Two more days. Just 48 hours of campaign emails and texts cluttering up our phones and laptops and tablets. Then no more messages about voting (I already have, thank you). No more snarky comments about opponents; no more AI-created half-truths and fantasies and outright lies.

No more freakin’ election.

Then we just have to live with the results.

And in a couple of years — assuming we survive that long — it will all start again. After this last campaign, I’m all for setting a limit — one year at the most — on campaign length.

Anyone care to join me in campaigning for that?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/3/24

Either way, Daniel Martindale’s life will never be the same from this day forward.

It’s a developing story, but here is what little is known so far.

As reported this morning by RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, Russian media is claiming, without substantiation, that the government has “removed” a U.S. citizen — one Daniel Martindale — “from territory controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces.” He allegedly has been aiding Russian forces in Ukraine by “transmitting coordinates of Ukrainian military” for the past two years. [RFE/RL, November 2, 2024.]

According to RIA Novosti, a man identifying himself as Martindale appeared at a press conference and said he was in Moscow voluntarily and wished to obtain Russian citizenship. Displaying a well-worn U.S. passport and a birth certificate, and speaking in English, he was quoted as saying:

“My name is Daniel Martindale. Here is my passport. It went through the war with me, you can see in what condition it is.“ [Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters, November 2, 2024.]

He further stated that he was under no duress, and predicted that Russia would win the war in Ukraine. He allegedly had worked as a missionary, and entered Ukraine from Poland in early 2022 — just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — adding that:

“I’ve wanted to go to Russia for a long time, I realized that this is the moment I’ve been waiting for.” [Id.]

No further information is available at this time, and no comment has been forthcoming from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

*. *. *

RFE/RL has found a page on VKontakte (VK) (the Russian equivalent of Facebook) purportedly belonging to a Daniel Martindale, last updated in February 2022, and listing his residence as Poland. But it is not yet clear that this is the same individual now claiming to be a Russian recruit . . . although the references to Poland and the February 2022 date do match his current claims.

So what is the truth? Is this man an American who has gone over to the other side? Or is he a captive of the Russian forces — a propaganda tool being forced to “reveal” his activities of the past two years to the world? Is he even Daniel Martindale? If his story is indeed real, what is his background? And why was he extracted from Ukraine and paraded in front of the world at this particular time?

I suppose we shall now have to await word from the Kremlin, though that is likely to produce nothing more than confirmation of what has already been offered by its official news source.

Most disturbingly, if this Daniel Martindale is a genuine American-turned-traitor, one has to wonder how many more “Daniel Martindales” are out there.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/2/24

And another nail in the coffin of U.S.-Russian relations.

The latest victim of the Kremlin’s psychotic roundup of dissidents and enemies — real or imagined — is not an American or other foreigner to be held as collateral for a future swap, but a Russian citizen. Robert Shonov, 62, worked for 25 years at the U.S. Consulate in Vladivostok, until being forced to leave in 2021 due to new Russian restrictions on local staff working for foreign missions. He then found a job with a company that provided services as a private contractor to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow — entirely within the parameters of Russian law.

And today — after already spending about a year and a half in “detention” since his arrest in 2023 — he stands convicted of “confidential collaboration with a foreign state,” and sentenced to four years and ten months in prison, plus a fine of one million rubles ($10,280). He will then spend another year and four months on parole restrictions following completion of the nearly five-year sentence. [RFE/RL, November 1, 2024.]

He is accused of collecting information on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the associated mobilization efforts, and of analyzing their potential impact on public protest activities leading up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, for the benefit of the United States government. [Id.]

Because of the nature of the charges — despite the fact that Shonov is not a U.S. citizen — the case has created a further exacerbation of the ever-worsening relations between the United States and Russia.

The U.S. State Department has, of course, condemned the arrest, characterizing the charges as baseless, saying that Shonov’s “only role at that time of his arrest was to compile media summaries of press items from publicly available Russian media sources.” [U.S. Department of State Press Statement, May 16, 2023.]

In addition, in connection with the same case, Moscow expelled two U.S. Embassy diplomats — First Secretary Jeffrey Sillin and Second Secretary David Bernstein — in September 2023, accusing them of acting as liaisons for Shonov.

*. *. *

It’s all just becoming SSDD: Same Sh*t, Different Day — disturbingly reminiscent of the years between the end of World War II and the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

Accusations of spying, insults, threats, expulsion of diplomats, prisoner exchanges . . . I wonder how long it will be before someone — Russia or the U.S. — finally acknowledges that we are engaged in Cold War, Part Two.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/2/24

“When other friendships have been forgot,
Ours will still be hot.”
(Lyrics from “Friendship,” by Cole Porter)

At a meeting yesterday in Moscow, North Korea’s Foreign Minister, Choe Son Hui, told her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that her country will back Russia until victory is achieved over Ukraine:

“Our traditional, historically friendly relations, which have travelled the tested path of history, today . . . are rising to a new level of relations of invincible military comradeship.” [Dmitry Antonov, Reuters, November 1, 2024.]

She tactfully remembered to add a few words of praise for both her president, Kim Jong Un, and for Lavrov’s boss, Vladimir Putin, saying that, under Putin’s “wise leadership,” the Russian army and people would “achieve a great victory in their sacred struggle to protect the sovereign rights and security interests of their state. And we also assure that until the day of victory we will firmly stand alongside our Russian comrades.” [Id.]

Excuse me, Madame Foreign Minister — the 1950s are calling, and they want their rhetoric back.

Lavrov also spoke of the “very close ties” between the two countries’ military forces, which he said would enable them to solve important security tasks together. But neither mentioned the 10,000 North Korean troops who have been sent to Russia, or the statements of the U.S., NATO, South Korea and Ukraine on that subject . . .

. . . about which the ever-present, always delightful Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, had separately tossed in his two rubles’ worth on Friday, stating simply that he had “nothing to add to what has already been said.” Not helpful, Dima.

Foreign Minister Lavrov did state, however:

“We are deeply grateful to our Korean friends for their principled position regarding the events that have now unfolded in Ukraine as a result of the West’s course of advancing NATO to the east and encouraging an openly racist regime to exterminate everything Russian.

”Very close contacts have been established between the military of the two countries and along the security services line — this also allows us to solve practically significant and important tasks for the security of our and your citizens.” [Id.]

(So now the North Koreans are “principled” and the Ukrainians are “racist.” Everybody got that?)

And Foreign Minister Choe added that North Korea and Russia must continue to deepen their ties in accordance with a treaty signed by Presidents Putin and Kim in June — a treaty that includes a mutual defense provision.

Is it any wonder that I can’t sleep at night?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/2/24

I’ve always known, of course, that some of our fellow primates — monkeys, chimps, baboons, apes, politicians — are very smart. After all, Darwin tells us we’re their direct descendants. (Well, maybe not the politicians.)

What I had not heard of, though, is something known as the “infinite monkey theorem” — a thought-experiment used to explain the principles of probability and randomness. The basic tenet is that, given an infinite amount of time, a monkey randomly pressing keys on a typewriter would eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare.

Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle! That’s truly incredible . . . except that it could never happen.

Or so say two mathematicians from Australia. Researchers Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta have conducted a peer-reviewed study that determined that the amount of time it would take for a monkey with a typewriter to reproduce all of Shakespeare’s works — plays, sonnets and poems — would be longer than the lifespan of our universe. [Hannah Ritchie, BBC News, October 31, 2024.]

Wait . . . what?!! Our universe has an end date? That’s not what I wanted to hear today . . . or ever.

But I digress. Back to the monkey business.

Woodcock and Falletta’s calculations tell us that, while mathematically acceptable, the theorem is “misleading.” And this was not just their gut feeling; they did the hard calculations, which were based on the current global population of chimpanzees, which is around 200,000.

And they concluded that, enlisting every chimp in the world, and teaching them to type one key per second until the end of the universe (mercifully, they don’t say when that is expected), they still wouldn’t come close to producing Shakespeare’s complete works. In fact, there would only be a 5% chance that a single chimp would even type the word “bananas” in its own lifetime. And the probability of that one chimp constructing a random sentence would be one in ten million billion billion. [Id.]

But give that little monkey-face a whole bunch of bananas for making the effort.

The study’s conclusion is this:

“It is not plausible that, even with improved typing speeds or an increase in chimpanzee populations, monkey labour will ever be a viable tool for developing non-trivial written works.” [Id.]

So it seems that our hairy brethren are destined to remain forever the purveyors of party tricks, much like J. Fred Muggs and his appearances on the Dave Garroway Show of yesteryear.

*. *. *

By the way, the BBC article went on to discuss the most widely-accepted hypothesis for the end of the universe. In typical scientific double-speak, it is called the “heat death theory,” although it envisions a slow, cold death. Go figure.

Whatever it’s called, it describes a final act wherein the universe “continues to both expand and cool — while everything within it dies off, decays, and fades away.” [Id.]

Sounds pretty much like any individual human being, getting older — expanding, cooling, decaying, and fading away — also with no known “use by” date.

God really does have a diabolical sense of humor.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/1/24

They’re survivors and heroes, those hostages of Vladimir Putin who walked out of his prison camps in an historic prisoner swap on August 1st of this year.

They were in prison because of their opposition to the blatantly corrupt, authoritarian government of a man who would rule the world . . . and rule it with an iron fist.

Well, the good news is that, although they may now be living in forced exile, their love of their home country — the one not ruled by a bloodthirsty tyrant — has not diminished. Nor has their determination to continue the fight against Putin’s tyranny, to restore freedom and hope to Russia, and to return home once more.

So Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin have joined with Yulia Navalnaya — widow of Putin’s principal opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, until his unexplained death in a prison camp in February of this year — in organizing a major anti-war demonstration in Berlin, Germany, on November 17th.

Their purpose? To demand the resignation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Wow! “Go big or go home” takes on new meaning with this crew — as well it should, considering what they, and so many of their countrymen, have suffered.

In a video made on October 30th, Navalnaya said that “. . . we must show ourselves and the whole world that there is an anti-militarist and free Russia.” [RFE/RL, October 30, 2024.]

Yashin, in an announcement on his Telegram channel, said that the march will demand the “withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, while holding Vladimir Putin accountable as a war criminal, and the release of all political prisoners.” [Id.]

And in Prague, when meeting with supporters, Yashin said that he, Navalnaya and Kara-Murza would soon present an “anti-war, anti-Putin initiative” to include many emigres as well as people still living in Russia. [Id.]

*. *. *

Inasmuch as unauthorized protests are now prohibited in Russia, and permits are routinely denied for anti-war demonstrations, staging such events outside of the country is one of the few options open to Putin’s opponents. Hopefully, there are enough groups in exile, and a sufficient number of supporters, to render the demonstration in Berlin a huge success.

Not that there is really any hope of forcing Putin’s resignation any time soon. But protests have a way of spreading. And who knows what the future may bring?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/1/24

In the Russia ruled by Joseph Stalin (from 1924 to his death in 1953), if you were foolish enough, or simply unfortunate enough, to displease him in any way, you could be fairly certain of two things: that your life was about to end, and that all traces of your existence would disappear with you.

Long before the days of artificial intelligence and today’s digital photoshopping, Stalin’s photo technicians were adept at altering pictures to make someone (usually Stalin) look better, to change the background or the wording on signs . . . or to make a person disappear completely, as in the famous photos below. In other words, to rewrite history.

The names and any mention of disgraced individuals would also be deleted from all printed material. I can only imagine how many times the country’s textbooks and encyclopedias had to be reprinted.

In the decades following Stalin’s death, political life in Russia slowly — very slowly — became less terrifying. And in the 1990s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the institution of the Gorbachev reforms, the repressions of the Soviet era began to fade into distant memory. But not for everyone.

In 1991, October 30th was officially designated as Russia’s Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression. Since then, each year on that date memorial events — known as “Returning the Names” — are held in cities and towns across Russia to honor the victims of Soviet-era atrocities. A memorial stone, known as the Solovki Stone, has been erected on Moscow’s Lubyanka Square — in front of the notorious headquarters of the former KGB (now the FSB). And each October 30th since 2006, the Memorial Human Rights Center has held an annual ceremony at that spot. [RFE/RL, October 30, 2024.]

In cities from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, participants in similar ceremonies have included relatives of the dead and survivors of the Gulag, rights activists, and others who simply want to be a part of the remembrance. The names, ages, occupations, and dates of execution or imprisonment of the victims are read aloud. The past must be remembered in order not to be repeated.

But . . .

Recent actions of the Russian government may be placing the future of these remembrances in question. For example, the Prosecutor-General’s Office “announced plans earlier to review past decisions on the rehabilitation of repression victims, prompting fears that the state may seek to rewrite or diminish the historical narrative surrounding Soviet atrocities.” [Id.]

In June, changes were announced to the official Concept on Victims of Political Repressions that “eliminated references to the mass nature of Soviet purges and removed calls to commemorate their victims, effectively sanitizing the historical account of state-sponsored violence.” [Id.]

And this week, the decision to cancel the Returning the Names event in Moscow was blamed on a “sharp increase in COVID cases” [id.] — always a handy excuse, but in reality just one step in a concerted effort by the government to draw attention and discussion away from past Soviet crimes . . . and from the repressive actions of the Putin regime of today.

*. *. *

In the shadow of other world events, these may seem like minor concerns. But they amount to one very major issue: rewriting history. Think of how much easier that will be now, with the advent of artificial intelligence and the government’s exclusive control of mass media.

And seen in conjunction with other recent occurrences — the broad use (or misuse) of the new “Foreign Agents” law, the imprisonment of journalists and dissidents, the unexplained deaths of political opponents — well . . .

The calendar may say it’s 2024, but in Russia it’s beginning to feel like 1950 again.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/1/24

— Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, 1838.

*. *. *

How often, in the nearly 200 years since those words were written, do you suppose Mr. Bumble has been proven right? The nearest answer would probably be: Countless times.

And in today’s news was possibly the best — and certainly the most hilarious — evidence of that bit of wisdom, contained in the following headline:

“Russia fines Google
$20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000”

[Hanna Ziady and Anna Chernova, CNN, October 31, 2024]

No, CNN was not playing a Halloween trick on us. As a result of Google’s having blocked pro-Russian channels on YouTube — some since 2022 — a Russian court had earlier ordered Google to restore the channels or face the penalties, which have been doubling every week. And today’s figure has been set at 2 undecillion Russian rubles, or US$20 decillion. That’s around $20 billion trillion trillion — dwarfing the size of the entire global economy (estimated by the IMF at $110 trillion). [Id.]

Considering that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has a current market value of “only” $2 trillion . . . well, I was going to estimate the number of years it would take them to pay off a judgment of that size, but my calculator exploded, along with my brain.

[Ed. note: Wait just a second — that would make Alphabet’s market capitalization 1.8% of the whole freakin’ global economy. I’m not an economist, but . . . is that even possible?!! Or has the IMF undervalued the world?]

*. *. *

And now — oh, thank Heaven! — along comes my knight in shining armor, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, to explain how his government has come up with this particular figure, rather than something they might have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever collecting. During a call with reporters today, he admitted that he “can’t even pronounce this figure right,” but said that the sum was “filled with symbolism.”

“[Google] should not be restricting the actions of our broadcasters on its platform,” he added. [Id.]

Oh, Dima . . . even you had to be laughing on the other end of that phone call.

But that’s good. If the number is only symbolic, then maybe they’ll settle for a reasonable sum . . . let’s say, just for example, $100. Because that’s about what their claim is worth.

Twenty billion trillion trillion dollars, indeed! Why don’t we just throw in Las Vegas as a bonus?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
10/31/24

P.S. Thanks for the belly laugh, Dima. It was the highlight of my day.

I’ve been there, just once, and fell in love with it: the capital city of Helsinki, the countryside, Ainola (home of composer Jean Sibelius), the friendly people, the education system, the fresh seafood, and even the climate (I am not a hot weather person).

Just one thing would make me hesitant to live there. No, actually two things. One is the language: it is one of only three languages comprising the Finno-Ugric group, the other two being Hungarian and Estonian. And they’re not related to any other language group — not the romance, or the Germanic, or the Slavic — and only slightly to each other, making them pretty much indecipherable to anyone who wasn’t born or raised in one of those three countries.

But more unnerving is Finland’s proximity to Russia. The two countries share a border of about 830 miles in length, and while that has not been a serious problem for some years, more recently — specifically since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 — Finland has significantly tightened its border controls. It also wisely joined NATO last year.

And last week, a Finnish court ordered the seizure of Russian assets in Finland worth approximately 4.6 billion euros in accordance with a ruling of the Permanent Arbitration Court at The Hague. This judgment is by way of compensation to the Ukrainian company Naftogaz, whose assets were illegally seized by Russia at the time of its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Among the properties seized In Finland were the Russian Center of Science and Culture in Helsinki, four other Russian-owned buildings in the Aland Islands, and a seaside property in Kirkkonnummi used by Russian diplomats for recreation purposes. [Abby Chitty, Euronews, October 30, 2024.]

It didn’t take long — just until yesterday — for the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow to summon the Finnish ambassador in order to protest the seizure of its properties in Finland. A statement issued by the Ministry “demand[ed] that the Finnish side review this illegitimate decision as soon as possible. If necessary, the Russian side will take retaliatory measures.” [The Moscow Times, October 30, 2024.]

Well, of course you will. Did anyone doubt that?

Authorities in Moscow are now accusing Finland’s enforcement authority of confiscating 45 properties, including those used by Russia’s embassy in Helsinki — about half of which are allegedly protected by diplomatic immunity, such as “country houses and apartments where diplomats reside.” [Id.]

The Kremlin, of course, has said it will contest Finland’s actions by “all legal means.” [Id.]

I sincerely hope they’re not thinking of using the same “legal means” by which they annexed Crimea in 2014, and undertook their “special military operation” to “reclaim” the rest of Ukraine in 2022.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
10/31/24

Here’s a Halloween tale (and tail) for you.

Forget Willard; forget Ben; forget Ratatouille (the one from the movie, not the vegetable dish). Fictitious rodent characters are cute; real ones . . . not so much.

And when they’re the size of a cat . . . some of them as long as three feet, half of which is body and the other half tail . . . let me outta here!

Luckily — for the rats, at least — not everyone feels as I do. A non-profit known as APOPO, based in Tanzania, has found that these muroids-on-steroids, also known as the African or Gambian pouched rat (the pouches are in their cheeks), have such a keen sense of smell that they can be trained to sniff out landmines, tuberculosis, and survivors in the rubble of disaster zones. [Alex Rodway, CNN, October 30, 2024.]

No wonder they’ve been dubbed HeroRATs.

And now, the enterprising folks at APOPO are putting these big guys to work as crime-fighters.

Did you know — and I did not — that illicit wildlife trafficking is a $23-billion-per-year industry worldwide — the fourth largest, after counterfeit products, drugs, and humans? And little Alfred in the red vest (all right, so I decided to name him) and his fellow heroes are being trained to sniff out a variety of wildlife, and precious items such as elephant tusks, rhino horns, pangolin scales, and African blackwood. [Id.]

Of course, they can’t do everything that, say, a dog can do, like tracking through the Serengeti. But Dr. Izzy Szott, the behavioral research scientist who leads this project, points out that, “being ‘very small and agile,’ rats have the upper hand in a densely packed shipping container.” She also explains that, unlike dogs, rats will work with multiple handlers, and are cheaper to train, maintain and transport. [Id.]

And once Alfred (or any of his rat pack friends) identifies a target in a suspect shipment — and this is kind of cute — “it alerts its handler by using its front paws to pull a little ball attached to a custom-made, neoprene vest, which triggers a beeping sound.” [Id.]

So, obviously having conquered any traces of ratophobia (yes, that’s the real term, also known as musophobia), Dr. Szott and her team are working with these exceptional Cricetomys (of the family Nesomyidae, in case you were wondering) to help catch the criminals who would deprive the world of some of its most majestic animals, which in turn can have a devastating effect on entire ecosystems. [Id.]

It takes about a year to complete training, so with an average life span of eight years, the furry detectives are considered a worthwhile long-term investment, according to Dr. Szott. They have a routine training program from Monday through Friday, with “regular playtimes in a big outdoor kennel filled with rope toys and running wheels.” [Id.]

It’s like a Montessori School for heroRATs.

All right, that one is pretty cute, I admit. I mean, drinking through a straw and all that. But . . .

Their importation is now banned in the United States, as they have been blamed for a 2003 outbreak of monkeypox. But some people don’t pay attention to laws and regulations. And others fail to understand about wildlife. You know, like the “wild” part, and about trying to breed them as pets in non-indigenous areas. Back in the 1990s, a private breeder in the Florida Keys allowed some of these babies to escape, and they have since become invasive. But despite efforts to eradicate them in the area, they have been sighted on Key Largo and in Marathon, Florida.

Which is way too close to home to suit me. I still haven’t come to terms with the alligators down the road.

Just sayin’ . . .

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Brendohchka
10/31/24