I'm Jealous

Russia Brings In New Law: Pedophiles Will Be Castrated

Damn good idea.

I Thought...

...they were going to say Vodka, but I was wrong:

Workers Accidentally Dug Up These Solid-Gold Artifacts, But They Were STUNNED To Find out What They Actually Were

"Workers unearthed these ancient relics in Russia while digging holes to install power lines along with some other precious items including three gold cups, a finger ring, two neck rings, and a gold bracelet. However, they still had to figure out the mystery about what the artifacts were.

There was only one clue: a strange black substance inside of the items. After hiring a criminologist to determine what it was, they had their answer. These ornate, 2,400 year old artifacts are essentially old world “bongs” and the black residue was remnants of opium and cannabis (Emphasis mine).

Shocked? Don’t be. It’s believed that the Scythian tribes, a race of warriors who ruled much of Eurasia for over 1,000 years, were thought to smoke both substances in order to prepare their minds for battle."

Again, Who Ya Gonna Believe

Vladimir Putin’s Ex Wife Says Russian President Has Been Dead For Some Time

Rumours of Putin illness were true

Vladimir Putin is not dead

Is It Any Wonder...

...I'm afraid WWIII is just around the corner:
Power Politics and Putin

“The only language Russians understand,” asserted Edmundas Jakilaitis during a panel discussion last fall, “is power.” A Lithuanian journalist whose birth certificate bears a hammer and sickle, Jakilaitis knows what he is talking about.
during a panel discussion last fall, “is power.”

[---]

"A combination of plummeting oil prices and international sanctions have sent Russia’s economy into a tailspin. The ruble’s value is collapsing, and the Russian Central Bank has hiked interest rates. Many Russians’ mortgage payments—taken in foreign currency because of the lower interest rates—have skyrocketed as the ruble falls. The Kremlin has launched a $35 billion “anti-crisis” package that seems like it will do more to burn through Russia’s currency reserves than stimulate the economy. Military spending, meanwhile, roars ahead. In his year-end press conference, President Vladimir Putin claimed his country would emerge from the crisis within two years.

That sounds pretty optimistic. But as Russia’s domestic problems grow, Putin employs a tried-and-true strategy: distraction. Moscow sends tanks, weapons, and uniformless fighters into Ukraine and talks of protecting Russian-speaking minorities. Putin’s real aim is to stoke nationalist pride in the face of rising prices and emptying shelves."

Start of WW3? Putin could force the West to use NUCLEAR WEAPONS against Russia, warns NATO

Iran, North Korea forging ballistic, nuclear ties, exiled dissidents say

Ruskies 1...

...muzzies, a big goose egg.

How Dare The Russians...

...refuse him "special treatment"!!

"South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that Mr Kim opted to remain in Pyongyang because Russia "refused to comply with the North's request for special treatment, given that there will be several other foreign dignitaries at the event.

"Without top-grade security, Kim would inevitably have become a freak show for the global press", it added.

Being treated equally with other international leaders - and not enjoying centre-stage in the commemorative events, as he always does at home - would also have damaged his standing in the eyes of the North Korean public.

Analysts have suggested that the North Korean leader is still concerned about the degree of genuine support for his regime in political and military circles at home and is reluctant to give his rivals an opportunity to plot against him."

Ya think?

I Take Back Everything I ever Said About Putin

Russian Forces Take Seven Muslim Terrorists And Shoot Them All To Death

Tsar Putin...

...is in a wee bit of a pickle:

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is treading water in a sea of red ink

Time for another revolution?

Are We Fixing For...

...war, or what?

US Tanks Are Rolling Across Latvia

Russia launches large-scale military manoeuvres in the Arctic

Drill spree: NATO tanks arrive for military exercise in Estonia

Or a coup?

Who're you gonna believe?

Good Grief!

Russia opposition politician Boris Nemtsov shot dead

"A leading Russian opposition politician, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, has been shot dead in Moscow, Russian officials say.

An unidentified attacker in a car shot Mr Nemtsov four times in the back as he crossed a bridge in view of the Kremlin, police say.

He died hours after appealing for support for a march on Sunday in Moscow against the war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned the murder, the Kremlin says.

In a recent interview, Mr Nemtsov had said he feared Mr Putin would have him killed because of his opposition to the war in Ukraine."

Boris Nemtsov, Russian opposition leader, shot dead in Moscow

"Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition leader and sharp critic of President Vladimir Putin, was gunned down Saturday near the Kremlin, officials said. Nemtsov was killed just a day before a protest planned against Putin's rule.

The death of Nemtsov, a 55-year-old former deputy prime minister, ignited a fury among opposition figures who assailed the Kremlin for creating an atmosphere of intolerance of any dissent. Putin quickly offered his condolences and called the murder a provocation.

Putin ordered Russia's law enforcement chiefs to oversee the probe. "Putin noted that this cruel murder has all the makings of a contract hit and is extremely provocative," presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies."

Yah. We believe you Vlad.

Vlad's biography: Putin's Long Shadow

Putin Antics

Hungarians protest against Vladimir Putin's visit to Budapest

Moscow Promises Canada's 'Clumsy' Sanctions Won't Go Unanswered (He must still be pissed off at Harper's rebuff at the Brisbane G8 meeting.)

We All Know About...

...yellow snow, but blue? Orange? Pink?

Oh, those Ruskies! (PS: I always thought Vodka was colourless. /sarc)

What did I Tell Ya'?

Canadian fighter jets intercept two Russian bombers off the northwestern coast

We need to secure our northern border.

(Must be retaliation for Harper telling Putin the get out of Ukraine.)

Weird Things Over Russian Skies

Meteor? Blast? UFO? Massive flash over Russian Urals stuns locals


Chelyabinsk meteor #2? Massive flash over Russia’s Urals stuns locals & scientists

Do, Do, Do, Do, Do, Do, Do, Do.

Hmmmmmm.

Among other things, Vlad was also criticized for the downing of flight MH17. And when he gets home, he's faced with this:

Work starts in Ukraine to collect wreckage of MH17

"Recovery workers in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine began to collect debris from the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on Sunday, four months after the plane was brought down.

The operation is being carried out under the supervision of Dutch investigators and officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The recovered fragments will be loaded onto trains and ferried to the government-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The investigation into the cause of the crash is being conducted there and in the Netherlands."

Geeze. Can't a tyrant get a break?

Puttin' The Boots To Putin

Putin leaves G20 after Harper and other leaders press him on actions in Ukraine

Putin to leave G-20 Summit early; doesn't like being criticized over Ukraine

Is there such a thing as a tantrum in international politics? If there is, I think we've just witnessed one.

What The Hell...

...is Putin trying to do?

Russia angers the Aussies

You Know Me

I love history:

Japan's Kamikaze Winds, the Stuff of Legend, May Have Been Real

"Storms in 1200s could have helped thwart attacks by Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan's fleets, a study of lake sediments finds."

And prehistory:

Europe Was a Melting Pot From the Start, Ancient DNA Reveals

"Scraps of DNA harvested from a tiny fragment of the man's 37,000-year-old leg bone show that, genetically speaking, he was remarkably similar to people living in Europe today."

And I'm fresh out of snark, so I'll have the leave it at that.

Ah, Poor Vlad /sarc

Russia's Currency Is Plummeting and Putin's Billionaires Are Cannibalizing Each Other

He must be longing for the days of the centrally planned economy handled by the politburo.

"The ruble has been nosediving for weeks, despite the fact that the Russian Central Bank has spent some $40 billion over the last two months to prop it up. In January, you would have to shell out 32.86 rubles to buy one U.S. dollar. Through October, that number edged higher and higher into the thirties, prompting nervous jokes from Russians as they watched their national currency lose value before their eyes. By November 1, a Russian would need to scrape together over 43 rubles to buy one U.S. dollar, a drop of over 30 percent.

Every day since November 1 has brought new lows for the ruble. By Wednesday, the Russian Central Bank, which had been spending billions of its reserve dollars every day to prop up the Russian currency, announced it was no longer going to do so. It was going to let the ruble float. (Technically speaking, it said that it would “only” spend $350 million a day to prop up the ruble.)

The ruble promptly nosedived."

[---]

"On Friday, the exchange rate was being tracked not by the day, but by the minute. The ruble had collapsed to a historic low: nearly 49 rubles to the dollar, nearly 60 rubles to the Euro."

[---]

"This isn’t a theoretical currency game. Much of what you see in Russia is imported, especially what the Russian middle class eats, drives, and wears. And the weaker the ruble, the fewer dollar-denominated iPhones you can buy with it. A crashing ruble makes prices do the opposite. According to the Russian government, projected inflation will hit somewhere between nine and 9.5 percent. Last year, it was 6.5 percent. In the U.S., for comparison, inflation is just 1.7 percent."

[---]

"There are several factors that have caused the ruble to disintegrate before our eyes.

One is the ongoing stagnation of the Russian economy, whose growth rate has been hovering near zero for a year. And before that, it was already in decline.

Second is the falling price of oil for reasons that have nothing to do with Russia(Emphasis mine): OPEC trying to undercut its American competition. This is a problem for Russia, which is so heavily dependent on oil that every year’s federal budget is pegged to an oil price.(Emphasis mine) This year’s was $97 a barrel. Next year’s will be $96. Meanwhile, oil prices have been far lower than that, hovering in the low eighties.

Third is Russia’s Ukraine adventure and Western sanctions. “Sanctions closed access to foreign capital for five or six Russian companies, but the result is that it’s now closed for everyone,” says Sergey Aleksashenko, a former Russian deputy minister of finance. The result is that, to pay off their debts, Russian companies now have to buy a large amount of dollars to fork over to their creditors. And with that comes the psychological factor: panic."

So...what if Canada's Energy East pipeline is meant to do what I think it's meant to do - steal Russia's oil market from under their feet? Better have our northern border well guarded.

RTWT

Does Anybody Think It Will Work?

In either case? I have my doubts:

Rival Ukraine forces ready pullback under new peace plan


Israel, Hamas to resume indirect cease-fire talks in Cairo