steady increase in crime more than the hot summer months.
A 2014 U.S. Department of Justice report found significant seasonal pattern trends over nearly two decades that experts say lead to more people becoming violent crime victims during June, July and August.
The DOJ found sexual assaults, intimate partner violence and other violent crimes typically happened at higher frequencies than during other seasons.
#2
Johnson and the great society gave us food stamps and air conditioning. That had the greatest impact on riots in the cities. Then the poor were forced out by opportunists to purchase cheap housing in the cities. Purchase a row house for $20,000 in Alexandria and turn around a few years later sell it for 200-600 thousand. Now with city decay. Homeless get these houses as squatters for free. Wealthy leave being forced out by street violence. Family left after 8 shots into their home overnight with two bullets in the bed they were sleeping in. Benning heights area near PG line in DC. Both had good jobs in Maryland but they moved on out. Black youth told me they were afraid to go home in PG county by being shot. Being poor in these cities means if someone has something you are supposed to share it(skin color or race is meaningless). Same idea liberals have attacking wealthy(those they think are wealthy).
We can't see those documents because both the Russian MoD and our betters on this side of the pond have seen fit to block it. Fuckers.
Yandex has the files for download, but you gotta register.
[REGNUM] A new historical section dedicated to the liberation of the cities of Soviet Ukraine from the Nazi invaders has opened on the website of the Russian Ministry of Defense: “Those who have stepped into immortality: the heroic Nikolaevsky landing”. This was reported on June 3 by the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry.
Among the materials of the multimedia section are registration cards of military graves and memorials of the city of Nikolaev; premium materials of Soviet soldiers buried in them; combat logs of units and formations of the Red Army, operational maps, as well as documentary evidence of the lives of residents who found themselves under Nazi occupation. Particular attention is paid to the actions of the heroic and legendary Nikolaev landing.
“During the liberation of Nikolaev, the Soviet command carried out a unique operation - a detachment of paratroopers of senior lieutenant Konstantin Olshansky landed behind enemy lines, which was able to cut the enemy’s communications and, holding back a tenfold superior enemy for several days, was able to divert fascist forces from the front.”
The landing force included 55 volunteers from the 384th Separate Marine Battalion, ten sappers, two signalmen and a guide from among local fishermen. The website of the Ministry of Defense published a detailed report on the actions of the paratroopers, who were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for their feat, "most of them posthumously . "
A significant part of the materials published for the first time testifies to the crimes of the Nazis, who, before their flight, tried to hide the traces of their own atrocities.
As REGNUM reported , the Russian Defense Ministry published a new series of archival materials about the crimes of Ukrainian Nazis during the Great Patriotic War.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[ColonelCassad] 1. Most of the city is under the control of Russian troops.
A significant part of Severodonetsk was liberated from the Ukrainian invaders without much resistance. The enemy, having suffered losses on the outskirts of Severodonetsk, quickly began to retreat to the bridges to Lisichansk and to the industrial zone of the Azot plant.
2. A full-fledged supply of the remnants of the Severodonetsk garrison has long been difficult, and the Azot plant itself is not as convenient for defense as Azovstal. It is closer to the plant named after Ilyich, where the remnants of the 36th Marine Brigade capitulated. Nevertheless, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are showing in every possible way that they intend to hold on to the Azot plant for some time in order to slow down the preparation of the Russian Armed Forces for an attack on Lisichansk.
3. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was held hostage by its own propaganda, which for more than a month was broadcasting about the impregnable fortress of Severodonetsk, while after the start of the assault on the city, most of the “impregnable fortress” was handed over in a few days.
4. In order to somehow explain the discrepancy between the previous statements and reality, a propaganda smoke screen is being staged about the "cunning plan," "trap" and "counterattacks" in Severodonetsk. In fact, they are trying to pass off local street battles in city blocks near the industrial zone and artillery shelling of the city from Lisichansk as a "cunning strategy."
There can be no rapid counterattacks in the conditions of modern urban combat, but at least some activity must be shown so that the public is less likely to wonder why most of the city has been surrendered.
5. The Gauleiter of the occupied territories of the LPR announced the loss of more than 80 percent of the city, which was followed by shouts from the Zelensky gang that in fact things are much better. Again, reports from the field did not coincide with propaganda reality.
6. Regarding the prospects for fighting in Severodonetsk, it seems that now they will gradually put pressure on the Azot industrial zone, waiting for the troops to break through the enemy defenses in the Ustinovka and Privolye region, so that they can reach the outskirts of Lisichansk and cover it from three sides.
7. Of key importance for the battles for Lisichansk will be the ongoing battles in the area of the Artemovsk-Lysichansk highway, where the enemy has thrown part of the reserves accumulated in the Artemovsk area.
Also important will be the potential development of the offensive of the RF Armed Forces in the direction of Seversk. Now these operations require the solution of tactical tasks related to the crossing of the Seversky Donets (the same problem also occurs during the attack on Slavyansk)
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/51889 - zinc
And the good news came from Kamyshakha in the evening.
There is confirmation from the field. The village is under our control.
Only the northernmost outskirts of Kamyshevakhi, which are under heavy artillery fire from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and heavily destroyed, have not been cleared. The enemy retreated from Kamyshevakhi.
The enemy grouping in Zolote is now covered from three sides.
Ahead are the battles for Vrubovka.
Well, it can also be noted that the enemy rolled back to the southern bank of the Seversky Donets from Krasny Liman.
Svyatogorsk has not yet been taken - the battles are going on the outskirts.
#1
Ah, the New York Times shifts its story line to catch up to the shift that occurred at least a month ago in Europe. Today the British Ministry of Defence and their faithful scribes at the New York Times admit what their German, Austrian and French counterparts have been saying: "Russia is achieving tactical success in the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east and is likely to take full control of Luhansk Province in the next two weeks, according to the British Defense Ministry."
But why describe it as tactical instead of as strategic? President Biden announced this week that his strategic goal for the US and its client is not victory but merely "a better negotiating position." The opposite is happening. This is an enormous strategic loss for the US and its client.
#2
Yes, it's official: the story line now in the Americans' official newspaper is that Ukraine is losing, theyre untrained troops are terrified and getting slaughtered, they're in "disarray," the war for them is "a living hell" and Donbas will fall "within two weeks."
First we saw Pres. Biden move the goalposts in his New York Times opinion piece from "victory" to salvaging whatever they can at the negotiating table. Today the New York Times' top correspondent on the war, Andrew E. Kramer, sends a long dispatch from Kramatorsk which prepares his readers for the upcoming capitulation of Ukraine.
The story line is almost the exact opposite of what the American and British press have been telling their readers for three months: the Ukrainians are retreating. They are demoralized and terrified and running out of ammunition. The Ukrainians lied to the untrained volunteers who were told they'd defend their hometowns and are instead sending them into the charnel house to be slaughtered in the Donbas -- creating "a stream of Ukrainian dead and wounded from the battlefields."
"KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — It all starts with a whistle, said Vladislav Goncharenko, a Ukrainian army sergeant, describing the relentless Russian shelling.
“You lie in a trench,” he said, waiting in an ambulance packed with other wounded soldiers. “There are very loud explosions. You want to get deeper into the ground. And you have shrapnel whistling above you, like flies.” Soldiers, he said, “just want it to stop.”
Ukraine is struggling. Ukraine’s army has suffered heavy losses, shown signs of disarray and, step by step, fallen back from some long-held areas in Donbas, the eastern region that is now the war’s epicenter.
#3
More from Andrew Kramer -- he dares to hint, for the first time, at what has been known for weeks: at least a dozen Ukrainian units are mutinying, protesting the slaughter and demanding to be released from combat.
Kramer even dares to quote a Ukraine's top national security adviser who criticizes the absurd false narrative that his own president, along with the New York Times and the entire American and British press, has been pushing since April!
"To fill gaps in the frontline, Ukraine has resorted to deploying minimally trained volunteers of the Territorial Defense Force, which mobilized quickly as the war started. Hints of morale lapses have surfaced. One unit recorded a video protesting dire conditions. In interviews, soldiers said their artillery guns sometimes go quiet for lack of ammunition.
“ 'Those people who said that the war would end very soon, that we have already won, that we will celebrate in April, said a dangerous thing,' Ukraine’s national security adviser, Oleksiy Danilov, told Ukrainian media this week.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/03/2022 8:27 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Time is running out for Russia. It's been running out, well, forever, according to the comical press:
🤡 😂
Russia running out of ‘easy’ oil
Nov 28 2021 - RT
Why Putin is acting like a man who has run out of time
Dec 23 2021 - Guardian
Italy could run out of gas due to Russia crisis – analysts
Feb 23 2022 - Montel
Rubio warns Putin's 'time is running out on this earth'
Mar 2 2022 - Washington Examiner
Putin is running out of options
Mar 3 2022 - New Statesman
Russian labs running out of equipment as sanctions begin to bite
Mar 7 2022 - Science Business
Putin’s depleted army is running out of time
Mar 23 2022 - Spectator
Russia running out of precision munitions in Ukraine war- Pentagon official
Mar 25 2022 - Reuters
Pentagon claim: Russia is running out of ammunition.
Mar 25 2022 - Sach Khabrain
Is the Russian Military running out of Soldiers?
Mar 28 2022 - Russia Matters
Russia May Be running out of Missiles
Mar 29 2022 - Newsmax
Russia running out Of Kh-55 Cruise Missiles Which Iran, China Have
Apr 3 2022 - IranIntl
Putin running out of missiles, jets and tanks because they're made in Ukraine
Apr 4 2022 - Mirror
Russian billionaires are running out of havens to stash their fortunes
Apr 8 2022 - Sydney Morning Herald
The Russian army is running out of options
Apr 9 2022 - Spectator
Is Russia Running Out of Money?
Apr 26 2022 - Trustnodes
SCORCHED EARTH Now humiliated Putin is running out of MISSILES in desperate bid to defeat Ukraine, UK armed forces chief tells TalkTV
May 5 2022 - Sun
‘Struggling’ Vladimir Putin is running out of missiles, UK says
May 6 2022 - News.au
Putin under intense pressure and could be running out of missiles, says UK army chief
May 6 2022 - Mirror
EMBARRASSING: Russia Now Running out of Missiles to Make War With
May 6 2022 - USSANews
Putin could be running out of missiles and is waging a 'logistics war' to keep his forces supplied
May 6 2022 - Daily Mail
Russia running out of weapons, can be defeated by Ukraine – UK Secretary
May 9 2022 - Daily Trust
Putin 'running out of bombs' and resorting to 'indiscriminate' civilian attacks, says UK
May 9 2022 - Daily Star
Russia is running out of precision-guided munitions and may struggle to replenish their stocks, says UK Defense Ministry
May 9 2022 - New Voice Of Ukraine
Putin is running out of Ideas on What to do Next
May 10 2022 - Bloomberg
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is running out of steam, again
May 16 2022 - Economist
Is Russia running out of missiles? US, Russia send mixed messages
May 16 2022 - Jerusalem Post
'Russia is running out of manpower' and Putin may have to shrink his war aims more: national security analyst
May 16 2022 - Raw Story
Explainer: Is Russia Running Low on Missiles?
May 17 2022 - Moscow Times
Vladimir Putin is running out of options to avoid defeat in Ukraine
May 17 2022 - Atlantic Council
Putin is running out of soldiers and resorts to an “army of grandfathers” who retired 10 years ago
May 17 2022 - CvvNews
Crippled Russia running out of weapons as embarrassing war ending looms 'Shockingly inept'
May 21 2022 - Express
Vladimir Putin's 'time is running out' and his behaviour has changed, claims expert
May 21 2022 - Mirror
VLADIMIR PUTIN IS RUNNING OUT OF OPTIONS TO AVOID DEFEAT IN UKRAINE
May 22 2022 - Lucorg
Russia ‘running out of ideas’ in 3-month-old war. Can Ukraine win?
May 24 2022 - Global News
The Russian Army Is Running Out Of Tanks For The War In Ukraine. These 60-Year-Old T-62s Are Proof.
May 25 2022 - Forbes
Vladimir Putin’s forces are running out of tanks
May 27 2022 - Telegraph
Exact date Putin's forces will run out of ammunition in Ukraine, according to expert
May 31 2022 - Mirror
Time is running out for Russia, German economy minister says
Jun 2 2022 - Reuters
#7
"Running out of time munitions ammunition soldiers missiles one on this earth bombs men missiles time missiles tanks munitions time munitions ammunition soldiers missiles one on this earth bombs men missiles time missiles tanks munitions time munitions ammunition soldiers missiles one on this earth bombs men missiles time missiles tanks munitions time CTRL-P"
🤣
Posted by: Herb Wheck4289 ||
06/03/2022 8:47 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Back on topic...
Andrew Kramer's New York Times dispatch today makes it very clear that the "victory" and "glory" narratives have died. Now the American public are being prepared to accept desperation and defeat.
Kramer ends his story this way:
Sergeant Mykola Pokotila, who was wounded in a battle north of the town of Sloviansk, Ukrainian soldiers in the East are beleaguered, said of enduring punishing Russian artillery barrages, “I’ve never seen such hell.”
#9
Andrew Kramer's New York Times dispatch today makes it very clear that the "victory" and "glory" narratives have died. Now the American public are being prepared to accept desperation and defeat.
He must mean ooing and ahhing over the intellectual gymnastics it took to convince the Times' writers the "American people" believed the bullsh*t they committed to ink.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/03/2022 9:51 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Kramer / NY Times are not pulling any punches. Interesting that he was allowed to report this -- someone in the Biden Administration clearly has ordered a Narrative Shift in order that the American public be spared reports of a shock collapse like the one last summer in Afghanistan:
"Meanwhile, the strain on military families is showing.
In Lviv, a city in the West that has avoided serious shelling, wives and mothers of men in the 103rd Territorial Defense Brigade have protested, terrified about their husbands’ and sons’ deployment into combat in the East. To assuage concerns, a commander, Vitaliy Kupriy, met with about 200 women in a concert hall but the conversation devolved into screaming and crying, local media reported."
#12
Russian civilians would be shocked at the cost the military has taken in order to capture Severodonetsk.
Hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, (maybe over a thousand) and thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, etc.
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/03/2022 12:22 Comments ||
Top||
#13
On the front lines in the Donbas now are the hastily-assembled former teachers, laborers etc in Ukraine's "Territorial Defence Forces". These Ukrainian units are now experiencing casualty rates as high as 65%. This is because, as has been widely reported in the sympathetic US-UK press, they are "outmanned and outgunned" and have next to no training and are now rebelling and demanding to be sent home, to defend their families, as they were promised when they enlisted.
The cruel lies they've been told have provoked literally dozens of units to plead to be released from the front. Their wives' anguished pleas are now being reported, finally, in the New York Times and other western outlets.
Nonetheless, in the Donbas they number in the many thousands and enjoy the most advanced support, such as heavy weaponry, drones, artillery and real time actionable intelligence from NATO. In contrast to what the US and U.K. forces faced in late 2004 in Fallujah, the Russians are up against the firepower and all the tactical weaponry and advantages of not just a real army but of NATO itself.
The Russians' results are actually comparable to what our 13,000 troops achieved in Fallujah -- only much more rapidly and in the teeth of an enemy that possesses orders of magnitude more firepower and much more numerous and better supplied than the 3,000 or so ragtag Iraqi "insurgents".
#14
Ukraine's foreign legion joined the fight against the orcs for Severodonetsk yesterday and in the 24 hours since have cut the orcs supply line running through Metolkine.
Russians have fallen back to the edge of Severodonetsk city limits because of this unexpected development.
"In a speech today [June 3] about the May jobs report from Rehoboth, Del., President Biden said that it “appears” a “settlement” would be needed between Ukraine and Russia to end the war"
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. By Pavel Kukhmirov
[Sevastopol] Bloomberg reports that US politicians are divided into two camps on the issue of further anti-Russian sanctions.
“There is no unity in the Biden administration about how much more sanctions against the Russian Federation can be increased without provoking economic instability and without violating transatlantic unity,” the agency’s sources say.
According to Interfax , one group, which includes many State Department and White House officials, advocates even stronger secondary sanctions; another group of officials are concerned about further strain on a global economy already plagued by disrupted supply chains and inflation, volatile oil prices and a potential food crisis.
Such messages will come more and more often in the future, which is not surprising: sanctions aggression is primarily destructive for the aggressors themselves. But there is no need to flatter yourself: the “dear partners” still have a lot of tools to blackmail our country. Not to a small extent due to the fact that the Russian Federation itself provided them in the previous period. One of these is the American blackmailing of Russia by "technically defaulting."
The US Treasury recently issued an official announcement that a US government agency will not renew a special license for Russia, making it unable to repay its external debt obligations on approximately $19 billion of non-resident bond issues. Roughly speaking, the Russian Federation is deprived of the opportunity to operate a number of American financial instruments.
And this decision of the US Treasury means, in fact, the so-called "technical default" of Russia. In other words, depriving her of the opportunity to pay her debts despite the fact that she has money. This will entail the refusal to provide dollar loans to the Russian Federation by a number of countries from the US zone of influence, as well as the inevitable fall in virtual credit ratings compiled by US-biased agencies, and the creation of a formal pretext for the confiscation of up to $ 350 billion worth of Russian gold reserves actually stolen.
Well, this will also create a formal reason for blocking other financial ties. Again, in fact, the above measures are already acting against Russia, and formally provoking a technical default by America will not give anything new. The set of economic punitive measures against Russia has already been exhausted. And this is not a great price to pay for the exercise of the sovereign right to an independent foreign policy that is in line with the state's interests.
Question: was it necessary to use these financial instruments at all? Indeed, according to US laws, its residents must pay 5-15 percent tax on income from foreign securities. And now the Russian Federation, redeeming foreign currency bonds and paying coupon income on them, replenishes the US budget, indirectly financing the purchase of weapons and economic assistance to the Kyiv regime. This was known even before the special operation and, moreover, it is known now.
And, to put it mildly, the arguments of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation about the need to fulfill payment obligations by any means, even without linking to the unblocking and return of gold reserves, look strange. But they turned out to be stolen, including through the fault of the leadership of the Ministry of Finance. But, at least, they need to clarify the reasons why the Ministry of Finance has been increasing external borrowings all these years under the pretext of “financing the budget deficit”, while foreign exchange earnings have increased, and the federal budget has been in surplus. And at the same time, 12-14 trillion rubles were mortified in the FNB without movement.
This is what gave rise to America's current opportunity to blackmail Russia with a "technical default." Serious damage against the background of what the United States has already done to Russia will not be caused by this. But their “default blackmail” is, first of all, an excuse to sort out what has been going on in the financial sector of the Russian Federation all these years. Yes, and it continues to happen now. So what are we going to do: whine or understand?
Pavel Kukhmirov is a former Donetsk militiaman and a current resident of Rostov, Russia. His call sign is "Shakespeare."
#1
It's called a "technical" default because in reality, in the eyes of market participants, Russia is nowhere near default status. Russia has the ability and willingness to pay its debts--it's only the stupidity and criminality of idiots like Janet Yellen that allows such an obviously illegal and foolish stunt to go forward.
#2
Bloomberg describes how unbelievably stupid Yellen and Biden's sanctions are:
Even with some countries halting or phasing out energy purchases, Russia's oil-and-gas revenue will be about $285 billion this year, according to estimates from Bloomberg Economics based on Economy Ministry projections. That would exceed the 2021 figure by more than one-fifth. Throw in other commodities, and it more than makes up for the $300 billion in foreign reserves frozen as part of the sanctions.
The US has already banned Russian oil, but Europe is only slowly weaning itself off this dependency. That’s giving Moscow time to find other markets — such as commodity guzzling behemoths China and India — to limit any damage to export revenue, and its financial war chest.
That means the money is gushing into Russia’s accounts, and the financial figures are a constant reminder to the West that dramatic change is needed. Oil-export revenue alone is up 50% from a year earlier, according to the International Energy Agency. Russia’s top oil producers made their highest combined profit in almost a decade in the first quarter, Moscow-based SberCIB Investment Research estimates. And wheat exports continue — at higher prices — as sanctions on Russian agriculture aren't even being discussed because the world needs its grain. . .here
Seriously, that Biden cares more about hurting the US than Russia is _by design_. His decisions more or less gifted Russia with 300 billion or so dollars before the war even started. And the evidence everyone ignores is that Burisma, which paid his son millions, was a cutout for Putin.
And the trolling is meant to distract away from all of this.
#7
It is obvious that the American sanctions are causing extreme harm to Americans, Europeans and people around the world. They are actually funding Russia's war.
The questions remain:Why is America slicing off its legs? For what purpose? How much longer? Who benefits?
The perverse effects of sanctions means rising fuel and food costs for the rest of the world – and fears are growing of a humanitarian catastrophe. Sooner or later, a deal must be made.
It is now three months since the west launched its economic war against Russia, and it is not going according to plan. On the contrary, things are going very badly indeed.
There is no immediate sign of Russia pulling out of Ukraine and that’s hardly surprising, because the sanctions have had the perverse effect of driving up the cost of Russia’s oil and gas exports, massively boosting its trade balance and financing its war effort. In the first four months of 2022, Putin could boast a current account surplus of $96bn (£76bn) – more than treble the figure for the same period of 2021.
When the EU announced its partial ban on Russian oil exports earlier this week, the cost of crude oil on the global markets rose, providing the Kremlin with another financial windfall. Russia is finding no difficulty finding alternative markets for its energy, with exports of oil and gas to China in April up more than 50% year on year.
#13
Russia can always pull its troops put of the Ukraine. Their situation is their own making.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/03/2022 13:46 Comments ||
Top||
#14
Citing the Guardian? May as well cite Stalin.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/03/2022 13:47 Comments ||
Top||
#15
You all want to pretend to discuss the energy market, which is Russia's main income source, without discussing Joe Biden's war on energy production in the United States.
#16
They want to believe everything is Putin's genius at work.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/03/2022 15:22 Comments ||
Top||
#17
You all want to pretend to discuss the energy market, which is Russia's main income source, without discussing Joe Biden's war on energy production in the United States.
Everything is deeply inter-twingled. Stupid things aside, one reason the Brandon Administration is having such a hard time is that they cannot see the connections between things. This is connected to that, and that rubs up against this other thing.
I find it a bit ironic that having built a globalized interconnected world, certain parties are now trying to break it apart.
#18
They want to believe everything is Putin's genius at work.
Or Brandon's wickedness at trying to Resist Putin. Lord knows what they'd do if they ran up against a Reagan and he started _drilling_ instead of stopping it.
#19
"There is no unity in the Biden administration about how much more sanctions against the Russian Federation can be increased without provoking economic instability and without violating transatlantic unity"
The sanctions are a total failure that has caused more harm to the US, Britain, Germany, France and the rest of the allies than to Russia. It would be hard to find a more perfect example of blowback, or unintended consequences. Maybe stepping on a rake covered in your own shit.
NB: The author is a senior research fellow with a Chinese name at an Australian university. She has received grants from a variety of CCP organizations. It seems reasonable to assume that she is working from official Communist Chinese statistics, which it seems reasonable to assume are between somewhat and a great deal improved over reality. The great famine was the massive starvation caused by Mao Tse Tung’s Great Leap Forward (1959-1961) which resulted in the intentional deaths of between 15 million and 55 million Chinese.
[TheConversation] The world’s biggest nation is about to shrink.
China accounts for more than one sixth of the world’s population.
Yet after four extraordinary decades in which China’s population has swelled from 660 million to 1.4 billion, its population is on track to turn down this year, for the first time since the great famine of 1959-1961.
Continued on Page 49
#1
China is the fastest aging population in world history. They just admitted they over counted their population by nearly 100 million. They don't have enough young people to make babies and by 2070 (2050 if things are bad and war and famine happen) there will be half as many Chinese as there are today.
#2
The soldier age population should also be starting to decrease, though historical male bias fighting age men will take longer to decline. Of course the shortage of women for them might make them more motivated fighters. Assuming their mamas, with their genes all in one basket, may resist Beijing sending junior off to war. Interesting times.
#3
The Chinese are raising a generation of "not a farmer" in the coastal super cities. Can they make the transition to mechanized agriculture or are they going to have to secure Other Peoples' Rice whether the other person wants to or not...?
#5
Government will step in to require increased birth rates. I see India and Bangladesh having no reductions in population. India is ignored with their population rivaling China now.
#6
It appears there are enough Chinese females of fertile age to fill thousands of 'Massage' store fronts in America. Not that I have checked their 'best used by date'. Heck, I'm in the outback and there are a least one to two in the small towns along the highways. Mars China need women. If it wasn't for Han racism, they might go visit the Philippines which has a excess of the gender.
#12
Ethnically the Koreans are related to the Han Dynasty, so they are "kinda sorta" Chinese. Well, they are still 'Hu' and not 'Chin' Chinese but they are acceptable...
#13
To emphasize: Why should we believe any cited #'s for China?
It’s human nature to present the best possible image of themselves, especially in a Face culture and even more so in a totalitarian one. If they’re presenting numbers that show their population reached the predicted tipping point — earlier than calculated — the odds are good their numbers show they actually reached that point some time ago. And, given that in totalitarian countries everybody does this all the way down, the odds are very good that those at the top have no idea when that tipping point was actually reached, nor how off the numbers really are. As DarthVader said, they admit to over-counting by 100 million; it will be very interesting to see the the size of subsequent corrections.
All those empty cities built on spec. certainly suggest how far off their planning was in recent years.
[IsraelTimes] With Iranians’ anger at the ayatollahs again erupting into protests, the international community has a chance to atone for its failure 13 years ago — and every interest in doing so.
The international community will take note, and having noted will move on. America’s Democratic presidency desperately wants to be friends with the Ayatollahs, which for some reason they see as the future.
In June of 2009, millions of Iranians joined protests nationwide in the wake of the "reelection" of Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad as president, in a vote widely recognized as rigged.
The regime resorted to heavy violence to put down the demonstrations, attacking and arresting protesters and killing dozens of them — most resonantly Neda Agha-Solton, a philosophy student whose shooting by a gunman from the Basij paramilitary group was captured on film and broadcast worldwide.
[SpinStrangenessCharm] Last Sunday’s Jerusalem Day, Israel was widely expected to get HamAss or P*sslamic Jewhate rockets like last year, when this triggered an 11-day war. Bomb shelter rooms at work were prepared. Not wanting to sound "I told you so" but I was a bit skeptical from the beginning, and in the end nothing was fired. Why? The JPost’s longtime Arab affairs correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh, one of the newspaper’s few trump cards, considers several factors.
the organizations haven’t recovered from the thrashing they received in last year’s war
severe diplomatic pressure was applied, especially by Egypt, possibly by Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... too
the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... economy is in the toilet, and the 12,000 daily commuters into Israel are a source of revenue that cannot be spared
Related: The full Jerusalem Post article can be read here.
[Summit] An expert on artificial intelligence says that within 50 years, parents will opt to have "digital offspring" that only exist in the metaverse due to concerns over the environment and overpopulation.
The prediction was made by Catriona Campbell, who is described as "one of the UK’s leading authorities on artificial intelligence."
According to Campbell, parents will decide to have digital babies, an updated version of Japanese Tamagotchi digital pet toys, for the same reasons they are already choosing not to have real babies, namely, "concerns about the environment, overpopulation, the rising cost of bringing up a child."
"Campbell predicts they will be commonplace and embraced by society within half a century," reports left-wing newspaper the Guardian.
The AI expert says the cyberspace babies will eventually be indistinguishable from the real thing and that if parents get bored of them, they can just cancel them like they would a monthly Netflix subscription.
"Campbell says virtual children will look like you, and you will be able to play with and cuddle them. They will be capable of simulated emotional responses as well as speech, which will range from "googoo gaga" to backchat, as they grow older," reports the newspaper.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/03/2022 8:57 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Is that Cat(lady)riona?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/03/2022 8:59 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Digital formula shortage in 3..2..1...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/03/2022 9:04 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Oh noes! Your digital baby caught a virus!
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/03/2022 9:05 Comments ||
Top||
#8
This would be a great scam to sucker the 'binary & digitally enlightened' sector of our populace.
Recurring revenue for yearly/monthly/weekly 'upgrades' to the perceived child, with intense social media shaming for those that don't.
I wonder how one would accomplish a digital diaper change? A separate plug-in accessory (for a fee, of course) that squirts a variety of liquids and scents?
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/03/2022 9:42 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Probably a good idea since this generation cant even define itself as boy or girls. And then they want to be referred to as unicorns and avatars... Its probably best they take more booster shots and dont have kids... And if this does not work out we can reintroduce pet rocks.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
06/03/2022 11:16 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Whatever would we do without experts? (/sarc)
...I wonder how many Pet Rocks™ and Chia Pets™ she has?
[Summit] An Australian primary school predicted "microchips in student’s brains" within 10 years before subsequently deleting the newsletter that contained the creepy prophecy.
The bizarre entry was featured in the May 26 edition of the Preston West Primary school’s newsletter, which listed a number of prosaic things the school envisages will be helpful to educating children in a decade.
They include "more mental health awareness," "more buildings and development," as well as "technological advances for teachers and students."
However, also included on this list is "microchips in student’s brains to promote intelligence and memory."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Summit] An expert on artificial intelligence says that within 50 years, parents will opt to have "digital offspring" that only exist in the metaverse due to concerns over the environment and overpopulation.
