Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

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

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Russian TV, Even Stranger Than Fox News

Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Russian TV, Even Stranger Than Fox News

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This post is in: ,

I think that’s the Russian transliteration for LOL…

Infringing on Adam Silverman’s turf, to share a couple clips that might’ve been overlooked in the past week:

Asked & answered:

 

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  3. 3.

    Another Scott

    Galeev has pointed to Khodaryonok’s comments a few times. Fox News has/had “truth tellers” on occasionally a few times over the years, but they always revert to form. I’m sure the VVP-version of the news is similar, but moreso. I think even Big Brother’s news outlets did the same occasionally – it helps to keep people off-balance and unsure what the “truth” is.

    Meanwhile, the saga of a Tesla that caught fire and the occupants had to be rescued by breaking the windows has been, er, interesting.

    Thread

    https://twitter.com/steinkobbe/status/1528034818415595520

    Tesla seems to have issues with things that normal car companies worked out decades/centuries ago. (IIRC, one of the supposed “features” of the not-street-legal Tesla Cybertruck was the totally stupid and probably dangerous unbreakable windows that broke during the demonstration.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  5. 5.

    Wag

    ‘@Baud
    Yes, and Afghanistan, as well.

    Of course in both instances we got sidetracked and followed the Soviet Afghan model of getting bogged down with an insurgency,

    And the Soviets had followed our model from Vietnam.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    Oh, I meant to include this as well in my earlier comment:

    https://twitter.com/jesseltaylor/status/1528406724440367107

    spooky mental haunted house (but funny)
    @jesseltaylor

    a normal car door seals when shut, and the window is a separate portal with its own seal

    Teslas use the window to create the door seal, and require electronic signals to make the window slightly lower and raise when you open the door

    so in sum, Tesla made bad doors

    (insert facepalm-emoji)

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    ‘@Another Scott
    May 22, 2022 at 12:30 PM

    That reminds me, I was on a plane recently, and instead of the window shade, they had an electronic dimmer that darkened the window.

  8. 8.

    Jay

    ‘@Baud,

    “Smartglass”. Expect to see more of it. Some models offer privacy glass, uv filtering, and are also a low yield solar panel.

  10. 10.

    eclare

    ‘@Baud: that does sound cool. Was it like dimmer lights, you could control the light?

  11. 11.

    Baud

    ‘@eclare

    There were two buttons for brighter and dimmer. It didn’t work as fast as a wall dimmer. The window took about 30 seconds to get dark.

  12. 12.

    Another Scott

    ‘@Baud – Neato. It makes sense on a plane, as it probably helps save weight (no plastic shades, tracks for the shades, etc.). I think some modern office buildings have it too – to decrease heat gain during the day.

    Lots of cars used to have frameless windows back in the olden days (’50s-’60s). Nice for when you wanted more air on a sunny day, not so nice in a collision or roll-over… AFAIK, such windows didn’t have to be rolled down to open the doors without damage. :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    ‘@Another Scott

    Teslas give me the impression of being 365 Data Centers with wheels.

  14. 14.

    debbie

    “Virtually the entire world is against us.” And still that woman prattled on about professionalism. ‍♀️

  15. 15.

    eclare

    ‘@Another Scott: when I worked in ATL, I worked in a building that had passive solar design. The upper floors were bigger than the lower floors to provide shade.

    That was…25 years ago.

  16. 16.

    Jay

    ‘@eclair,

    We’ve had “pit houses” here, for about 30,000 plus years. 6 foot “basement”, circular, with benches, and a sloped timber roof.

    56 degrees F in -40F, and then, a firepit in the center, for heat and cooking. These days a fancy engineer would call the design “passive geothermal heating and cooling with augmented carbon neutral appliances and heat”.

  17. 17.

    eclare

    ‘@Jay: I would love that. My ideal sleeping situation would be a cave about 55 F. As it is I keep my boiler so low it gets to about that 24/7 in the winter. Now we are headed to summer in Memphis…

  18. 18.

    eclare

    ‘@Jay: just saw your second paragraph, hahaha. You will not be surprised to know that the company I worked for that touted the passive solar design was a public utility with lots of coal burning plants.

  19. 19.

    CaseyL

    That Khodaryonok had to “walk back” his comments is extremely interesting, as Tom Nichols said he would not have made those comments – would not have been on TV at all – if his remarks had not been pre-cleared. And if he had deviated from the approved script, they could simply have cut him short or cut away, as Fox News does when one of their guests accidentally starts telling the truth.

    So, if his “true” remarks were choreographed, it follows that the walk-back was also choreographed.

  20. 20.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    The airliner smart glass seems to be peculiar to the Boeing 787; I’ve never seen it on an Airbus or earlier Boeing planes. I can see pros and cons for the airliner use-case.

    And there’s one use case for frameless door windows that is almost not an option at all: removable roofs, like a convertible or a T-top like the one I had when I was young.

    And on another tangent, why is it that Tesla seems hell-bent on re-learning so many safety and engineering lessons the hard way?

  22. 22.

    scav

    ‘@ CaseyL
    Getting conflicting / contradictory stories out on mainstream channels by the same people no less does serve paradoxically to weaken the impact of actual contrary to the official line stories. People can just shrug and say who knows what’s going on, or assume all bad news was declared untrue on later examination, everything is just assumed to be bullshit so why search out the truth?

  23. 23.

    featheredsprite

    There was some speculation as to weather UK shot Gen. Gerosimov. Ukrainian Pravda reports that his body has been exhumed in Karkiv. So I guess he was got.

  24. 24.

    Another Scott

    ‘@DAW – that klenertr account seems to be mostly dead – mainly just reposting stuff from the Economist.

    I don’t know much about 365DC – the recent news posts I’ve seen about them include doing some debt refinancing in December and selling some data center in Indy in April. Probably doesn’t mean anything.

    I see 365DC’s twitter hasn’t posted anything on their Twitter account since March 16.

    Hmmm…

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Dorothy A Winsor

    I applaud John trying to stir up trouble.

    Sadly, the guy has 9 tweets and hasn’t posted since 2015, so twitter shaming with that account isn’t going to get anywhere.

  26. 26.

    Another Scott

    ‘@BruceK:

    https://twitter.com/DougJBalloon/status/1528429922825519104

    “New York Times Pitchbot @DougJBalloon

    “The odds of being burned alive in a spontaneous-combusting Tesla are so much less than dying in gas combustion car crash that no one should bother Elon about it. Nate and David discuss all this, plus the best Hatian beef patties in Flatbush, on the next 538 podcast.

    “1:37 PM · May 22, 2022·Twitter for iPhone”

    Hehe.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (The lack of the ability to use simple HTML like blockquotes is cramping my style. Here’s hoping that we’re back ‘home’ soon.)

  29. 29.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I posited on an earlier thread that maybe the crash at 365DC was an inside job. Maybe the time it is taking to repair is the owners negotiating the ransom with the saboteur(s). Should I throw in a hostage or two for plot purposes?

  30. 30.

    Zelma

    Interesting bit of info. A friend of a friend was killed on Friday when his Tesla was in an accident and caught on fire. Hmm…

  31. 31.

    Baud

    ‘@Sure Lurkalot

     May 22, 2022 at 2:41 PM

    >>I posited on an earlier thread that maybe the crash at 365DC was an inside job. 
    __________

    You cannot comprehend the lengths the Establishment will go to to silence Baud! 20XX!

  32. 32.

    Carlo Graziani

    The thing to do to get the attention of 365DC is to somehow make this a story that affects the price of their shares. Threatening to get in touch with market research journalists if they don’t disgorge a BJ WordPress data snapshot from May 14 by tomorrow would be a valid tactic. At the moment there is no news circulating on the 365DC breach, and I’m sure they’d prefer to keep it that way.

  33. 33.

    scav

    Maybe a Tesla fiery crash took out the 365DC network and its an Elon Musk PR elite shock team that’s squelching coverage.

  34. 34.

    RubberDuck

    Cole left out Out of money, and no way in hell we were going to forgo our last bonuses to pay the bills

  35. 35.

    RaflW

    ‘@Another Scott
    Have yet to fly in a 787, but in theory one of the benefits of the adjustable level of ‘dimming’ of the window is that ppl like me who want to see out can still get some view without making it impossible for the person next to me to see their computer or seatback screen from the sun glare.
    I have seen one travel writer complain that on a flight they were on, the cabin crew turned the window ‘shades’ to max opaque for everyone. If that can’t be manually overcome at the seat, I’d freak TF out. I kinda *need* to see out. It’s irrational, but aren’t phobias, generally! (I otherwise love to fly – but view out is essential to my wellbeing for whatever reason.)

  36. 36.

    WaterGirl

    John put up a tweet asking people to retweet/quote tweet his tweet, so I added it in the sidebar. If you click on the image, it takes you to the tweet John asked people to promote.

  37. 37.

    RubberDuck

    Maybe below cost pricing and paying for it all by mining bitcoin wasn’t a genius business plan.

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Another Scotthis

    Don’t make me pull this car over for trash-talking our little no-tell motel temporary blog.

  39. 39.

    cleek

    “Tesla seems to have issues with things that normal car companies worked out decades/centuries ago”

    google car recall fire

    you’ll find a surprising number of articles about huge numbers of cars that aren’t Teslas.

    Ford:
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ford-suv-recall-engine-fire-expedition-navigator/

    Kia:
    https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/consumer-alert-kia-and-hyundai-issue-park-outside-orders-select-sportage-k900-and

    BMW:
    https://www.consumerreports.org/car-recalls-defects/bmw-car-suv-recall-for-fire-risk-a7575072484/

    VW:
    https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volkswagen-recall-more-than-100000-cars-fire-risk-bild-2022-03-31/

  41. 41.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Suzanne

    Yeah, well not having 6.5 million comments in the database makes a difference :-) but history is important, so we’re never pulling those comments out and archiving them elsewhere.

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Suzanne

    I do appreciate your kind words, though, after the complaint elsewhere.

  43. 43.

    Josie

    ‘@WaterGirl
    Retweet done. My very first action on Twitter is to retweet something for John Cole. Somehow it seems fitting…..

  45. 45.

    Suzanne

    ‘@WaterGirl
    The Zooms were fun, too. I’m sorry I couldn’t participate more.

    On a side note, we are going next month for a family reunion, two years delayed by the plague. It involves much time at the beach. So I am trying to order some summer dresses. I am striking out. The apparent theme for this year’s fashion is “sister wife”.

  46. 46.

    New Deal democrat

    ‘@CarlosGraziani, @WaterGirl:p
    Tweet at this guy: https://mobile.twitter.com/TBPInvictus
    When you do so, give him the link to John’s thread, and tell him that New Deal democrat is asking him to please retweet as far and wide as possible in his financial circle.

    If he does so, you will have 365datacenter’s full attention.

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Suzanne

    Sister wife made me laugh. Maybe you have some summer dresses that no one has seen for 2 years and you can wear those? Or try a resale shop?

  48. 48.

    TaMara

    ‘@Suzanne – Old Navy has some cute, not little house on the prairie/sister wive dresses. (I live in their linen pants/shorts – so good for travel)

  49. 49.

    zhena gogolia

    ‘@Suzanne
    I’m big on the sister wife look, but J. Jill sometimes has more sophisticated fare.

  50. 50.

    Sure Lurkalot

    ‘@Suzanne

    For the beach, have you checked out Title Nine or Athleta sundresses?

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    Noooo!
    “May 22, 2022 at 11:27 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

    Tom Friedman had an off-the-record lunch with President Biden but had this observation:

    “Biden didn’t say it in so many words, but he didn’t have to. I could hear it between the lines: He’s worried that while he has reunited the West, he may not be able to reunite America.”

    Unstated: whether reunion is six months away.

  53. 53.

    Scout211

    ‘@trollhattan

    So Friedman decided that “off the record” meant that he could tell Goddard what the President said and cover it up by saying that “Biden didn’t say it in so many words.” WTF

    I don’t think Friedman will be invited back to the White House for a chat for any number of Friedman units.

  54. 54.

    zhena gogolia

    And wapo has a big story about Biden’s failure to get gun control passed

  55. 55.

    Sure Lurkalot

    ‘@WaterGirl

    Biden having lunch with Tom Friedman and Democrats calling on Eric Adams to be a spokesperson…maybe I should go take a nap and hope it’s something I ate causing these bad dreams

  56. 56.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Sure Lurkalot

    I don’t know anything about Eric Adams or Democrats calling on him to be a spokesperson. Maybe I don’t want to know. :-(

  57. 57.

    glc

    ‘@WaterGirl
    Re: tweets

    Not on Twitter myself but I forwarded the link by email to Doctorow.

  58. 58.

    pat

    Maybe Biden should have held a gun to Mitch’s head. Maybe then he could have got gun control passed.

  59. 59.

    zhena gogolia

    Modo is pretty good at fluffy celebrity interviews. I’m enjoying her piece on Baz Luhrmann. If only she’d stay away from politics.

  61. 61.

    Chris T.

    ‘@Another Scott, re “Teslas use the window to create the door seal”: that’s normal for frameless car doors. I had another model that did that.

  62. 62.

    Gin & Tonic

    ‘@WG – A tech blogger with some following. Used to be associated with ‘Boing Boing.’

  63. 63.

    Bill Arnold

    ‘@ Another Scott – https://jackal-action.com/2022/05/22/foreign-affairs-open-thread-russian-tv-even-stranger-than-fox-news/#comment-948
    (formatting test; hopefully no autoflow.)

    Getting irritated (not yet annoyed, or angry, or angry boosted by loathing), so poked for a few minutes:
    Their website is still mostly available at web.archive.org:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20220505075601/https://365datacenters.com/

    The CEO is someone named Bob DeSantis (no clue re FL’s gov). Finance guy.
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-desantis-7a05106/
    Armed with that and google, one finds articles like this: https://www.telecomramblings.com/2018/04/industry-spotlight-365-data-centers-ceo-bob-desantis/ .
    The only Bob DeSantis on twitter is recent account (Nov 2021), a bit of a Trump-supporting wingnut, though they argue with respect for facts. Not enough tells to guess whether it’s the same guy.
    A video (march 2021 featuring Bob Desantis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoK9o7NM-34
    In which he says he is in Miami.

    For those who don’t have a linkedin account or don’t want a lookup in their linkedin hiestory:
    Chief Executive Officer at 365 Data Centers
    365 Data Centers
    2017 – Present · 5 yrs 5 mos

    Member
    Longboat Advisors, LLCLongboat Advisors, LLC
    2016 – Present · 6 yrs 5 mos

    Chief Financial Officer, Managing Partner
    Xand (now TierPoint)
    2011 – 2016 · 5 yrs

    President & Chief Operating Officer
    FlexiSphere
    2010 – 2011 · 1 yr

  64. 64.

    Gin & Tonic

    Way OT, but you folks know everything. I found a turtle in my back yard, looked like it was digging a hole, presumably to lay eggs. Is there anything I can or should do to protect those eggs from local predators (squirrels, etc.)?

  65. 65.

    pat

    I have seen fences (chicken wire?) put around nests of snapping turtles in the local state park.

  66. 66.

    glc

    ‘@watergirl
    That’s Cory Doctorow, @doctorow on Twitter.
    website pluralistic.net
    More at Wikipedia.

    I see he retweeted. His followers tend to be interested in this type of situation. May help.

  67. 67.

    Another Scott

    ‘@https://jackal-action.com/2022/05/22/foreign-affairs-open-thread-russian-tv-even-stranger-than-fox-news/#comment-973

    Sorry, WG. I didn’t mean to cause any additional annoyance. I know that you’re dealing with things that are way, way beyond the lack of HTML here. My griping was intended to be more of a FYWP.

    Thanks as always for what you do for us.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@glc

    Two thumbs up for the retweet and for followers who will be interested!

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Another Scott

    It’s fine. Someone else was short with me right before you made that comment, so it was sort of a combo platter effect for me. Any other day/week I would have shrugged it off.

  71. 71.

    Gvg

    ‘@Gin & Tonic, I would not assume that the turtle is laying eggs. Turtles did burrows to live in too, at least ours do. I had gopher turtles at my first house. It has 3 or 4 burrows on my 1 acre lot and must have had others on other neighbors. Typically it rotated between them on approximately a weekly basis. This was normal behavior for that species and a part of the reason that species was considered a cornerstone species in Florida’s ecology. Their abandonment burrows are used by over a 100 other species.
    My advice is to identify your species and then look them up. Probably if you put in turtle burrow in your location google will tell you what the possible answers are and give help IDing which it it.

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