Slashdot Mirror

But if we're talking about 2nd-tier superpowers like Russia destroying satellites they don't own, (destroying ones you do is bad enough...) that's Defcon 1+x.

I think they'd prefer to be less directly attributable in such attacks. Of course, they aren't exactly subtle.

LEO mostly clears itself in a few dozen years just from drag. If we really blew it we could use nuclear weapons to clear it out, or less ultimate measures. It would cost a shit tonne of money and set the world back decades.

But if we're at this point, yes, these are the stakes, and a traitor is in charge! Literally.

Do you not know, being a friend is a two way street. the USA is friend to no one

No nation state really has friends. Friend is a term of convenience and nation states in reality do not have friends. The US and Canada are about as close to "friends" as any two countries can get but I assure you that is only because of interests that happen to align. The US and western Europe are "friends" and if you don't understand why then you need to go study your history before posting any more drivel.

as publicly stated the US governments demands that it must dominate the entire globe in every sphere of human activity, starting off with the military industrial complex and nuclear weapons targeted at every single other country on the globe

Citation needed.

From the rest of the planet's viewpoint it's not fuck Russia, it's fuck the war warmongering USA.

Warmongering US? As opposed to Russia which just invaded Crimea and is actively supporting a dictator in the Syrian Civil war? The same Russia that sells 20% of the world military hardware? Yeah spare me the notion that the US is worse that Russia on the warmongering.

Can espionage speed up progress that a competing nation makes? Sure, but it's not a requirement.

It is a requirement. If the adversary is evolving faster than you, then your only hope to avoid falling further and further behind is to steal his results every once in a while.

And we are evolving faster than China. To even match our speed they need to become a free-market Capitalist country — and they are moving in the opposite direction at present.

Also, you need to know, what the adversary is developing. It takes years to design a new anti-aircraft missile, for example. If your current designs have the top speed of X km/h and the ceiling of N thousand meters, you will be unprotected against the enemy's aircraft flying faster than X or higher than N for years until you can field a modernized weapon. Knowing the X and the N of the enemy's current designs is crucially important — and only spying can get you these numbers. For example, the US does not make much of a secret of the F-35 — and sells them to many allies — but many details of the F-22 are classified.

Intelligence, science, technology, and math aren't some hoardable commodities

They are hoardable. Though the theory was already well understood, try as they might have, for example, USSR could not create atomic bombs of their own in practice — until a family of Communist scumbags handed them the blueprints. The resulting nuclear parity emboldened USSR and condemned millions of people in Eastern Europe to decades of suffering under Soviet occupation. North Koreans and Vietnamese suffer even worse to this day for the same reasons. That is, how important anti-spying is...

There are plenty of other things (including Pepsi-Cola!) USSR just could not replicate — some of these they also ended up stealing, others (like automobile factories) they bought openly, or confiscated as spoils of war. Had the knowledge really been "not hoardable", as you naively assert, they would not have needed to pay Ford and Fiat for it.

You mean like this?

That's a very strange argument you're putting forward there. You're saying that you are okay with allowing security holes in your computer because you trust one government less than another one.

Fine, but what about the fact that you are allowing known security holes to remain active on your computer? Are you really so confident that (a) the Russians will never use them to e.g. drain your bank/credit card accounts, and (b) no other parties will ever exploit them to do the same, with or without the Russians' blessing?

To me it sounds like you have allowed your political axe-grinding to override your common sense.

You seem Russian as those are Russian type explanations.

Ad hominem argument since the first line? Ok...

I have known for a very long time that Ukraine allowing Russians to keep ships there was a really bad idea, but government after government foolishly believed that they could pacify Mother Russia by doing so and she wouldn't attack them.

The "bad idea" is the fact that Ukraine's governments were/are among the worst, most corrupted governments in the former Soviet Republics and they got worse at managing their dilapidated economy "revolution" after "revolution" (that is coups by some lobby of oligarchs). Russia kept their economy on life support in exchange of blind allegiance. They switched allegiance and so Russia pulled the plug on the life support, while nor the EU, nor the USA are fool enough to dump money in the Ukrainian economy. That's your "bad idea".

Your reason stated for Saakhasvili's invasion is correct, but note that you are forgetting to mention that Russian troops went there to "help" (wink wink) during a previous ethnic clash over a decade earlier and never left.

They never left because they had an international mandate to stay there. Georgians were not happy with that mandate, but neither were South Ossetians, who claimed it was too pro-Georgia.

Then we have the usual "Don't single out Russia. Everybody else is doing it and doing it more!" argument. You lose on that one.

What does that even mean? What's your point, perhaps: love me, I'm a liberal? I never absolved Russia of lying: I am just saying that someone else is both a liar and a hypocrite. Counter that if you can articulate something more than "you lose, I win because Russia".

Democracy requires the seditious and the patriot to convince you. If the patriot fails then so do we all.

That's a fine quote with an air of centuries about it...

But it is a bit limited — none of the sides vying to convince need to be seditious nor otherwise criminal. For example, Russia spent millions trying to convince the West to accept its annexation of parts of Ukraine. They are wrong — and evil — but it would be no treason for an American to accept (and adopt, and even advance) either side of this argument...

Did we legitimize Mahmud Ahmadinejad or his views when we let him speak?
https://www.rferl.org/a/107877...

If you read the original article, it is linked to another article with a video of him saying something similar ... though the NYTimes author definitely took a cut up video and spun it to fit their agenda: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia...

Name one American the Russians drone murdered.

I hope, you don't insist on it being done by drones, which Russia does not really have — and what it does have, it uses for intelligence-gathering and artillery-coordination only. But, here, I'll list a few:

• Joseph Stone, an American paramedic who was killed in eastern Ukraine on April 23
• Mark Gregory Paslawsky, the sole American fighting on the Ukrainian side of the war in the east of the country, died from injuries sustained in battle in the town of Ilovaysk on Tuesday.

You can also safely chalk up a sizeable fraction of American deaths in the Middle East to Russians — but we may not know the exact details of their coordinating ISIS and other terrorists against the US for decades...

Now, why is it indicative of anything? Why don't you list the Americans killed by American government — and we'll compare that to the Russians killed by Russia... Ah, you are an American — protected by these people you despise — and not worrying about what Russians do to others? Ok, do you suppose, all an enemy can do is kill? How about spying — on your country? How about lying online with millions of "voices" through hijacked accounts?

GTMO like prisons

Darling, GITMO is a tropical paradise compared to the installations run by the enterprise formerly known as GULAG.

Tell me about the Russian detention without charges + torture program.

What exactly would you like to know?

Now explain why would you rather have the CIA on your stuff?

Because whatever abuse you may accuse CIA of was aimed at the sworn enemies of the US and our allies, not US citizens, however politically active and oppositiony...

Depending on how you define the terms, you'd (apparently) be wrong. Id define "on average" in this case to be "more than half".

http://www.rferl.org/a/report-...

UN GA just days ago adopted a resolution finally admitting that Ukraine is a victim of the Russian military aggression.

For better or worse, the part of the United States' electorate, to whom you want to appeal, view the United Nations with skepticism. So, instead of appealing to a questionable authority, try the following argument...

Imagine, Americans, Mexican government declaring Trump's election "a coup", his assemblage of generals — a junta, which placed the Latinophobic Nazi in power, contrary to the wishes of most Americans. Out of concern for the brotherly nation, Mexican government is encouraging volunteers to cross into California, Arizona, and Texas to help the local Spanish-speaking "self-defense" militias protect themselves against the White English-speaking bigots, who've persecuted the Spanish-speaking minority for years. In places stolen from Mexico before, these polite volunteers in military uniforms without any official insignia are already organizing a referendum to leave the US and join Mexico.

Patriotic Americans attempting to resist the invasion are denounced as racists and shot at with military-style efficiency. Although officially Mexico is not a party to this "civil war", its troops are regularly encountered on the battlefields — all of them are then found to have been "on leave" from their units. Artillery bombardment of American forces seems to originate from across the border, but no one can say for sure.

Would you still say, it is a civil war — Americans fighting other Americans?

No, not every piece of right wing journalism is fake, but enough that stories from them should be suspect.

Further, neither did I say anything about Russian spies. I said Russian trolls who, as you pointed out, deliberately try to insert enough fake "news" or falsify factual stories to divert attention or obscure facts. As I pointed out in my original post, Russian trolls will mod me down to try and prevent people from seeing the truth of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. When confronted with the truth they go into overdrive in St. Petersburg in attempt to do everything to discredit the facts, most specifically going after either the person posting the facts (me) or where the story comes from.

Even when Putin admitted he sent Russian troops into Crimea to steal it, Russian trolls still denied their dear leader's own words. They made every excuse for why the story was fake EXCEPT for the fact those are Putin's own words. In other words, even facts coming out of Putin's mouths are lies in the world of Russian trolls.

And that is what this about: countering blatant lies with the truth. Using facts to pummel trolls, get them to twist themselves into such a ball of anger they climb over themselves in a vain attempt to extricate themselves from the ball of lies they've spewed. It's quite funny to watch them first deny the facts, then attempt to deflect, then finally come full circle and deny their own words. What's especially funny is they're so simple minded it's very easy to get them to admit they're Russian trolls. Since they're all using the same script handed to them from their handlers, they use the same words and phrases in every post so their comments stick out like a sore thumb.

Hello Russian troll. You mention St. Petersburg. That's where Putin has his paid army of Russian trolls who haunt the Net to spread disinformation, especially when it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

That you claim everything is great when the facts say otherwise shows you are earning your keep. How many of the plunging rubles does Putin pay you? At 65 rubles to the dollar, things are getting expensive, aren't they? Or does Putin throw in a bottle of vodka as well so you can drown your sorrows?

No matter. The world knows the truth. With numerous shipments of cargo 200 going to Russia every day, and the freshly dug graves of Russian soldiers appearing, it is quite obvious Russian troops are dying in Ukraine.

To paraphrase NDT, the great thing about facts is they remain true, whether or not American Exceptionalists believe in them.

It's a fact that the assistant SoS, Victoria Nuland, is on video bragging about spending billions to "bring Ukraine the future it deserves." In front of a big Chevron banner - and then you AE's whine and project about Russia trying to influence the presidential election.

It's a fact that the impeachment vote didn't have the number of votes required to remove Yanukovych from office under their constitution. A vote that was pushed through despite Yanukovych agreeing to early elections. Which also means that it was a coup of cowards, if they didn't believe they could beat him at the ballot box.

Neat thing is that you can throw this inconvenient fact in the face of Western Exceptionalists, no matter if your hack lapel pin has an elephant or a donkey on it. The two parties have traded control of Congress and the White House, so each of the last five presidents have ended their terms in office with the opposite party in charge of the House and the Senate. Now imagine that it's May 2016 (or May 2008, 2000, 1992, 1988) and the party in Congress doesn't think it can win that year's presidential election. So they impeach the president with a majority vote, but fall short of the 67 required by the Constitution to remove Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama from office. The opposition DGAF, and have armed mobs of supporters attack government buildings and force R/B/C/B/O to flee or risk getting the Gaddafi treatment. Now, also imagine that Russia immediately recognizes that the junta as the legitimate government - after they've spent billions supporting the opposition party, in front of banners for Russian energy companies.

Would you call that a coup? Of course you would. So maybe you need to check your narratives, American Exceptionalist.

When one considers Russia has an office in St. Petersburg out of which it pays an army of online trolls to spew Russian propaganda or muddy the waters by making false statements and outright lies about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one person from the U.S., doing this on his own without government backing, doesn't quite rise to the level of nuisance.

Sure, Putin is probably miffed this has been done and is looking for payback, but when one is spending millions of dollars every year to pay people (not to mention their vodka allotment) to do your bidding, and providing them the equipment to do so, one person isn't going to make a difference.

Had he instead posted pictures of the unmarked graves of Russian soldiers who have died during the invasion of Ukraine, that would have been different and had a greater impact. Not that Putin cares about the over 2,000 soldiers who have so far died during the invasion, including colonels within the Russian military who are working to support the invasion, but it would have been a nice touch to rub Putin's nose into how badly Russia miscalculated and is suffering because of Putin's ego.

Fair points, and my apology for misunderstanding. I assumed your argument was that we were legally forced to return the money., not that you felt my argument was "stealing" Iranian money. It appears to me through reading that the US Government does have the ability to seize assets through various Laws. There are certainly diplomatic concerns with doing so, but legally we can and have seized assets. There is also discretion on how those assets are used.

Who do you think hit the Ukrainian power network the other week? Who do you think regularly attacks Ukrainian government web sites? Who do you think allows the army of Russian trolls located in St. Petersburg to remain active to spew their nonsense?

If anyone is surprised the Russians don't respond to close down hackers emanating from within their borders, they've been living under a rock for the last decade. This is what Russia is now known for, other than collapsing economy and a ruble not far behind. They have nothing else and the only way to take their minds off the problems Heir Putin has created is to blame someone, anyone, for their self-inflicted problems.

After all, they need to do something to cover up the roughly 2,000 dead Russian soldiers who have died invading Ukraine, the money they're losing as Putin tries to prop up the dictator Assad, not to mention the terrorists in East Ukraine who have literally destroyed everything they touch. As Russia begins to run out of money towards the end of this year, be prepared for an even bigger onslaught of trolls as their desperation becomes frenetic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Security forces retreated from the Malaab area of Ramadi at 1:30 p.m., abandoning about 60 military vehicles, including military-grade Humvees, said Col. Nasser al-Alwani of the Ramadi police force. About half of the abandoned vehicles were sent by the U.S.-backed government on Saturday to reinforce the neighborhood, he added.

https://news.vice.com/article/...

Police and soldiers stripped out of their uniforms and abandoned their equipment on the road as they fled.

http://www.rferl.org/content/i...

One day before the Iraqi soldier gave his account to RFE/RL on May 25, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter accused Iraqi forces of showing "no will to fight" and having "failed to fight" in Ramadi despite "vastly outnumber[ing]" the enemy, retreating and leaving behind large numbers of U.S.-supplied vehicles, including tanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

After the end of the war, both the CIA and the U.S. State Department were tasked with continuing to identify and collect arms that had flooded the country during the war, particularly shoulder-fired missiles taken from the arsenal of the Gaddafi regime,[32][33] as well as securing Libyan chemical weapons stockpiles, and helping to train Libya's new intelligence service.[29]

...

Multiple anonymous sources reported that the diplomatic mission in Benghazi was used by the CIA as a cover to smuggle weapons from Libya to anti-Assad rebels in Syria.[30]:56[34][36][37][38] Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh cites an anonymous former senior Defense Department intelligence official, saying "The consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms. It had no real political role." The attack allegedly brought an end to the purported U.S. involvement, but did not stop the smuggling according to Hersh's source.[39] In January 2014, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence cast doubt on this alleged U.S. involvement and reported that "All CIA activities in Benghazi were legal and authorized. On-the-record testimony establishes that the CIA was not sending weapons ... from Libya to Syria, or facilitating other organizations or states that were transferring weapons from Libya to Syria."[40]

Care to try again? The CIA was collecting arms, not distributing, unless you subscribe to the local Tin Foil Anonymous.

Utter BS, because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America has no credibility in nuclear weapons, especially now that US (and tis minions UK and France) failed to uphold the Budapest Memorandum of Understanding, in which they promised inviolable territorial integrity for the Ukraine, in exchange for Kiev giving up her 2,500 strong (!) stockpile of USSR-inherited nukes.

Have you read the Budapest Memorandum? It is not long:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/...

The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

The US has not invaded Ukraine.

The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

The US has not threatened Ukraine.

The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

The US has not used economic coercion on Ukraine.

The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.

The US brought the invasion of Ukraine up with the UNSC:

http://www.rferl.org/content/u...

The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm, in the case of the Ukraine, their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.

The US has not used nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will consult in the event a situation arises which raises a question concerning these commitments.

I am sure the US has consulted with the other nations listed.

I would not generalize Russia to be a shithole.

You might have a different perspective if you're homosexual. Or Muslim. Or generally anything but Slavic Orthodox.

Here's an interesting statistic that speaks volumes about corruption in Russia: The annual global wealth study published by the financial services group Credit Suisse says a mere 110 Russian citizens now control 35 percent of the total household wealth across the vast country.

Only in the most technical way.

Not quite. His air-defenses kept targeting our planes. A few of our personnel remained unaccounted for, and, most importantly, he continued to balance his obligation to account for all weapons of mass destruction with his desire to keep the neighbors afraid of him. These are the words of UN inspector Blix (a man rather disapproving of GWB):

“Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it.”

The above quote is from 2003 — 11 years after all of the disarmament was supposed to be finished per the original cease-fire.

Whether or not the full-scale resumption of hostilities was a good idea all things considered, it was certainly justified...

name a failure [of Obama -mi]

How about ISIS rising shortly after the US withdrew its forces? That's what Panetta is talking about in TFA — that the withdrawal was premature. Other failures include Libya (where a turned-around dictator was killed anyway throwing the country into chaos and making turning future despots that much harder), the "Arab spring", the lifting (instead of tightening) of Bush's sanctions against Russia (which encouraged it to invade Ukraine) — to name just a few...

Nothing's proving Russia right when there's a wall of evil doings proving the counter. Snowden is one of the few things they can genuinely cling on to.

For all of the US' wrongs there's nothing changing the fact that Russia is an evil empire, well, that's a lie, it's not an empire any more thank god, it just wants to be, but it's still evil.

Let's just look at a few of the things they've done this year alone, let's start near the beginning of the year where the scene is that there is a popular uprising against Russian influenced Yanukovych, during these protests a number of key protesters were abducted by men with accents from Russia itself, some were left to die but managed to live to tell the tale:

http://www.rferl.org/content/u...

http://www.rferl.org/content/u...

Others weren't quite so lucky:

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldn...

The uprising was eventually successful, in response, Russia sent in breach of the Geneva convention soldiers into Crimea posing as civilians and annexed the territory, despite the fact that only a few weeks prior it was clear that there was nothing like majority support for joining Russia:

http://www.cityam.com/blog/139...

Coupled with the unverifiable "poll" and the followon fuckup by Russian bureaucrats in posting the actual results that show there was actually no majority support for joining Russia it became fairly obvious it was an illegal annexation of foreign territory. Of course, it didn't stop there. The Crimean Tatar population that did not want to join Russia have since been treated like Jews in Nazi Germany circa 1939 with their houses being marked:

http://www.turkishpress.com/ne...

Other Tatars have simply been disappeared by death squads:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/maga...

The rest of them? Well, they just get silenced and beaten:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...

If this sort of thing doesn't send chills down your spine as to how close it is to the way the Nazis operated then there's something wrong with you.

Since then of course there's been the case of Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine, the debate goes on about whether they're genuinely Ukrainians that want to join Russia, or whether they're simply Russian special forces, or a mix of both, but either way, what's not in dispute is the following and that Russia wholeheartedly supports them:

- They admitted having Buk and shooting down MH17 believing it was a Ukrainian military transport:

http://www.reuters.com/article...

http://www.themalaysianinsider...

- They've been abducting, torturing, and parading civilians:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

- They've admitted to carrying out summary executions:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

- And they've been preventing all males from leaving the warzones they've been part of the

Nothing's proving Russia right when there's a wall of evil doings proving the counter. Snowden is one of the few things they can genuinely cling on to.

For all of the US' wrongs there's nothing changing the fact that Russia is an evil empire, well, that's a lie, it's not an empire any more thank god, it just wants to be, but it's still evil.

Let's just look at a few of the things they've done this year alone, let's start near the beginning of the year where the scene is that there is a popular uprising against Russian influenced Yanukovych, during these protests a number of key protesters were abducted by men with accents from Russia itself, some were left to die but managed to live to tell the tale:

http://www.rferl.org/content/u...

http://www.rferl.org/content/u...

Others weren't quite so lucky:

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldn...

The uprising was eventually successful, in response, Russia sent in breach of the Geneva convention soldiers into Crimea posing as civilians and annexed the territory, despite the fact that only a few weeks prior it was clear that there was nothing like majority support for joining Russia:

http://www.cityam.com/blog/139...

Coupled with the unverifiable "poll" and the followon fuckup by Russian bureaucrats in posting the actual results that show there was actually no majority support for joining Russia it became fairly obvious it was an illegal annexation of foreign territory. Of course, it didn't stop there. The Crimean Tatar population that did not want to join Russia have since been treated like Jews in Nazi Germany circa 1939 with their houses being marked:

http://www.turkishpress.com/ne...

Other Tatars have simply been disappeared by death squads:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/maga...

The rest of them? Well, they just get silenced and beaten:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/...

If this sort of thing doesn't send chills down your spine as to how close it is to the way the Nazis operated then there's something wrong with you.

Since then of course there's been the case of Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine, the debate goes on about whether they're genuinely Ukrainians that want to join Russia, or whether they're simply Russian special forces, or a mix of both, but either way, what's not in dispute is the following and that Russia wholeheartedly supports them:

- They admitted having Buk and shooting down MH17 believing it was a Ukrainian military transport:

http://www.reuters.com/article...

http://www.themalaysianinsider...

- They've been abducting, torturing, and parading civilians:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

- They've admitted to carrying out summary executions:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

- And they've been preventing all males from leaving the warzones they've been part of the

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998512,00.html

Time magazine "mainstream" enough for you?

http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1095057.html

Or that, less mainstream though. Note both are from 2000 (before we attacked Iraq/Saddam).

http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/markets/item/4630-gadhafis-gold-money-plan-would-have-devastated-dollar

Several links in there, some stale but a few at least worked.

http://www.oil-price.net/en/articles/iranian-oil-bourse-opening.php
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Iran-Opens-Oil-Bourse-Harbinger-of-Trouble-for-New-York-and-London.html
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2314.cfm

I'm sure there's a lot more on the Iran oil bourse, it's in wikipedia as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse

Well, those people weren't really "subjugated" before. The only real point of contention there was the language issue, and situation with Russian language in Ukraine is complex - but they're far better off there than, say, English speakers in Quebec.

Basically, the constitution defines Ukrainian as a state language, and Russian as "the protected language of inter-national communication", and it explicitly protects "the freedom to speak Russian". In practice, almost everyone in Eastern Ukraine, and a good part (depending on who you ask, the majority) of central Ukraine actually speak Russian in everyday life, even when they state that their native language is Ukrainian. Almost all newspapers and books are published in Russian. TV news are mostly Ukrainian (but there are Russian channels, too), but most movies are in Russian. Most schools do teach Russian, even those where Ukrainian is a primary education language.

Russian in education is probably the area where most concerns manifest. There are Russian schools, but many argue that there's not enough of them given the number of Russian speakers (but, OTOH, Crimea has barely any Ukrainian schools, despite having 25% of population self-identify as Ukrainian - but Crimea is kinda special, being an autonomous republic with its own unique status). Ditto for Russian universities.

The talk about making Russian the official state language alongside Ukrainian, much like in Ireland or Canada, is occasionally floated, but that would mainly affect businesses (which have to submit tax reports etc in Ukrainian today). In theory, regional governments are supposed to operate in official language, but in practice those in Eastern Ukraine has been using Russian pretty much exclusively anyway...

As for compromise, I think that it was entirely possible before the occupation of Crimea. There were a lot of Russian speakers on Maidan, and that was appreciated - for example, in Lvov, which is considered the heartland and hotbed of western Ukrainian nationalism, they had a "speak Russian for a day" event as a sign of respect, and that was supported by Right Sector and other nationalist groups.

Generally speaking, you should understand that the new government is not actually all that nationalist. The actual nationalist parties are Svoboda and Right Sector. Svoboda has 3 ministers in the new government out of 18, Right Sector has none. Most of the new government is Batkivshchina, which is more pro-Western/European than it is nationalist.

The problem is that the invasion has upset the balance. Basically, the extreme nationalists that claimed that ethnic Russians are the "fifth column" paving the way for Russian occupation of Ukraine can now nod at Crimea as testament to their words. If Russia pushes on, I'm afraid that Ukrainian nationalists will rapidly radicalize, and will start actually persecuting ethnic Russians as intrinsic enemies of their budding nation-state. That region has seen ethnic violence for the sake of nation-building on a large scale before (most recently, Volyn Massacre), so yet another one would be nothing new. And, of course, ethnic Russians in southeastern and central parts would also radicalize in response to that, just as Poles did in Volyn. So this has all chances of blowing up into full-fledged everyone-on-everyone genocide along the same lines as Yugoslavia - assuming, of course, it doesn't blow up even further into a major war between Russia and NATO/EU.

As far as the intellectual quality of the boycott, I guess Stephen Hawking hasn't sat around and thought about it as deeply as you have.

Seeing as he is now being accused of hypocrisy over his continued use of Israeli technology, I'm guessing he didn't think about it very much. Great physicist, I enjoy his work, and fortunately he seems to bounce back from his previous mistakes. I'm sure he'll bounce back from this mistake too.

I'll probably have to go learn about key-based security. But meanwhile, I'm really happy with sshguard. It defends against brute force attacks by monitoring logs and aplying increasingly (exponentially) tougher time-outs as attacks from IP addresses continue. It's reduced my log from 100s of entries per day to about 15. http://www.rferl.org/content/world-press-photo-winners/24903576.html
    They've got it in FreeBSD ports, which makes it easy to install into an existing firewall.

First, a question: why should foreign nationals working on behalf of an international organization have more access to proceedings than United States citizens - whether civilian, or state or federal authorities -- are currently allowed by law?

See AC sibling and: http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3207823&cid=41763269
Allowing observers ('watchers') is complete no-brainer for any voting station, as fraud would be way too easy otherwise. It's such a no-brainer that you can find info on it on ehow: http://www.ehow.com/list_6384122_duties-poll-watcher_.html
Is it _really_ that hard to fathom that it makes sense to extend this to international observers of an internationally controlled and vetted organization?
The OCSE observers aren't RPG-wielding Iranians that want to blow up voting stations, you know.

And they are. The extent permitted by Texas State law is "so long as you keep 100' away, just like everyone else doing exit polls, campaigning for specific candidates/propositions/constitutional ammendments, and and anyone else who might influence the election by mere proximity.

You mean do the things that are explicitly excluded from the international agreement?: "Such observers will undertake not to interfere in the electoral proceedings."

The United states is endeavoring to the extent they are able.

(1) That doesn't change that disallowing international observers is still a third world country-style anti-democratic dickish thing to do.

As a matter of Constitutional law, there' not much more they can do. Federal election laws do not provide for strong federal oversight of state elections.

I've seen comments saying otherwise, but I do not know enough about the technicalities of the legal relation between the US federation and the states themselves. Nor do I care. See (1).

The issue the OSCE complains of in the linked document amounts to saying, "the United States is not organized like other countries, and that's a nuisance for us from a regulatory perspective."

You lie or have misunderstood. Read it again (hell, try reading TFS). Hint: there are quite a number of people in the US with similar concerns regarding some of the recently instated voting regulations.

The OSCE could always try to sue in federal court if they feel the law is in error.

Yes, I'm sure that's a case that will be dealt with within three weeks. Thank you for suggesting this very effective and realistic option.

So far, they have not done so. So far, this comment from Abbot is little different from the AG pre-emptivly reminding any group to obey the law, and there will be no special treatment. No different that a protestor rally.

A 'protestor rally'? Really?? That's what you compare international observers to?
And 'pre-emptivly [sic] reminding'? Have you read his tweet (in TFA)?
"UN poll watchers can't interfere w/ Texas elections,” he tweeted. “I'll bring criminal charges if needed. Official letter posted soon. #comeandtakeit"

This guy is a fucking joke ( http://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX ):
"Even Belarus denied Visas to European Vote Monitors. Why should they be allowed here? http://www.rferl.org/content/belarus-denies-osce-monitors-visas/24713858.html"
Belarus is one of the most corrupt nations in Eurasia and considered a dictatorship by many - which kind of proves my fucking point - See (1).

Seriously, it never ceases to amaze me how stupid some of the highly placed officials in the US are. How the fuck does an asshole like this become an Attorney General?

I find it rather odd that slashdot fails to mention that originally a russian biologist named Maria Gontsjarova blogged about this propaganda stunt. What she said was "somewhat" different from the so-called facts slashdot mentions here.

Her first report stated that several cranes were injured during transportation in cages while at least one died when putin steered his planes propellor into it. Somehow these reports were "corrected" to the "official" version shortly after. I suppose you can imagine the mechanisms Putin has in place for "correcting" information on the blog of a student. Glad to see slashdot supporting the Russian propaganda machine! Keep up the good work!

http://www.rferl.org/content/claims-rare-cranes-died-during-putin-stunt/24701513.html
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/national_world&id=8801623

Thats primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa not the Arab world.

wrong, wrong, wrong.

Eh, it took over 2 years for Iraq's decision to take Euros for oil to result in "regime stabilisation" (or whatever history records as the casus belli). The should be enough time for the Iranians to get their garlands of flowers ready to drape on the liberating boot of freedemocracy.

Actually, the bible doesn't say you should be punishing the man who raped her, just that if she was a virgin he has to marry her and pay a higher than average bride price to her father for "sampling" the goods before he bought them.

Only if she's not a fiancée (and must be noted that at the time weddings were arranged when girls were prepubescent):

But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

Deuteronomy 22:25-27

Also, no divorce allowed, so she's permanently stuck as the effective slave of her rapist. Such justice!

At the time a divorced woman had no means to survive by herself. That's why in India women were burned with their husbands at their death, or in modern day Afghanistan: "A divorced woman cannot return to her parents' family and, in an impoverished country with widespread unemployment, she cannot rebuild her life on her own, either. Some women seek escape by self-immolation, resulting in death or disfigurement. Last year, at least 30 women committed suicide in the western Farah Province alone, most of them by setting themselves on fire, according to Afghan media reports." Actually the no divorce allowed was a great social advancement for the time.

If she wasn't a virgin, it's not any of his problem at all, and there's no punishment for him, but she gets the stoning.

This is pure bullshit:

If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

Deuteronomy 22:22

If a man sleeps with a female slave who is promised to another man but who has not been ransomed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. Yet they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed.

Leviticus 19:20

If she committed adultery, she is punished, otherwise she is not.

You can't use the fact that they pay for scientific researchers to denigrate the organisation, and then turn around to imply that they don't do scientific research!

C'mon, that's they're PR machine and you know it. They're hardly "scientific researchers".

Origin of that quote for you: http://www.rferl.org/content/environmental_group_greenpeace_turns_40/24329362.html

But you can bet that when the Greenpeace researchers publish anything it is under the Greenpeace banner.

Cite a single peer reviewed paper funded by Greenpeace.

Your problem is that you think that global warming is just a single theory. It is actually made up of a lot of theories in a variety of scientific disciplines.

Here's your problem - each individual micro-theory in various scientific disciplines can be correct, without the combination of said theories leading to the conclusion of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. CO2 can increase in the atmosphere, and in the oceans, and at temperatures, and all see increases, but *none* of that means that it was all because of man's CO2 emissions, *nor* that such changes will be harmful to mankind or the world. That's apocalyptic handwaving, and you know it.

Start with a falsifiable hypothesis that unifies all of the micro-hypotheses you see as underlying your position. What observations will convince you that those micro-hypotheses don't fit together in the way you suspect?

Can you do it? :)

Well looks like you called it correctly. Iran appears to have already blocked it barely a day later.

Multiple source for your browsing pleasure:
NYT: Iran Blocks American ‘Virtual Embassy’
Radio Free Europe: Iran Blocks U.S. 'Virtual Embassy'
LA Times: Access to U.S. 'virtual embassy' blocked in Iran
Fox News: Iran Blocks New U.S. 'Virtual Embassy'

I'm aware that there have been some incidents of concern on the side of the freedom fighters. The UN has raised this flag as well. It's disconcerting, but I don't think it's a wide trend on the side of the FFers. They are a largely untrained, volunteer force. There will be a few bad eggs. The same can't be said for Gaddafi's troops.

Let me remind you that the west said similar things about Crotatian Freedom Fighters, and it turned out that it was systematic. By the time "time tells", it's too late, and you've got to live with the bad decisions and poor judgment.

If the US oligarchy were really interested in democracy, US news companies wouldn't have betrayed US citizens during GW Bush's presidency and would have instead shown the courage of Wikileaks.

Another generation of US journalists had more courage:
http://www.ellsberg.net/archive/public-accuracy-press-release

In any case, the US's covert war against Wikileaks is its only alternative:
http://www.rferl.org/content/wikileaks_assange_secrecy_access_laws/2242761.html

That's for the scenario when there isn't a doubt: http://www.rferl.org/content/Afghan_Village_Fights_To_Keep_Taliban_At_Bay/2172831.html

They know which villages are supporting them.

Why would you want to use a phone by a company that helps corrupt governments lock people up?

It doesn't really matter - the Taliban will find all sorts of excuses to kill:
e.g. Dancing girls and musicians
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/4217690/Taliban-underlines-its-growing-power-with-killing-of-dancing-girl-in-Pakistan.html
http://www.rferl.org/content/British_Ethnomusicologist_Discusses_Talibans_Campaign_Against_Musicians/1753865.html

Medics who the Taliban in one breath claim are missionaries and in another US spies:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10900338
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10903737

So if you're in the war-torn zones in Afghanistan, your odds of being killed are higher anyway - doesn't matter whether you're civilian or soldier, local or foreigner. I doubt Wikileaks is going to increase your risk that much.

Fact is if you are a US citizen living in the USA you have more to fear from your government than the Taliban. Heck, if you are living in some other country (other than Afghanistan) the US Gov is more likely to negatively impact your life than the Taliban.

So even if the Taliban claims that Wikileaks helped them kill more people in Afghanistan, I don't see it as a big deal. They can claim all they like.

If Wikileaks helps reduce the excesses of the most powerful Government in the world, it's doing good overall even if that Assange guy is just on an ego-trip.

p.s. Maybe the US Gov should start swapping in names of Taliban "middle managers" in their documents, leak them and let the Taliban go kill those :).

Yes, but if someone tags you, and you don't have an account, and the tag isn't linked to an account, then the tag isn't searchable... So is someone adding non searchable meta-data really that big a deal?

Agreed. However, having a page at all is a problem even if your friends don't talk / tag / rat you out.

The press got a "free pass" with New York's Times Square's [failed] car bomber recently, "borrowing" the guy's photo --news usually credited FB for it, and I'm sure nobody asked HIM for permission. Would we enjoy the same treatment if some unfounded charge (hopefully!) was blown out into the media? It's adding insult to injury

That might be insightful if by 'pro-Western faction' you actually meant anything. It was not 'pro-Western' policies or governing that cost Yushchenko a second term, it was pathetically weak leadership. And Yanukovich won with a bare majority in a run-off.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that, in US parlance, Yanukovich is a two-time felony loser, twice convicted of aggravated assault and robbery.

His government has moved swiftly and surely to censor journalist, blunt criticism with intimidation of Universities and just yesterday, assaulting a journalist.

This is not about introducing a forward looking tax law, it's about putting in a law that will be used to bankrupt and criminialise the opposition.

Just like they do in Russia

Good news! Russia *does* have some secret police watching out for this sort of issue. Their job is to KILL YOU when you start to complain about this problem.

http://www.cpj.org/killed/europe/russia/
http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1071933.html

Funny. The Telegraph's not exactly a "religious" site...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/3179465/Hanged-for-being-a-Christian-in-Iran.html

Neither is Radio Free Europe:
http://www.rferl.org/content/Two_Iranian_Christians_May_Face_Execution_For_Apostasy/1779217.html

Hm. Of course, the other reason the stories have trouble getting out is that it's pretty hard to be a journalist in Iran if you don't toe the mullah's line...

For one, they agreed NOT TO.

And they have not yet rescinded that agreement.

They can certainly withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty if they wish. I believe so, anyways.

Then you're exteremly dishonest. Take a look at what Irans leader has been saying: http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1062452.html

Except that a lot of executed people are innocent, like the members of Falun Gong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falungong
Basically, it's a large sect, which teaches QiGong.

Repression is very hard, and Falun Gong members are sent to prison, and a lot of them have been executed to grab their body parts.
I guess that because they practice qigong, they are healthy and provide nice body parts.

Funnily, China government said that Falun Gong was a dangerous sect, probably because you risk your life by following this movement.

Here is an article:
http://www.rferl.org/content/Article/1071999.html

In theory, WIMAX can give you usable (if somewhat slow) speeds out to 50km - which might get some villages close to Iran's borders but won't help Tehran at all.

Anyone who has the right sort of CPE, the right knowledge, and proper credentials can use a dish subscriber network to get as much as 2mbps down and 1mbps up. The latency blows, but it's not like the service is meant for playing the latest FPS. The big downside is the customer equipment - satellite dishes are thick on the ground in most areas of the middle east, but I'd be a little surprised if enough of them are the right sort of dish to matter. If they are, it may not matter - Iran's been taking various measures to reduce citizen's access to satellites

Proof:
http://www.chartingstocks.net/2009/06/proof-israeli-effort-to-destabilize-iran-via-twitter/

Anatomy of Iran's Right Wing Coup:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/06/anatomy_of_iran/

Ahmadinijad as counterrevolutionary - There will be Blood:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/06/iran_there_will/

Ahmadinijad is now opposed by all of the significant Mullahs - who led the 79 revolution. Why? because he - and the Revolutionary Guard - are Israeli puppet-creations. They are now ready to do Mossad's dirty work. "Mahmoud" is Jewish. But you can't see FNORDS, can you?

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129649

http://www.rferl.org/content/Were_Ahmadinejads_Ancestors_Jews_/1375318.html

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/top-iranian-figure-says-ahmadinejads.html#links

This is how the foreign policy of the US works. It's not about being the "nice guy". Do you think the US cares about whether some people are living "free"? If so, why no engagement in southeast asia, why no aid in central Africa?

Simple: No necessary resources, no influence, no power, nothing to gain. Simple as that.

No, it isn't. Sudan has plenty of oil. Why do you think the northern part gives a damn about the southern part? Because that (Darfur and points south) is where the oil is. China is heavily invested in the Sudan.

Burma (Myanmar) has lots of natural gas, gems, timber and minerals. Central Africa (the region, not specifically the CAR) is loaded with lovely things like bauxite, diamonds, uranium and all that wonderful timber. Amazingly enough, China is also heavily invested in Burma and many places in Africa as well.

North Korea is within spitting distance (literally!) of South Korea, and a short lob to Japan. Not to mention they share borders with both China AND Russia. I'm sure THOSE countries would like us to deploy a few hundred thousand troops on their border.

Is "freedom" and "democracy" the overriding principle of American foreign policy? Hell no. But it is a consideration. Democracy and Republics are much more stable forms of government. Stability means safe trade. That is, we can buy their stuff and they can buy ours. Notice all the money in the world that MEANS anything comes from stable democracies? The dollar (U.S., Canadian or Australian), the Euro, Pound and Yen.

Iran is complicated. The Soviet Union under Stalin had serious ambitions in expanding their burgeoning empire. Just ask the Eastern European nations about that one. They showed their intent after WW2 when all three powers were withdrawing from Iran -- the U.K., U.S. and U.S.S.R. -- and the Soviets sort of lingered in the norther oil fields of Iran, refusing to withdraw and demanding oil concessions. They had a history of that, with Tsarist Russia taking sizable chunks of Azerbaijan from Iran back in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It was the U.S. that forced them to fully leave.

From Wikipedia:

Following their defeat by Russia, Qajar Persia was forced to sign the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, which acknowledged the loss of the territory to Russia. Local khanates were either abolished (like in Baku or Ganja) or accepted Russian patronage. Another Russo-Persian war in 1826-28 resulted in another crushing defeat for the Iranian army. The Russians dictated another final settlement as per the Treaty of Turkmenchay, which resulted in the Qajars of Persia ceding Caucasian territories in 1828. The treaty established the current borders of Azerbaijan and Iran as the rule of local khans ended.

The U.S.S.R. with access thru a friendly nation (Mossadeq's Iran) to both vast oil reserves and a warm-water port was by far and away an unacceptable risk. I'm fairly certain Iran S.S.R. would have been a hell of a lot worse.