Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Bark louder, little dog.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

I really should read my own blog.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

No one could have predicted…

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

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Reader Interactions

106Comments

  1. 1.

    chopper

    i’m sure the right wing internet warriors would love a new war to jerk off over. it’ll be the 101st chairborne vs the charge of the light beer brigade.

  2. 2.

    catclub

    The Frontline Show last night on the Papacy was really good. I had either not paid attention, or no one before had made clear – and pulled together – all the reasons that, combined, to make Benedict retire.

  3. 3.

    The Dangerman

    Ukraine might want a do over on giving up all it’s nukes.

    Given how fucked up a Ukraine/Russia conflict would be, I think we need to inundated with some Max pictures (I hope I have the posters straight; I might be drinking decaf this morning).

  4. 4.

    Yatsuno

    @chopper: Hell we got all those troops sitting in Germany doing nothing. We gotta get our war on so Grandpa Walnuts can keep working on Cindy’s replacement. She’s getting a bit old dontchaknow.

  5. 5.

    Gin & Tonic

    The Crimean peninsula is beautiful, but without fresh water piped in from “mainland” Ukraine it is a desert. So secession might not be the most brilliant idea, at least if they want people to live there.

  6. 6.

    Suffern ACE

    @Yatsuno: Oh, don’t give them any ideas. I’m still not certain why, when the Soviet Union fell apart, Russia didn’t just keep the Crimean Penninsula for itself. It seems to be fairly big oversight. If it wanted it that badly, it shouldn’t have just left it sitting there.

  7. 7.

    catclub

    The Prospect’s politics blog:

    “Will Iraq Break A UN Arms Embargo On Iran?”

    Kind of funny. We paid for a puppet democracy in Iraq but all we got were the dead civilians!

  9. 9.

    shelly

    I am sincerely happy that John’s friend is getting such good blood-sugar results from the new (tasty) diet. But John, please, stop using the term ‘sugar bomb.’

  12. 12.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Suffern ACE: Not sure what you mean by “keep.” The peninsula was transferred from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954. So by the time the USSR collapsed, Crimea had been legally part of Ukraine for over 35 years.

    The interesting thing is that the prevalence of the ethnically-Russian population there is a Stalin-era development, as he deported vast numbers of the — don’t want to say “indigenous”, but at least pre-Russian — original population of Tatars. Today’s Crimean Tatars or returned ex-Crimean Tatars overwhelmingly support a united Ukraine including Crimea.

  14. 14.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    Just finished, for the nth time, Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August.” What stood out for me was the fact that all of the soon-to-be combatants freely spied on each other. If the intelligence didn’t fit the presuppositions of the military’s Geneal Staff then it was ignored.

  16. 16.

    Mr. Longform

    Pride and Prejudice and Pundits:

    Mr. Darcy = Paul Krugman
    Elizabeth Bennet = Rachel Maddow
    Mr. Bingley = Charlie Pierce
    Jane Bennet = Gail Collins
    Wickham = George Stephanopoulos
    Lydia Bennet = Maureen Dowd
    Mr. Collins = Ross Douthat
    Mrs. Collins = David Brooks
    Lady Catherine DeBourgh = Peggy Noonan
    Mary Bennet = Katherine Jean Lopez
    Mr. Bennet = Russell Baker
    Mrs. Bennet = Megan McArdle

  17. 17.

    Tim F.

    @Villago Delenda Est: It seems like a good idea to have the Russians and Ukranians agree on a neutral third party to administer the Crimean peninsula until the two can settle their differences. Mongolia seems a little under-equipped for the job though. How about Germany?

  21. 21.

    Origuy

    @Gin & Tonic: The USSR didn’t have to break apart along the borders of the Socialist Republics, but if they’d started redrawing the lines that would have given impetus to the breakup of the RSFSR itself.

  22. 22.

    Suffern ACE

    @Tim F.: A joint task force of Greeks, Sythians, Medes and Sarmations might also do the trick. Why does no one ever ask for Sythian help any more?

  23. 23.

    The Red Pen

    Ukraine has been messed up for a while. It has a deep hole to dig out of. They really don’t need to be poking the Russian bear at this time, either.

    On a lighter note, the US Army was going to commission a “camel corps” to deploy in the desert southwest, but due to the Crimean War, camels were in short supply at the time, so it didn’t really get off the ground.

    (BTW, I’m still pet shelter blegging)

  24. 24.

    beltane

    @Suffern ACE: There were Genoese trading colonies established in the Crimea during the Middle Ages that existed for centuries. This could give Italy a claim on the peninsula as well.

  26. 26.

    MattF

    @Tim F.: Probably less funny than you intended. Taking the Russians at their word, one discovers that there’s a shortage of actual Nazis in that region of the world, so it’s plausible to ask Germany to send a few, if only for old times’ sake.

  31. 31.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @The Red Pen:
    Camels can freak out horses if the horses aren’t accustomed to them. The Army released it’s herd of camels into the desert (Mojave?) where they freaked out travelers and sourdoughs for years afterward.

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MattF:

    Only American politicians and pundits who have not experienced war up close and personal (and at least one who has who should know better…but then, he was a naval aviator and not a logistician, and it shows) are so blithe about what is actually involved in fighting a war.

  35. 35.

    Roger Moore

    @Suffern ACE:

    A joint task force of Greeks, Sythians, Medes and Sarmations might also do the trick. Why does no one ever ask for Sythian help any more?

    That’s “Scythians” and “Sarmatians”, BTW. And nobody in their right mind asked either one for help, ever, because the price was always much too high.

  36. 36.

    Cacti

    “First and foremost, it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

    -Vladimir Putin

    Remember those words when judging the motivations of Putinist Russia in all of this.

  37. 37.

    Davis X. Machina

    @catclub: You got GOP election victories in 2002, and 2004. That’s a few more years of freedom from the twin spectres of higher top marginal income tax rates and gay marriage. A few more years of right-wing judicial appointments, and lax government regulation…

    Surely that must count for something.

    Iraq — the world’s most expensive campaign commercial

  38. 38.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    WW I was set in motion by a series of mobilization orders by the various powers. As Bismarck predicted, some “damn fool thing in the Balkans” got it going…the assassination of the Austrian Archduke (heir to the throne) in Bosnia by a Serb nationalist. The Russians were the protectors of the Serbs. The Austrians issued an ultimatum to Serbia, Serbia sought Russian protection, the Austrians mobilized, the Russians Mobilized, which caused the Germans to mobilize, which caused the French to mobilize, which got the Brits involved (the entangling alliances did their job of getting everyone in the mess) and pretty soon you had the Germans crossing into Belgium to knock the French out of the war so they could then deal with the Russians.

    The various powers had been blustering at each other for at least 40 years prior…the French were pissed at the Germans for Germany’s punitive peace terms in 1871, for example.

  40. 40.

    jl

    @Roger Moore:

    ” That’s “Scythians” and “Sarmatians”, BTW. And nobody in their right mind asked either one for help, ever, because the price was always much too high. ”

    Well that is just tough, since Wiki says the Scythians were there first, they get it back, looks like.

    ” The inland regions were inhabited by Scythians and the mountainous south coast by the Taures, an offshoot of the Cimmerians. “

  42. 42.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Not for the Mongols. The only successful winter invasion of Russia was done from the east, over frozen rivers, by the Mongols in the 13th century.

    For the next two centuries, the princes of Muscovy paid tribute to the Mongols.

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Cacti:

    From the perspective of a Russian nationalist, this is no doubt true.

    Putin wants to undo all that. Putting the “The” back with “Ukraine” is step one of the process of reversal.

  47. 47.

    Roger Moore

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    I think you have the order slightly off, there. The British didn’t mobilize because the French did. They got involved after the Germans violated Belgian neutrality, which they had promised to protect. Not that it made a huge amount of practical difference, since the German plans demanded an invasion through Belgium on the theory that it would get them victory over France before the British could make their presence felt.

  48. 48.

    jl

    @schrodinger’s cat: But now that the stakes are far smaller, Russia is more dangerous than ever, and Putin is a bad man, worse than the czar or those boring old Soviet bureaucrats.

    Tymoshenko is the embodiment of goodness and light.

    That will be the basic logic of the warmongers.

    But from what I have read, she is a gas tycoon, and her attitude towards Russia seems more connected to how well gas deal negotiations go with Russia than anything else. Though seems like she is less corrupt than the Russian stooge who got kicked out.

    Seems to me it remains to be seen whether the two ethnic camps in Ukraine can get along well enough for it to be viable country.

  49. 49.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Villago Delenda Est: The Tea Party wants their country back and so does Putin, as does the Hindu right in India wants Akhand Bharat or undivided India (India+Pakistan+Bangladesh). Doesn’t the Israeli right want Jordan and Palestine to be a part of Israel too?

    Delusions of grandeur, they has it.

    ETA: Also too, inability to accept the reality.

  50. 50.

    Citizen_X

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    The Army released it’s herd of camels into the desert (Mojave?)

    Maybe they made it that far, but they were sent out from Ft. Davis, trans-Pecos Texas:

    In attempting to adequately supply Fort Davis and other southwestern posts, the army in 1855 embarked on an unusual experiment involving the importation of camels from the Middle East. Within the year, seventy-four camels were brought to Texas. Initially, a third of this number were outfitted to accompany Lieutenant Edward Beale as he surveyed a wagon road to Arizona. Beale and the camels passed through Fort Davis in the summer of 1857. Other camel expeditions followed in 1859 and 1860, with Fort Davis serving as a base of operations.The camels proved to be superior ‘beasts of burden’ as they were able to carry heavier loads than horses, mules, or oxen, and they required less water and food. The ‘camel experiments,’ which were championed by Jefferson Davis, however, were short-lived. Although successful, they were ultimately forgotten with the onset of the Civil War.

    Link.

  51. 51.

    Gin & Tonic

    @jl: She is not much less corrupt, and for the street in Kiev, her “sell-by” date has long passed. One flyer that was being passed around last week said “For Yulia, Freedom! And a pension!”

  52. 52.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger Moore: You’re right, it was the violation of Belgian neutrality that gave the Brits their motivation, but that was a given anyways since the von Schlieffen plan to get the French out of the war (the French were of course allies of the Russians) required violating Belgian neutrality, which was pretty much what the Triple Entente had in mind in the first place in planning their strategy.

    @jl: The Soviets, for all their bumbling, did a very extensive job of planting Russian ethnic minorities in every one of the Soviet Socialist Republics that made up the Union. It was sort of a “soft Russification” campaign, as opposed to the “hard Russification” that the Tsars attempted, particularly in places like the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine, but also in the Caucasus and central Asia.

    That’s who we’re seeing in the Crimea right now, and that’s what was going on in Georgia in 2008.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Invading Russia typically ends pretty badly for the invaders.

    Others have mentioned the Mongols, but ISTR that the Poles had some success invading Russia during both the Russian Time of Troubles and immediately after WWI. And the Germans were highly successful invading Russia during WWI, forcing Russia out of the war and winning big territorial concessions. It was only the German defeat in the West that gave the USSR a chance to get back the territory Germany had taken.

  55. 55.

    Nemo_N

    CNN’s Barbara Starr was just in my TV telling me that the scenes in Ukraine are straight from the Cold War “whether anyone likes to call them that or not”.

    What’s with the hard-on for the Cold War anyway?

  57. 57.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Roger Moore: Poland took over parts of present Ukraine and Belarus, but I don’t think got much further east.

    It is (was) sort of amusing to talk with people from the area who lived through those times, as they would refer to time periods not by decades (i.e. “the 1920’s”) but rather as “under the Poles” or “under the Germans” or “under the Russians.”

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Gin & Tonic:

    The Poles were fighting off Russian domination of Poland (established in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna) in the immediate aftermath of WWI…more or less asserting their independence from any domination from St.Petersburg or Moscow. Nearly all of the fighting was within the interwar boundaries of Poland itself.

    The entire situation in eastern Europe was very chaotic from 1917 to 1922 or so, what with German occupation of Ukraine, the Russian Civil War in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, various incursions by the Western Allies, etc.

  62. 62.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Mr. Longform: so Ross Douthat is “not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society”? and David Brooks sold himself out for money? peggy Noonan is an old battleaxe? I’m with you on the casting

  63. 63.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    From the Guardina about Yanukovych

    “his son Alexander opened a branch of his Management Assets Company (MAKO) in Geneva in late 2011.

    The 40-year-old dentist and businessman has amassed a personal fortune of around half a billion dollars (some 365 million euros) in the past three years alone, according to a report in the Swiss weekly L’Hebdo.

    His Ukrainian conglomerate reportedly controls nearly half of that country’s coal production, and around a third of its electricity production and distribution.”
    ===========

    In the U.S. he would be a celebrated job creator.

  65. 65.

    jl

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    ” The Soviets, for all their bumbling, did a very extensive job of planting Russian ethnic minorities in every one of the Soviet Socialist Republics that made up the Union. ”

    That is true, but the political and demographic reality is that the various Russian communities are where they are now, and IMHO, it is up to countries like Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine to figure out how to deal with them. That can be deemed unfair, but that is the way it is.

    If the native and Russian communities can figure out how to live together in rink dink little countries like Estonia can figure out how to work things out, then they have to figure it out in the Ukraine too. If they cannot, then maybe eventually, they will have to split like Czechoslovakia did. (Edit: though, the split of Czechoslovakia was not over Russian nationals in the former country)

    And I think the best way for ‘The West’ (to the extent such an entity exists anymore) to deal with the problem in the interim is with prudence and patience, Which is, I think, how we (supposedly) won the Cold War. Not by following the advice of people with such a great track record of success and wisdom like Kristol, McCain and his sidekick and Cheney. But we will hear a lot from their camp, and the media will treat them like there is anything in their records that merits any attention to them at all.

  67. 67.

    jon

    @schrodinger’s cat: Consequences? You mean unresolved differences. WWI only required further revisions in WWII, as the Era of Colonialism and the expansion of the West is still being challenged just as before.

    Also, too: why hasn’t this come up yet?

  68. 68.

    jl

    @Nemo_N:
    @Villago Delenda Est:

    ” The Cold War made the narrative very simple for even the most airheaded of on air “talent” to comprehend. ”

    Simple moral narrative of ‘good’ versus ‘evil’ (which IMHO had some basis in reality at least as far as personal freedom democracy and civil rights go, though maybe not in terms of how each camp dealt with foreign countries)

    We won the Cold War, and so we get to write the history. And people can spin lots of vainglorious feel good fantasies about how we won that conveniently fit their preferred policy for whatever is going on today.

    IMHO, there is one little difference between now and the Cold War, which is that the geopolitical military stakes are an order of magnitude smaller. But, history shows, countries can get up horrible wars over any damn fool thing.

  69. 69.

    Gin & Tonic

    @jl: The vast majority of people in Ukraine are bi-lingual to some degree, and get along far better than you’d believe from reading the “Western” press. On Ukrainian TV, it is commonplace for an interview to run where one party is asking questions in one language and the other is responding in the other. If you have 3-4 people discussing some subject on a news or current-affairs program, it’s commonplace for each to speak the language he or she is most comfortable in. Yesterday, in a sign of unity, the city government of L’viv (far west) switched to Russian and the city government of Donetsk (far east) switched to Ukrainian. Nobody (almost nobody) makes a big deal of it.

  71. 71.

    jl

    @Gin & Tonic: Glad to hear that. If you have some on the ground knowledge about what is going on, please keep us informed. Ring up Cole and tell him to make you a front poster on the Ukraine thingee!

    What is the source of all the stories about friction? I read something in the news about some elements in Russian Ukrainian community asking for protection from the Western Ukrainian community. What was that about? Ukrainian operators in the community trying to get some power internally by playing on their group’s fears, Russian plants trying to make a pretest, what?

  72. 72.

    Joel

    @catclub: The Italian Mafia having a grip on the Vatican Bank was news to me, although it shouldn’t surprise. Also good to see ol’ friend Tim Dolan caught red handed being a mendacious dickhole.

  73. 73.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Citizen_X: @IowaOldLady:
    You’re right about the location. The camels were sold to private parties throughout the southwest so that may have been the reason for the sightings. The plucky Canadians also attempted a camel corps and they, too, sold off the animals which led to wild camel sightings all the way to British Columbia.

  78. 78.

    Gin & Tonic

    @jl: Much of the reported friction is due to people directly or indirectly on Moscow’s payroll. There is, of course, some historical enmity between those who fought for the Red Army side and those who fought against it (those primarily in the West.) The former were fighting the existential threat of fascism/Nazism, while the latter were fighting what to them was the greater threat of Russian imperialism. But those in the streets of Kiev now, the students who began the protest action in November, are grandchildren of the WWII-era fighters, and that historical enmity loses its potency over time. To them, the “fascist” charges sound nearly as quaint or irrelevant as US Republicans saying “socialist” or replaying Vietnam-era antagonisms.

    I have multiple sources on the ground (including, sometimes, myself) but I am not unbiased, and there are commenters here who disagree with many of my views, quite vehemently. The economic and geopolitical environment is still precarious, at best, and things could still really go to hell with or without Putin’s hand in the game.

  82. 82.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bob In Portland: “Sort of”, yes, but not exactly. In many applications you can substitute coal or oil for natural gas, or you can import LNG. Not many substitutes for fresh water.

    The gas pipelines also pass through Ukraine to get to markets in Western Europe. Can Gazprom protect every kilometer of every pipeline? Interesting problem.

  84. 84.

    Bob In Portland

    Well, everything so far has been predictable. The coup-makers in Kiev have abolished Russian as an official language. That’s right out of the right-wing playbook. I’m presuming that the ethnic Russians haven’t switched to Ukrainian yet.

    The best result will be Ukraine being cleaved in two, with the nationalists and fascists owning the western half of the country and Russia reclaiming the east. The worst result will be this happening by war, because the tattooed neo-Nazis tend to kill civilians when it gets too tough to fight against armies.

  85. 85.

    Bob In Portland

    @Gin & Tonic: Obviously, when the country is divided Russia won’t just take Crimea. And, yes, Ukraine will really get lots of EU aid by shutting down Gazprom’s lines.

  87. 87.

    Boudica

    I would switch mrs Collins and mrs bennet…..David Brooks seems more like a fainting old woman to me.

  88. 88.

    Bob In Portland

    Interesting blog about who was shooting into the crowd in Kiev:

    http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2014/2/24/132318/468

    The Svoboda Party, one of the ultra-right parties who blame problems on the Russian-Jewish mafia, took film of a sniper shooting into the crowd. One small problem. The armed guys standing around the sniper are wearing yellow armbands rolled up so that they cannot be read. Who wears yellow armbands? A neo-Nazi group. It would not be the first time a false flag operation was pulled by fascists.

    And it makes more sense than Yanukovich ordered it, because shooting random demonstrators after they’d been there for three months isn’t very good crowd control. Quite the opposite.

  89. 89.

    Bob In Portland

    @schrodinger’s cat: Benefit of the doubt for what?

    Ukraine has an unfortunate history of fascism and culling impure ethnicities from their country. When the head of Svoboda Party says that Ukraine is controlled by Jewish-Russian mafia, and the last time these people were loose a million Jews disappeared, I can understand the nervousness of ethnic Russians in the eastern half of the country.

    Putin is a reactionary asshole. But as bad as Putin is on gay issues, the agenda of the revolutionaries scare me. Yanukovich was another in a long line of corrupt politicians. This revolution is the culmination of sixty years of CIA/BND Nazi conniving. Enjoy.

  90. 90.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bob In Portland: You’re showing your ignorance, Bob. Radio Svoboda is not the Svoboda political party. Radio Svoboda is the US-financed RFE/RL. Svoboda means “liberty” or “freedom” — it’s a common word.

    Curious how, in your theory, the snipers obtained weapons which were licensed only to the Interior Ministry? The nature of the weapons is something I documented a couple of days ago if you want to search for it.

  91. 91.

    VFX Lurker

    @Tim F. – “Something happen already.”

    There’s going to be another VFX demonstration this year outside of the Oscars this Sunday. Expect lots of green clothes and nerds.

  93. 93.

    Mnemosyne

    @VFX Lurker:

    You guys need a union. Frankly, nothing else is going to fix the problem, as the actors, writers, directors, editors, cinematographers, animators, drivers, etc. all figured out years ago. You can call it a Guild if you prefer, but you need one.

    ETA: I work for the giant rodent, and I’m union. Just sayin’.

  95. 95.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bob In Portland: This is great stuff, Bob. Follow your own links, go behind that photo on Booman of the masked guys with the chains and the armbands, and where do you end up?

    It appears that the troublemakers were not provocateurs, but rather an independent group of right-wing extremists who did not want to conform to the orders of the opposition, and decided to act on their own, driven by anti-establishment sentiments. But, among the Right-Wing Sector troublemakers, there was one person whose presence puts the whole event in a different, albeit still obscure, perspective.

    This person is Dmytro Korchyns’ky, the leader of the far-right Bratstvo (Brotherhood) party, and a former leader of the paramilitary party UNA-UNSO. In Ukraine, Korchyns’ky is widely considered an agent provocateur even among the extreme right, and his Bratstvo have already taken part in several actions that were meant to provoke a police suppression of peaceful protests.

    Korchyns’ky is closely linked to Russia. He taught a course at the explicitly pro-Putin ‘Seliger’ summer camp in Russia, in 2005. This camp was organised with the help of the Russian Presidential Administration, and was meant to train pro-Putin youngsters to counter a potential ‘Orange Revolution’ in Russia.

    Korchyns’ky has also been on friendly terms with Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian businessman and stridently pro-Russian politician, who rabidly opposes the signing of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine, and, instead, supports the Russia-led Customs Union.

  96. 96.

    dr. luba

    @Bob In Portland:

    The coup-makers in Kiev have abolished Russian as an official language. That’s right out of the right-wing playbook. I’m presuming that the ethnic Russians haven’t switched to Ukrainian yet.

    The law, as I assume you actually know, has nothing to do with what language people choose to speak. It only applies to official government actions and documents. Ukrainian was the sole “official” language from Independence in August 1991 until June 2012. The practical result was the need for anyone seeking government employment to speak at least rudimentary Ukrainian, which is also taught in the schools.

    There are still Russian-language schools, and much of the print media is still in Russian. Movies and music are available in both languages. People speak what they want among themselves.

  97. 97.

    Bob In Portland

    @Gin & Tonic: You know the history of Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe and their anti-Semitic broadcasts into Ukraine. You still have the armband problem. But believe what you want. So Radio Liberty concocted the story and it turns out the snipers were reactionary street thugs. What part of this am I missing?

  98. 98.

    Bob In Portland

    @dr. luba: If the Republicans do it it’s bad, but if Ukrainians do it it’s fine?

    Other things the people in the street want:

    A return to nuclear power (in Chernobyl land).
    Making abortion illegal.
    Only ethnic Ukrainians can hold civil service jobs.

    Dr. luba, are you a Republican or do you think that Ukraine’s collapsing birth rate needs some state intervention?

  99. 99.

    stickler

    @schrodinger’s cat: BND = Bundesnachrichtendienst, the current German intelligence service. Originally set up in the 1950s in cooperation with the CIA, staffed by Germans who had *ahem* … some extensive experience surveilling the USSR. Originally led by Reinhard Gehlen, who had run the Nazi intelligence-gathering operation on the Eastern Front, and he picked the staff. As one might expect, the BND has been involved in some interesting activities both during and after the Cold War. Whether they’re actively stirring things up in Ukraine right now, who knows. It seems like a bad idea to me, but they are a national intelligence agency after all, and those kinds of organizations have habits that are hard to break.

  100. 100.

    dr. luba

    @Bob In Portland: You missed a key word–“some.” Some people want a return to nuclear power. Some people want to make abortion illegal. Some people want only Ukrainians to hold civil service jobs.

    But most don’t.

    You act as thought the opposition is some monolithic entity with a single mind. It’s not. People hold many different opinions on many different subjects. The one thing they agreed on was that Yanukovych had to go.

    WRT language, how is the Ukrainian language law different from that of most other European nations? The US does not have an official language; most European countries do.

    ETA: Funny, Russia has only one official language.

  101. 101.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bob In Portland: What part are you missing? That government forces were shooting at protesters. In the opening seconds of the video on the Booman page you linked to, one of the shooters has “MILITIA” (meaning police) stenciled on his back. I’ll admit the video is low-quality. Do yourself a favor and watch the video at the bottom of this page, then come back and tell me that those were Svoboda provocateurs. You’ll see some of the squads have no armbands, some have one, some have a yellow patch, and some have two armbands. If you see “БЕРКУТ” on their back, that’s the now-disbanded Berkut riot police. Starting at about 8:04 of the video, you clearly see a guy with the Berkut insignia and two yellow armbands. Starting at about 9:15, you very clearly see the TS308 sniper rifles.

    Tell me how that’s made up.

  103. 103.

    VFX Lurker

    @Mnemosyne: Thanks.

    Right now the biggest threat to VFX isn’t the workplace conditions, though those could stand improving. It’s government subsidies. Governments around the world offer financial aid to Disney and Warner Bros. It works out great for Disney and Warner Bros, since they can get Louisiana and London to finance their films. However, the work must be physically done in those locations to qualify for the subsidies, so the VFX community is expected to move around the world to stay employed.

    A documentary got published on YouTube this week about these problems — “Life after Pi.”

  104. 104.

    Bob In Portland

    “Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.”

    -Brecht

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