scanning cables from our embassy in moscow

[click image — the link, here, is acting strangely. If it doesn't bring up the Moscow cables, you should click in the sidebar for them....]

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I wonder that Russia doesn't just oust our "diplomats"... so... now... er... but this bit:

Founder of the controversial website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been granted a Russian visa and plans to visit the country soon.

The visit may happen in a couple of weeks, reports the Russian News Service citing WikiLeaks supporter and friend of Assange, Israel Shamir. No details of the agenda and schedule have been disclosed. However, by that time a Russia-based pro-WikiLeaks NGO currently being established is likely to get its official registration.

Assange is now in Great Britain, where he faces possible extradition to Sweden. The Scandinavian country wants him for alleged sex crimes. With the next court hearing scheduled for February 7, Assange may be able to visit Russia in three weeks, but only if the Swedish extradition request is turned down by Britain.

WikiLeaks gained worldwide publicity in 2010 after making public thousands of confidential documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the diplomatic cables of the US State Department.

is darn thought-provoking, no?

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I find I can't quit associating this bit of news with the handover of Swiss banking documents earlier this week.

As a July 1, 2009 [State Department] cable released by Norway’s Aftenposten [and WikiLeaks] makes clear, the US and Switzerland included the acceptance of three Gitmo detainees and a settlement in a suit accusing UBS of harboring tax cheats–along with an effort to shut down a Swedish company’s business with Iran–in negotiations “resolving all issues between our countries.” ...

One of the recipients of the cable was Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz.

Mind you, the Swiss minister in question has denied there’s a “direct link.” So maybe not a direct quid pro quo — just Switzerland “indirectly” doing us two big favors in exchange for our DOJ limiting how many of the rich tax cheats we pursue in Switzerland. But the favors may go both ways: among those reportedly involved in the UBS scandal were American politicians. ...

But not long after the negotiations, we sentenced the whistleblower in the case, Bradley Birkenfeld, to 40 months in prison. ... [T]here’s a bunch of sealed documents in it starting the month before this [] cable and continuing up to the point where the judge gave Birkenfeld more time in prison than prosecutors requested.

Those cables from our Ambassador to Russia were chock full of the very nastiest allegations of government corruption, purporting financial perfidies of almost every description by Russian officials. So I'm wondering if maybe, say, RIA Novosti or RT might not want to be negotiating to release the Swiss banking documents....

Just a thought... a daydream of poetic justice....

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love, 99
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they hate him for his staunch antifascist position

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And don't mind propagandizing the living snot out of everyone in the Western World to vilify him. I have turned into such a Putin fan, not just because I know it's the opposite of what they want me to think, but because he has shown very real indications that he means business, and will sit on any oligarch who attempts to actually oligarch. It was beyond fair to let them know they could keep their ill-gotten gains if they stayed the hell out of politics, and IF he is having people assassinated for trying to dupe the public, which has not by any means been shown, even if they are dupes themselves, that is clearly in defense of the Russian people, as opposed to The Laureate having people assassinated in furtherance of our terrorization and enslavement.

Cablegate has just occasioned a reiteration of the single thing that helped me out of my media-induced trance:

It refers obliquely to a meeting in 2000 when Vladimir Putin, then still president, met Khodorkovksy and 20 other oligarchs and reportedly warned them to stay out of politics in return for their businesses being left in peace.

One of the most statesmanlike moments in world history. And it contrasts sharply with the filthy collusion, back room deals, in which President Hopey Changey Shit Not Working Out For Us regularly, unerringly, engages.

No. Really. Wipe the sleeping powder off your expanding girth. This is no time to be an all-American jackass.

The truth is: Russia has convicted a couple of their most corrupt sociopathic fucks and the PTB don't want us realizing it because we might get ideas about demanding some of ours suffer similarly.

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love, 99
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that's it, i'm officially mad for him

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I cannot help myself another minute.

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LOL — There's a little tree frog that lives in the hydrangea bush out the window here, at my mom's house, and every time I play this video he starts croaking... singing along....

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love, 99
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oh, man

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HERE'S THE AUDIO....

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Now I'm desperate to see it.

Russia's Putin warns West over missile defense: report
By Steve Gutterman Steve Gutterman – Wed Dec 1, 8:38 am ET

MOSCOW (Reuters) — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told CNN television that Russia would deploy nuclear weapons and "strike forces" if it were shut out of a Western missile shield, adding punch to a warning from President Dmitry Medvedev.

In an interview with Larry King taped on Tuesday, Putin also said the WikiLeaks scandal was "no catastrophe" and told the United States not to meddle with Russian elections.

Putin said missile threats against Europe must be tackled jointly — a reference to an agreement reached at a November 20 Russia-NATO summit to cooperate on missile defense. Plans are sketchy and Russia has warned it wants an equal role.

If Russia's proposals are rejected and Western missile defense installations create "additional threats" near its borders, "Russia will have to ensure its own security," he said.

Russia would "put in place new strike forces ... against the new threats which will have been created along our borders," he said, according to a translation in an excerpt on CNN's website. "New missile, nuclear technologies will be put in place."

Putin said Russia was not threatening the West, but the remarks underscored the Kremlin's insistence on maintaining a significant role in a missile defense system and suggested improving ties could sour again if agreement is not reached.

In his state of the nation address on Tuesday, Medvedev warned that a new arms race would erupt if U.S. and NATO offers of cooperation on missile defense failed to produce a concrete agreement within a decade.

"That's not our choice, we don't want that to happen. This is no threat on our part," Putin said. "We've been simply saying that this is what all of us expect to happen if we don't agree on a joint effort there."

U.S. plans for a missile shield have been a major irritant in its ties with Moscow since the Cold War. Now both Russia and the West are casting missile defense cooperation as a crucial ingredient in recipes to bring the former foes closer.

As part of a campaign to 'reset' strained relations with Moscow, President Barack Obama last year scrapped Bush-era plans for a radar and interceptor missiles in eastern Europe that Russia said would be a major threat to its security.

POWERFUL PUTIN

Russia has been far more accepting of Obama's revised blueprint, which involves shorter-range interceptors. But Putin suggested Russia would feel threatened if the United States pushes ahead without significant Russian input.

The Kremlin warnings come amid uncertainty over U.S. Senate ratification of New START, a strategic nuclear arms limitation treaty signed by Obama and Medvedev in April and seen as the linchpin of improving relations.

Russia emphasizes it could withdraw from New START if a U.S. missile shield develops into a threat to its security.

Putin's interview was conducted shortly after Medvedev delivered his biggest annual address in the Kremlin, timing that seemed to emphasize that the former president has a strong hand on Russia's reins despite now holding Russia's No. 2 office.

"I think he is underscoring for the West that he remains one of Russia's two leaders — that he maintains serious reserves of power and would like to continue to take part in determining foreign policy," analyst Alexei Makarkin told Ekho Moskvy radio.

U.S. diplomatic cables revealed by the website WikiLeaks describe Putin as Russia's "alpha-dog" ruler and Medvedev as a sidekick-like "Robin to Putin's Batman."

In an excerpt from the interview, Putin said the WikiLeaks scandal was "no catastrophe" and that some experts believe it could have been engineered for "political purposes."

Putin steered Medvedev into the Kremlin in 2008 and has suggested he may return in a 2012 vote. He said he and Medvedev would make a "concerted decision" about who would run, CNN said.

Responding to a leaked cable citing U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates as portraying Russia as undemocratic, Putin said Gates was "deeply misled," CNN reported.

He said that when Russia raised shortcomings in U.S. democracy, it was told not to interfere. "I would also like to advise you, don't interfere either (with) the sovereign choice of the Russian people," CNN quoted him as saying.

Somebody's just got to get that Larry King interview on tape for me.

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HUNNERTS OF WIKILEAKS MIRRORS....

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love, 99
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i sure hope this gets put on the tubes

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Even though Larry King is creeeeepy, I remember it was very helpful for me to SEE the Dalai Lama talking with him, in terms of my understanding his state of enlightening being, and I also want to have more insight into Vladimir Putin. So if you know how to record stuff on tv and upload it, please consider being my backup for this momentous event....

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love, 99
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no criminal investigation?

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That tears it! Those Russians are corrupt bastids and I'm goin' after Putin in my dreams tonight. Gottammitall to heck! I ain't stannin' fer it. Nossir. Prosecute the living snot out of the miserable fuck or I'm gonna make you sorry!

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love, 99
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peter b and sibel talk to ray mcgovern — UPDATING

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... Vladimir Putin's opposite number in a state spy organ. Just needed to reïterate the asininity of thinking Putin is some kind of devil because he was a KGB agent. Putin joined the KGB at age 23 and resigned at age 40. McGovern, after serving as an intelligence officer in the military for a couple years, spent twenty-seven years in the CIA, and decorated by Bush for his service, before retiring. I am not besmirching McGovern. I'm saying you're being a thoughtless ass for thinking Putin is some kind of demon on this basis.

It's also my opinion that you are being a thoughtless ass if you think Putin has been killing all those journalists and spies, when he has so many murderous billionaire oligarchs working full time to discredit him. Yes, if I were Putin, I'd have rounded them up, locked them all in the slammer and thrown away the key. Putin only told them they could keep their filthy lucre so long as they NEVER interfered in politics in any way. A distinctly anti-fascist move, designed to get the most for the Russian economy while protecting it from further depredation by billionaire crime bosses. He has been as good as his word. He leaves them alone, but the moment they start trying to take over media organs and political movements, kabam, they're locked up. Much more difficult and dangerous than my way, but probably better for the people of Russia, given all the givens.

I don't know Putin's soul—haven't Dubya's powers of insight, I guess—but I want you to quit solidifying around all the bullshit propaganda you've been fed, and hysterical raving and finger pointing by people more avid to lap that up than even you are. If you have seen nothing else by visiting this blog, you have to have started putting it together that our minds have been being controlled for our whole lives, that our time in school was about planting all the basic misrepresentations upon which to perpetuate our exploitation.

We have no viable basis for dissing Putin or Russia, while Putin and Russia have a multitude of bases for dissing us.

And I've given up on the Wikileaks controversies because they have now muddied it all so hopelessly that it doesn't bear comment anymore, that it's actually wrong to comment on it at all now... even though, obviously, others don't see it that way.

So, viva Wikileaks.

If you listen to McGovern droning, here, all the way through, he seems to be making a pretty good case that the danger of Israel attacking Iran any day now is high....

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For your entertainment...

I just went out to inspect my garden, pluck bits of tree duff from the Scottish moss, see if I oughta water, scrutinize the daisy scene, ignore for once the weeds, that sort of thing... and my neighbor yelled out her window that she thought I ought to write a book and call it The Barefoot Contessa. I told her I thought that had already been done. She says a sequel would be just the thing.

Sigh.

I should have asked to speak with her husband, just to goose her....

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For your convenience...

I've noticed people coming in from various social media sites and so I got over myself enough to make it easier for you to share this stuff when you are inclined. Find now itty little unobtrusive buttons under posts toward this end. I still don't approve of your participation on those harbingers of doom, but I do in fact want your life to be easier.

I tried doing it with this cool gizzy that floats along at the bottom of your screen and might even have used it, despite its search function being Google, except that it put a big blot on whatever image was on the screen, instructing you to click it to share it. I'd thought merely clicking in the floating toolbar gizzy would suffice, but... noooooo. So I yanked that puppy, pending some ability to make it stop being so obnoxious. [Got rid of the obnoxious part the very next day.] [It's a damn Israeli company and I can't do that.]

Having thus put myself on the precipice of a headache, I will now engage in my coffee thing and chill.

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For my aggravation...

Not having my medicine coffee yet, I just noticed that now Blogger has put stats on my dashboard... on top of the whole comments and spam malarkey.... No sooner do I nix Google Analytics for being Google Analytics on TOP of not being accurate, which none of them are, none—let me repeat—none of them are accurate, and not very edifying at all, being mostly geared toward people wishing to gauge themselves against targets they set for themselves, or some such twaddle, than they decide to put their bullshit stats on my dashboard!

What is this?

The Perils of Pauline?

Crikey.

Anyway, I think Blogger must be feeling the pain from too many moving over to WordPress, because they are trying to make this have all the functions of WordPress blogs. I'd've moved to WordPress if they'd let me have my goddam template. They would if I pay, and they would if I wanna use their software on my own site, which involves paying too. So I guess Blogger/Google is trying to prevent more defections or something. They could probably recoup a lot of popularity simply by returning to conformance with their old motto; to wit: DON'T BE EVIL. But that, I guess, would be too much like altruistic or something, and fascists aren't having ANY o' dat.

Right. Coffee.

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For Edna's edification...

Someone by the name of Edna, I hope not my aunt, wants to know how I can be so assertive about stats being inaccurate. I know because I have had friends who were obsessed with stats and popularity ratings on certain ratings services. I have NOT been able to hang with that stuff, even as I have tried to be a good neighbor, a good Netizen, and do what I can to help, with links and joining services, the works. I tried to go along peacefully with that stuff, but then I started noticing wild anomalies, which put me in mind to try out the various and sundry popularity enhancing tools and stats services and ratings systems... all that shit... and see if I could find some measure of uniformity, or even a trend toward yielding up a viable notion when combining them all in some abstract formula. Zip. Bubkes. No dice. The places purporting to keep track of who's linking to you miss shitloads of them. The places purporting to rate your popularity miss shitloads of them AND adopt some completely inscrutable formula for deciding your popularity rating, and, sure enough, your rating goes up and down, sometimes by hundreds of points, with NO correlation to any other measuring device extant. At whim. Not any of the services that count your visitors, at least none of the free ones, agree on Thing One. They can diverge from hundreds of hits to thousands of hits, according to cosmic alignments only.

I then took each in turn and did everything I could to test the patency of their information. Not only could I not make them count or reflect any of these testing maneuvers with any reliability, but as though by karma, things would happen, accidental discoveries be made, that showed it was NOT just me. It was happening to everyone. And systems you felt you could contribute to in order to boost someone or some post you admired, could be and WERE being GAMED by maniacs, to actually make it more harmful to speak up for some truth teller or other than to just nut up. It seems that if you insist on these things, the best way is to just pick one and tell yourself to believe that, which I, of course, do NOT endorse, delusion being very low on my totem pole. I kept ONE of the stats services because OCCASIONALLY it lets me identify an asshole... which I am happy to report is not necessary very often.

Maybe paid services are more reliable. Probably not.

I'm sure it's all new and improved from the satanic games at Digg and Reddit over at MyBook and TwitFace and SpaceBuzz, for whatever other failings I'm certain inhere, but I'm crazy enough, thank you. You are welcome to go there, and now you can even go some of there from here, but that's as far as I can go.

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For my entertainment...

I rented "Brooklyn's Finest" since Richard Gere is in it; "The City of Your Final Destination" because I have to find out; and "Date Night" because that Carell guy is so pleasantly putzy. I need a rest from my doctoral blitz. That stuff Farrell was talking about last night fried my circuits. I gotta slow up to get all my wires back in order.

I may even put some brandy in my evening blueberry thing.

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For your information...

Date Night was a dud, with some very, very funny spots in it. Steve Carell is so entertaining, but I was disappointed by pretty much all the rest of it.

Brooklyn's Finest was sad and horrible and Richard Gere was the very least engaging of anyone in it. That was hard to bear. He just wasn't convincing at all... or rather... went sooooo far into the empty shell he was playing that he was just, well... completely empty. Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke were riveting... even though the plot lines and situations were outright horrifying. The movie really slammed the living shit out of upper level law enforcement, and placed the cops down here with us human refuse. Still, I don't think it excuses them. I won't think it until they start realizing who they are and who we are... and pick the right side.

The City of Your Final Destination was mostly a day dream, a dream of love and gorgeous loneliness. They had to throw in a bit about the parents who had to flee the Nazis, the parents who didn't feel safe anywhere, just had to elevate the suffering of the chosen while it went about making us dream. Great acting, mostly, and gorgeous setting, but I really hated having to be jarred awake at the end.

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jesus

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Relentless.

Although Washington has an intention to improve relations with Moscow, the U.S. continues “reärming Georgia”, which is not in line with the reset policy, Russia’s PM Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Russian daily Kommersant. [Confirmed on RT....]

“I want to believe in reset very much. And I want it very much,” he said in the interview published on August 30. “I see, that the intention of the current administration in the United States to improve relations with Russia is clearly traced. But there are other issues as well. For example, further reärmament of Georgia is underway. Why? That’s real; we see that. There would have been no aggression and blood if not the reärmament of Georgia two years ago; we had been telling this to our partners, including to our European friends; and everyone kept silence; and how did it all ended? It led up to the war. This reärmament continues today,” Putin said.

He also said that a missile defense shield in Europe still remained a problem for the reset policy.

And what an asshole dictator he is.

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i'm cleaning up my blog

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Thought maybe I had all kinds of sage things to say to you today, but just managed to blurt out the most urgent of it in the one post. While waiting for the rest of what I had to say to bubble up, I began dealing with the completely outrageous list of fleeting cleverisms that turned up as labels here over the years, and lumping stuff I'd separated out for our convenience back together again, because they are, like, so, way so, ancient history. If you have historical urges that I've thwarted thus, sorry man, but most of it wasn't posted such that it was very googlable anyway. If it's life and death, you can wade, or maybe I can even help you wade, but that goddam label list was dizzying and making it HARD to deal with my label thing at all.

Along the way, I came across some seriously, seriously dead posts, with no living links and no context left to put something back together, so I deleted them. I know there are tons more of that ilk, and may someday have the spit to tackle that, but it was the most urgent to get a grip on the labels. Done.

I also changed some of the sidebar image links to ones that are more suitable for NOW, and tried to find as many dead guys over there as I could, and hope you are remembering to notify me when/if you come across anything over there that's pft on us, so I can do something about it and keep from aggravating future visitors.

I recently added some fancy ass feature to my feed, that included the ability to "email the author"... but... I have a sneaking suspicion that feature does not work. This may be due to newness, but if yer ever in the mood to try that feature, please do, and we can see if it works or not for real. I've gotten a couple of invites to things from the "no reply" thing, but I'm unsure if that's my feed emailer or some organizations' emailers. Basically, I have a loathing for useless "features" and will nix the sucker if it doesn't work for you guys out there in feed land.

Also, while about my business today, three cool links came my way: [1] It Pays To Riot; [2] Sour Grapes Over Putin's Manliness and Involvement With the People of Russia; and [3] A Peutiful Image of the Sun's Corona in Eclipse. So those things ought to make up for my hours and hours of housecleaning while you were left hanging.

xoxoxoxox

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ya know

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I don't think those fires know quite who they're dealing with or they'd've given up already.

Of course, it was a hunnert and four there today, and nearly as hot for the last couple weeks, unprecedented heat, so nothing and no one would be acting quite normally. Everything dry as a bone and wilted firefighters and difficulty breathing. NOT optimal. I thought I read they were flying in help, but even with help, I don't think Moscow has been equipped for this kind of dry, this kind of fire-happy heat. I think summers in Moscow have always been more like we think of as late Spring here. If California were not burning down AGAIN, ALREADY, we could have sent in some firefighters to help... or I'd like to think we would anyway.

I'm pleased as punch, though to have read about Putin laying down the law with the bureaucrats about getting the detailed reconstruction plans NOW. Used to be, here, nobody even had to say that. It just happened. Now it not only does not happen, but nobody, at any level, except of course us peons, says it.

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No kidding, guys:

Fires lay ghostly shroud of smoke on Moscow
By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer – Fri Aug 6, 3:11 pm ET

MOSCOW – A miasma of smoke from wildfires cloaked the sweltering Russian capital on Friday, turning the city's spires into ominous blurs and grounding flights while glum pedestrians trudged the streets with faces hidden by surgical masks and water-soaked bandanas.

The smoke crept into many buildings, hovering about the ceiling in entryways. The State Historical Museum, on Red Square was forced to close because it couldn't stop its smoke detectors from going off.

Airborne pollutants such as carbon monoxide were four times higher than average readings — the worst seen to date in Moscow, city health officials reported. The concentration appeared likely to intensify; the state news agency ITAR-Tass reported smoke was thickening in the city's southeast late Friday.

The fires, which are raging across much of western Russia, come after weeks of extraordinary heat — daily highs of up to 100 (38 C) compared with the summer average of 75 — and practically no rain.

Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trenev said Friday that there's no water shortage yet because officials had kept reservoir levels high. But he noted that river levels are down by more than 20 percent, due to increased demands for water to battle the fires and practically no water flowing in.

The fires drew comment from officials and activists at international climate-change talks in Bonn, Germany.

Chief U.S. delegate said Russia's situation and the recent floods that have devastated Pakistan are "consistent with the kind of changes we would expect to see from climate change and they will only get worse unless we act quickly."

But the environmental group Greenpeace said the negotiators weren't getting the message.

"Russia is burning and Pakistan is drowning -- yet they seem happy to continue as if they have all the time in the world," the group's climate policy director Wendel Trio said in a statement from Bonn.

Dozens of flights were grounded and others were diverted away from the capital's airports as visibility deteriorated to as little as 200 yards (meters) during the day. By Friday evening, the three airports reportedly were resuming normal service.

Visibility in the capital was down to a few dozen yards due to the smoke, which is forecast to hang around for days due to the lack of wind.

"It's just impossible to work," said Moscow resident Mikhail Borodin, in his late 20s, as he removed a face mask to puff on a cigarette. "I don't know what the government is doing, they should just cancel office hours."

Russian health officials have urged those who have to go outdoors to don face masks and told people staying inside to hang wet towels to attract dust and cool the airflow. The Health Ministry said hundreds have needed medical attention due to the smog.

Ken Donaldson, professor of respiratory toxicology at the University of Edinburgh, said people with asthma, bronchitis, lung disease or heart problems were the most vulnerable to the smog.

"For people with underlying health problems, the particles in the smog could be the straw that breaks the camel's back," he said, causing them to have a serious lung problem or a heart attack.

He said concentrations of carbon monoxide, even at four times higher than normal, was not alarming unless people became trapped in an enclosed space. The more dangerous gases are ozone or sulfur dioxide, he said, but those are not usually produced by burning.

More than 500 separate blazes were burning nationwide Friday, mainly across western Russia, amid the country's most intense heat wave in 130 years.

"All high-temperature records have been beaten, never has this country seen anything like this, and we simply have no experience of working in such conditions," Moscow emergency official Yuri Besedin said Friday, adding that 31 forest fires and 15 peat-bog fires were burning in the Moscow region alone.

At least 52 people have died and 2,000 homes have been destroyed in the blazes. Russian officials have admitted that the 10,000 firefighters battling the blazes aren't enough — an assessment echoed by many villagers, who said the fires swept through their hamlets in minutes.

To minimize further damage, Russian workers evacuated explosives from military facilities and were sending planes, helicopters and even robots in to help control blazes around the country's top nuclear research facility in Sarov, 300 miles (480 kilometers) east of Moscow.

A wildfire last week caused huge damage at a Russian naval air base outside Moscow.

Moscow faces temperatures approaching 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) for the next week, according to the forecast, in contrast to its average summer temperature of around 23 C (75 F).

This is a serious bummer.

HOW do you put out a peat-bog fire? I mean, don't the Irish go out and cut hunks of peat to heat their homes? But doesn't peat also soak up more water than anything in the natural world short of sponge? And wouldn't wet burning peat put out more smoke than anything short of a burning oil well? I think it would. It seems in my head to be a logistical nightmare....

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what i expect and never get

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Can't help but contrast our pathetic responses to disasters here.

Dmitry Medvedev declared the emergency on Monday in the regions of Mairi El, Mordovia, Vladimir, Voronezh, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Ryazan.

The decree allows the authorities to restrict public access to areas where their presence could pose a fire hazard, and to call on the armed forces to put out and prevent fires.

Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, also ordered regional governors at an urgent meeting to present a detailed reconstruction plan.

I guess the victims from NOLA and environs can console themselves about their homes STILL not being rebuilt because they would be adding the toxins from the Gulf Blowout to the toxins in the FEMA trailers to their bloodstreams now if we'd had a government capable of functioning even enough to handle reconstruction of decimated homes. That is NOT hard. That does NOT take a rocket scientist, and OUGHT to be one of the FIRST things on any budget, and something similar to what Putin said should be one of the first things out the mouths of those in charge.

The article says the Russian people are griping about how SLOW their government has been to respond to these wildfires. Yipes! They've been lightning fast to compare. Faster than THAT.

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oh, well, then, so, pfeh

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Their fires have probably all just put themselves out already in the certain knowledge of utter defeat.

Russia will be fine.

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no, no, GOD rides a harley

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Doesn't everybody know that? Those silly Russians.

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Да здравствует Путин и Медведев

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WASICHU WILL NEVER STOP TRYING TO KEEP AMERICA MORONIC.

New powers given to Russia's security agency
Mon Jul 19, 10:37 am ET

MOSCOW – The upper house of Russia's parliament on Monday passed a bill granting expanded powers to the country's main security agency, a move that critics say echoes the era of the Soviet KGB.

Can't HELP but wonder WHO those critics might be.

The bill, which now goes to President Dmitry Medvedev to be signed into law, would allow the Federal Security Service to issue warnings to people suspected of preparing to commit crimes against Russia's security.

As opposed to here, where they're just picked up and thrown in the slammer with no charges and no habeas rights... for DRILL and for PR—after much encouragement and entrapment by agents who do the lion's share of preparing to commit crimes against the United States—who ARE of themselves crimes against the United States—more than anything close to EVIDENCE.

Human rights and democracy activists say this power could be used to intimidate government opponents and stifle protests.

Oh, GREAT! Now we get to add "human rights" to "democracy" as code for FASCISM. Fuck. And "stifle protests"? You're kidding me, right? Right?

"This law is targeted against the opposition ... It's a draconian law which is unprecedented in the world and is reminiscent of our repressive past," Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the opposition Solidarity movement, was quoted as saying by the news agency Interfax.

Oh, fuck you, Boris. Which oligarch's dick are you sucking? Or are you just casting about for one to suck?

The security service is the main successor agency to the KGB.

But not in the same way as the CIA was the successor to the OSS, not by a long shot.

The bill was approved by the upper house by a vote of 121-1. The sole vote against was cast by the house's speaker, Sergei Mironov, who said he had was apprehensive about the measure.

I'm not going to automatically suspect Sergei's motives. He might have worried it wasn't strong enough or he might have worried it was too iffy, too listing toward congruence with the West's desire to keep up this filthy ruse that has enslaved and murdered so many humans already.

Opposition groups frequently are denied permission to hold rallies or are allowed to hold them only in out-of-the-way neighborhoods. Riot police often break up unsanctioned rally attempts swiftly and brutally.

Not unlike we do here, only THEY have the constant threat of the fascists backing the opposition to keep tamped down. As you well know, the fascists' shtick is very hard for your basic man-on-the-street to see through, to his immortal detriment, and that of all living things.

The bill has raised doubts about President Dmitry Medvedev's commitment to promoting full-fledged democracy and freedom of expression. Medvedev often has spoken of instituting judicial and police reforms, and has taken a less hard line on many issues than his predecessor Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent and later head of the FSB.

Just replace the word "democracy" with "fascism" and "freedom of expression" with "fully hypnotized" and you have the gist of what's really being said here. And, AGAIN, the crap about Putin being a scary ass KGB agent in the Soviet era, when he was about the equivalent of Ray McGovern at the CIA.

Putin is now prime minister and many see his intolerance of dissent as influencing the Kremlin.

Putin has shown a marked intolerance for FASCISM, and the "many" who see that intolerance as a bad thing are the fascists he's preventing from full exploitation of his people and his homeland.

But Medvedev, when asked at a news conference last week about the proposed law, testily responded that the country has "the right to improve its own legislation."

AND HE'S FUCKIN' A RIGHT ABOUT THAT!

The measure was introduced a few weeks after the March double suicide bombings on the Moscow subway system that killed 40 people. One of the bombers hit the Lubyanka subway station, beneath the headquarters of the security service.

Which points to the intensification of the perfidies the fascists are willing to commit—like their Jundullah guys against the Iranians keeping them out—and so would seem to make this GENTLE measure seem the more prudent, even if no one would have thought it optimal without these VICIOUS SOCIOPATHS trying to take over the world.

WASICHU HAS YOU BY THE THROAT, AND HE'LL NEVER LET GO UNTIL YOU MAKE HIM.

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before you go off tsking about that nasty old kgb putin again

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Remember that this is all a very strangely-timed and oddly-comprehensively-reported supposed international incident that doesn't even start to rise to the level of known perfidy, even in its most florid description, of cases against Israeli and Turkish espionage that the FBI not only stolidly ignored, but the administration fought in court to keep ignored. So, don't fall for it. Don't let them tickle the ribs of biases they've already implanted a million different ways. Float. What are they trying to force out of Russia?

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YES!

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I am VERY happy to hear this. It means to me Russia isn't going to stand back and let Israel and the United States just whale on Iran without a fight. I'm not kidding, this is SO psychedelic, SO sociopathological, that if we keep it up I am going to have to hope with all my heart that we get turned into powder by Russia and China and Iran. I would PREFER it, of course, that the American PEOPLE stood up and put a stop to it, but I'll take whatever humanity can get.

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We are causing all this death and mayhem in the Middle East and everywhere we can and using every foreign and domestic contractor we can because it keeps the need for other countries to use petrodollars high, which keeps our currency from tanking despite our COMPLETELY profligate "management" of our economy. The holders of vast reserves of the dollar, China foremost among them, are pretty much forced to go along with it or lose huge sums when their reserves become worthless.

Makes you proud, doesn't it?

But I believe both China and Russia will abandon that if we attack Iran.... Maybe I only hope it now, where I truly believed it before. Everyone better hope it or the slaughter will continue unabated until the proverbial cows come home to their smoking ruins barns.

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And this "Russian spy" crap is outta hand. First, it's not EVEN as much as the Israelis and the Turks have been doing for decades, and second, it's not really any more than people trained to set up a successful lobby... IF any of it is even true at ALL... and we SO can't bank on THAT.

The fact that Medvedev is here with Obama and Bubba is there with Putin at this very moment of "spy" arrests, is beyond suspicious behavior. It creeps me out big time.

AND CHECK THIS OUT!

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condemnation of israel at CICA summit in turkey

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The summit was a meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, a bloc of 22 Eurasian states founded in the early 1990s. Delegates mostly discussed security issues, particularly Israel and Afghanistan.

"All member states, except [Israel], expressed their grave concern and condemnation for the actions undertaken by the Israeli Defence Forces," the statement said.
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The presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan as well as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas were among the leaders who attended the security summit.

Putin said Russia would raise at the UN the controversial issue of who should investigate the Israeli raid, which he denounced as "a crude violation" of international law.

"We can't allow a new flame to flare up in the Middle East.... We will raise the issue at the United Nations, we're working at it," he told reporters.

Russia has gone opaque on Iran. I don't know what to make of that.

China, even more so. No, really. I don't get it.

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i'd love to go to sochi

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Now I'm certain he really did speak English to me in my stalking dreams.

Draft UN resolution on Iran almost complete - Russia

A draft UN resolution on Iran with amendments by nonpermanent Security Council members is almost complete, the Russian foreign minister said on Friday.

Sergei Lavrov said the resolution excludes "paralyzing" economic sanctions and reflects Brazil and Turkey's initiative on nuclear fuel supplies for the Tehran research reactor.

He also said Russia and China have proposed that nonpermanent Security Council members be given more time to study the draft and the vote should not be rushed.

MOSCOW, June 4 (RIA Novosti)

Hell, I would love to go to Russia.
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poor widdle oligarch

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Robs the people of Russia blind, then won't even pay his taxes, and we're supposed to be pissed off at Medvedev and Putin for this? I don't know about you, but I think their policy of leaving oligarchs who do not meddle in politics alone and ruining the ones who do is BEAUTIFUL! What wouldn't I give to have a government like that?

Besides, he can definitely stand to lose a few pounds.

Wow, and ain't it ironic that he will now be feeling just an iota of what he made untold thousands of Russians feel with his filthy perfidy at the end of the Soviet Era. More I think about this, the better it seems. His own hunger strike against what he deems unjust might actually wake him up to the enormity of the injustice he did. Concept!
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UPDATE:

Khodorkovsky is already serving an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion. He is now accused of stealing $9.6 billion from the $15.8 billion profit generated by Yukos between 1999 and 2003, as well as 350 million tons of oil.

Khodorkovsky told the court earlier that he could not understand what he was accused of because his specific actions were not described in the criminal case.

Yuh, dude, lose weight.
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definitely WORSE than pravda ever was

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In the last few months I've seen in about eight places that the Russians were going to try to raise Stalin's image, turn him into some kind of Soviet Era hero, that they'd hired a PR firm to provide him with a new reputation in world history, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera....

This was supposed to be some indictment of that spooky and dictatorial ex-KGB officer, Putin, the guy who pulled Russia out of chaos and back into some semblance of normalcy and order from abjection to gangster billionaires. Well, during road construction ahead of another SCO summit, they just found a mass grave of people executed in the Stalinist purges. They are fixing to rebury the victims in a Vladivostok cemetery, and are debating whether to erect obelisks and create a whole complex of memorials to Stalin's victims there.

And this from their state news outlet, RIA Novosti:

During the Stalinist purges millions of people were executed on fake charges of espionage, sabotage, anti-Soviet propaganda or died of starvation, disease or exposure in Gulag labor camps in Siberia and the Far East. According to official statistics, 52 million were convicted on political charges during Stalin's regime.

Man. That PR firm sucks.

You know, for decades, nobody in Albania has referred to us as "Americans". They call us "The Revisionists" and everybody knows who they're talking about. I've known this shit and screamed about it with increasing urgency for most of my adult life. Yet still people are acting as though we can convince the media to cut this shit out.

I can't believe I have any hair left.
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