Belesarius
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Posts posted by Belesarius
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AIUI, in the late Soviet era the only guys with seniority to get the job of Premier were old old old. They had a tendency to die in office, and the state media would of course lie about their health right up until they hit room temperature.
So, keeping with tradition, when any leader in the FSU goes missing for a spell, intense speculation breaks out.
The media changes etc.still have me wonder if there was some behind closed door ass chewing going on. Or this could have jsut been an 'Off to Camp David', Russia style...
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I'm not certain about that de-scenting bit. I've met some stinky ferrets and stinky ferret owners.
What I AM certain of is my affection for the 1982 family classic The Beastmaster, starring Kodo and Podo.
(Also, I'm not sure why the YouTube embedding no longer works cause I'm as bright as Dar in that movie...)
I find it works when I don't type anything before you paste the youtube link in. At least that's how it worked for me the past few times..
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Ferrets are awesome, but if you get one, get them de-scented because otherwise they fucking stink.
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A Daily Fail article, but still, MSM coverage of it:
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This is from Reddit. Unfortunately, retrieved from the AH forums, but I get info from wherever I can find it. :"I posted this comment in an earlier thread, but the mods removed that thread. I think it's worth repeating here...
A Russian blogger has speculated that a coup may have been launched by a faction of Russia's intelligence community that dissaproves of Putin's handling of the Ukraine crisis.
One Russia analyst sums up what he thinks a variety of stories in the last few weeks amount to - a slow-motion coup in which some security officials in the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Federal Protective Service (FSO) with Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, former KGB, team up against Putin, whose allies are Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and the Interior Ministry or police, which also commands thousands of internal troops.
Two blog posts from the LiveJournal blogger v_n_zb known as KatrinSha on Twitter provide some insights. This blogger is saying what others including independent newspapers and analysts are saying, but she's putting it together more coherently than most. Some of her insights match those of Andrei Illarionov, former advisor to Putin now at the Cato Institute, who says "the generals are taking over."
The first post concerns Yevgeny Primakov, one of the veteran political "clan" leaders of Moscow, who as a former foreign minister, intelligence chief and prime minister has a lot of influence. (See Lithuanian expert Marius Laurinavičius's piece Primakov Clan’s Trap for the West or a Little about Putin’s Peace Roadmap).
Primakov, who was born in Kiev advocates keeping the Crimea but not annexing the Donbass, so he is something of a "moderate" compared to others although non-Russians disagree with his plan for "centralization" which contains within it Russian homogenization, and Westerners would find his diatribes against "neo-liberalism" quite Soviet.
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In his speech at the prestigious Mercury Club, where he serves as president, on January 13, 2015 Primakov basically "tore Putin's policy to bits."
He said Donbass should remain in Ukraine
He opposed Russia's self-isolation
He advocated a move away from Russia's role as "the world's gas station" and diversification of the economy
He acknowledged anti-semitism, chauvinism and neo-Nazis as big problems in Russia
Primakov's starkest comment in this speech was:
"There are no grounds to believe the readiness of the executive government to propose a justified plan based on concretely specified actions to turn the country toward diversification of its economy and its growth on this basis."
tl;dr: Certain high ranking officials in the Russian government, particularly Yevgeny Primakov, sincerely doubt that Putin can resolve the Ukrainan and economic crises. They fear that Putin may throw Russia into chaos, so Primakov and his allies could be motivated to depose him
http://www.interpretermag.com/russia...-14-2015/#7468
Russia's media has also suddenly adopted a new tone towards the Ukrainian conflict since Putin went missing:
KatrinSha focuses on events of the last week that she believes will tell us who is really in charge in Russia:
1. The term "Novorossiya" and "DNR and LNR" disappeared from state television channels and the terms "Lugansk and Donetsk Regions" replace them.
2. The "purging" of the "implacable" field commanders among the Russian-backed separatists has begun -- we could note there was an assassination attempt on Mozgovoy and Motorola (Pavlov) is also believed to be targeted.
3. Separatist units have begun to be called "bandit formations" in Russian media
4. Two additional humanitarian convoys have been sent immediately to the Donbass. "This time the quotation marks can be removed from the word humanitarian," says KatrinSha."I also had a Daily KOS link, (Yes I know they are as slanted as fuck, but it was an interesting rundown)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/14/1371003/-Looks-like-Obama-may-have-outplayed-Putin
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Those look like shots for a new Fallout...
Those poor books.
I know right? That makes me sad to see books abandoned like that.
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I know I'm a terrible person to give in to the meme, but this got a chuckle.
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Everyone.
Yep. sounds like an epic win for the world.
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My wife and her entire family are huge Terry Pratchett fans. I've read and very much enjoyed his books myself.
Quick story since I have to run to pick up a load of cured horse manure - for schnerious - a year or so ago we found out Pratchett was coming to Seattle on one of his tours. And by "found out" I was reading the blog of our city's OTHER alt newspaper and found out about his appearance at Town Hall less than an hour before the event. It was one of those times where we could have talked ourselves out of going since it meant dressing up, driving 45 minutes into Seattle, finding a place to park and hoping there were tickets still left.
Rather than making excuses, I asked the (fiancee) "Terry Pratchett's in town. Want to go? We have to leave in less than five minutes."
Shannon had missed out on a pair of previous opportunities to see him speak and said simply. "Let's Go".
Fortunately, there was no traffic, we found a place to park less than a block away (that being the true miracle), talked our way into getting in and were only fifteen minutes into the show. It was one of the events that was more memorable for Shannon which was good enough for me. The best was the Question and Answer period where one of the audience members actually asked a decent one, whether Terry Pratchett thought that Lord Vetinari or Granny Weatherwax would win a game of chess. And you could tell it was a question that had not been asked of him a thousand previous times and he was actually stumped. You could tell he was mentally writing down the notes "to use for later".
I sort of collect authors as friends on FB, with far left and far right both being pretty well represented. The one very telling thing about the literary impact that Pratchett has was every single person from every end of the political spectrum pretty much has nothing but awesome stuff to say about the guy. Says alot.
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Yeah, even John liked that blog post. There's a t-shirt with Oh John Ringo No! for sale out there with the proceeds going to a charity...
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I'm given to understand that they have warehouses full of the damned things.
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John Ringo's Paladin of Shadows series? I mean for the first two books you really have to work on suspending your disbelief, but they are fun in an updated sort of Mack Bolan kind of way.
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Still holding out for wargame:1945
I'd prolly pay for that too. Eugen is evil in that they want to take all my $ and find interesting and fun ways to do so.
Heck, in just time messing around with Decks, for value for amount of time spent on a game the 3 Wargame titles I've bought are more than worth the $ I've spent.
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Duffelblog is a national treasure
Agreed.
International even.
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Terry Pratchett, Author of the amazing Discworld Series has died.
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Stolen from Foxtrot Alpha. Some neat footage in this one.
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On the dude who was arrested and 'confessed'... oddly enough his body displays marks from possible torture. Anyone unsurprised that they coerced a confession?
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On a purely random interest level, I've seen this numerology obsession from white power nuts before, both here in Canada and in the US, so I find this to be unsurprising at best. Tho at least with their numerology, they present a closer to fact basis for their reality than the current US Republican party mouthpieces.
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http://www.frfrogspad.com/jmb.htm
I'm sure y'all have seen this before, but yeah, I thought it was amusing.
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Here you can see one of the issues with FSW; the area behind the wings is in some pretty hairy, turbulent airflow which reduces the effectiveness of any control surfaces that live there. For this reason, most FSW designs feature canards. I'm not entirely sure what the rationale behind having both canards and tailplanes on the berkut is.
I wonder what effect combining forward swept wings and thrust vectoring would have?
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Ok, so I'm a little drunk and a little tired. But I still think this is a coherent thread of thought. One of the most overlooked areas of railguns being introduced is in the air defense area. With the practical velocities being acheived by railguns, LOS means dead...
People smarter than me, please discuss.
The Small Arms Thread, Part 8: 2018; ICSR to be replaced by US Army with interim 15mm Revolver Cannon.
in Infantry Tools & Tactics
Posted
Cris would want to use that with Pink Camo in CA. It's 'cute'...