“The lack of orders from the Kremlin’s top command left local officials to decide for themselves how to act, according to the European security officials.” w/@shaneharris @gregpmiller https://t.co/sD88UyQNhz
— Catherine Belton (@CatherineBelton) July 25, 2023
From the Washington Post, “Putin appeared paralyzed and unable to act in first hours of rebellion” [unpaywalled gift link]:
When Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, launched his attempted mutiny on the morning of June 24, Vladimir Putin was paralyzed and unable to act decisively, according to Ukrainian and other security officials in Europe. No orders were issued for most of the day, the officials said.
The Russian president had been warned by the Russian security services at least two or three days ahead of time that Prigozhin was preparing a possible rebellion, according to intelligence assessments shared with The Washington Post. Steps were taken to boost security at several strategic facilities, including the Kremlin, where staffing in the presidential guard was increased and more weapons were handed out, but otherwise no actions were taken, these officials said.
“Putin had time to take the decision to liquidate [the rebellion] and arrest the organizers” said one of the European security officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. “Then when it began to happen, there was paralysis on all levels. … There was absolute dismay and confusion. For a long time, they did not know how to react.”
This account of the standoff, corroborated by officials in Western governments, provides the most detailed look at the paralysis and disarray inside the Kremlin during the first hours of the severest challenge to Putin’s 23-year presidency. It is consistent with public comments by CIA Director William J. Burns last week that for much of the 36 hours of the mutiny Russian security services, the military and decision-makers “appeared to be adrift.”
It also appears to expose Putin’s fear of directly countering a renegade warlord who’d developed support within Russia’s security establishment over a decade. Prigozhin had become an integral part of the Kremlin global operations by running troll farms disseminating disinformation in the United States and paramilitary operations in the Middle East and Africa, before officially taking a vanguard position in Russia’s war against Ukraine…
The longtime symbiosis of the two men, who first met in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s, has exposed the weaknesses of Putin’s crony system of management, where rival clans are pitted against each other, and which has been stretched to a breaking point by the war….
Many on the local level could not believe the Wagner rebellion could be happening without some degree of agreement with the Kremlin, the security officials said — despite Putin’s emergency televised address to the nation on the morning of the mutiny in which he vowed tough action to stop the rebels, and despite a warrant issued for Prigozhin’s arrest for “incitement to insurrection” on the eve of his march to Moscow.
“The local authorities did not receive any commands from the leadership,” said a senior Ukrainian security official. “From our point of view this is the biggest sign of the unhealthy situation inside Russia. The authoritarian system is formed in such a way that without a very clear command from the leadership, people don’t do anything. When the leadership is in turmoil and disarray, it is the same situation at the local level and even worse.”…
One senior NATO official said some senior figures in Moscow appeared ready to rally behind Prigozhin had he succeeded in achieving his demands. “There seem to have been important people in the power structures … who seem to have even been sort of waiting for this, as if his attempt had been more successful, they would also” have joined the plot, this official said.
Prigozhin’s increasingly vitriolic tirades blaming corruption and mismanagement by the Russian military command for battlefield setbacks and high casualties in the war against Ukraine had resonated with many sectors of Russian society. Many in the rank and file of the Russian army also wanted Prigozhin to succeed in forcing change at the top of the Russian military, believing that then “it would become easier for them to fight,” this official said…
The lack of direction from the Kremlin during the crisis has left Putin significantly weakened, according to his critics. “Putin showed himself to be a person who is not able to make serious, important and quick decisions in critical situations. He just hid,” said Gennady Gudkov, a former colonel in the Russian security services who is now an opposition politician in exile. “This was not understood by most of the Russian population. But it was very well understood by Putin’s elite. He is no longer the guarantor of their security and the preservation of the system.”
“Russia is a country of mafia rules. And Putin made an unforgivable mistake,” said a senior Moscow financier with ties to the Russian intelligence services. “He lost his reputation as the toughest man in town.”…
Russia doesn’t have bases, because Russia doesn’t have friends, because other countries understand that Russia is never an ally https://t.co/BlTwMze13L
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 25, 2023
Russian expat Julia Ioffe, for Puck, on Prigozhin — and Putin — at the Aspen Security Forum:
The other man who haunted the Forum this year was Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin. On the eve of the conference, MI6 head Richard Moore told an audience in Prague that Prigozhin’s mutiny exposed “deep fractures” in the Russian elite. “I don’t think it needs all the resources of MI6 to conclude that there are deep fractures within the Russian elite around Putin,” he said. “If you have an invading army coming up the road at you, that indicates there has been a falling out.”
This provided the perfect opening question for the generalists interviewing the principals, who all led with the same vague, open-ended question about the deep fractures before settling for vague answers: Putin is obviously weaker, Prigozhin said out loud that the war was based on a false premise, and his mutiny showed, in the words of C.I.A. Director Burns, “does the emperor have no clothes or… why is he taking so long to get dressed?’”
Burns, a career diplomat, is skilled at saying nothing while talking plenty. But he was once ambassador to Russia and is one of the foremost experts on the place, and just hearing his insights on Putin and what he thinks is happening inside Russia was fascinating. As Prigozhin marched on Moscow, Burns said, the security services seemed “adrift,” while the elites wondered if Putin was no longer the arbiter—or their protector from each other. As for why Prigozhin is still alive and getting meetings in Moscow, Burns said, “Putin hates, in my experience anyway, the image that he’s overreacting to things.” Putin, Burns said, “is trying to buy time as he considers what to do with Wagner and Prigozhin himself.”
While he does that, he “is trying to settle things as much as he can” and that he’s going to “separate Prigozhin from what’s of value in Wagner.” Prigozhin has been to Belarus in the meantime, Burns continued, but, as he told the forum, “I’m not sure he has any plans to retire in the suburbs of Minsk.” Burns also had a warning: “Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold, so he’s going to try to settle the situation to the extent he can. But, again, in my experience, Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback… so if I were Prigozhin, I wouldn’t fire my food taster.” …
I later caught Burns as he stood in the shade and asked him why he thought Prigozhin choked and turned back. “Some of his men started getting cold feet,” he explained. “This wasn’t what they had signed up for.” Prigozhin, Burns had said in his panel, was “making it up as he went along” on June 24. But, as he told me, he only had 5,000 men marching toward Moscow, not nearly enough to take a city with mined bridges and armed with Putin’s praetorian guard.
Did he see Putin as a procrastinator, who just needs to get through one more week, one more month, one more year, I asked? Burns agreed with that characterization: “He will dither and stall as long as possible,” he said, hoping for something to come along and save him. “He’s not a master strategist,” Burns added as a nervous press officer started creeping closer. “But he’s lost some of his tactical finesse.”
Well, they fucked that whole ‘fear us!’ thing up completely by sticking their entire army in Ukraine and watching it slowly get annihilated… ?????
— NAFO BoomerCanine #NAFORapidResponseForce (@BeachBoomerDog3) July 18, 2023
That’s what you get for going to Russia. https://t.co/MXU4xG5etD
— HawaiiDelilah™ ?? (@HawaiiDelilah) July 30, 2023
Of course, predictably, Putin has his defenders, even here in America…
James Comer is a mental flatline, a combustible extreme of greed, intolerance, stupidity and arrogance.
He neither has the mental acumen nor the will to be anything more than flaming cultural flatulence. https://t.co/ZOGvlqhRBv— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) July 20, 2023
Tang the Conqueror is a one trick phony. https://t.co/7conRBdi55
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) July 30, 2023
Parfigliano
Poor Vlad. FRIST?
Yutsano
Going OT right away.
Fuck Bibi. That is all.
EDIT: 2ND!!!
Baud
🇺🇦
zhena gogolia
@Baud: How do you make it so big?
Parfigliano
@Yutsano: Agreed.
Jay
https://nitter.net/Gerashchenko_en/status/1686005098424541184#m
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
10 #viagra
zhena gogolia
@Jay: Flag Viagra, I get it! 🇺🇦
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
🇺🇦👍
🇷🇺👎
Villago Delenda Est
My sympathies for Putin, Comer, and the PAB can be found between the usual words in the dictionary. Suffer, fascist assholes. Suffer.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I still don’t know how you do it.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: Use the source, Luke!
er, Zhena!
IOW, tell it to use a giant (72 pixel) font and you get a giant 72 pixel flag.
:-)
(Thanks for the pointer, Baud!)
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Golden Bear
And the X at Twitter’s SF headquarters is gone.
Jeffro
I’m really, really looking forward to the day when trumpov is in jail or pushing up daisies, Putin is in jail or pushing up daisies, and Russia is out of Ukraine.
Also too, looking forward to history’s judging of the GOP enabling of the corrupt insurrectionist
ETA: Comer can also have a stroke or something. They all can. I’m so sick of this shit.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: I don’ t understand any of that.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Type it into the text tab in the comment box.
zhena gogolia
[span style=”font-size: 72px”]🇺🇦[/span]
Looks great! //
Elizabelle
And the Space Force will not be moving to Alabama. It is remaining in Colorado, where it belongs.
I never actually thought it would be going to Alabama, once Trump lost.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: I understand. :-)
Basically, one has to do some typing in the “Text” tab of the editor. Maybe Baud has something set up to do cut-and-paste.
(It would be really easy to abuse – I don’t know if the FWYP editor is smart enough to strip abusive stuff out.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
You typed it in the Visual tab. Use the text Tab.
ETA: the coding is wrong. What Scott wrote won’t work.
Eta2: Scott explained it below.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: You need to replace the square brackets with the corresponding < or > brackets.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I clicked the Text tab and then put in what Scott wrote into the box.
HinTN
meh
ema
Had to try it.
🇺🇦
zhena gogolia
🇺🇦
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: See the result at #25.
Jay
Test
[span style=”font-size: 72px”]🇺🇦[/span]
Test fail
zhena gogolia
@HinTN:
🇺🇦
Another Scott
(test…
𝕏
/test)
FYWP seems to be stripping stuff out, or I didn’t grab enough of the original HTML. Yay!
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
So I gather that baud literally did take Viagra before posting the flag.
Baud
@HinTN:
You’re missing a close bracket and an open bracket.
BeautifulPlumage
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
Either that or the Flag likes his no pants attire,……
NotMax
@Sister Golden Bear
Now an ex-X.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: And you’re missing an apostrophe and a letter “e”
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Fixed.
Jay
Manyakitty
@Yutsano: dark enough words don’t exist to speak my loathing for netanyahu.
Steeplejack
Redacted.
Baud
Copy and paste the text in the box in the Text Tab.
Roger Moore
Why it’s possible to make war on Russia in Ukraine is left as an exercise for the listener.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: The only reason the Space Command was going to Huntsville was that Richard Shelby was Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He retired, and now Huntsville will have to make do with all the other programs Shelby steered there.
Huntsville is now Alabama’s biggest city. They ought to put up a statue like the one of Vulcan above Birmingham. But instead of the Roman god of hearth and forge, brandishing a freshly hammered spear, Huntsville’s would show Shelby with a coal scoop full of cash.
Roger Moore
🇺🇸
America!
Baud
@Roger Moore:
👍
HumboldtBlue
JPL
@Roger Moore:
🇺🇦
NotMax
@Roger Moore
18 stars?
Closest we ever came to that was 15 in 1795 or 20 in 1818.
/pedant
Baud
@NotMax:
The flag has more than 18 on my screen. I didn’t count to see if there were 50.
ETA: There are 50.
Spanky
@NotMax: I see 50.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: 18 states? After Louisiana was admitted in 1812??
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Alison Rose
DAMN IT. It worked and then when I tried to edit, it went back to tiny. Hang on…
FUCK IT NEVER MIND IT KEEPS CHANGING IT BACK.
Baud
@Alison Rose:
What did you you? It was big then was small.
Old School
@Sister Golden Bear:
Seems plausible.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
It has 18 on my computer screen (Win11, Firefox) but 50 on my Android phone screen. Go figure.
HumboldtBlue
Does anyone else hear that deafening silence from right-wing media after Hunter’s former business partner, who has already has been convicted, and who lost his appeal and will now go to prison, testified before that bullshit committee today?
That means, like everything else these yahoos have tried, he told the truth and completely fucked up whatever ratfucking operation they had planned.
Alison Rose
@Baud: I don’t know!!! I went to edit the comment to add a woohoo, and it went back to small. I put the code back into the text box and when I went to visual, it was big, but when I clicked update comment, it went back to small!
Another Scott
@Alison Rose: Returning to the editor after using the fancy stuff strips the fancy stuff out. (E.g. colored text goes away if you edit it.)
FYWP loves messing with us.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Baud
That’s the thing about emojis. They don’t appear identically across systems.
I’d estimate somewhere around 75% of the ones people use inside comments here appear as amorphous colored blobs on my screen.
@Another Scott
Thank you.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Weird.
Baud
Checking editing.
🇺🇦
Edited.
ETA: yep coding stripped out.
🇺🇦
Alison Rose
Anyway, whatever. In related-to-the-post news, Newsweek just published a fucking op-ed from TIFG under the headline: The Real Victim of the Russiagate Hoax Wasn’t Me. It Was the American People.
Go absolutely fuck yourselves, Newsweek.
Baud
@Alison Rose:
Watch the floodgates open in the media.
Carlo Graziani
Sorry to interrupt the fun HTML tutorial with some on-topic commentary…
(1) War on the Rocks had an excellent essay by Anatoli Pinsky a few days ago, interpreting Prigozhin’s Excellent Adventure as an exemplar of the centuries-old Russian tradition of delivering a petition to the Tsar, a tradition with examples persisting into the Soviet era. It’s a rich and rewarding read, and makes more sense to me than any other interpretation of that clown caravan that I’ve read.
(2) Putin’s paralysis at the onset of the affair, and the consequent paralysis of the entire apparat is very reminiscent of Stalin’s shocked withdrawal from decisionmaking at the sudden German onslaught in June 1941. Stalin was the beneficiary of excellent intelligence to the effect that Hitler was determined to invade Russia, and mulishly ignored all of it, convincing himself that the reports were provocations because he was certain that the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact would hold. He disappeared for many days, as leaderless, hapless Russian military formations were encircled and destroyed by the Wehrmacht, only emerging eventually to come to grips with the situation.
The analogy is suggestive. Putin also had excellent intelligence on Prigozhin’s intentions, certainly enough to nip things in the bud by having him arrested. But he was certain that the intelligence was wrong, possibly comprised of provocations by Prigozhin’s many rivals and enemies. And when his preconceptions were shattered by Prigozhin’s move, he was shocked into paralysis, leaving the entire government, military, and security apparatus unable to respond effectively.
Putin has often spoken positively of Stalin, as a strong Russian leader, and I’m sure has on occasion fantasized of channeling Stalin. And ironically, he finally has
P.S.: If you keep trying to screw around with how WP renders this page, one of youse is going to make the whole thing illegible. Again.
rikyrah
OT
This Grandma is doing a Summer Camp for her 6 grandchildren.
Bless her.🤗
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT883bBv4/
Roger Moore
@NotMax: @Baud: @Spanky:
This is a problem with emoji: the details are implementation-dependent. Each emoji will look different depending on what system you view it on.
NotMax
@Baud
Took me forever to figure out one in particular which a frequent commenter often uses was supposed to be applauding hands as it looks like a coconut on this set-up.
;)
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
PHRASING!!
Bill Arnold
@Yutsano:
That the press, any press, continues to defer to the Israeli ruling coalition’s propagandists and call it an “overhaul” is infuriating. It is a major weakening of the Israeli Supreme Court, and a grab at the last remaining non-Knesset political power center in Israel. (To be fair, some press pieces uses “weakening” in the article bodies, at least, though not in the headlines.)
The two major meanings that come to American minds (verb form):
Meaning of overhaul in English
– to repair an engine, machine, etc. so that every part of it works as it should
– to completely change a system so that it works more effectively
Spanky
@Baud: If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that…
Steeplejack
@Alison Rose:
Newsweek is not your father’s (or grandfather’s) Newsweek. It has gone through some sketchy ownership changes and is not the reliable source it once was.
HumboldtBlue
@rikyrah:
I wanna go to Gran Camp! Can you imagine the snacks!
@Steeplejack:
Wasn’t Newsweek bought out by the Moonies? It hasn’t been a real news source since that purchase.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Size doesn’t
matter
:)
Steeplejack
@Carlo Graziani:
True. Do we really need a lesson in HTML hijinks on a blog where a significant number of people can’t execute a basic URL link without blowing something up?
cain
@Bill Arnold: I suspect things are gonna get real interesting with Israel. I have no idea what’s going to happen there.
Anoniminous
@Baud:
This is thread is trending into TMI territory
cain
@SiubhanDuinne: There are some questions you don’t pose to Baud – that’s one of them. :-) He must have cackled with glee when he saw it. :-)
HumboldtBlue
Maxim
@rikyrah: That’s adorable. I hope Gram has superhuman stamina.
NotMax
@cain
Obligatory?
:)
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
Newsweek still exists? I haven’t even thought about it in decades.
Alison Rose
@HumboldtBlue: And I’d bet most of the dudes deserved to be dumped a long time ago.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
Magazine folded a while back. It’s Web-only now.
NotMax
@Bracjiator
IIRC the name and masthead was sold several years ago to some entity of questionable bona fides for the fire sale price of $1.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Also too.
Baud
@NotMax:
Does your computer translate nyms into Spanish?
Alison Rose
@Baudios:
Doesn’t yours?
(ISTG that’s what google translate gave me)
mrmoshpotato
WEAK. SAD. POOP. (h/t Wonkette)
NotMax
@Baud
Apparently my fingertips do. Mea culpa.
Baud
@Alison Rose:
I like it.
Vaya con Baudios!
UncleEbeneezer
@HumboldtBlue: Me and my wife absolutely loved it, so we are probably good in that respect. But NGL, I’m definitely silently judging some of my friends who didn’t care for it or only thought it was okay. Not that I won’t be friends with them anymore, but I will definitely remember it the next time they tell me some movie is great or terrible, I’ll be mentally saying “yeah but they didn’t even love Barbie…”
We do have one friend who is a white, cis, gay man who collects Barbies and is like obsessed with them. He still hasn’t seen it and isn’t sure if he will because his neighbor didn’t like it, which is bizarre to me. He’s always been a bit of a low-key misogynist so perhaps that has something to do with it.
zhena gogolia
@HumboldtBlue: That’s so interesting. (I’m not reading the whole thing because I don’t need any more spoilers — I haven’t seen it yet and might wait for streaming because I just can’t get organized to get to a theater.)
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
:)
A real “those were the days” ciggie ad.
MagdaInBlack
@Alison Rose: I know you’re right.
Alison Rose
@Baud: Campaign slogan!
Baud
@NotMax:
Ah, the days before inflight entertainment.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Art Fleming!
I love how the cigarettes are “served” along with the food, like you’re going to eat them.
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne: I forgot all about the “silly millimeter”!
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
And now for something more Soviet.
(Can picture DeSantis drooling over those boots. “Casey, come and watch this!”)
:)
Geminid
@Carlo Graziani: British writers Anthony Read and David Fisher cover those events well in The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939-1941 (1989). They actually begin in 1938, with Chamberlin’s Munich agreement, and it is the best history I’ve seen on Soviet-German relations during the period leading up to operation Barbarossa (and the weeks immediately after). The intricate dance between Hitler and Stalin that resulted in the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty is described in fascinating detail
This book ranks among the top five histories I’ve ever read and I recommend it highly.
Jeffro
@HumboldtBlue: …but only for dudes dumb enough to serenade their “Barbies” with Matchbox 20 tunes, LOL. ;)
Jeffro
@NotMax: the Fro kids have been absolutely FLOORED in the past whenever me or the Mrs have mentioned how people used to smoke on airplanes, in cars, or in restaurants’ “smoking sections”.
Somewhat related: relatively new driver Fro Jr is still marveling that I used to drive a stick shift, smoke, and drain a Big Gulp all while fiddling with a radio (or cassette player!)
Multi-tasking Gen X style =)
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Wow, that is wild.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Now tell ’em about 8-tracks.
;)
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Amusing how at least one of the passengers looks suspiciously like Karl Marx.
NotMax
@NotMax
And if I’m not mistaken, another is a ringer for Tolstoy.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: I think that was intentional. Lenin was in there too.
Betty Cracker
I made fettuccine Alfredo for dinner, which I only do every other year because it’s 24K calories of artery-clogging fat-and-cream goodness per serving. But I felt I deserve it since I’ve had to give up cocktails temporarily due to antibiotics for the dog bite.
We watched “Asteroid City” last night (it’s finally for sale via streaming — I saw it at the theater but hubby had not). Now I’m obsessed with the idea of the martini vending machine. I wonder if there are real ones? 🤔
frosty
@Jeffro: I guess you Gen Xers didn’t have the thrill of bouncing around in the back seat without seat belts!
Another Scott
@NotMax: My J and her sister took an Aeroflot flight to Ireland (cheap!!) in the late ’90s.
“Excuse me, stewardess, we’re supposed to be in the non-smoking section.”
“Yes, that’s right, your two seats are the non-smoking section.”
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
At one point a group of us sharing digs out in the countryside has access to one of those juice bubbler machines and tried pouring a bottle of bourbon (may have been two) in, then adding a copious amount of water.
Kept the drink cold, only drawback was that over the course of a few days what came out of the dispenser was for all intents and purposes carbonated.
Well, one could always go with cans.
;)
Ken
She does. Anthropologists have identified that as one of the tricks that our near-human ancestors developed. Humans live well past child-bearing age, unlike most species, and it’s thought the evolutionary benefit is that they take care of the young and similar tasks, freeing the younger adults to do other things.
HumboldtBlue
@Jeffro:
I learned to drive as a teen with a stick and have driven many in my time behind the wheel, but after using my buddy’ pickup for the last week, a manual, I know that when I buy a new car here in the next few weeks it won’t be a stick.
Elsewhere:
J-L Cauvin does Ron DeSantis.
SFBayAreaGal
@NotMax: I remember the saying “tastes good like a cigarette should”
My dad smoked them
Ken
This is, probably unfairly, ringing some alarm bells with me, in terms of what he imagines when he looks over his collection. It’s sort of like the way I can’t read “The Princess and the Pea” any more, since (IIRC) Terry Pratchett asked in passing, Why would a prince want a woman who could be bruised so easily?
geg6
Wanted a vegetarian meal tonight and made a pasta dish with a simple, quick sauce of multi-colored cherry tomatoes I got at a farm market, sweet onion, garlic and fresh basil ribbons. Threw all that in some olive oil and added some sugar, dried thyme, salt and pepper. After I threw the pasta in the pan of sauce (with a little pasta water), I stirred in some grated Parm. Damn, but it was good. The tomatoes were just delicious and super sweet. Served it with some focaccia topped with Asiago and asparagus I also got at the farm. Super satisfying, especially because it was spur of the moment. Highly recommend!
NotMax
@SFBayAreaGal
So did Barney and Fred.
;)
NotMax
@Ken
And so terribly shy.
:)
frosty
@SFBayAreaGal: Winston’s are what we snuck to Boy Scout campouts. They were better than lighting the end of a hollow reed, but not by much.
Tony G
It should not be forgotten that the Wagner thugs destroyed several Russian Army helicopters, killing about a dozen Russian soldiers — after which Putin let the Wagner leaders get away without consequences. The fact that there has (so far) been no backlash in Russia about this just shows how broken that society is.
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax:
“Well, let’s where we can’t see’em.”
Hahahahaha
Tony G
@UncleEbeneezer: For what it’s worth — I thought that “Barbie” was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I expected it to be stupid but funny — sort of like “Airplane”. Instead I thought that it was stupid and pretentious, with almost no laughs. “To each his own.”
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: Damn it, like I don’t have *enough* books sitting on top of MtToBeRead…
Another Scott
@Tony G: Interesting.
I wasn’t expecting it to be funny. I thought it was great and I went in having no expectations (other than expecting a good film).
Humor expectations can really color my reactions to a performance, so I can see why it apparently affected yours. (My humor senses are a bit twisted at times.)
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: Well, if you don’t have enough I can also recommend Clausen, Pearl Harbor: Final Verdict and Fuller, The Generalship of Ulysses Grant.
Tony G
@Another Scott: Well, OK. The whole premise seemed so silly that I expected it to be a funny parody (maybe like “Blazing Saddles”). Oh well, my companion and I added to the profits of Mattel by sitting through it, so we fulfilled our duty!
jackmac
Russians and Republicans in disarray!
Timill
@Miss Bianca: Mt Tsundoku….
Carlo Graziani
@geg6: That’s cognate to a classic Italian pasta sauce from Naples: “Pommarola”.
First you make a soffritto of olive oil and chopped onion, carrots, celery, and (last, for a minute or less) garlic, in a large wide pan. Then you take a 28 oz can of peeled tomatoes, smushed in a mixing bowl with a potato masher, and toss them in the pan. Salt and pepper to taste, and cook off the water from the tomatoes. If you want to intensify the tomato flavor, add tomato paste.
[Ingredient quantities are vague here, I know. It works by intuition, but it’s hard to get a bad result.]
Once the sauce is cooked down, pureè it in a food processor, or with an immersion blender (the latter splatters, so if your sink is wide enough to accomodate the pan, do it there). If you’ve made a big vat of sauce by scaling up all the ingredients, using 2 or 3 cans of peeled tomatoes and increased the other vegetables to match, good for you! Transfer most of it to ziploc quart freezer bags, 2 cups per, and freeze it for future mid-week meals!.
Use about 2 cups of the pureè per pound of pasta (any shape is good, but shells and penne cup the sauce nicely). Add some chopped fresh basil if you have some, and grated parmesan (if you can grate it yourself from a good-quality slice, that’s better—Costco’s Reggiano is very good). You can add a bunch to the pasta directly, and/or serve a bowl of cheese at the table so diners can adjust their own. A splash of good-quality dressing-grade olive oil will certainly put a nice finish on the serving bowl.
AM in NC
@frosty: Oh no, we got that as kids, then learned to drive stick as teens!