Putin is openly anti-communist.

He was smoking the reefer, too! He sold that film for drug money.

Tariffs can be paid by the export country, indirectly. They usually have to lower the price of the commodity to make it competitive under tariffs.

Under Fordist economics the domestic industrial boost would lead to increased wages and buying power.

Under neoliberalism the domestic industrial capitalists gain a larger market share and then don’t pay their workers more. Then they are faced with the problem of what to do with products that are unaffordable.

Friendly reminder that VOA, aka Voice of America, is a subsidiary of the US Agency for Global Media. It was established to convince people in the Soviet sphere that the US was better in every way. It continues that mission with America’s allies and enemies today.

The process of opening up a country’s media space is integral to getting those State department messages in there.

I grow old, I grow old

I wear my trousers rolled

Shall I eat a peach?

Nah, it’s 3:00 pre-boiled egg time

Then some Wheel of Fortune QI and a nap

Aglets. You can buy replacement aglets if it really bothers you.

It really was. I’ve watched it several times.

I’m not really sure what’s well known unless it’s enormously popular.

I’ve looked up the director, writer and actors from Rubicon to find similarly great work but this seemed to be a special convergence.

Rubicon

If you like espionage but from the analytical side.

Counterpart

If you like espionage, JK Simmons, and parallel dimensions

Berlin Station S1

If you like espionage and postwar Germany

Richard Stanley was hired to direct “The Island of Doctor Moreau” but was replaced by John Frankenheimer after a few days of shooting. However, Stanley considered the film to be his baby (he co-wrote the script) and didn’t want to leave. So he disguised himself as one of the mutants and secretly remained on the shoot.

You can watch the documentary about the shooting of this B-movie and it’s full of weird details like that. It’s called “Lost Soul: the doomed journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Doctor Moreau”

Calculator?! Those thieving, energy-sucking piles of garbage! Abacus till I die!

But seriously, AI is insidious in how it data mines us to give us answers, and data mines our questions to build profiles of users. I distrust assurances of anonymity by big data corpos.

They have noses worthy of being our successor species. Something you’d see on the cover of a sci-fi novel called “Children of Earth” or something…

Some horrors need not be shown in the light of day

The article states that there is no evidence that this is caused by Russia. But then goes on to speculate that it’s caused by Russia. Journalistic standards have fallen.

(This is) me, (a person) who doesn’t use AI.

Would be funny if Boeing started cutting corners with their hitmen, too.

You aren’t. There’s more backstory.

Then it’s not getting the freshest photons.

Municipal drinking water is tested multiple times per day in Toronto, as it should be. Testing once and assuming the complex machinery and chemical levels are the same a week later is pure folly.

Note that this is different from testing well water, which shouldn’t change much. Testing well water once a year is a good idea though.

Yes, he is essentially pro Western which is why the NED funded the Levada center.

Putin had a meeting with the other candidates yesterday, by the way. I think that opposition is likely kept out of power by various means.

Especially important if the opposition is funded by the UK and US, like Navalny’s Democratic Alternative. Navalny’s highest national polling was 9% with many Russians unaware of who he is. He was a creation of the West, and an unsuccessful one at that.

The Russian communist party functions in Russia’s political scene and gets some significant support from the population, though it is far less popular than Putin. We might consider them to function as controlled opposition.

But Putin himself doesn’t control everything. Just read Medvedev’s scathing speech criticizing him as Putin sat on the stage next to him.

We can criticize their system and say it isn’t a fair system so that’s why Putin is popular. But let’s not pretend he isn’t popular. And let’s not forget that Putin brought Russia out of the economic collapse of the 90s and into the fifth largest economy. He did so by regaining state control of key industries that had been sold off cheaply in the 90s, under the direction of a team of Harvard economists via US NGOs.

Russians appreciate having jobs, housing and food which they didn’t have when the country was sold out in the 90s. They credit Putin with putting the country back on its feet.

The point I’m making is that he is popular in Russia. Ergo, why wouldn’t he get elected? And more specifically, his election result is exactly in line with the US-backed polling company prediction.

As for how he runs the country, whether there are lies, I’m not making a point on that.

We should question the original Western narratives about a stolen election when we can see the evidence of Putin’s popularity. You can read articles in western media that affirm Putin is popular in Russia.