31 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  2. Czech physicist (and AGW “skeptic”) Luboš Motl cites ex-president Václav Klaus and ex-chancellor Jiří Weigl’s take on the situation in Ukraine:

    In its present form, Ukraine is – to a large extent – an artificially created entity that has only become an independent country thanks to the dissolution of the USSR two decades ago. On one side, the country includes territories in the West that have never belonged to the Russian Empire (Subcarpathian Rus, Galicia, and others) and which were only annexed by Russia after the Second World War, territories influenced by the struggle for Ukraine’s independence (including fighting on the Nazi side), and on the other side, there are territories whose character has been purely Russian since the 18th century (Crimea, Odessa, the East of the country) for which the independence of Ukraine meant the extraction from their original national entity.

    More at the link.

  3. Ex-president Václav Klaus and ex-chancellor Jiří Weigl’s are right. Ukraine is an artificial construct, as was the former Yugoslavia, and we know how that ended. By and large, as I have mentioned previously, the country is divided into east and west along the Dnieper River. Perhaps, as they suggest, these were the opening shots of an eventual split, in which case I suspect the east would rejoin Russia and become Little Russia once again.
    “…the struggle for Ukraine’s independence (including fighting on the Nazi side…”. The western Ukrainians experienced Soviet largess after the implementation of the 1939 Hitler/Stalin Pact, and thought the Nazis were the lessor of two evils. Havel does show a little anti-Ukrainian bias with that statement. Perhaps he did not mean it that way. Furthermore, politics does on occasion require strange bedfellows as the anti-Nazi alliance of WW II indicates. There are numerous other historical examples of strange alliances.
    I liked the photo of Independence Square as it was then, as that is how we saw it.
    “Beer Drinking Mama”, now I will have that tune in my head all night. My mama don’t do beer.

  8. No surprise that many Ukrainians hooked up with the Wehrmacht for a while, after Stalin liquidated 8 million of their number. The thinking then was the Stalinists would likely be the death of them. Not an improbable line of thinking for anyone who survived the ‘Bloodlands’ of eastern Europe.
    Conrad Black writes a decent and compelling recap and commentary which you might enjoy…
    http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/21/conrad-black-a-historic-settlement-for-a-long-bloodied-ukraine/
    Conrad Black: A historic settlement for a long-bloodied Ukraine
    Cheers
    Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
    1st Saint Nicolaas Army
    Army Group “True North”

  11. Obama’s stimulus package has cost 830 billion and has bought 3/10th of a point in employment. Helluva deal.

  12. This is interesting if a month outdated
    Ecuadorean airline halts flights to Venezuela
    “The carrier was the first to halt flights to Venezuela, whose socialist government owes carriers a total of $3.3 billion, according to Venezuela’s airlines association.”
    and now for something you didn’t see on the CBC
    “In Venezuela, the TV station Globovision reported on Thursday that Air Canada had stopped selling tickets in the country. No one answered the phone at Air Canada’s offices in Caracas and a local call center worker told The Associated Press that she had received orders to suspend all sales and reservations. She said she was not authorized to give her name.”
    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ecuadorean-airline-halts-flights-venezuela-212336341.html
    Makes me kinda wonder
    earlier in 2013
    Venezuelan flights sold out for months but planes are almost empty.
    http://skift.com/2013/09/25/venezuelan-flights-are-sold-out-for-months-but-planes-are-almost-empty/

  13. I’m for this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E064kb3UnU
    It’s good to know that Barry owes Steve TWO cases of beer (or maybe THREE), plus a pipeline…
    I won’t mention the old joke about Regina Pipelinni, but I do think that all of our womens hockey gold medalists, and all of our mens hockey gold medalists (mostly assured), deserve the Victoria Cross, over and above, on account of the distraction they have provided to us all, given that the Liberal convention is happening in, you know, Montreal, which is Quebec, apparently. I’m sure that it will be a tough call for Peter (who’s my neighbour, actually) on what to cover (sleepless nights to follow, I’m sure)…
    On the other hand, Wayne Gretsky, who’s conservative, would make an excellent PM, if we were thinkin’ of changin’ horses, at this stage, in light of how he changed the game, which was on full display today (hint: pucks don’t bounce; control the stick, and you can practically throw it — which goes to Wayne’s other talent (quite apart from being a decent businessman): he could have had an equally great career in professional baseball.
    Sadly, for The Americans, which is a dismal show on Fox, Canadians came to play hockey, and they came to play basketball.

  15. Ken (11:09), as time passes by and I get older – the two seem inextricably linked for some reason – the more I’m convinced that moving in the direction of regional, local governance – i.e. de-centralization – is the answer to just about every political problem that’s been lighting up people’s brains like a short-circuiting Christmas tree for the last twenty or thirty years.
    To use the U.S. as an example, the coastal elites – the Ivy-League-types and the bran-flakes (Californy) – should have no say whatsoever in the local policies and decisions – or taxation rates – of Iowans or Idahoans or North Dakotans. If coastal urban elites dream up some crazy-a**ed ideas about how the the “Royal ‘We'” (i.e. everyone else) must live, they can just bugger off; let them live, and pay for, and deal with, the consequences of their own “ideas”.
    The biggest threat to liberty comes in the form of enforced governance by regional (coastal in the U.S., and “Laurentian” in Canada) elites who want their one-size-fits-all ideas to…moisten the lives of those who don’t share the same views.
    So yes, if Ukrainians live in one part of the country, and identify as Ukrainians, and Russians live in another half (I’m speaking in broad terms, and assuming free transit/passports to all who wish to join their bretheren), let the Ukrainians have the Ukraine. Everybody wins.

  20. Hans, exactly, and that is what I was getting at. Many Western Ukrainians still remember their grandparents being arrested by the NKVD and disappearing. The Wehrmacht was considered a savior of sorts in June 1941.
    EBD @ 1:09 AM, I agree wholeheartedly, and have thought that Canada should be split on the Manitoba/Ontario border for quite some time. In fact since Trudeau initiated the NEP. As you say there is a similar situation in the US. The states that made up the former Yugoslavia seem to be getting along now, as do the states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This morning it really begins to look like Ukraine might be heading for a split as I suggested yesterday.
    Opposition member of parliament Oleh Liashko on Feb. 22 addresses a crowd that has formed outside the Verkhovna Rada. With reports that President Viktor Yanukovych has fled Ukraine, parliament moved to fill the leadership vacuum by freeing ex-Prime MInister Yulia Tymoshenko from prison and appointing Oleksandr Turchynov, her former deputy, as acting prime minister. Parliament is also set to consider Yanukovych’s impeachment today.
    Feb. 22, 2:13 p.m. — A member of the Afghanistan veterans who is guarding Independence Square in Kyiv says the national revolution will continue. “Everyone in the government and parliament must get away. It’s too bad that President Viktor Yanukovych ran away. He should have been caught and brought here, to Maidan.” When asked about Rada’s latest decisions, making Oleksandr Turchynov acting prime minister and Arsen Avakov interior minister in charge of police, he said: “Let’s give them a chance and we’ll see. Someone has to take care of the mess now.” — Olga Rudenko
    http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv/euromaidan-rallies-in-ukraine-feb-21-live-updates-337287.html

  21. Hans, exactly, and that is what I was getting at. Many Western Ukrainians still remember their grandparents being arrested by the NKVD and disappearing. The Wehrmacht was considered a savior of sorts in June 1941.
    EBD @ 1:09 AM, I agree wholeheartedly, and have thought that Canada should be split on the Manitoba/Ontario border for quite some time. In fact since Trudeau initiated the NEP. As you say there is a similar situation in the US. The states that made up the former Yugoslavia seem to be getting along now, as do the states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This morning it really begins to look like Ukraine might be heading for a split as I suggested yesterday.
    Opposition member of parliament Oleh Liashko on Feb. 22 addresses a crowd that has formed outside the Verkhovna Rada. With reports that President Viktor Yanukovych has fled Ukraine, parliament moved to fill the leadership vacuum by freeing ex-Prime MInister Yulia Tymoshenko from prison and appointing Oleksandr Turchynov, her former deputy, as acting prime minister. Parliament is also set to consider Yanukovych’s impeachment today.
    Feb. 22, 2:13 p.m. — A member of the Afghanistan veterans who is guarding Independence Square in Kyiv says the national revolution will continue. “Everyone in the government and parliament must get away. It’s too bad that President Viktor Yanukovych ran away. He should have been caught and brought here, to Maidan.” When asked about Rada’s latest decisions, making Oleksandr Turchynov acting prime minister and Arsen Avakov interior minister in charge of police, he said: “Let’s give them a chance and we’ll see. Someone has to take care of the mess now.” — Olga Rudenko
    http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv/euromaidan-rallies-in-ukraine-feb-21-live-updates-337287.html

  22. Even the ethnic Russians and the Tatars in Crimea are not in agreement as to the future of Ukraine.
    International Business Times reports that Russia is prepare to go to war for the Crimea if Ukraine splits. “A Russian government official has revealed that Russia would be willing to fight a war over the Crimea region of Ukraine and protect the large Russian population and its military assets there.” ibtimes.co.uk
    “If Ukraine breaks apart, it will trigger a war,” the unnamed official told the Financial Times.
    “They will lose Crimea first [because] we will go in and protect [it], just as we did in Georgia,” the official continued.
    SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — The outgoing leader of Crimea’s Tatars says that NATO membership for Ukraine is the safest way to avoid a repeat of the Russian-Georgian war of 2008, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service reports.
    Mustafa Dzhemilev, the head of the Crimean Tatars’ Mejlis or parliament, spoke to RFE/RL on December 4 ahead of the Kurultai, or Crimean Tatar Assembly, to be held in Sevastopol on December 5-6.
    Dzhemilev said he supports Ukraine’s moves to join the European Union and NATO.
    http://www.rferl.org/content/Crimean_Tatar_Leader_Backs_EU_NATO_Membership_For_Ukraine/1896014.html

  24. PET Cemetery Report: Our Justine’s POT Party Briefing Page.
    …-
    “Tim Harper: Lt-Gen Leslie fails first media test, awkward and uncomfortable delivering amateur hour lines Liberals wrote for him; question pervades, what is he hiding?”
    “Ottawa: Leaked emails show how retired Lt-Gen Leslie pursued govt job from Conservatives; told reporters he sought to be a candidate with “parties” other than Liberals before hitting taxpayer for $72K for 4-block move”
    http://newswatchcanada.ca/

  25. The following show the extent to which North American society has degenerated.
    American freestyle skier David Wise won a gold medal this week in the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and became the focus of a prerequisite human interest story afterwards by host NBC, who seemed to be astonished by his “alternative lifestyle.”
    http://www.bizpacreview.com/2014/02/21/nbc-says-23-year-old-gold-medalist-lives-alternative-lifestyle-because-of-wife-child-102154

  26. EBD, could not agree more!
    May I recommend you check out Thomas diLorenzo’s books on Lincoln.
    More than any single experience, his books have made me abandon my earlier intellectually lazy conservative/libertarian self descriptor and placed me firmly back in the libertarian fold.
    Beware, tho: it get awfully lonely esp. when you encounter conservatives slobbering over “saving the union” and “ending slavery” rhetoric.
    Also, his book Hamilton’s Curse gives us the root cause of the destruction of the Republic and will have you out of the Republican camp once and for all time. But again, the caveat: beware the loneliness.

  27. “Hugo Chavez’s daughters refuse to move out of presidential palace and hold ‘deafening’ parties as five die in violent protests on the streets of Venezuela
    Former Venezuela president Hugo Chavez died in March 2013
    Daughters Rosa Virginia and Maria Gabriela won’t leave presidential villa
    Neighbors complain of ‘deafening’ parties
    Restaurants won’t deliver over unpaid bills
    Meanwhile, anti-government protests rage on the streets and five people have died in clashes so far
    A 22-year-old beauty queen died after being shot in the head
    On Thursday President Maduro threatened to expel CNN from the country”
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2564825/Hugo-Chavezs-daughters-refuse-presidential-palace-hold-deafening-parties-five-die-violent-protests-streets-Venezuela.html
    H/T Belmont Club.

  28. Hubey’s Da Boss. And, don’t youse forget it.
    “I take full responsibility for it because I’m the boss of CBC-Radio Canada,” Lacroix said”.
    …-
    “CBC boss, Hubert Lacroix, admits expense claims broke rules”
    “A day after Sun News host Brian Lilley reported that CBC President Hubert Lacroix repaid almost $30,000 in bogus travel claims, Lacroix admitted the claims were “clearly out of bounds.”
    “I take full responsibility for it because I’m the boss of CBC-Radio Canada,” Lacroix said on-air on the state broadcaster on Friday.”
    http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/02/22/cbc-boss-hubert-lacroix-admits-expense-claims-broke-rules

  29. AGW-Neo PR.
    Good reports from our AGW Kills reporter.
    …-
    “RETURN TO FRIGID TEMPS
    “Here we go again,” says Weather Network meteorologist Doug Gillham.
    “We’re going to have record breaking cold from the central Prairies into Ontario. We’ll have cross polar flow, meaning the air masses will be originating in Siberia coming directly over the pole and into Canada.”
    Gillham adds that bitterly cold temperatures will end February and continue into early March, “and at this point the long range for the month of March is showing widespread below seasonal temperatures.””
    http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/southern-ontario-weekend-weather-wind-gusts-and-chilly-temps/21940/

  30. All be it a heart attack on a plate, I would dearly love to try one of them burger/brews. The secret is in the quantity and quality of “evil” foods. As my former Texas doctor advised me;”Chicken fried steak isn’t going to kill you if you have it only once in a while…” Moderation and selection is the key. That’s why I never eat at the golden arches. If I’m going to enjoy a burger is should be worth it.

  31. AGW-Neo Presents: Dead Mann’s or-our Spelling Bee.
    Spell: rigour.
    Mann: Rigor.
    Spell: mortis.
    Mann: Mortis.
    …-
    “Doctor Mann, I presume?”
    “I noticed this because of the American spelling “rigor” rather than the English spelling “rigour” which would have resulted from a cut-and-paste.”
    “Had Mann’s Reply Memorandum provided the actual quotation, it would have confirmed National Review’s and CEI’s claim that the Muir Russell had confined its findings to “CRU scientists”, but not in the quotation as altered by Mann and/or his lawyers.”
    http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/2/22/doctor-mann-i-presume.html

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