What’s not to like, a light hearted adventure of a Pole and a Bavarian on a shunting proa. And a sea shanty thrown in for good measure. Reminds me of my own adventures with a Pole, a Bavarian and windsurfers with a bit of intelligence work thrown in for good measure. (NFI)
TTG
If I might ask – are there suddenly DDOS attacks being directed at turcopolier.com?
JamesT,
There might have been one earlier today. It was apparently resolved fairly quickly at the data center level. I’m not privy to the inner workings at that level and I didn’t investigate at my level. There have definitely been such attacks in the past. I’ve seen a lot of Russian spam comments lately. I’m sure that’s why we’re seeing the captcha-I’m not a robot page now.
Hope the don’t get conscripted. I’d get a bigger boat and get out of there right about right NOW.
That blue 8 string sounds like and plays like a dobro.
Very fun video…..no women available? Nahh, no bathrooms.
Whitewall,
In the credits an 8 string Tahitian ukelele and an 8 string Hawaiian uke are mentioned. Those are basically dobros or so I gather. You want women? Here’s another of his videos in which a woman figures prominently along with a proa. I’m pretty sure I’ve windsurfed those waters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDJcSwRWAQI
Or a dobro is basically a Hawaiian steel guitar, not a uke.
scott s,
What I most remember from Hawaiian music was Gabby Pahinui and his slack key guitar. I love the stuff. I still have my Home Grown LPs from KKUA.
Just loved it, that proa song. A lot of carefree expertise from those instrumentalists.
Expertise from a different age. The epic performers are a mix of supreme tradesmanship and magic. Horowitz playing in his old age in Vienna. Set to a touching moment just at the end of the recital. The Maestro’s knocked off a Chopin Polonaise in great style. He surmounts, just, the impossibly demanding end and goes “Phew. Managed the bastard, more or less”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpyRHi2aIwY
And then the audience won’t let him go. Silvery encore after encore.
He left Russia not long after the Revolution. Didn’t go back for the rest of his life. Until towards the end, when he returned to Moscow and gave what must have been one of his last recitals.
Reached deep into the heart of the music for them. They cried as they listened. I’m glad he made it back in the end.
From the information text on clicking “more:”
Baltic Proa Raid 2019, 140 Nm along the Polish coast with a Proa. Thanks to Pete Cresswell for donating the camera.
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It looks like great fun. But 140 nanometers is a very short trip. Did they fall down into Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole? Shrooms, mead, fly agaric? I read tales of Viking berserkers making use of such substances to bolster their formidable fighting powers, which is why I ask. 7 foot tall redheads rowing boats across the North Sea. Egads. Abandon all hope. I’ve traveled on the North Sea in a raging storm once in 1959. (Later voyages were quite peaceful, thankfully). A fairly big boat for the public. Men were lost overboard. My dad was an air force navigator (WW2) and even he got seasick. For some reason me and my mom didn’t (I’ve been plenty seasick in early adulthood after fishing in Florida though).
Today’s Easy Level Quiz:
What does a 900 pound gorilla order when he walks into a bar?
In honor of your answer to the earlier post comment on the recent Col Lawrence Wilkerson interview (you said this was just for fun) ..
Today’s Tough One:
Why did the talking horse and TV star Mister Ed call up to speak to the receptionist at condom factories on three separate continents after watching on the stable television
US Secretary of State Colin Powell shake a test tube while addressing the United Nations directly before the Iraq War Invasion of 2003?
————–
I’m betting even TTG doesn’t know the answer, but he’s quite smart, so I’m also guessing that the odds are likely in favor of him figuring it out rather quickly without clicking on these links below which I charitably provide for the impatient or possibly soon to be ex-transportation secretaryily inclined {i.e. clueless}:
http://surl.li/falck
http://surl.li/falbm
beautiful costal waters – thanks for this
kj
Your tape has made me a bit envious but I never was an outdoorsman anyway.
On a more serious note, 2 items.
1- the Peace plan from China. Summarized by Tatianna Stanovaya, a Russian and very professional analyst who works for Carnegie of late and has her own excellent newsletter @ 1200 Euros/Yr or $200 per issue bimonthly. Translation from Ru by bot:
********
Chinese peace plan. Translation into everyday language.
📌 The territorial integrity of Ukraine is indisputable, and Russia must recognize this.
📌Russia and the West should start a dialogue on a common international security architecture. Russia should stop living by the standards of the Great Patriotic War, and the West should abandon NATO expansion.
📌 In the Russian-Ukrainian war, it is necessary to declare a truce as soon as possible.
📌Russia and Ukraine should return to peace talks.
📌 It is necessary to increase humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and the UN must play a coordinating role.
📌 It is necessary to protect the civilian population from hostilities. China is ready to play a role in the prisoner exchange.
📌China supports the IAEA in ensuring the security of nuclear facilities on the territory of Ukraine.
📌 No to nuclear war, and to any form of WMD.
📌The grain deal must remain in place. China also has a global food security initiative.
The West must lift sanctions against Russia.
📌 You can’t use the tools of the world economy for political purposes (this is China rather about itself).
📌The world community must work to restore war-torn states.
In short, the idea is this: the West agrees not to expand NATO, enters into negotiations with Russia on common security, lifts sanctions. Russia withdraws its troops from Ukraine. Interestingly, the proposals say nothing about the problem of Donbass. Objectively, if we remove the political factors in the behavior of the parties (which, of course, is impossible), the plan is good and could work. But Russia will not go for it, because the West will not go for it. As a result, Moscow can move closer to China, not saying a firm yes, but expressing interest in this plan (it will not come to the withdrawal of troops anyway). And the West will now begin to reject China (already happening) with its plan, which will push Beijing towards Russia. In general, we are moving towards further globalization of the conflict and its escalation. Alas. But the plan is good.
—————————————
2- Summary of Situation to date by Timothy Garton Ash. Looks fairly accurate. Snippet below link:
https://intellinews.com/ash-putin-s-war-brings-russia-s-decline-271058/
One year on from Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, and it’s pretty clear that Russia has lost already so much on so many fronts because of Putin’s idiotic choices.
First, the human cost and, if Ukrainian and Western defence sources are to be believed, upwards of 100,000 Russian soldiers have died, and multiples of this have been injured.
Second, it terms of Russian military capability, the same sources indicate that perhaps half of Russian conventional military capability has been destroyed in Ukraine – thousands of tanks, APCs, artillery pieces, scores of aircraft and numerous naval craft, including the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.
Third, and related to the second point above, the prestige and credibility of the Russian military has been destroyed. Russia had sold itself as a peer competitor with the U.S. and China militarily, but it is now losing to what it would have perceived as a third or fourth rate military power.
Fourth, the perception of Russia as a leader in military technology has suffered a devastating blow. That Russia has failed to provide air defences for the Moskva or military bases in Crimea, or elsewhere is just staggering. What of the prior fabled capability of Russian S400s which third countries such as Turkey and Egypt had been lining up to buy? Russia military technology has been proven to be decades still behind the West.
Importantly this will cripple demand for Russian military exports, losing the balance of payments billions of now much needed dollars, but also weakening Russia’s ability in sharp power diplomacy. Third countries who are looking to secure military superiority over their regional foes are no longer likely to feel the need to be nice to Moscow, but will need to improve relations with the US and it’s allies to get access to the now proven best Western military kit. I think we have already seen that with the Pakistan military looking to secure improved relations with the US in order to secure F16 upgrade kits.
Fifth, the Russian economy and elites have been exposed to be utterly corrupt and inept, with corruption in military production and procurement, but also in the intelligence services fatally exposed – from the perished tyres on Russian military vehicles to the incorrect intelligence that Ukrainians would welcome Russian invaders with open arms.
(Continues at link)
Just so my conscience is clear I have a nit or two to pick with TGA as above.
1- Probably his estimates of Russian casualties are exaggerated by up to 50pc on deaths particularly, but it’s very large nonetheless. So he’s crowing. But his point stands.
2- He doesn’t mention the Nordstream Destruction, which I personally regard as illegal and or an act of war against a state or states we’re not at war with. That’s a terrible omission imo.
3- His editorializing about “genocide of the Ukrainian people “ is off the wall nonsense.
4- I, and others, don’t consider the 24th Feb 2022 invasion to be “unprovoked” except in the most superficial sense.
5- It’s a damn tragedy for the people living in Russia who are at least as tragically led by a complete and utter jackass living in a 1950s era time warp with a huge chip on his shoulder. I have a friend who is a very eminent writer, he called it a “Cargo Cult level psychosis” or something similar. That’s not quite right and it is dismissive of the brilliant contributions of the Russian nation to many fields, in fact the comment pissed me off, but it’s his way of saying what I think the Chinese Peace Plan says much more diplomatically. The Great Patriotic War thing is very similar to a Cargo Cult. I don’t mean to denigrate it in the least, they were superhumans conquering pure evil. But it 2023 now and it’s just plain ridiculous to carry on with simulating the worst tragedy in human history and drilling it into children’s heads. Let me add that I think US militarism is also appalling and hugely wasteful. But if so then why try to do the same? One good reason: It’s impossible.
6- Extraneous but related – a detail but telling and really low in my opinion: Google Translate in its browser version, as of yesterday, had removed the sound or vocal enunciations of its Russian language translations. I was shocked. So I checked Chinese, both traditional and Simplified – same, no sound. For a language with 5 vocal intonations for many letters and words and spoken by 1.4 billion human beings. What I have to say about that to whoever is responsible is best expressed where I come from by a suggestion concerning Macy’s Window. It will be interesting to know what the US military or State Department language schools think of such a stupid, petty and unnecessarily insulting move. It’s tantamount to outright extreme racism. Is that what we are on about now? What happened to diversity?
F&L
Diversity ?
The world is splitting into us and them. Pick your side folks, we’re going for a ride.
brings up memories…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddxIfMRZemc
Yep. You can meet a sorry fate for wearing the wrong color t-shirt on some afternoons. In ancient Rome there were two factions at the race track – two colors, I can’t remember which they were.
identity (n.)
c. 1600, “sameness, oneness, state of being the same,” from French identité (14c.), from Medieval Latin identitatem (nominative identitas) “sameness,” ultimately from Latin idem (neuter) “the same” (see idem).
https://www.etymonline.com/word/idem
That entry suggests that the words ideal, idea, identify etc have roots there. Now I need to look up “deal.”
Thanks F&L, appreciated.
No problem.
I omitted to include the link to Ms Stanovaya’s take on Putin’s Big Speech of the 21st. She’s a smart cookie. Problem is a speech is just a speech. Watch this: “I, F and L, am building an intercontinental aircraft carrier fleet in my backyard starting, uh, next month or maybe later this week. Thank you ladies and gentlemen, good night.” Care to analyze?
—————
Recognition of incompatibility. How Putin defined victory in his message:
https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/89088
–Putin’s message implies the complete incompatibility of the West and Russia, which is why the latter only has to stand up to the end in the struggle to survive–
Today’s message to the Federal Assembly has been awaited for so long that it managed to acquire the most bizarre rumors – Putin should have either resigned or officially declared war on Ukraine. It is clear that all this is due to the information hunger in the elites, who do not understand how Putin is going to win the war.
The President’s speech did not add any clarity to this issue, except for the threat to withdraw from the Strategic Arms Forces Treaty with the United States. Although this was expected, and the stake on escalation and the rejection of any compromises became the main thing that should be taken out of the President’s speech.
(Continues at link)
First: Sorry TTG for helping to hijack this comment thread. 😉
F&L, in spite of the fact that he is not at all my-cup-of-tea, I occasionally do feel sorry for the little man. Sometimes it feels he is trying to imitate American power, without actually having it. Quite a few matters which trigger one or the 0ther déjà vu in different contexts.
Via Google translate: This translates the confrontation into a new quality, where only the logic “either us or them” operates. So far, Putin does not say this directly, but his speech implies the complete incompatibility of the West and Russia, which is why the latter only has to stand up to the end in the struggle to survive.
If the West is betting on a strategic defeat for Russia, then this means that the dismantling of the institutions of bilateral and multilateral relations with Western countries will only accelerate, becoming irreversible. Putin’s current message is a geopolitical break with the West, declaring it an existential threat to Russia
Pretty much what Paul Robinson says for quite some time now:
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2023/02/13/what-future-for-nato/
. I am a pessimist just on one thing – Russian-Western relations. Those, I fear, are ruined for good.
I too have plenty of sympathy for Putin or better, some of the Putins. But not the one stuck in 1957. I’m a wee bit older than him, and my knowledge of the language over there is less than rudimentary, but I’ve been following the situation over there for years, especially since Youtube was born because I love music and Russian music, especially song, sends me to cloud 9. Tools: TikTok recently, YouTube, VK, Instagram and the net. Following my favorite singers and in that way coming to feel great affection for so many of them. Also Ukraine because they are fantastically talented and it’s a bright warm place and most of the web content is in Russian. (I have also read their literature since adolescence and history, of course.) I’m no computer techie but I’ve taught elementary computer science — I don’t like math or technology too much actually at all but I live in the 20 and 21st centuries. (Col Lang’s and TTG’s expertise in Open Source has been highly illuminating too – I guess I’m like the character that discovered he had been speaking prose after learning the definition) What I’m trying to say, and the reason I was so p*ssed off when I posted that is because a nitwit nobody like me, sitting in apartments in dreary NY City with a laptop, “smart TV” and iPhone mostly, not getting enough fresh air, K N E W (not thought, it was obvious to me) that the Ukrainians would fight like mad dogs. I love beauty, and beautiful women, and talented beautiful women especially, and found young, brilliantly talented, wildly humorous young dancers and actresses with their entire lives ahead of them who were learning to shoot automatic weapons for s**it’s sake — doing basic training crawling drills cradling their rifles etc. Also I’ve followed the politics for decades especially since retirement and know this has been planned especially by the Brits for a long time. I also could tell intuitively and by cursory study that the Russians were incompetent or at least terribly unprepared militarily. So how the F is it possible that a President of a damn country doesn’t know? How the living F do you run the largest country on Earth for 20+ years after being FSB chief and Prime Minister and a KGB colonel in the old days and be in the dark. He’s too damn important to use a computer or iPhone??? Would it mess up your fingernails or crimp your tie? Or miss out on an episode of Defense Minister Shoigu’s camping tips for Tuva? Oh no. Bozo lecher President Slick Willy Bill Clinton was buying junk on ebay in the 90s. Trump the tangerine hair colorist 6 foot 3 Goliath weirdo serial adulterer and Stormy Daniels Queens Casanova knew how to use an iPhone and when the nerd dingbats from … told him “oh no no no, Mr president” he said FU I sure can and I will!
Sorry, I’m getting carried away. My point is how much affection or love can he have for the amazing people of his actually amazing country if he can’t arrange to visit the present and learn to use an iPhone snoop around like who? Like every other F’ing person on Earth, that’s who. I’ll tell you why? He’s unqualified for the job he has. Col Lang is 80 years old (god bless him) and ill, and also living through the F’ing piss poor Covid era and HE was using an iPhone AND set up his own websites ages ago. No. Pooty poot is too sophisticated and security conscious and delicate for that. Needs 100 meter long ivory tables. A man’s man is he.
You see that’s the difference – I fell in love with them, he never did. He steals Superbowl rings from visiting NFL owners and parades around with Stephen Segal and builds a $1 billion personal palace and spends who knows how many billions (with 80% raked off for crooks) on a super-kitschy “military cathedral” puts on judo exhibitions etc and sends troops out to fight Ukrainians trained for years by Nato with ballerina girlfriends who learn to shoot and crawl under barbed wire because they, for some strange reason, don’t feel like being ruled over by the likes of him. iPhones, the internet, Instagram? They are for the serfs.
I do sympathize with his family’s fate and the loss of his siblings in Leningrad and understand the pain and a bit about the courage and strength it took to make it through. But tens of millions of Russians and Ukrainians did too and somehow they managed to learn to surf the web if only to be taught how by their children and grandchildren at least.
You’re the president for 20 yrs and you don’t comprehend that your assistants report what they think you want to hear? Is that how you got the job? Maybe you deduced that the west are all “Satanists” and homos somehow but couldn’t figure out that a country with 700+ mass shootings last year is violent and aggressive as can be so politicians here have to be tough to get elected? Too busy with the Cello collector in St Petersburg to take in a few American movies? No. Too busy. Had to be filmed once again crossing yourself twenty nine times per ten seconds in your own gold, platinum, emerald and diamond chapel and driving a ridiculous Russian made limousine designed and constructed just for wonderful you.
There were judo shows and tank biathalons to attend.
.
Fourth and Long – Well said. Why aren’t you writing OpEds for the Times and the WSJ?
LeaNder, what’s happening in Germany?
I’m extremely careful discussing Ukraine with my German friends. In fact I don’t. That’s why they’re still my friends. All solidly left so very much behind the war.
But I slipped up recently. Didn’t mean to. But speaking to one friend over your way, she mentioned that it was snowing where she was. Thought so, I said. Saw it was snowing at Wagenknecht’s Berlin rally.
That’s all I said but WOW! The floodgates opened. Wagenknecht was a Putinversteher and probably in Russian pay. A traitor, no less. Sooner she’s out of politics the better. I changed the subject hastily before we got on to Mrs Wagenknecht being shot at dawn. We looked to be heading that way.
So I went back to the Wagenknecht video and listened to it again. First time round I’d thought it was a milk and water speech for a famous firebrand. Thought so the second time round as well. But then noticed something odd.
Wagenknecht never mentioned the gas pipe explosion. Almost nobody does in Germany. The Berliner Zeitung put out an interview with Hersh but there doesn’t seem to have been much else.
Some German investigation said a while ago it wasn’t the Russians. Scholz hasn’t said anything to the point except, if I remember correctly, it couldn’t be discussed because it was a security matter.
If anyone had blown up some equivalent American installation there’d be several million Americans demanding to know all about it. Even in England an eyebrow or two would be raised. But in Germany – a deathly hush prevails.
Why?
No. Pooty poot is too sophisticated and security conscious and delicate for that. Needs 100 meter long ivory tables. A man’s man is he.
Yes, yes a macho man, at least that’s the image he propagates a lot. I find that just as disgusting as my late mother.
I know all that … I missed the staging of the father of the nation telling his people what to do in public. Did Gorbachev or Yeltsin ever address the nation and in the same context tell them what his servants had to for the nation. I find that more than a little irritating. One master dictating it all. But it is not my country.
The Chicago boys, so far, didn’t dictate matters over here. Inspiring some, sure. …
Were you already around when Lyttenbourg showed up here? He/She/(it) strongly supported both the party and the man. Her/his image of the inner enemy were the ‘kreakl’ or however you spell it. The Western oriented Russian artists. See Yalensis too. He shares the image of the enemy. American with Russian roots.
https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2023/02/28/ukraine-war-day-370-they-already-know-how/
Yes, church, and right wing politics. Families rewarded for getting more children. I usually stop to listen to his speeches at one point, since something like that irritates me. … The Nazis loved fertile Aryan women too.
I also could tell intuitively and by cursory study that the Russians were incompetent or at least terribly unprepared militarily.
It feels, he thought, if he gathered enough men around Ukrainian borders, the West, meaning the US, would bend its knee, be a little bit more forthcoming concerning his ultimatum. Suddenly all happened very fast: the recognition of Donbas and Luhansk, the war/special operation next day.
Whom would you like to see in his place?
Might well be the funnest batch of people on the planet to go trekking with. Thanks for that.
Another one from Carnegie in Russian. I’ve pasted the conclusion. It’s a complex discussion of ramifications of Exiting or “Suspending” the START treaty as Putin says he’s doing in the conclusion of his speech. Says there are two schools of thought in the US — Pentagon hawks in conjunction with industrialists versus Trio of Sullivan, Blinken and Burns who think an arms race is not a good idea. The author argues that Russia leaving the treaty may actually be contrary to it’s best interests.
—————
Link + Conclusion translated:
https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/89082
Racing prospects
As a result, Russia’s suspension of START is unlikely to affect US willingness to continue supporting Ukraine. But it may well worsen the long-term strategic prospects of Russia itself.
Even if the Kremlin erroneously believes otherwise, the truth is that START was more important to Russia itself than to the United States, given the huge gap in the capabilities of Russian and NATO conventional forces that the war in Ukraine exposed. By withdrawing from the treaty, Russia potentially enters a strategic arms race with the United States, which it obviously cannot win, given the huge military budget of the Americans, their scientific and technological potential and the ability to print the world’s reserve currency.
A side effect of Russia’s withdrawal from START, which the Kremlin most likely does not expect, will be additional militarization of the American economy. Now the lobbyists of the American military-industrial complex can use as arguments to increase the budget of the Pentagon not only the need to support Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as the creation of new jobs in the US itself, but also the need to stop the strategic risks arising from the dismantling of START. So, at the headquarters of the giants of the American military-industrial complex that produce components of the US nuclear shield, like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, it’s time to open rare vintages of Californian sparkling wines.
following author:
Alexander Gabuev
I changed the subject hastily before we got on to Mrs Wagenknecht being shot at dawn. We looked to be heading that way.
Hmm, Ok. No, your knowledge of German history may mislead you here, Outsider.That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? It’s March 2023, not February 1919. But yes, she somewhat copies Rosa. 😉
You may want to watch hard but fair / Hart aber Fair. I had to stop watching quite early when Strack-Zimmerman, I deeply dislike the lady, made her statement. I am not a fan of Göring-Eckhard from the Green party either. And notice I voted a green direct candidate for Cologne into the Bundestag. One of the 16 German direct Green candidates. (Zugzwang, I did not expect him to win, but he was simply the best. Not into foreign affairs.)
I may finish watching it myself. Stack-Zimmermann: Russians routinely break the arms of their rape victims first, so they cannot defend themselves? They routinely torture children, before or after stealing them? Now: I know it’s not really the right time to practice irony or cynicism. And I worked for Medica Mondiale which is already present on the scene.
https://www1.wdr.de/daserste/hartaberfair/videos/video-frieden-mit-putins-russland-eine-illusion-100.html
https://medicamondiale.org/en/violence-against-women/news/ukraine-how-we-support-women-and-girls-in-the-region
I am still or actually again rather busy renovating and have to stop here.
But something else I would want you to read. An article that declares Sarah a danger for Germany. And look carefully, she may in fact be not only Anti-American but Anti-Semitic too. Bonding with the right???
https://www.rnd.de/politik/warum-sahra-wagenknecht-eine-gefahr-fuer-die-demokratie-in-deutschland-ist-X6HYR7QBSNBEXOUXFOLYDU63TI.html
And strictly I am not a fan of any left-right unions or Querfront endeavors. For the obvious reason??? But there are matters I may even with Fred occasionally. 😉
*****
I respect Seymour. But the silence in Germany surrounding his article, I haven’t read, mirrors the American. I have read the German interview with him here in Berliner Zeitung, was it?