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Learn to Speak Russian
(Like Your Life Depends on It)

“Where is the bathroom?”
Gde tualet?
A good phrase to know in any language.

“Hello, nice to meet you.”
Zdravstvuyte, priyatno poznakomit’sya.
Best accompanied by a broad smile that indicates you’re not a threat. You never know who’s a mole.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…”
Spasibo, spasibo, spasibo, spasibo, spasibo…
This cannot be said enough, especially to state officials. (Thirty-three times is too few.)

“Many thanks! Endless thanks! A world of thanks!”
Ogromnoye spasibo! Beskonechnoye spasibo! Mir blagodarnosti!
Say this when a bureaucrat insults you in public.

“Please put that on the record.”
Zanestite eto v protocol, pozhalusta..
Use this phrase immediately after offering thanks. You know, just in case.

Witnessing the extraordinary cage fight this week between Volodomyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump in the Oval Office provided an eye-popping glimpse into what is normally kept behind closed doors when world leaders meet to nut out matters of great consequence. The two presidents loudly talked over each other, eyeballs rolling, aggressively gesticulating and contradicting each Continue reading »

What is going on here? Republican officials are behaving like junior high bullies everywhere they go these days. They seem to have lost all restraint and are letting their ids run wild. And it’s not just one or two. They’re all doing it. WTF?

By sending weapons to Israel while halting arms sales to Ukraine, Trump backs nations that are “occupying a less powerful people.”

The post Support the Occupying Force: The Logic Behind Trump’s Foreign Policy appeared first on The Intercept.

Police-state tactics Lech Wałęsa knows from police state tactics (via The Daily Beast): Legendary Polish anti-Communist Lech Wałęsa has slammed Donald Trump’s Oval Office attack on Ukraine’s Volodymr Zelensky, comparing it to Soviet secret police tactics. Wałęsa, 81, signed a letter along with 38 other Poles who had been held captive by the Communist regime, telling Trump that the Friday spectacle filled them “with horror and distaste.” The former Polish president previously revealed that he met Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2010, and attached a photo of the two of them to the letter, which he posted on Facebook on Monday.

The culture at large has overrated Smart.

In the weeks leading up to the recent presidential inauguration in Washington, this country and an anxious world expected many different things from what might be called, to borrow the title of a famed William Butler Yeats’s poem, “The Second Coming” of Donald J. Trump. But nobody expected this. Nobody at all. “We will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley where it should be and where it belongs,” President Trump announced to a burst of applause during his inaugural address on January 20th. Continuing his celebration of a decidedly mediocre president, best known for taking this country on an ill-advised turn towards colonial conquest, Trump added: “President McKinley made our country very rich through... Read more

Source: Slouching Towards Mount McKinley appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

There’s a target on your back, people Last night notices went out here in NC-11 that Congressman Chuck Edwards (R) has planned a town hall for next week in his R+8 district. Good on him and good luck. The last one I attended did not go as he’d hoped. After the rowdy affairs going on around the country, he’s likely had time to set this up more as a lecture than a Q&A. Nevertheless, Edwards will hear plenty about Musk and his DOGE post-teens treating the government — your government and mine — like a stolen car in a chop shop. Musk grew up in South Africa and barely knows how our government works. Oh, but his techies are going to go into computer software that fell out of general use before they were born and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse — the free-energy device of conservative politics. Entire cities might be powered by waste fraud, and abuse if only it could be captured. But Big Energy doesn’t want you to know how.

Hey there, I’m the chiropractor you found heavily discounted on Groupon. I know you came in to align your ankles, but I feel way more of a thrill when dealing with the human neck. May I?

Okay, so I’m noticing you tensed up a bit after I violently rotated your neck 180 degrees to the left. I know hearing and feeling all of your cervical vertebrae crack at once can be a little disconcerting, but I just want to assure you that to us in the alignment industry, those were all “good” cracks.

It’s totally normal to be nervous. If you’re not in the experimental twisting field, hearing snapping noises emanating from your neck can be startling. But you have absolutely nothing to worry about. “Snaps” are just what we in the recreational spine business like to call “bone screams.”

You just need to remember that this is good for you. Letting me jostle your bones around until something shifts is good for you. It’s just a bonus that I happen to enjoy the sound and feel of manually manipulating your skeletal system.

Stephen Kapos, 87, is among dozens of activists interviewed or charged by police for their part in the January 18th pro-Palestine protest in London

‘I feel like one of the reasons far-right narratives are so successful is that we’re lacking community, especially in big cities like Berlin,’ says Anne, who became a Die Linke member four weeks ago. ‘I think if we want to keep this whole thing going, we need to be more involved in our communities. And […]

Keir Starmer's attempts to be an "honest broker" with Donald Trump are doomed to failure, argues Adam Bienkov

"The Cook Islands is small, and when you sign deals with economic giants like China, you have to question the long-term consequences."

Clinicians have long recognised the link between worry and planning. New research asks what this means for managing anxiety

- by Paul B Sharp

Read at Psyche

The next big media scandal is only a matter of time, says independent watchdog, after successive governments refuse to further regulate the industry

The details of what’s happening with the economy are frankly a bit beyond my ken so I was grateful to see this easy explainer from Josh Marshall today. (And you should subscribe if you can. His site is super valuable right now.) The Atlanta Fed has again lowered its projection for first quarter 2025 GDP. It had been predicting growth of 2.3%. At the end of last week that was revised to 1.5% contraction and this morning they were again down-revised 2.8% contraction, or in other words 2.8% negative growth. To be clear these aren’t final or official stats. We’re only two-thirds of the way through the quarter. They are a prediction based on current indicators. But if it’s not clear that would mean a steep move into recession. And the numbers which presage that outcome are largely tied to general economic uncertainty and various collective economic decisions based on the expectations of a dramatic ramp up in U.S. tariffs and tariff retaliation. Normally, you wouldn’t expect that an administration would be able to manage such a stark reversal six weeks into a presidency. The first three weeks of the quarter weren’t even under Trump.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

No Other Land winning an Oscar shows a shift in perception of Western opinion on Gaza. Seyed Mohammad Marandi reports that Iran will not negotiate with the US because Trump violates agreements. Why is the ABC gaslighting Anthony Albanese’s election chances? Jonathan Pie gives his spin on Trump’s response to Ukraine. No Other Land winning Continue reading »

The warming has led to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events [in southern Australia] … In contrast, northern Australia has been wetter than average over the last 30 years.