…ok…so…I had things I meant to get to…but…first things first…in case anyone missed it…I’m pretty sure I could just quote @emmerdoesnotrepresentme & pull a few blockquotes from the bonanza of links supplied yesterday…&…maybe not understand what went down in russia…but at least get a much better feel for it than I could supply on my own…I mean…I could manage some basics
For months Yevgeny Prigozhin has theatrically railed against Russia’s military leaders. He has lambasted the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and commander in chief, Valery Gerasimov, accusing them of bungling and incompetence over the war in Ukraine. […] The Prigozhin-Shoigu feud appeared to be real. But in Putin’s opaque system – more of an Ottoman court than a western-style government – it was hard to tell. For more than two decades Putin has played the role of supreme arbiter-in-chief, playing off one ambitious Kremlin faction against another.
It was the old tactic of divide and rule. Prigozhin had previously proven himself to be a loyal ally entrusted with special state tasks, including the attempt to sabotage the 2016 US presidential election. According to one interpretation, Prigozhin’s bitter public crusade against Shoigu was licensed by the man at the top.
The dramatic events of the past 24 hours suggest any such deal with the Kremlin, if it ever existed, is off. Prigozhin is demanding nothing less than Shoigu’s condign removal and the replacement of the entire general staff. On Saturday night, Prigozhin announced he was pulling back from the Russian capital and returning to base, in order to avoid spilling blood.
Prigozhin is an Oligarch… he made his way up from prisoner to “hotdog-stand guy” to “restraunteur” to eventual Oligarch status by seeing needs-gaps, filling them, and being USEFUL to ol Pooty-Poot…
For Prigozhin to VISIBLY turn on Pooty-Poot’s war?!???
That’s INCREDIBLY INTERESTING, in a mind-blowing, “WTAF?!?!???” sort of a way!
YES, today he stopped the March on Moscow…
But for how long?🤔🤔🤔
This could literally have ramifications WORLD wide!!!
On the one hand, YES, Wagner has been losing fighters left and right–and being hit by their own side, while being starved of weapons, ammo, and honestly probably literal food, too, was a likely factor in yesterday’s actions.
But for one of Putin’s TOP allies, who he’s used to fight countless Proxy Wars & launder immeasurable funds over the last couple decades to VISIBLY turn against the Kremlin & call them out?!?
That’s a HUGE-ASS deal, y’all–and that just might be one of those signals we all look back on, at some point in the future, and say, “THIS was a turning point…”
It’s especially interesting, in light of the news about Navalny’s associate being found “guilty,” and Nataliya being brought up on “new” charges–since Navalny’s investigations into corruption & specifically The Wagner Group were a part of what originally made Navalny an Enemy of Putin, ended up causing that Assassination attempt, and landed Navalny in prison in the first place…
If he’s got contracts to provide soldiers around the world, and the Russian Generals in Pooty-Poot’s orbit are both decimating his troops in Ukraine because they see them as “Expendable Meat-Shields,” the Generals & others “back home” are blocking him from recruiting new mercenaries to his game, and a bunch of the troops he did have contracted are getting freed by Pooty-Poot, after serving & surviving for 6 months…
Well, I can see why Prigozhin would be SO pissed off, that he’d pull back & take over Russian cities.…
Not a smart idea long-term, of course!
But it WOULD be a way to send a message to “Papa” and figure out who really has “Dear Papa’s” ear.🤔🤔🤔
It could finally be a split between Wagner and Russia, as Pooty-Poot’s inner-circle gets smaller & smaller, and more insular & out-of-touch with realities on the ground…
If Pooty-Poot and Prigozhin really are still incredibly tight, it could be a deflection ploy, to pull eyeballs and media attention away from the news that Zelenskyy dropped a couple days ago–about Russians laying down lots of mines around the Zaporizhia…
And we ALL know that Wagner and ol Pooty-Poot are masters at deflection & redirection
This early in the game, it’s hard to even speculate which one would be most likely to be correct…
All of them are Plausible, ngl!!!
Even the one where Prigozhin pretends to be on the outs with Pooty-Poot, so that Russia can suck all the oxygen out of the room, so that they can continue to set Zaporizhia up for a man-made catastrophe.🙃
Even if Prigozhin called off “The March on Moscow? The pullback & capture of Rostov-on-Don is MASSIVE, because not only did the head of The Wagner Group– Russia’s “Plausible Deniability” Army branch PUBLICLY call out (and Humiliate!!!) ‘ol Pooty-Poot’s Generals, he showed AVERAGE RUSSIANS that the Army is intact weak & bungling/bumbling….
This was potentially epic, world-changing news, that broke yesterday…
It’ll take time, obviously, to see if it really is that type of “Historical!” of course….
But as someone autistic whose had one of their “Fascination Areas” be Russia, since childhood?
This feels like it might just be as momentous in future history books, as the truly gawdawful feeling i had (later proved correct!), when ‘ol Boris announced that a lizard-like cyborg-looking FSB Director would be his successor…
I had a TERRIBLE feeling about Putin, after Yeltsin’s announcement that Pooty-Poot would be his chosen successor…
As we’ve all seen, in the actions of that Evil Man, that read of him being rotten to the core was correct.
I don’t think Prigozhin can/will be the next leader of Russia–if that’s even his aim…
Because he doesn’t have the hair for it…
But IF he survives the next couple years, i could see him trying to rule down the road…
…& I haven’t finished getting through those links…but…I have been a little distracted by a few others…&…they are distracting
Like most conspiracists, [RFK] Junior was big on social media, but then in 2021 his Instagram account was removed for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines”, and in August last year his anti-vaccination Children’s Health Defense group was removed by Facebook and Instagram on the grounds that it had repeatedly violated Meta’s medical-misinformation policies.
But guess what? On 4 June, Instagram rescinded Junior’s suspension, enabling him to continue beaming his baloney, without let or hindrance, to his 867,000 followers. How come? Because he announced that he’s running against Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination and Meta, Instagram’s parent, has a policy that users should be able to engage with posts from “political leaders”. “As he is now an active candidate for president of the United States,” it said, “we have restored access to Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Instagram account.”
Which naturally is also why the company allowed Donald Trump back on to its platform. So in addition to anti-vax propaganda, American voters can also look forward in 2024 to a flood of denialism about the validity of the 2020 election on their social media feeds as Republican acolytes of Trump stand for election and get a free pass from Meta and co.
All of which led technology journalist Casey Newton, an astute observer of these things, to advance an interesting hypothesis last week about what’s happening. We may, he said, have passed “peak trust and safety”. Translation: we may have passed the point where tech platforms stopped caring about moderating what happens on their platforms. From now on, (almost) anything goes. […] On the basis of that [section 230] keep-out-of-jail card, corporations such as Google, Meta and Twitter prospered mightily for years. Bad stuff did indeed happen, but no legal shadow fell on the owners of the platforms on which it was hosted. Of course it often led to bad publicity – but that was ameliorated or avoided by recruiting large numbers of (overseas and poorly paid) moderators, whose job was to ensure that the foul things posted online did not sully the feeds of delicate and fastidious users in the global north.
But moderation is difficult and often traumatising work. And, given the scale of the problem, keeping social media clean is an impossible, sisyphean task. The companies employ many thousands of moderators across the globe, but they can’t keep up with the deluge. For a time, these businesses argued that artificial intelligence (meaning machine-learning technology) would enable them to get on top of it. But the AI that can outwit the ingenuity of the bad actors who lurk in the depths of the internet has yet to be invented.
And, more significantly perhaps, times have suddenly become harder for tech companies. The big ones are still very profitable, but that’s partly because they been shedding jobs at a phenomenal rate. And many of those who have been made redundant worked in areas such as moderation, or what the industry came to call “trust and safety”. After all, if there’s no legal liability for the bad stuff that gets through whatever filters there are, why keep these worthy custodians on board?
Earlier this week, Judge Aileen Cannon, the federal judge in South Florida presiding over the case who will ultimately decide when the trial begins, set a start date for August.
But such an early date is not expected to stick. The government’s case against Trump and his aide, Walt Nauta, is centered on numerous classified documents, which requires lawyers on both sides to adhere to stringent and often time-consuming laws intended to ensure that Trump’s legal team and the jury are able to view the evidence while protecting the government secrets. […] Trials involving classified documents can drag on, but a relatively quick timetable is crucial if the government wants the trial to be finished before the 2024 presidential race. Trump is the leading Republican candidate and he and some of some of his GOP competitors have slammed the investigation as partisan, suggesting that any one of them may try to force the Justice Department to drop the case if elected.
Federal prosecutors said in its Friday court filing that they have asked to delay Cannon’s proposed timetable by about four months — with jury selection beginning Dec. 11 — because Trump’s lawyers will need up to two months to obtain the security clearance required to view some of the classified documents. The government alleged in its indictment against Trump that the former president improperly retained 31 classified documents at his Florida residence, some of which include information about foreign countries’ nuclear and military capabilities. […] The case will ultimately be tried under the rules of the Classified Information Procedures Act, or CIPA — a law that spells out pretrial steps that must be taken to decide what classified information will be used in court and how. […] The filing, which was signed by Smith, also noted that starting the trial before the end of the year is reasonable because the case “is not so unusual or complex.”
“The case does involve classified information and will necessitate defense counsel obtaining the requisite security clearances,” the filing reads. “As the Court is aware, that process is already underway.” […] The government said Friday that it has submitted a list of 84 witnesses that Trump should not speak to about the case as it proceeds. The names of those witnesses are under seal, and the government says that list is not the exhaustive list of witnesses it might call at trial.
…not to mention that the material itself might be classified…but a lot of the receipts are…well…not
Those nonclassified materials include, according to the court filing, “documents obtained via subpoena, evidence obtained via warrants, transcripts of grand jury testimony, memorialization of witness interviews, a reproduction of key documents that in the government’s view are pertinent to the case, and copies of closed-circuit television footage the government has obtained during its investigation.”
The North Atlantic heat wave is part of a rapid warming of ocean waters globally since March that has scientists confused about the cause and concerned about its impacts.
Global ocean surface temperatures reached a record high in May for the second consecutive month, NOAA said in a report last week, and appears to have continued on a record pace during June. The chance of seeing such warm sea surface temperatures is 1-in-256,000, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, adding “this is beyond extraordinary” in a recent tweet.
This is how the sea surface temperatures look right now.
NOAA forecasters say the marine heat wave conditions in the North Atlantic have a 90 to 100 percent chance to continue through August and a 70 to 80 percent chance to last through the end of the year, although the intensity of the heat is predicted to decrease. Most of the world’s oceans have at least a 70 percent chance of marine heat wave conditions continuing at least through the summer, NOAA predicts. […] “The temperatures are not yet lethal for most sensitive species, although they will be stressed,” Smith said. “However, if temperatures remain at 4 to 5 degrees Celsius above normal through to September, we could witness a significant die-off in critical species for the marine ecosystems that surround the UK, such as kelp and seagrass, as well as oysters and various fish species that are important for regional economies.” […] Smith notes that because the United Kingdom and Ireland are surrounded by an unusually warm North Atlantic Ocean to the west and an equally warm North Sea to the east, “whichever way the winds blow, they will pass over warmer waters than we’ve ever experienced in the observational record for this time of year.”
Looking for a cooldown? As close to average as to records is the best we can do for ya. Sadly, temps are going to creep back upwards next week, too. Sorry, y'all. We're gonna get back to our typical levels of heat someday, but not real soon. Keep up the fight against the heat! pic.twitter.com/8m80dzho4Q
As much as we don't want to tweet this… We did hit 114° here at the office in San Angelo today. So that means we have tied our all-time record high, set approximately 24 hours ago… so that's fun 😒 #txwx#sjtwx
On Wednesday, Chris Gloninger, the chief meteorologist at Des Moines’s CBS TV station affiliate KCCI, announced that he will be stepping down from his position and leaving his broadcast career in July.
Gloninger said in a statement on Twitter: “18 years. 7 stations. 5 states. I am bidding farewell to TV to embark on a new journey dedicated to helping solve the climate crisis.”
He added: “After a death threat stemming from my climate coverage last year and resulting PTSD, in addition to family issues, I’ve decide to begin this journey now”.
Last July, Gloninger, who has spent 18-years of his career covering climate change as well as the weather and became KCCI’s chief meteorologist in 2021, shared a series of disturbing emails he received regarding his coverage.
One message said: “I don’t watch your worthless weather forecast because your an idiot but someone else texted me and said you are still an idiot, go the hell back where you came from DOUCHEBAG.” […] Another particularly distressing email said:, “What’s your home address, we conservative Iowans would like to give you an Iowan welcome you will never forget, kinda like the libtards gave JUDGE KAVANAUGH,” referring to supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose house was surrounded by demonstrators last year to protest the elimination of federal abortion rights. […] “I don’t want to be the news. … I wanted to bring awareness to the fact that it’s not just me, it’s other climate scientists, scientists, journalists.”
Imagine that you want to go green. You go to your utility and say you want to buy power — power specifically from a solar or wind farm, power that doesn’t come with sky-high carbon emissions or harmful air pollution. Your home uses about 10 megawatt-hours of electricity per year, so you buy that amount of solar and wind.
Congratulations! You’ve just erased all the greenhouse gas emissions from your electricity use. Right?
Not … exactly. Around the country — and the world — thousands of companies, households and cities buy renewable electricity credits to meet their climate targets and bolster their sustainability claims. There’s just one problem: Buying those credits, it turns out, doesn’t mean you are actually running on renewables. In fact, it doesn’t mean that at all. […] Once, experts say, buying renewable electricity creditsmay have helped struggling wind and solar farms get off the ground. But now, as the price of renewables plummets and solar farms spring up from California to Texas, it looks more like a way for companies to claim that they are cleaning up their act without much effort — or cost.
The reason has to do with the science of the electricity grid — and the very strange product known as a “renewable energy credit.” […] “Electricity is just a weird thing,” said Michael Gillenwater, the executive director and co-founder of the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute.
For one thing, electricity has to be used the instant it is produced; that’s why grid operators are constantly trying to balance all of their different power sources. And once electricity is produced — by the spinning of a wind turbine or by the firing of a coal power plant — its source can’t be tracked. When you turn on a light switch or plug in an electric car, it’s impossible to tell whether that power was generated by a solar panel or a natural gas plant.
…I forget where…but somewhere there’s a hydroelectric plant that takes surplus electricity when supply exceeds demand & uses it to pump water above its mechanism so it can take advantage of the banked potential energy to let gravity push it back down through its generators to put it back into the system when the balance tips the other way…so…batteries come in many shapes & sizes & we could probably do with a lot more of that sort of thing…but for the time being…don’t go reading up on how much of the electricity we produce at considerable greenhouse gas costs actually gets unceremoniously dumped…it…will not make your sunday restful
Mark Dyson, managing director of carbon-free electricity at the energy think tank RMI, says an electricity grid is a bit like a giant swimming pool. When different types of power plants create electricity, it’s similar to pouring water from different colored glasses into the pool — they look different on the outside, but once in the pool the water can’t be separated out. A person, or electricity user, sitting on the other end of the pool sucking out water with a straw can’t tell where it came from.
That’s why renewable energy credits, also known as renewable energy certificates, or RECs, were invented. These credits play a kind of electricity shell game. Say a wind farm in Texas produces thousands of megawatt-hours of electricity in a given year. That wind farm can make money two ways: first, by selling that power to the local utility or second, by selling the “greenness” or “renewable-ness” of that power to companies and individuals — in the form of credits.
When a company says that it’s buying renewable energy, most of the time that means it’s buying renewable credits — not the electricity itself.
…carbon credits, anyone? …credit where credit is due…or…you know…not so much
Certain renewable credits are sold to comply with state or federal regulations — these tend to be more expensive and, experts say, more legitimate. But other credits are sold to companies or individuals who just want to look more green.
Those credits can create some odd contradictions. A company based in West Virginia might be using 25 megawatt-hours of electricity in a year that’s coming primarily from coal. But the company could buy renewable credits from a wind farm in Texas and claim that its electricity is entirely pollution-free.
That company “could report publicly that its emissions have gone to zero,” Macrae said. “But does the Earth see less emissions?”
A study from 2013, for example, showed that the ability to sell renewable credits was unlikely to change the decision-making of a wind farm developer, even if the credits became much more expensive. Often, renewable credits cost less than $1 per megawatt-hour; they have occasionally reached around $5 per megawatt-hour. Experts say the credits would have to cost around $20 to $40 to provide a true incentive to build renewables. […] Homeowners or renters who buy “renewable electricity” directly from their utility — and who don’t pay a stiff price premium — are likely buying credits produced by wind farms and solar farms in totally different parts of the country, Gillenwater explained.
There is also growing evidence that such credits are helping companies inflate their green credentials. Another study, released last year, analyzed the climate targets of 115 companies with and without the use of renewable credits. Looking at the energy mix where these firms operated, researchers calculated that they had reduced their electricity-related emissions by 10 percent — leaving them shy of the Paris agreement’s climate goals. But by factoring in renewable credits, these companies said they cut their carbon pollution by around 31 percent on average.
“A big proportion of the reported reductions are not real,” said Anders Bjorn, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at the Technical University of Denmark.
…not real stuff causing real problems seems like it’s the sort of thing we ought to be able to avoid…given how much of the other sort we already need to get to grips with
Just as child predators had for years used Facebook and other major tech platforms to disseminate pictures of child sexual abuse, they were now attempting to use Dall-E to create entirely new ones. “I am not surprised that it was a thing that people would attempt to do,” Mr. Willner said. “But to be very clear, neither were the folks at OpenAI.”
For all of the recent talk of the hypothetical existential risks of generative A.I., experts say it is this immediate threat — child predators using new A.I. tools already — that deserves the industry’s undivided attention.
In a newly published paper by the Stanford Internet Observatory and Thorn, a nonprofit that fights the spread of child sexual abuse online, researchers found that, since last August, there has been a small but meaningful uptick in the amount of photorealistic A.I.-generated child sexual abuse material circulating on the dark web.
…I’mma stop there…though the article doesn’t…& neither do the misbegotten benighted excuses for people it’s talking about…I just…can’t in good conscience include that in anyone’s day who didn’t click through knowing what they were in for…not that some people show any signs of possessing such a thing
…weird thing, though…seems like when you don’t let them get away with it…some of these assholes can in fact achieve things they claimed were impossible
…honestly I don’t even know if we can trust that there really is an agreement to fold wagner troops into the military while big chief hotdog hot dogs it to being put out to pasture in belarus
…but…if we can that sounds a lot like when they put pablo escobar in “prison”…which is orders of magnitude beyond the level of forgiving putin’s been about wildly less enormous transgressions against the official line on the special operation
…so…I don’t think the proverbial fat lady is even warming up for the swan song on that whole mess…but…if history is a guide…listening out for swan lake gracing the airwaves of the state broadcaster has been known to be an indicator of sorts?
@SplinterRip, I’m late to the conversation, but Thanks!😉😁😆💖
And I am OBVIOUSLY practically *vibrating* with curiosity about *what’s REALLY going on, nd what the TRUE endgame here is!*
Does Papa *want* to test and/or sack Shoigu & Gerasimov, and did he Prigozhin’s little stunt to test them, to see if he *should*?🤔🤔🤔
Is he mining the nuke plant’s surroundings even *more* quickly?
I am SO curious!!!😆😂🤣
Ngl, the longer that Prigozhin *hassn’t* “suddenly(!!!)” fall ill in the last 48 (and counting!) hours seriously makes me *incredibly* into the idea of starting my *OWN* line of Tinfoil Millinery to sell on Ebay!😆😂🤣🤣🤣🤣
That Prigozhin isn’t *Needing* to be taken-“nearly comatose(!)” to a Muscovite Hospital–where he will *suddenly* (magically!) “Leap out of bed, after approximately 10 hours, claiming to “*NEED* some fresh air,” THROW *OPEN* the window, and then *oh, so TRAGICALLY* “stumble, *ever so slightly* as he dances the Gopak*** and “ACCIDENTALLY” finds himself going ass-over-Teakettle, and (GASP!) *INSTANTANEOUSLY* finds himself “TRIPPING AND FALLING” *ALL BY *HIS OWN SELF* (Cough! Cough!), and “Under his OWN (“near-comatose,” of course!) power…
OUT of *said* window, and *accidentally* dead, on the concrete slab, which–Coincidentally–*also* “JUST” happened to be the *ONLY* “Concrete Slab under a 9th-floor window” that that particular hospital has….
But, that *was* the room the comatose Prigozhin *DID* ask the nice FSB man “Orderly” to put him in to recover!!!
Because, “As Prigozhin TOLD the nice Officer… errr… the nice *MAN,* “it juuuuust has *SUCH* a lovely view of Krasnaya Ploshchad’!”😍🥰🤗🙃
(***Prisyádka, if you prefer the *full* Russian/non-Ukranian name!😉)
The quote from Prigozhin, about Papa’s Generals last spring;
“Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin accused Shoigu and Gerasimov of incompetence.[39] On 5 May 2023, Prigozhin blamed them for “tens of thousands” of Wagner casualties, saying “Shoigu, Gerasimov, where … is the ammunition? They came here as volunteers and are dying so you can sit like fat cats in your luxury offices.”[40]”
…if they push for moscow, I’d agree…but…not that I know or anything…if this did do anything about shifting the distribution of russia’s troops…which I think I read somewhere were something upwards of 75% committed in /around ukraine
…might could be your advice would have been sound when it comes to a spot of divide & anti-conquer?
…& if they drove for crimea…I’m thinking that support stays where it is?
More importantly it shows how incredibly weak Putin’s position is. He came within a whisker of getting thrown out. I don’t think the Moscow defense forces could withstand an attack from the Girl Scouts, much less a mercenary group.
Question is, will this make him double down on his insanity, or will he go, hey, maybe this wasn’t the best idea (spoiler alert: it’s number one). And that begs the question of whether his own citizens will go, fuck it, we’re tired of this Ivan the Terrible shit, this guy’s got to go.
The war is obviously going very badly, but I wonder how much the average Russian, under the constant barrage of state-sanctioned media, thinks that Putin is like Ivan the Terrible.
Under Communism the Russian Orthodox Church had to keep a low profile and pretend that St. Basil, for example, would totally have collectivized farms if he and God had been smart enough to think of it, like Lenin and Stalin. Now that that madness has gone away the Church has come roaring back. The Russian Orthodox Church has always been very conservative and with no Royal Family to unite behind they’re more than happy to link arms with people like Putin.
Then there’s the irredentism. Imagine if the US lost a similar percentage of its landmass through breakaway “republics.” What if Alaska said, “No, we’re going to go our own way, and we’ve got Canada to the east and Russia to the west, and all that oil, so we think we’ll be fine. Plus tourism, but bring your passport.” You think people in DC would let bygones be bygones?
…I know I remember being shocked to discover…while visiting one long lost summer in what now seems a lot more like my youth than it felt at the time…that particularly older generations but generally a shockingly high proportion of georgians had a fairly nostalgic view of the good ol’ days when their favorite local boy done good was spending his down time down by the black seaside & his office hours signing off on all manner of brutality & executions & purges in the name of the common interest & furthering the glorious future of the proletariat
…sometimes maybe it’s not who you know or what you know but what you know about who?
The fact that the state-sanctioned media can’t explain away an army marching toward Moscow is why I think we might reach a tipping point with average Russians. They’ve had dissidents all along, but they seemed to get brutally suppressed. And it’s easy to bullshit events that are happening way over in Ukraine. It’s a little tough to hide the fact that hey, we just had to demolish roads into Moscow to slow the advance of an invading army. I just wonder if it will spark something,
…so…I’m feeling a little guilty about the cavalcade of downers I seem yet again to have served up…though…in my defense…it’s not like I included all of them
Have added a Community Note to this, if you’re part of that scheme maybe sling me an upvote. I would like Johnson to be Noted a lot.
— Paul Schleifer @PaulSchleifer@mastodonapp.uk💙💚😷 (@PaulSchleifer) June 6, 2023
…at this point there has to be some sort of german compound word meaning a smokescreen comprised of a high-pressure constant mist of bullshit that covers everything in sight…but…it’s not just me
I have over 400 hours of experience playing Civilization V. Vladimir Putin should have known that when his national happiness fell below -20 he would start spawning random insurgents. Here’s what he should do next: 🧵(1/?)
…as is humor in general…one thing I would note, though…is that contextual definitions can make all the difference between something to cry or laugh about
Sorry but if a child told me they identified as a hologram I would immediately see right through them.
I met a child who identified as "it." I explained I would not respect this pronoun. They tagged me and declared I was now "it." Deeply shocking behaviour.
That’s not a huge surprise — the US and Ukraine have had deep intelligence since Russia started planning the invasion. But it’s still awfully interesting, since Wagner was supposed to be more elite than the run of the mill Russian forces. And of course, why does the US know what Putin doesn’t? Even if you think this is all a ruse, the US still shouldn’t know.
But it’s even more interesting that the US has apparently leaked this in order to publicize the fact they knew. They’ve been doing this kind of thing since day one to undermine Putin, and they’re keeping it up, despite the normal instincts of intelligence agencies to bury everything.
You can even read this with an eye toward the Trump documents case. The intelligence community is not letting secrecy get in the way of decisive action. And they seem to know a lot about secret dealings with foreign powers that the conspirators don’t even know themselves.
Trump, of course, is probably too wound up to be able to deal psychologically with the implications. But his conspirators ought to think even harder.
…much as I do agree with pretty much the whole thesis of that…I’m not sure it’s the example I’d pick?
…I wouldn’t claim I “knew” about something worth calling “plans” but it was hardly a secret he’d been shit-talking the army high command as a bunch of traitorous incompetents who’d been tying his hands & being as busy thwarting the gains he would otherwise have been embarrassing them with achieving (if not for their meddling & interference in the previously exemplary communications between him & the man with the plan kremlin-side) as they were profligate with the lives of those under their command (not least those convicts the use of which he seems to think he invented rather than just being first back to that old well) & just generally making out he could & would do their job for them if anyone asked…& might just do anyway if they didn’t as an example to true patriots everywhere…he was…extremely public about all of that
…so…I don’t think the intelligence services were alone in thinking that there might be something worth keeping track of simmering away which would be pretty dramatic if it boiled over
…& similarly I probably wouldn’t roll with “elite” as a descriptor for wagner’s goon squads…in terms of “getting the job done” they superficially boast higher effectiveness than the regular forces…& part of that might be because at this point the quality of those is barrel-scraping dregs in a bunch of places…but…it also has to do with “the job”…which has mostly been to be an implausibly deniable proxy force with which to get boots in the ground in places russia needs/wants to claim officially it doesn’t have any…mostly to do things that either already are outlawed by the geneva convention or really ought to be
…they’re semi-literally a prison gang with de facto state affiliated status…& I wouldn’t call the aryan brotherhood an elite force even if they have B-wing locked down & have successfully withstood a flanking maneuver from the black guerilla family in A-block on the one hand & MS-13 trying to open a second front from C-block
…not saying they might not be the best of what they have left to offer…I’m way off being up to speed about that sort of consideration…just feels like it devalues the term “elite” to apply it that way?
I don’t think the intelligence services were alone in thinking that there might be something worth keeping track of simmering away which would be pretty dramatic if it boiled over
It’s worth taking a step back from trying grind down the significance of this. Nobody who was looking at just the public signs of Prigozhin’s feuding and fussing was predicting it would go this far. Not even close. Trying to put the reality into some big tent called “pretty dramatic” isn’t the way to look at it.
It’s difference between saying “summer is hurricane season, there might be a Category 4 between now and September” vs. “Hurricane ABC is expected to make landfall Tuesday night in this 100 mile stretch of coastline with sustained winds of over 110 mph and a storm surge of up to 15 feet.” Conflating the two statements into some overly broad category hurts understanding the actual event.
For that matter, while Wagner grabs lots of prisoners, the leadership itself is supposed to be far more disciplined than the bulk of the Russian military, and the fact that there was sufficient infiltration to know about the specifics is significant.
One of the main reasons Putin went to Wagner is that the leadership was supposed to be locked down in a way that his own military was not. Their operational security was supposed to be vastly better, so that the conscript sitting in a trench would know nothing even as orders were being drawn up.
The distinction between Wagner leadership and the rest of Putin’s force leadership wasn’t supposed to be a matter of a few degrees, it was supposed to be like the two legs of a right triangle.
The fact that it seems to have been that way to Putin, but Western intel still cracked it, is very significant. And the fact that the US is being open about the news so quickly says a lot more.
…leaving aside the overtime the idea of relative merits is pulling in a lot of that assessment…this part?
It’s worth taking a step back from trying grind down the significance of this.
…I flat out don’t recognize in my comment
…if anything I think suggesting that their noting after the fact that they had advance notice of that is a hint of hitherto un-hinted-at levels of penetration through that veil by the intelligence services is the thing that makes what just went down as big a deal as I think it is simply misses the point
…if the point is one of that nature, anyway
…the number of times they beat russia to the punch outing specious narratives designed to let them claim the things they were aiming to pull were justified at the outset of hostilities…or at any number of stages since then…not least concerning the dam that didn’t burst on its own or the plight of that damn nuclear plant…already made that point plenty forcefully & with greater clarity
…so if that’s how you took what I said there’s clearly a gulf of tone getting lost in translation?
I swear, between him, *Noel*-of-the-Oxen-name, and the head-Gaultian from Palantir, the old Rogers Quote is always *TOO* damn “On-the-nose”!!!😖😱😱😱🥴;
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
****SERIOUSLY, y’all–WHO NAMES THIS SHIT?!?!?????
*WHYYYYYYY* do they ALWAYS seem to choose names that sound like things a B-Movie villain would name *THEIR* terrible & ineptly-bumbling company?!?😅😂🤣🤣🤣)
I suspect that Putin could have known if he wanted to. And that some of his advisors did know. But that like his pal, trump, he won’t hear anything he doesn’t want to. And those closest to him are afraid to tell him certain things.
…I’ve heard a case made…not implausibly to my ears…that if hot dog (…hit dog? …was a typo…but he definitely hollers?) guy doesn’t end up mincemeat over all this…it could if you squint just right be because these were how extreme the lengths were that someone had to go to to get past the gatekeeping firewalls & communicate to vlad that the people he was listening to were lying to him & some of the ones they told him not to listen to or accused of lying were trying to stop that biting him in the ass & dooming russia’s fortunes
…I mean…I don’t buy that any of the people involved are doing what they say they’re doing for any of the reasons they claim they feel they have to
…but…even if we may never know…I guess we all get to see it play out all the same?
@SplinterRip, I think the most likely “tell” on this, is gonna be which of the Generals (or “Plausibly-Deniable-Generals”) *hasn’t* had an unfortunate & “sudden” *Accident* (or had an “INCREDIBLY SUDDEN & Uncontrollable”*URGE* TO OPEN A NON-OPENING WINDOW at the end of… what, probably the next two weeks or so?🥴
I think it’s interesting that reports emerged early last year that top US officials, from military brass to cabinet secretaries to Biden himself, were telling Russia and Putim himself about things US intelligence knew about Rusian weaknesses before the invasion even began.
And I think it’s increasingly clear this wasn’t really aimed at the needs of the moment. It was a part of a longterm plan to convince Putin he had to trust the US more than himself.
Putin’s enterprise has been based on the idea that he can create his own reality, and the US has been working hard to disabuse him of that notion.
And I think it’s increasingly clear this wasn’t really aimed at the needs of the moment. It was a part of a longterm plan to convince Putin he had to trust the US more than himself.
…increasingly clear to many in the russian orbit very possibly…& not impossibly to vlad his own self…but…that also seemed to be a case they made overtly & specifically back then…so I don’t recall it ever seeming like they threw those stones at that glass house with a view to merely killing one bird at a time
…I know…& I’m sorry…even if the repeat offending makes it seem like I’m not
…still, misery loves company & all that…& I really am grateful that I have more than whatever tunes come to mind to consider mine when all this shit refuses to stop hitting the fan
…so…cheers…if that’s not an inappropriate term
…figure as much as I feel like I could use a stiff drink it can’t be…but that’s awful close to the only good cheer I seem to find space for on the menu most days?
Video needs more Australian men wearing budgy smugglers but it’s winter down there now so maybe…but the woman who got bit by the dingo was wearing a bikini…I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that the earth rotates, and revolves around the sun, let alone that we have two entirely different seasonal patterns, hemispheres north and south.
A person in my department lives in Argentina. We always start meetings with the local weather and it’s so weird to hear about winter when it’s 93 degrees here.
I have friends who live in Australia (“Stralya”) and I remember one of them called me once. Here in New York it was snowing quite heavily, which is kind of rare. Down in Melbourne, where they live, the Australian Open was going on and it was the year that it was so hot that they actually closed the stadium and allowed the players to…I don’t know why this is so sacrilegious but one of the players, I think Serena Williams, the webbing on her racquet actually started melting. I remember watching it on TV. There was hardly anyone in the audience. This friend told me that the whole city was basically shut down because of this heatwave. And then later came the year that their state, Victoria, went up in flames, but that was a different issue.
In the category of minor miracles, I 95 is back in operation just a couple of weeks after a huge gas truck fire collapsed a huge section and shut it down.
By typical US infrastructure standards, that’s amazing. A lot of work needs to be done for permanent repairs, but even a temporary fix was initially expected to take a lot longer.
Had the 9/11 lunatics chosen different targets…Had they chosen the George Washington or Brooklyn Bridge, say, that would have been out of commission for years. As it is there’s a piece of the World Trade Center that still hasn’t been rebuilt, and it’s only been, what, 21 1/2 years now?
Without his army to protect him, Prigozhin won’t last a week. How many people has Putin ordered killed for nothing more than saying bad things about him. Does anyone seriously think he’ll let this shit go?
…he’s also burned through a fair number of generals
…so, speaking for myself I certainly don’t think he’ll let this go…& I don’t think yevgeny is the only one who probably needs to keep looking over his shoulder
…but the thing nobody seems to be able to give even an odds-on assessment of is how he fights the corner he’s backed himself into?
…does he swap out some or all of the high command for version 3.0 of pursuing the original objective of *checks notes* preemptively ridding not-a-real-country-that-spiritually-belongs-to-mother-russia of modern day nazis…give them wagners toy soldiers to play with…& maybe throw some sort of escalatory tantrum?
…does he leave them in place & get his ex-chum yevgeny to open up a new front from belarus while claiming it’s rogue interests while lukashenko turns a blind eye the way the pakistani’s claimed they were surprised that bin laden turned out to be living in their backyard?
…does kadyrov think he learned some valuable lessons from another man’s mis-step that lets him refine how he aims to try to parlay his way to annexing something for the chechens to call their own?
…does the part where china’s chattering classes were making comparisons to the short-lived attempt by a warlord called an lushan to defy the tang dynasty (in, like, the 8th century or something) by declaring himself ruler of his own kingdom mean the leadership is starting to look around for people to cozy up to who might be useful to them in a power vacuum post-putin?
…either way, I think whatever metaphor we go with…the cat is out of the bag…among the pigeons…& very probably evincing levels of curiosity widely considered to be lethal…or indeed, cats, plural…the herding of which might be starting to look like needing a reach that exceeds the grasp of vlad’s death-grip on the whole shooting match?
Worst road trip ever.
Funny enough, it also shows that if the Ukrainians really wanted take the Road To Moscow is open.
…honestly I don’t even know if we can trust that there really is an agreement to fold wagner troops into the military while big chief hotdog hot dogs it to being put out to pasture in belarus
…but…if we can that sounds a lot like when they put pablo escobar in “prison”…which is orders of magnitude beyond the level of forgiving putin’s been about wildly less enormous transgressions against the official line on the special operation
…so…I don’t think the proverbial fat lady is even warming up for the swan song on that whole mess…but…if history is a guide…listening out for swan lake gracing the airwaves of the state broadcaster has been known to be an indicator of sorts?
@SplinterRip, I’m late to the conversation, but Thanks!😉😁😆💖
And I am OBVIOUSLY practically *vibrating* with curiosity about *what’s REALLY going on, nd what the TRUE endgame here is!*
Does Papa *want* to test and/or sack Shoigu & Gerasimov, and did he Prigozhin’s little stunt to test them, to see if he *should*?🤔🤔🤔
Is he mining the nuke plant’s surroundings even *more* quickly?
I am SO curious!!!😆😂🤣
Ngl, the longer that Prigozhin *hassn’t* “suddenly(!!!)” fall ill in the last 48 (and counting!) hours seriously makes me *incredibly* into the idea of starting my *OWN* line of Tinfoil Millinery to sell on Ebay!😆😂🤣🤣🤣🤣
That Prigozhin isn’t *Needing* to be taken-“nearly comatose(!)” to a Muscovite Hospital–where he will *suddenly* (magically!) “Leap out of bed, after approximately 10 hours, claiming to “*NEED* some fresh air,” THROW *OPEN* the window, and then *oh, so TRAGICALLY* “stumble, *ever so slightly* as he dances the Gopak*** and “ACCIDENTALLY” finds himself going ass-over-Teakettle, and (GASP!) *INSTANTANEOUSLY* finds himself “TRIPPING AND FALLING” *ALL BY *HIS OWN SELF* (Cough! Cough!), and “Under his OWN (“near-comatose,” of course!) power…
OUT of *said* window, and *accidentally* dead, on the concrete slab, which–Coincidentally–*also* “JUST” happened to be the *ONLY* “Concrete Slab under a 9th-floor window” that that particular hospital has….
But, that *was* the room the comatose Prigozhin *DID* ask the
nice FSB man“Orderly” to put him in to recover!!!Because, “As Prigozhin TOLD the nice
Officer… errr… the nice *MAN,* “it juuuuust has *SUCH* a lovely view of Krasnaya Ploshchad’!”😍🥰🤗🙃(***Prisyádka, if you prefer the *full* Russian/non-Ukranian name!😉)
I forgot my other links!😖
The quote from Prigozhin, about Papa’s Generals last spring;
“Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin accused Shoigu and Gerasimov of incompetence.[39] On 5 May 2023, Prigozhin blamed them for “tens of thousands” of Wagner casualties, saying “Shoigu, Gerasimov, where … is the ammunition? They came here as volunteers and are dying so you can sit like fat cats in your luxury offices.”[40]”
From here;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valery_Gerasimov
me finks if ukraine actually tries it western support would drop them like a hot potato
still…its a good thing ukraine didnt listen to my suggestion of now going all out on a counter offensive…
seems i vastly over estimated the chaos…..
…if they push for moscow, I’d agree…but…not that I know or anything…if this did do anything about shifting the distribution of russia’s troops…which I think I read somewhere were something upwards of 75% committed in /around ukraine
…might could be your advice would have been sound when it comes to a spot of divide & anti-conquer?
…& if they drove for crimea…I’m thinking that support stays where it is?
well the netherlands at least…have vowed to support ukraine till all of their territory is back in their hands……that includes crimea
cant speak for any other countries….and we are small country with no military might worth mentioning
fucking loads of money tho…..we’ve literally been buying other countries weaponry to give to ukraine…
come to think of it……we might be holding a grudge for mh17 tho….
More importantly it shows how incredibly weak Putin’s position is. He came within a whisker of getting thrown out. I don’t think the Moscow defense forces could withstand an attack from the Girl Scouts, much less a mercenary group.
Question is, will this make him double down on his insanity, or will he go, hey, maybe this wasn’t the best idea (spoiler alert: it’s number one). And that begs the question of whether his own citizens will go, fuck it, we’re tired of this Ivan the Terrible shit, this guy’s got to go.
The war is obviously going very badly, but I wonder how much the average Russian, under the constant barrage of state-sanctioned media, thinks that Putin is like Ivan the Terrible.
Under Communism the Russian Orthodox Church had to keep a low profile and pretend that St. Basil, for example, would totally have collectivized farms if he and God had been smart enough to think of it, like Lenin and Stalin. Now that that madness has gone away the Church has come roaring back. The Russian Orthodox Church has always been very conservative and with no Royal Family to unite behind they’re more than happy to link arms with people like Putin.
Then there’s the irredentism. Imagine if the US lost a similar percentage of its landmass through breakaway “republics.” What if Alaska said, “No, we’re going to go our own way, and we’ve got Canada to the east and Russia to the west, and all that oil, so we think we’ll be fine. Plus tourism, but bring your passport.” You think people in DC would let bygones be bygones?
…I know I remember being shocked to discover…while visiting one long lost summer in what now seems a lot more like my youth than it felt at the time…that particularly older generations but generally a shockingly high proportion of georgians had a fairly nostalgic view of the good ol’ days when their favorite local boy done good was spending his down time down by the black seaside & his office hours signing off on all manner of brutality & executions & purges in the name of the common interest & furthering the glorious future of the proletariat
…sometimes maybe it’s not who you know or what you know but what you know about who?
The fact that the state-sanctioned media can’t explain away an army marching toward Moscow is why I think we might reach a tipping point with average Russians. They’ve had dissidents all along, but they seemed to get brutally suppressed. And it’s easy to bullshit events that are happening way over in Ukraine. It’s a little tough to hide the fact that hey, we just had to demolish roads into Moscow to slow the advance of an invading army. I just wonder if it will spark something,
…so…I’m feeling a little guilty about the cavalcade of downers I seem yet again to have served up…though…in my defense…it’s not like I included all of them
…it’s that thing they do
…at this point there has to be some sort of german compound word meaning a smokescreen comprised of a high-pressure constant mist of bullshit that covers everything in sight…but…it’s not just me
…trying to lighten the mood is…tricky
…as is humor in general…one thing I would note, though…is that contextual definitions can make all the difference between something to cry or laugh about
Multiple outlets have reported the US knew about Wagner’s plans earlier this month.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/24/us-intelligence-prigozhin-putin/
That’s not a huge surprise — the US and Ukraine have had deep intelligence since Russia started planning the invasion. But it’s still awfully interesting, since Wagner was supposed to be more elite than the run of the mill Russian forces. And of course, why does the US know what Putin doesn’t? Even if you think this is all a ruse, the US still shouldn’t know.
But it’s even more interesting that the US has apparently leaked this in order to publicize the fact they knew. They’ve been doing this kind of thing since day one to undermine Putin, and they’re keeping it up, despite the normal instincts of intelligence agencies to bury everything.
You can even read this with an eye toward the Trump documents case. The intelligence community is not letting secrecy get in the way of decisive action. And they seem to know a lot about secret dealings with foreign powers that the conspirators don’t even know themselves.
Trump, of course, is probably too wound up to be able to deal psychologically with the implications. But his conspirators ought to think even harder.
…much as I do agree with pretty much the whole thesis of that…I’m not sure it’s the example I’d pick?
…I wouldn’t claim I “knew” about something worth calling “plans” but it was hardly a secret he’d been shit-talking the army high command as a bunch of traitorous incompetents who’d been tying his hands & being as busy thwarting the gains he would otherwise have been embarrassing them with achieving (if not for their meddling & interference in the previously exemplary communications between him & the man with the plan kremlin-side) as they were profligate with the lives of those under their command (not least those convicts the use of which he seems to think he invented rather than just being first back to that old well) & just generally making out he could & would do their job for them if anyone asked…& might just do anyway if they didn’t as an example to true patriots everywhere…he was…extremely public about all of that
…so…I don’t think the intelligence services were alone in thinking that there might be something worth keeping track of simmering away which would be pretty dramatic if it boiled over
…& similarly I probably wouldn’t roll with “elite” as a descriptor for wagner’s goon squads…in terms of “getting the job done” they superficially boast higher effectiveness than the regular forces…& part of that might be because at this point the quality of those is barrel-scraping dregs in a bunch of places…but…it also has to do with “the job”…which has mostly been to be an implausibly deniable proxy force with which to get boots in the ground in places russia needs/wants to claim officially it doesn’t have any…mostly to do things that either already are outlawed by the geneva convention or really ought to be
…they’re semi-literally a prison gang with de facto state affiliated status…& I wouldn’t call the aryan brotherhood an elite force even if they have B-wing locked down & have successfully withstood a flanking maneuver from the black guerilla family in A-block on the one hand & MS-13 trying to open a second front from C-block
…not saying they might not be the best of what they have left to offer…I’m way off being up to speed about that sort of consideration…just feels like it devalues the term “elite” to apply it that way?
It’s worth taking a step back from trying grind down the significance of this. Nobody who was looking at just the public signs of Prigozhin’s feuding and fussing was predicting it would go this far. Not even close. Trying to put the reality into some big tent called “pretty dramatic” isn’t the way to look at it.
It’s difference between saying “summer is hurricane season, there might be a Category 4 between now and September” vs. “Hurricane ABC is expected to make landfall Tuesday night in this 100 mile stretch of coastline with sustained winds of over 110 mph and a storm surge of up to 15 feet.” Conflating the two statements into some overly broad category hurts understanding the actual event.
For that matter, while Wagner grabs lots of prisoners, the leadership itself is supposed to be far more disciplined than the bulk of the Russian military, and the fact that there was sufficient infiltration to know about the specifics is significant.
One of the main reasons Putin went to Wagner is that the leadership was supposed to be locked down in a way that his own military was not. Their operational security was supposed to be vastly better, so that the conscript sitting in a trench would know nothing even as orders were being drawn up.
The distinction between Wagner leadership and the rest of Putin’s force leadership wasn’t supposed to be a matter of a few degrees, it was supposed to be like the two legs of a right triangle.
The fact that it seems to have been that way to Putin, but Western intel still cracked it, is very significant. And the fact that the US is being open about the news so quickly says a lot more.
…leaving aside the overtime the idea of relative merits is pulling in a lot of that assessment…this part?
…I flat out don’t recognize in my comment
…if anything I think suggesting that their noting after the fact that they had advance notice of that is a hint of hitherto un-hinted-at levels of penetration through that veil by the intelligence services is the thing that makes what just went down as big a deal as I think it is simply misses the point
…if the point is one of that nature, anyway
…the number of times they beat russia to the punch outing specious narratives designed to let them claim the things they were aiming to pull were justified at the outset of hostilities…or at any number of stages since then…not least concerning the dam that didn’t burst on its own or the plight of that damn nuclear plant…already made that point plenty forcefully & with greater clarity
…so if that’s how you took what I said there’s clearly a gulf of tone getting lost in translation?
Speaking of Goon Squads…
Do we *know* where the latest iteration of Erik Prince’s Blackwater is practicing *their* brand of Skullduggery lately???
Because I’d imagine, with a name that can basically translate into “Con-Stars Holdings”****, they’re *probably* pretty deeply involved in some military Black-Projects, *somewhere* in the world… (apparently SAP would be the “official” name for ^those^ projects, fwiw!)
I swear, between him, *Noel*-of-the-Oxen-name, and the head-Gaultian from Palantir, the old Rogers Quote is always *TOO* damn “On-the-nose”!!!😖😱😱😱🥴;
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
****SERIOUSLY, y’all–WHO NAMES THIS SHIT?!?!?????
*WHYYYYYYY* do they ALWAYS seem to choose names that sound like things a B-Movie villain would name *THEIR* terrible & ineptly-bumbling company?!?😅😂🤣🤣🤣)
I suspect that Putin could have known if he wanted to. And that some of his advisors did know. But that like his pal, trump, he won’t hear anything he doesn’t want to. And those closest to him are afraid to tell him certain things.
…I’ve heard a case made…not implausibly to my ears…that if hot dog (…hit dog? …was a typo…but he definitely hollers?) guy doesn’t end up mincemeat over all this…it could if you squint just right be because these were how extreme the lengths were that someone had to go to to get past the gatekeeping firewalls & communicate to vlad that the people he was listening to were lying to him & some of the ones they told him not to listen to or accused of lying were trying to stop that biting him in the ass & dooming russia’s fortunes
…I mean…I don’t buy that any of the people involved are doing what they say they’re doing for any of the reasons they claim they feel they have to
…but…even if we may never know…I guess we all get to see it play out all the same?
@SplinterRip, I think the most likely “tell” on this, is gonna be which of the Generals (or “Plausibly-Deniable-Generals”) *hasn’t* had an unfortunate & “sudden” *Accident* (or had an “INCREDIBLY SUDDEN & Uncontrollable” *URGE* TO OPEN A NON-OPENING WINDOW at the end of… what, probably the next two weeks or so?🥴
I think it’s interesting that reports emerged early last year that top US officials, from military brass to cabinet secretaries to Biden himself, were telling Russia and Putim himself about things US intelligence knew about Rusian weaknesses before the invasion even began.
And I think it’s increasingly clear this wasn’t really aimed at the needs of the moment. It was a part of a longterm plan to convince Putin he had to trust the US more than himself.
Putin’s enterprise has been based on the idea that he can create his own reality, and the US has been working hard to disabuse him of that notion.
…increasingly clear to many in the russian orbit very possibly…& not impossibly to vlad his own self…but…that also seemed to be a case they made overtly & specifically back then…so I don’t recall it ever seeming like they threw those stones at that glass house with a view to merely killing one bird at a time
I don’t know *why* you would think folks wouldn’t want to tell Pooty-Poot things, @Hannibal!😉😆😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I mean, I hear that Polonium-210 is an *incredibly tasty element,* Novochok is *all* the rage in perfume circles, England is a bit… “slippery,” what with all that fog & the rainy days, of course!
And darn it, don’tca know?
*SOMETIMES,* a “nearly comatose” Russian Doctor just feels the need for a little *FRESH AIR* while they’re in an upper-floor hospital bed!🙃😷🥴
It’s always nice to wake up and have all my doom scrolling in one place. Thanks RIP!
Ah, hell, I’ll add to it…
Methinks thou dost protest too much…
https://www.propublica.org/article/behind-scenes-alito-wall-street-journal-prebuttal-editorial
…I know…& I’m sorry…even if the repeat offending makes it seem like I’m not
…still, misery loves company & all that…& I really am grateful that I have more than whatever tunes come to mind to consider mine when all this shit refuses to stop hitting the fan
…so…cheers…if that’s not an inappropriate term
…figure as much as I feel like I could use a stiff drink it can’t be…but that’s awful close to the only good cheer I seem to find space for on the menu most days?
Not your fault the world’s a mess. What are we gonna do, stick our heads in the sand?
…judging by their example…apparently it’s natural to think that denial is easier than evolving
…probably why I prefer the other big bird
…what the *BEEP* & all that?
Big Bird could have also used creep.
…if only his flock of sheep reacted to his presence the way little bo peep’s were
*types head in the sand in to youtubes searchbar*
oh that was so worth the lack of effort
just perfect for a too hot sticky evening
“A dingo bit my baby!”
Video needs more Australian men wearing budgy smugglers but it’s winter down there now so maybe…but the woman who got bit by the dingo was wearing a bikini…I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that the earth rotates, and revolves around the sun, let alone that we have two entirely different seasonal patterns, hemispheres north and south.
A person in my department lives in Argentina. We always start meetings with the local weather and it’s so weird to hear about winter when it’s 93 degrees here.
I have friends who live in Australia (“Stralya”) and I remember one of them called me once. Here in New York it was snowing quite heavily, which is kind of rare. Down in Melbourne, where they live, the Australian Open was going on and it was the year that it was so hot that they actually closed the stadium and allowed the players to…I don’t know why this is so sacrilegious but one of the players, I think Serena Williams, the webbing on her racquet actually started melting. I remember watching it on TV. There was hardly anyone in the audience. This friend told me that the whole city was basically shut down because of this heatwave. And then later came the year that their state, Victoria, went up in flames, but that was a different issue.
In the category of minor miracles, I 95 is back in operation just a couple of weeks after a huge gas truck fire collapsed a huge section and shut it down.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/live/i95-philadelphia-repairs-bridge-collapse-livestream-traffic-20230623.html
By typical US infrastructure standards, that’s amazing. A lot of work needs to be done for permanent repairs, but even a temporary fix was initially expected to take a lot longer.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america
Had the 9/11 lunatics chosen different targets…Had they chosen the George Washington or Brooklyn Bridge, say, that would have been out of commission for years. As it is there’s a piece of the World Trade Center that still hasn’t been rebuilt, and it’s only been, what, 21 1/2 years now?
huh…?
turns out i need a chihuahua
just herded a peahen and a peacock back to where they came from…….it was kinda fun….the balcony crowd was encouraging me as i went…
got em all the way back to the kiddy farm…..and then met a locked gate…….stumped us that did…
till an elderly couple rounded the corner with a fucking chihuahua and both birbs jumped the fucking fence
Without his army to protect him, Prigozhin won’t last a week. How many people has Putin ordered killed for nothing more than saying bad things about him. Does anyone seriously think he’ll let this shit go?
if i read the statement right…..only the wagner mercs that didnt paryicipate get a freebie in to the russian army
the rest just arent getting prosecuted….
which means baldy mcfuckface still has a standing army of at least 5k trained mercs
…he’s also burned through a fair number of generals
…so, speaking for myself I certainly don’t think he’ll let this go…& I don’t think yevgeny is the only one who probably needs to keep looking over his shoulder
…but the thing nobody seems to be able to give even an odds-on assessment of is how he fights the corner he’s backed himself into?
…does he swap out some or all of the high command for version 3.0 of pursuing the original objective of *checks notes* preemptively ridding not-a-real-country-that-spiritually-belongs-to-mother-russia of modern day nazis…give them wagners toy soldiers to play with…& maybe throw some sort of escalatory tantrum?
…does he leave them in place & get his ex-chum yevgeny to open up a new front from belarus while claiming it’s rogue interests while lukashenko turns a blind eye the way the pakistani’s claimed they were surprised that bin laden turned out to be living in their backyard?
…does kadyrov think he learned some valuable lessons from another man’s mis-step that lets him refine how he aims to try to parlay his way to annexing something for the chechens to call their own?
…does the part where china’s chattering classes were making comparisons to the short-lived attempt by a warlord called an lushan to defy the tang dynasty (in, like, the 8th century or something) by declaring himself ruler of his own kingdom mean the leadership is starting to look around for people to cozy up to who might be useful to them in a power vacuum post-putin?
…either way, I think whatever metaphor we go with…the cat is out of the bag…among the pigeons…& very probably evincing levels of curiosity widely considered to be lethal…or indeed, cats, plural…the herding of which might be starting to look like needing a reach that exceeds the grasp of vlad’s death-grip on the whole shooting match?