[Goober911]

http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/204464.html
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has said that the "self-rule" referendums held in eastern Ukraine on May 11 have "zero credibility" in the eyes of the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/world ... urope&_r=0

Mr. Pushilin then elaborated about that history, while echoing Moscow’s line that the current government in Kiev was composed of “Nazis.” He also said the Ukrainian military had left hundreds dead in recent confrontations, although there was no evidence to support that estimate. Finally, he said the eastern regions would not hold the national presidential vote scheduled for May 25, creating the basis for another possible confrontation.

From Moscow, there was no direct reaction. But soon after Mr. Pushilin’s announcement, the Foreign Ministry issued another statement echoing what Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov had said earlier in the day — that the crisis in Ukraine must be solved through dialogue between Kiev and the east.

[Goober911]

This deadline is a non issue as from what I understand the Ukraine storage tanks are full.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wor ... e18621492/

Further escalating tensions, Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom said it would cut off the flow of natural gas to Ukraine on the morning of June 3 if Kiev didn’t pay a $3.5-billion debt. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev subsequently urged Gazprom to start making the Ukrainian government – which is effectively bankrupt – prepay for gas deliveries, beginning Tuesday.

[BartSimpson]

Goober911 Goober911:

How many have noted that PF is on the money more often than not?.

100+ pages of his comments being more or less spot on say that I agree with you!

[Jabberwalker]

He's spot on alright but I wouldn't trade places with him.

[andyt]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

stratos stratos:

Funny how later these same flower children rushed towards the National Guards. Keep in mind this was done after days of taunting and harassing of the National Guards by the oh so peaceful flower children. It was a planned for of harassment done by the flower children. They used the sound of the class bell to stage the rush/charge. Unlike what the movie shows these kids were not running to class, they were actually heading parallel to the buildings and headed strait for the National Guardsmen who were NOT in front of nor near a campus building being used for classes.

Either way, armed troops vs unarmed students is not cool. But that's what much of the Eastern Ukraine is facing.

Kent State looked nothing like that. The protesters were much more aggressive. This photo was from a 1967 march on the Pentagon. Won a pulitzer prize. Had a huge impact, IMO, just as some of the Vietnam photos did.

This is Kent State


As for armed troops vs unarmed students, Caleb, who's who in your scenario? The armed troops are the Ukrainian soldiers that are engaging the armed insurgents. As for killing unarmed people, that seems to have been done by the Ukraine National guard - is that who you were referring to.

[Winnipegger]

RT.COM: Moscow in no rush to respond to Donetsk People's Republic plea for accession

$1:

Russia is taking its time before reacting to Donetsk People's Republic’s plea to consider its accession into Russia while calling for dialogue between Kiev and the eastern regions.
...
It stressed the necessity of a “dialogue between representatives of Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk.”

[PostFactum]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

RT.COM: Moscow in no rush to respond to Donetsk People's Republic plea for accession

$1:

Russia is taking its time before reacting to Donetsk People's Republic’s plea to consider its accession into Russia while calling for dialogue between Kiev and the eastern regions.
...
It stressed the necessity of a “dialogue between representatives of Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk.”

We will be waiting for book "My last mistake" by Vladimir Putin.

[PostFactum]

Hungary requires autonomy for Hungarians in Transcarpathia and dual citizenship.

$1:

Hungarians living in Ukraine must obtain autonomy and dual citizenship. This was announced in the Parliament of Hungary , Prime Minister Viktor Orban . "We see the Hungarian question as a European issue. Hungarians living in the Carpathian region are eligible for dual citizenship, the rights of national and community autonomy ," - he said. According to Orban , on the situation of Hungarians in Ukraine are of particular acuteness in Budapest. " The situation of 200,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine , has this issue particularly acute. Hungarian community there needs to get dual citizenship , all rights of the national community , and it should get the opportunity to self-government. It is our clear expectations from the new Ukraine , which is face , "- said the Hungarian prime minister . Read more: The representative of Hungary to Ukraine PACE called " artificial state" , in turn, Viktor Orban supported the Ukrainian authorities in development of a democratic state. It should be noted that live in Ukraine , according to various estimates, from 160 to 200 thousand Hungarians. Other countries are much larger Hungarian minorities - Hungarians in Serbia from 250 to 290 thousand in Slovakia about 500 thousand, and in Romania more than a million people of Hungarian nationality. Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary said that Budapest would not violate the territorial integrity of Ukraine and will not attempt to annex Transcarpathia.
More can be found here : http://tsn.ua/svit/ugorschina-vimagaye- ... 49210.html

There are only 12,08% Hungarians. They were giving Hungarian passports to the left and right, just like Russians. Maybe Romania will take Chernivetska oblast, Poland will annex West, Russia will take other part? Maybe we will make European trade and everyone will annex what he wants? Maybe Canada would like something too? Say, don't be shy, there will be piece for everyone If all emigrated Ukrainians will make their autonomy in every country where is Ukrainian community we will make Ukrainian Empire, but we keep silent and respect every country we are.

[DrCaleb]

PostFactum PostFactum:

If all emigrated Ukrainians will make their autonomy in every country where is Ukrainian community we will make Ukrainian Empire, but we keep silent and respect every country we are.

I think the figure for my province, Alberta, that I heard on the radio is that 400,000 people claim Ukranian ancestry here, out of about 4 million total population. 30,000 claim Ukrainian as their first language. Our former Premier even had that subtle lilt in his voice that says to me he's speaks Ukranian at home.

Good people. We could do a lot worse than another Ukrainian wave of immigration like we had in the 1800's and 1950's.

[ShepherdsDog]

Godbedamnit......He be drivink beeg somnabeetch trock looking for new trasher and svatter for dis year.

[Winnipegger]

RT: 'Eastern Ukrainians aren’t seeking separation, they’re expressing their will'

$1:

The referendum results in eastern Ukraine are sending a message that their rights are not adequately protected and recognized by the Kiev government, former Indian Foreign Minister Kanwal Sibal told RT.

RT: The region of Lugansk says it will now ask for UN recognition. Do you see any chance of that?

Kanwal Sibal: I don’t think that will happen, but I heard that people who held the referendum are saying that they still remain part of Ukraine. While it is self-determination at the moment, evidently they are not thinking of a separate state.

RT: ‘Ukraine needs a revision of Constitution, not elections’

If RT is the voice of Moscow, that tells me they don't want to take any more territory from Ukraine. They just want eastern Ukraine to have more autonomy, but within Ukraine. Ok. Considering the Washington Post survey stated most people in east Ukraine want the borders to remain intact, but a significant proportion did vote for "autonomy" in the referendum, it sounds like what they really want is something like provincial status. I think this is good. It means Moscow is not trying to gobble up Ukraine.

[DrCaleb]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

If RT is the voice of Moscow, that tells me they don't want to take any more territory from Ukraine. They just want eastern Ukraine to have more autonomy, but within Ukraine. Ok. Considering the Washington Post survey stated most people in east Ukraine want the borders to remain intact, but a significant proportion did vote for "autonomy" in the referendum, it sounds like what they really want is something like provincial status. I think this is good. It means Moscow is not trying to gobble up Ukraine.

I beg to differ. RT is the voice of Moskau, and the Ukraine is a separate and distinct country and (to be terse) it's none of their fucking business how ex-pats in another country are treated and none of their fucking business how Ukraine deals with it's own people in it's own borders. I was going to say 'except for human rights abuses' but to hold Moskau to that that standard would be ironic.

Moskau's only interest here is taking back the Ukrainian food production and Black Sea oil and gas that Russia doesn't already own. Their protests fall under the category of 'he doth protest too much'.

[andyt]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I beg to differ. RT is the voice of Moskau, and the Ukraine is a separate and distinct country and (to be terse) it's none of their fucking business how ex-pats in another country are treated and none of their fucking business how Ukraine deals with it's own people in it's own borders. I was going to say 'except for human rights abuses' but to hold Moskau to that that standard would be ironic.

Moskau's only interest here is taking back the Ukrainian food production and Black Sea oil and gas that Russia doesn't already own. Their protests fall under the category of 'he doth protest too much'.

So Russia still does want to swallow up Ukraine, is that what you're saying? Why then are the backing off?

Here's what Matthew Fisher has to say:

$1:

Coal mining is almost Donetsk's only source of revenue. Tens of thousands of retired miners have pensions that need to be paid.

Russia has enough struggling coal mines of its own. Nor does it need Ukrainian coal, which is mostly sold to the west of the country. But Donetsk is a bargaining chip that Russia has been using to gain a much greater voice in Ukrainian affairs.

People have also pointed out that unlike Crimea, Eastern Ukraine has a majority that does not want to be part of Russia so it would be much harder to the Russians to take and hold it. Way harder yet if they also have designs on Western Ukraine.

I think what Putin wants is to make sure people in Eastern Ukraine that want more autonomy are taken into account, so that it becomes harder to pull them into Europe's orbit. He may have shot himself in the foot tho by hyping up expectations of the pro-Russian side that he would ride to their defense, goading them into insurrection and this referendum, only to abandon them later.


What Ukraine does may not be Russia's business, but we sure cheered and supported them when they had the Kyiv revolution. Without Russian interference, the insurgency in the East might have been much less, but who knows. Those people in the East, as they themselves say, are having an anti-maidan. They weren't at all happy what happened in Kyiv, especially with the anti-Russian laws passed there after the revolution. If we only look at Ukraine thru the lens of West good, East bad, we're not doing Ukraine any favors either. It seems now that the way to avoid civil war is for the govt that's elected after the 25th to make some reconciliatory moves toward those who favor a more Eastern view.

Just as Putin doesn't seem to want Ukraine, I don't know why we would either. Do we really want to take on a basket case that makes Greece look like the height of economic competence. With worse food.

[Winnipegger]

RT: Russia should ignore Washington's 'new Cold War'

$1:

Washington desperately needs a new Cold War with Russia to ensure a healthy Military-Security Complex and to maintain global hegemony, former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts told RT in an interview.

"The best thing the Russian government could do is just ignore [Washington's rhetoric] and go on making its relations with China, India, Brazil, and South America, and go on about its business and leave the dollar system, and simply quit trying to be accepted by Washington," said Roberts, also an economist and columnist on global affairs.
…
PCR: Washington wants a Cold War, they need it. They've been defeated in Afghanistan, they were blocked from attacking Syria and Iran, so they've got to keep the military-security complex funded, because that's where an important part of their campaign contributions comes from.

Not in the text, but in the video:

$1:

What this is all about is, Washington had hoped to grab Ukraine, especially the Russian naval base in Crimea, in order to evict Russia from the naval base and thereby cut them off from the warm water port and access to the Mediterranean. Now Washington lost that game, so they're trying to retrieve it by starting a new Cold War. And that's what all this talk is about. Now they're pretending that Russia is going to invade the Baltics, or Eastern Europe. This is an absurdity.

The interview is with a former member of President Regan's administration, but again this is on RT. If RT is the voice of Moscow, then is this the position of Moscow? That would mean Putin intends to end this with Crimea. That he won't take any more of Ukraine. To me that sounds like good news.

And hits on another issue with the United States. They have to balance their budget. In 2008 they found out what happens when then they don’t: their banking system collapsed. I was very concerned; in August 2006 the US per capita federal debt hit double Canada's. That's after taking into account exchange of the dollar, and using population figures for that month from the websites of the US Census Bureau and Statistics Canada. In August 2009 the US per capita federal debt hit triple Canada's. And they haven't stopped, today the US federal debt is $17.5 trillion. TRILLION! If they continue as they are now, the US will have another major financial collapse. I don't know when, and I don't know what it will look like, but at the rate they're running up the debt it won't be long.

When Ronald Regan was president, he started the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), known to the media as Star Wars. It turned out the weapons wouldn't work. One was a proton particle beam satellite that would shoot down re-entry vehicles from Russian ICBMs while in space. They even got a ground test to generate a particle beam, so it looked like it could work. And they added an electron beam to the proton beam to neutralize charge so the beam wouldn't diverge, it would stay together long enough to hit its target. But what they didn't tell the public is a major problem. It would take 100 launches of the Space Shuttle to lift the parts for just one such satellite. And it would have to be in low Earth orbit to be close enough to hit its target. LEO means about 300km range. GeoSynchronous Orbit is where a satellite orbits once per day, so stays over the same spot on Earth. But GSO is 36,000km above the surface. A proton particle beam can't hit anything that far away. At about the same orbit as the International Space Station, it would orbit once every 90 minutes. And would have to be inclined, so it would be over the United States. To ensure one satellite is over the US at all times would require about 24 such satellites. Each would require 100 launches of the Shuttle. We saw the Shuttle could only launch 6 times per year. Attempts to launch more resulted in the Challenger disaster. So that just won't work. Each weapon in Star Wars had a catch like that. But the Soviet Union had been baited into an arms race. So Regan's administration continued, it became a game of chicken: let's see whose economy collapses first. Regan knew the US could not sustain that level of military spending, but he felt the US economy was stronger so could sustain it longer. That worked better than anyone could have hoped. The Soviet Economy collapsed just as Mikhail Gorbachev was introducing perestroika and glasnost. The result was the Soviet Union completely fell apart. The US could consider that a win, but only if the US reduced it's military spending and reduced its debt.

Economists at the time were aghast! The US was left with a $3 trillion debt. Trillion, with a "T"! Today economists would be pleased at a debt that small, but that was the largest debt in US history. It took several presidents to balance the budget. Bill Clinton claimed the US had surpluses the last 3 years of his presidency. However, in 1998 and 1999 he raided the US federal civil servant's pension fund. When you treat that as a loan that has to be repaid, the US was still in deficit. In year 2000, the last year of Clinton, he still raided the pension fund, but the surplus was larger than what he took. After reducing it by that amount, the surplus was so puny it was practically non-existent, but at least the budget was balanced. That was the last year the US had a balanced budget. Military spending that year was $288 billion. But as soon as George W. was elected, he increased military spending. Starting with his missile shield, long before 9/11. Tests showed in only hit its target 1/3 of the time, but of all the weapons from Star Wars, it was the closest to working. In year 2008 total military spending was $700 billion, in 2009 it was $799 billion, and 2010 was the first budget passed by Obama, but military spending that year was $901 billion. This raises the obvious question: "Are they insane!?!?" They were trying to cause the financial melt-down of 2008. And once it happened, they didn't correct the problem, they made it worse.

When you adjust for inflation, the year 2000 military budget would be $395 billion in today's dollars. That's what it should be. They reduced military spending a little; current military budget $647 billion, and so far the 2015 budget is $627 billion. That's reduced a little, and why military contractors hire lobbyists to start a new war. But healthy military spending means cutting by $252 billion to $232 billion (vs 2014 or 2015 budgets). That wouldn't be enough to balance the budget, so all "stimulus spending" would have to end, and probably require further cuts. But we certainly don't need a new war.

But the military lobby doesn't care. They just want more profits in their pocket. And they're willing to fund politician election campaigns to do it. Meanwhile Ukraine is the pawn in this game of geopolitics.

[Winnipegger]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I beg to differ. RT is the voice of Moskau, and the Ukraine is a separate and distinct country and (to be terse) it's none of their fucking business how ex-pats in another country are treated and none of their fucking business how Ukraine deals with it's own people in it's own borders. I was going to say 'except for human rights abuses' but to hold Moskau to that that standard would be ironic.

Moskau's only interest here is taking back the Ukrainian food production and Black Sea oil and gas that Russia doesn't already own. Their protests fall under the category of 'he doth protest too much'.

Doesn't sound like we really differ. The issue is whether Moscow will continue to send agents to stir up trouble, and whether they'll invide. It looks like they won't. That's good.