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Nature Lover Vladimir Putin Flies With the Cranes
Hugh Pickens writes "Russian President Vladimir Putin is a nature lover. In 2007, the bare-chested president rode a horse through Siberia. In 2008, he fired a tranquilizer gun at a rare Siberian tiger. In 2010, he used a crossbow to shoot darts at an enormous whale in a fog-shrouded bay to collect tissue samples. Now Der Spiegel reports that on his way east to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Putin stopped at the Arctic Circle to fulfill a mission for which the Kremlin says he prepared assiduously for a year and a half: helping to save an endangered species of crane. In a meadow some 2,000 kilometers northeast of Moscow, Putin donned a white jumpsuit and black aviator goggles before swinging himself into the seat of an ultralight aircraft and as loudspeakers played the recorded call of a mother crane, Putin lifted off and a group of orphaned white Siberian cranes followed, allowing the aircraft to lead them south toward their winter habitat. On the first attempt, only one of the young cranes followed him up, which Putin said was because a high tail wind had caused the hang glider to accelerate too fast. On the second attempt, five birds followed Putin, but only two stuck with him for the full 15-minute flight. Putin's flight, given many minutes of airtime on Russian television, provoked an array of contemptuous jokes on the Internet, one of the most popular being: 'So Putin is off to wintering with cranes. Does this mean he's not going to be back before spring?' The Russian president, however, hit back at critics telling reporters at the conclusion of APEC summit that, 'It's true that not all flew right away, but the ones that didn't fly were the weak cranes' apparently alluding to the errant ways of those involved in protests that have hit Russia over the last year."
If anyone wanted to know what a country would look like if a Bond villain actually won, look no farther than Russia.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
This is News for Nerds?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
He should rather care about independent journalists - the most endangered species in Russia.
Is /. being paid for these kind of articles?
If only he tried to look like crazy dictator little less.
839*929
Somehow that's a little disappointing.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Agreed. I read the submission twice. Then checked some comments. Then went back and read the submission a third time. I was sure I was missing something, somewhere. This has nothing to do with tech or nerds. It barely even qualifies as politics, for that matter. This belongs on Good Morning America or some other drivel.
That things have changed dramatically since, for a variety of reasons, shouldn't negate the fact that there were good parts of the Soviet Union, and under some conditions socialism worked quite well. It is equally possible, and equally misleading, to create a dystopic version of both the USA and the UK simply by focussing on the rust belt, inner cities, areas of house price collapse and places with a large incidence of extremists of one persuasion or another.
The point about Putin for the average Russian is that Eltsine let his mates steal virtually the entire wealth of the country, and Putin has got a significant amount of it back. He has doubtless enriched himself in the process, but at least he has prevented the "last one out turn off the lights, if no-one has stolen them" end game of his predecessor.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."