Hey, be sure to bump it when it doesn't happen. More importantly please consider the basis of your complete paranoia wrt to Russi so next time there is something similar you don't react similarly.
Yes, and I was pointing out that you weren't getting what he was trying to say, which was valid and germane. I used Merkel as an example, because she is both German, and from the former DDR and should someone want to associate her with either the Nazis or East Germans in order to undermine her criticism of another country's policies, it would be easy to play that card. You insuinated that KingLeoric was engaging in similar hyperbole in regards to the US, and I didn't read it that way. So it would appear you misunderstood not only his point, but mine as well. Yes. Mexico's health program is capped at $300 a year. You might have to bring your own pillow for a hospital stay, and no one gets a private room, but that's a world of difference for those that can't otherwise afford private insurance, much less the cost of healthcare. Even out of pocket, procedures are a fraction of the cost of what they would be in the US, largely because healthcare isn't the sort of thing the rest of world thinks should be an enterprise for profit. And the model is not so revolutionary. That's how it works in much of the world. I would much prefer my $30 a month Israeli healthcare that came with a smartphone app that let me see a gruff doctor with an hour notice to my $300 a month Humana that requires a 3 week wait to see a doctor with a fancy leather couch in his office and won't actually pay for anything if I actually had an illness. If we approached transporation the way we did health care, we would mandate that everyone buy and maintain a Cadillac. Working contracts in a foreign country is not the same is living like a local, or understanding life from the point of view of another country's way of life or social welfare schemes. Had you moved to Ireland without a job or access to their welfare system your experience wouldn't be so eager to contradict me. I'm sure Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and Condi Rice have spent more time in the Baltics and Russia than either of us, but their reading of history and Russian relations is still outdated. Russians have always dealt with geopolitics in terms of spheres of influence, and despite abuses by it's own leaders to it's own people (Czars, Soviets or the present day) generally kept it's own accords with foreign powers. That is especially true of the post WW2 era, when Russians for example, stayed out of Italy, despite it having a very strong Communist Party, and got very pissed off when the British and Americans started supporting coups in places like Greece which were in it's own agreed up on sphere of influence, in the name of "democracy." So it's important to understand a Russian reading of recent history, and American/Anglo-Russian relations which from their perspective, cries of free elections and democracy were an excuse to meddle in the affairs of countries that it previously agreed to leave alone. Building anti-balistic missiles in Poland, and supporting opposition candidates in Georgia, Ukraine, and Russia itself are some of the things the State Department does that are the same kind of mistakes that led to the Cold War. Russia doesn't care if it's for "liberty" or "freedom" any more than Americans did when Russians intervened to "liberate" Nicaragua or Cuba. It's seen as aggressive and doesn't wash well with good intentions, especially considering that while the regimes of Ukraine and Georgia are "pro-Western" and capitalistic, they are hardly beacons of enlightened secular democratic priniciples. It's about geo-politics, or rather to the point, containment under a new name, at least from their point of view, and the gains from an American perspective are not worth the risk. I personally think big picture things like an energy policy less reliant on Middle Eastern despots, space exploration, and fighting common enemies like Nazis or terrorists bent on establishing a semi-global fundamentalist Sunni Caliphate might be a more prudent use of political capital rather than to kickstart the nuclear doomsday clock, but that's me. I think the rewards are high and risks low if you are willing to play realpolitik and not Cowboys and Indians. And you are entitled to your opinions, but they are brimming with misinformation, unnecessary ad-hominen fallacy, and a lack of scope. I don't get that you speak much Russian or are that familar with the corresponding customs, culture, history or irrational fears, but then that would put you in good company with the majority of our nation's poltical class. Whether or not you would like to be included in my disdain for their ignorance is entirely up to you. If you want to make personal insults, feel free, but the conversation will move on without you and it will be your loss.
No, what he said was not valid and not germane. Saying that the USA citizens really believe their government makes decisions based on anything other than self interest is just stupid. Further pointing out that the USA invades and takes territories is not in anyway germane. We are not talking about a 1950's civics class. Further, the taking of Hawaii as a US territory was long, long ago. I see, so you didn't really answer the question. Is the healthcare in Mexico on par with the United States? Do emergency rooms in the USA turn away sick people? As someone that grew up poor, and without medical insurance I can tell you the general answer is no. I will take having a working MRI machine, well trained doctors and cutting edge technology over what the current situation is in Mexico. Having said that, I said that the system in the United States needs to improve. Completely irrelevant. No one said that Russsia was or was not justified for feeling the way they do about the USA and the West. Good luck on "thinking big picture".... when all those things happen we can sit and have a beer and talk about the world being a wonderful place... but since the real world does not work that way, it is a waste of time. You live in a fantasy world on this issue. I have no disdain for you other than a complete lack of perspective.
I just read this piece by General Moshe Arens, my favorite right-wing columnist (at least in the post-William Saffire world). Anyway, I think he's 100% dead on. Khrushchev’s Folly and the Putin Doctrine have put a sting on Ukraine Whether it was wise for the European Union and NATO to embrace former Soviet republics is truly questionable. The crisis that followed the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation has its roots in February 1954, when Nikita Khrushchev, as first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, marked the 300th anniversary of Ukraine’s merger with Russia by presenting Crimea as a gift to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. What may well have been part of the power struggle among Soviet leaders after Stalin’s death is closely connected with the present crisis. At the time, it seemed a matter of little consequence, since it involved no more than a shifting of borders within the Soviet Union. But things changed with the breakup of the USSR and Ukraine’s becoming a sovereign state that included Crimea – an area with a majority Russian population. This phenomenon stemmed from what I’ll call Khrushchev’s Folly. Not a bad deal for Ukraine, but a raw deal for many Crimeans and Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation. Khrushchev’s Folly reminds us of Seward’s Folly, the purchase by the United States of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million ($121 million today). The deal was negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State William Seward and was roundly criticized at the time. Here again, the law of unintended consequences was at work. It was probably the best real-estate investment in the history of man and should rightly have been called Alexander’s Folly for Alexander II, the tsar who sold for a pittance what seemed a worthless 1.5 million arctic square kilometers. They turned out to contain immense oil deposits and eventually became the 49th state. It was certainly a better deal than the gratuitous transfer of Crimea to Ukraine. That Putin and many of his Russian compatriots don’t like the detachment of Crimea from Russia is obvious and not unexpected. After the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, Russian leaders didn’t welcome the attempts by the European Union and NATO to extend their influence into countries once part of the Soviet Union that Russia considers part of its sphere of influence. Whether it was wise for the European Union to try to embrace these countries and for NATO, a relic of the Cold War, to recruit them is truly questionable. No doubt, it is connected to the current crisis. Putin’s position resembles America’s Monroe Doctrine, declared by President James Monroe in 1850, which told European powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. The Putin Doctrine is to keep the West from gaining influence in countries he considers part of Russia’s backyard. The Monroe Doctrine worked, whereas the West isn’t prepared to adapt to the Putin Doctrine. That, in turn, has led to the Russian initiative in Crimea and the reattachment of Crimea to the Russian Federation. It’s unlikely that Western sanctions will make Putin retreat. But that isn’t the end of the story. The West is concerned that the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation may not be Putin’s last word. His next step might be directed at Ukraine itself or the eastern part, which has a high proportion of Russian speakers. The West now has to choose between a war of sanctions against Putin or sitting down with him and negotiating an understanding that will take into account some of his fears and concerns.
Seriously, idiots on Fox News actually wanted the US to get involved with this? If Ukrainians won't fight for it themselves, why should anyone care? Russia didn't even have to fire one shot to take over and evict them. Ukraine must be a terrible place if 95% of the people want to be Russians. And everyone thinks Russia is horrible. http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-orders-troop-pullout-crimea-103533738.html
You actually believe that 95% of Ukrainians want to be Russians? If you believe that you probably shouldn't comment on the situation. Just to educate you a bit, the election was completely rigged by the Russians combined with the fact that the Ukrainians and Tatars boycotted the vote so they didn't even vote. So, how do 95% of Ukrainians who didn't even vote want to be Russians?
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/lif...s-sex-boycott-against-russian-men-340545.html Ukrainian women's sex boycott against Russian men In the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, talk of international sanctions, it seems, has become just another humdrum fact of European politics. That could be changing, however. This week, a creative boycott began in Ukraine that is drawing the attention of Russian Internet users. Ukrainian women are organizing a new campaign called “Don’t give it to a Russian”—a sex embargo against Russian men. The effort complements a larger boycott against Russian consumer goods, which even features some billboards along highways throughout Ukraine. The sex boycott already has its own line of t-shirts, all carrying the official logo: two hands clasped together, creating a shape that suggests an open vagina (see above). There is also a slogan: “Don’t give it to a Russian!” followed by a verse from Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko’s 1838 poem “Kateryna”: “O lovely maidans, fall in love, but not with the Moskaly [the Russians].”
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/03/25/ukrainian-paramilitary-leader-assassinated-moscow-to-blame/ Ukrainian Paramilitary Leader Assassinated, Moscow to Blame? Over the past several hours rumors [uk] have spread [ru] through [ru] the Russian Internet claiming that Alexander Muzychko, second-in-command to Ukraine's ultra-nationalist “Right Sector” leader Dmytro Yarosh, was gunned down near the Western Ukrainian city of Rivno. Muzychko had earlier posted a YouTube video [ru] claiming he had information that he was going to be eliminated by Ukrainian security forces. If his death, yet unconfirmed, is true, it will be unclear who to blame — too many people have reasons to take him out of the picture. A Chechen blogger, Zulikhan Magomadova [ru], writing in Russian, blamed the Kremlin for the assassination, with the motive of fomenting civil war in Ukraine. Muzychko fought along side Chechen separatists during the first Chechen war. Magomadova ended with “Sleep well, our dear brother-in-arms. We will avenge you.”
The Ukraine will be sovereign but Crimea will be Russian. It's a compromise deal and no one gets killed, no cluster bombs in suburban neighborhoods, no land mines blowing up shepherds, no white phosphorus burning children, no suicide bombers at the mall.
The problem with that though is that even if 95% of the Ukrainians in Crimea voted that still wouldn't have tipped the Crimean election the other way. I'm not saying what Russia did is legal under international law but the demographics of Crimea are in their favor. What Mleahy is saying is that the Ukrainians seem to acknowledge that which is why they are pulling their forces out of Crimea.
The Ukrainians do have some of the best looking women in the World but so do the Russians so this might not hurt them that badly. Plus if even homely women in the Crimea look like the their new AG then I can see why Russia wants the Crimea so badly.
Yeah... basically confirms that Deji was off his rocker. Okay, so you want the women in the Ukraine to comfort Russians like Japanese women did American soldiers?.... gotcha....
If I'm going to the trouble to serve solyanka, you should at least try a bowl before insulting the cook.
You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If the best thing you got going is some piece of **** job with a piece of **** boss that does not give you or your co-workers the respect you feel you all deserve, then why be upset when a new boss comes along?
Tymoshenko Says She Will Run for President of Ukraine http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/world/europe/ukraine.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes
