I see. A joke about the USSR.

How very fresh and timely.

Russia is secretly preparing genocidal world war against the west. Numerous Websites have mentioned how russia is assembling an arsenal of tens of thousands of ICBMs in secret facilities and underground war preparation areas in the Ural Mountains the majority of the ICBMs being multi-megaton size. This does not even mention their alliance with Iran which also has a nuke arsenal of several thousand city-killer strength nukes as millions of iranian troops trained for not only war but genocide of conquered populations are being marshalled along with their nukes in underground factories.

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Russians are still Russians.

Umm.

Stalin was a Georgian.

So was Beria.

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Additional: Anytime you cheer on the deaths of Americans to wake us out of our sloth, invokes Murphy's law even more.

Who the hell cheered on anybody's deaths?

I mean, except for the types who seem to get their rocks off hearing about various wogs-n-sundry (and anyone else unfortunate enough to have been inside the blast radius) being 'brought to justice'...

Someday, the two of you will be taste-testing the tarmacs of a US airport in relief that your superior asses made it back to this sorry cesspit, alive.

We'll see. Just in case, though, I'll keep connections with the immigration folks wherever I am to help anyone bail out in this direction (if that's the way it goes). There's nothing inherently objectively special about America. It's a nice place, but things can go sour fast pretty much anywhere in the world. And a 4T is a fairly common time for that to happen.

(btw, I'm pretty sure that Rani lives in California -- so I'm not sure why she would have to drive all the way to the airport if she wanted to kiss some American asphalt...)

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Russia is secretly preparing genocidal world war against the west. Numerous Websites have mentioned how russia is assembling an arsenal of tens of thousands of ICBMs in secret facilities and underground war preparation areas in the Ural Mountains the majority of the ICBMs being multi-megaton size. This does not even mention their alliance with Iran which also has a nuke arsenal of several thousand city-killer strength nukes as millions of iranian troops trained for not only war but genocide of conquered populations are being marshalled along with their nukes in underground factories.

I think your tinfoil hat is screwed on a bit too tight, buddy.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

I think your tinfoil hat is screwed on a bit too tight, buddy.

He sound like a lot of young Russians of the Nashi persuasion, who secretly believe that NATO is preparing to invade, though, as a friend said recently, even if you did conquer Russia, what would you do with it?

I suggest that if we try to study cycles in Russia we stop looking West, and start looking East. China had a communist takeover too ... about 30 years after the decapitation of the Russian Empire. One can see obvious parallels between the Show Trials and purges and the Cultural Revolution. They were adopted for similar purposes -- to rid the leadership of anyone that might challenge it. Just as Stalin got rid of Kamenev, Mao got rid of Liu Shaoqi.

It is estimated that most of the old Bolsheviks were eliminated in 1937-38. I find this so sad, because I would have hoped that more of them would have been alive in 1991 when the union collapsed

Here's some interesting economic information that I stumbled across earlier today about the historical russian and soviet economy.

http://www.ianblanchard.com/IMPERIAL...ecture%201.pdf

Originally Posted by Uzi

He sound like a lot of young Russians of the Nashi persuasion, who secretly believe that NATO is preparing to invade, though, as a friend said recently, even if you did conquer Russia, what would you do with it?

I suggest that if we try to study cycles in Russia we stop looking West, and start looking East. China had a communist takeover too ... about 30 years after the decapitation of the Russian Empire. One can see obvious parallels between the Show Trials and purges and the Cultural Revolution. They were adopted for similar purposes -- to rid the leadership of anyone that might challenge it. Just as Stalin got rid of Kamenev, Mao got rid of Liu Shaoqi.

It is estimated that most of the old Bolsheviks were eliminated in 1937-38. I find this so sad, because I would have hoped that more of them would have been alive in 1991 when the union collapsed

That sounds like a thinly veiled prediction of the current Chinese regime's collapse around the end of this 4T, perhaps as the 4T Climax event. The question would then become, what might replace it? And Arkham, your prediction of the fall of the current Chinese regime leading to China's permanent breakup would be called by many a best-case scenario, at least for the US (and for Russia.)

What do you make of this?

That makes a lot of sense. What they know, only new and improved along the lines that correct the failures they lived under.

Badger's pretty much spot-on.

You need to keep in mind, it's like George Bush, by mouthing the slogans of free markets (while acting in ways diametrically opposed to them) did more to discredit any talk of free trade -- no matter how rational, legitimate, or simply correct it may be -- than ever could have any number of critics.

In the same way, Russians have seen the main mouthpieces for 'Western Democratic Values' do nothing but rob others blind and, basically, drag the entire world down into an economic hell. The fact that the values such spokesmen (starting with Clinton's team of economic advisors who came over to help the oligarchs loot whatever wealth was still remaining after decades of Soviet misrule) spoke and what they actually practiced in no way lined up really doesn't make so big of a difference. It's unfortunate, but true -- your nominal friends can do you far more harm than can those who are openly your enemies.

What's funny to me is that, if you stop using names and slogans, and start talking about actually how things would be in the local version of a better system, it turns out that what people here want really isn't terribly far off what the 'Western Democratic Values' supposedly stand for. Hell, what they want is probably a lot closer to the Western ideal than what any of the Western countries actually has! In Russia, they would just never call it that, since they've seen the results of what goes under that name..

Not really a big deal, just something the local news have been snickering about. I wonder, did it make it back to the States about the whole reset-button thing?

(if not, simply stated, as a show of desire to clear up the ill will of the last several years, Clinton in Geneva presented Lavrov with a big red Emergency-all-stop button wit the word "reset" in english on the bottom and the latin letters "peregruzka" on the top. That word means "overload" (the correct word for reset sounds like "perezagruzka").

The snickering is three-fold. First, the freudian slip of the actual word they used; then the fact that the button is a one-way stop, not a reset; and finally the fact that apparently it was too much to ask anyone to look in a dictionary or anything to double-check.

On the other hand, it's not as big a gaffe as when the purported fluent-Russian-speaking student of the USSR, Rice, did her first (and only) attempted radio interview here.

To me, it raises obvious questions about our Russia policy. Because if the State Department can't even find the right word for "reset," then how the heck are they going to make good on their pledge to bring Ukraine into NATO "some day"?

Originally Posted by Uzi

To me, it raises obvious questions about our Russia policy. Because if the State Department can't even find the right word for "reset," then how the heck are they going to make good on their pledge to bring Ukraine into NATO "some day"?

Not to worry. Ukraine's nowhere near the North Atlantic, and there's no Soviet Union to fight against anymore. Letting that pledge join the other thousands on the scrapheap really won't make any difference at all.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Not to worry. Ukraine's nowhere near the North Atlantic, and there's no Soviet Union to fight against anymore. Letting that pledge join the other thousands on the scrapheap really won't make any difference at all.

I have a feeling the promise was given with full knowledge that it would never be fulfilled.

For lack of a better place to put it (what happened to the "Nothing Is Going On" thread, anyway?)


I signed the contracts with the buyer for our home-and-land outside of Pavlovsk. The people buying it from us managed to get a mortgage-type thing from the big bank, and as it turned out the purchase-sale contract is three-party, and includes the terms of their property-secured loan.

----
-self-congratulatory aside-
I took the several minutes to read the fifteen-page bank-written contract in its entirety and found several errors as well as getting a couple points added, one deleted, and one modified. I love it when someone asks me where I learned the language and I get to answer, 'here'.
----

Anyway, holy crap!

They paid 30% down, the loan pays off by 2027 (18 years, plus-minus), and their basic rate is 15.75% annual -- which can get reduced to 14.90% when they prove that they are maintaining a set minimum level of insurance on the property. And those kind of super-sweet terms are really only accessible to people with an inside connection in the bank administration.
It certainly clears up a bit for me why, even though they've been offering property-secured home loans here for a couple of years, the vast majority of home purchases and construction is done the way we did it -- cash up-front.

We paid cash for our place too, though mostly because of devaluation rumors. Fortunately, the government here isn't under the extreme pressure to devalue that Latvia is. Supposedly, if Latvia goes, then all of Western civilization will fall (or so it has been reported in various scaremongering financial media outlets). The main goal is to adopt the euro in 2011, but they've been keeping us moving with the old euro carrot for quite a few years now. Plus, we are not even sure if the magic euro will solve all the problems. Estonia had a consumption-based domestic market. The Swedes gave us money, and we went out and bought new stuff. Once they turned off the tap, well, no new stuff = 12 percent GDP contraction this year.

I have noticed a streak of home purchases lately by my peers. Perhaps people of our lowly socio-economic class of the highly educated underpaid can at last afford to live under roofs of our own.

Are there any fans of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson here on this forum?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in 1859. By chronology of Conan Doyle's stories and novels, Sherlock Holmes was born around 1854 and Doctor Watson was born around 1852. This makes Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to be member of the Progressive Generation. Thus, Holmes and Watson both seem to fit the Artist archetype by their birth years.

In late 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviet television filmed eight feature films about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. These films icluded A Study In the Scarlet, The Speckled Band, Charles Augustus Milverton, Final Problem, Empty House, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Sign of the Four, and His Last Bow, and I had seen all of these. I also heard that here were films The Blue Carbuncle, The Six Napoleons, The Red-Headed League, and The Dancing Men, but I have never seen any of these films.

Sherlock Holmes was played by Basil Livanov, who was born in 1935. Doctor Watson was played by Vitaly Solomin (1941-2002). By Strauss and Howe definitions, Livanov and Solomin were Russian peers of the Silent generation, also the Artist archetype. So, the Silent actors were playing the Progressive characters. Those Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Livanov were very popular in Russia, and have even become available in the West. Perhaps actors of the right Strauss and Howe archtype played the right characters of the right archetype.

Livanov's Holmes is very focused, very sharp, and very energetic. However, his Holmes is also very arrogant and hubristic, and sometimes overconfident. Sometimes, Livanov seems to portray a hybrid of a Hero and an Artist. Yet, he is also very human. Solomin's Watson is very tolerant and very soft-spoken. His Watson is a good listener and seems to be supportive.
I had seen a recent thread on this forum about how early Silents differ from late Silents. Russian Sherlock Holmes films perhaps show how an early Silent Basil Livanov differs from the late Silent Vitaly Solomin.
Not all eight known films are on youtube, but at least a couple of films must be on youtube.
The most famous film, Hound of the Baskervilles (1981) with 46 year old Livanov and 39 year old Solomin is on youtube with English subtitles.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...4DCD0F30520A76

Originally Posted by Chemicalbaritone

Are there any fans of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson here on this forum?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in 1859. By chronology of Conan Doyle's stories and novels, Sherlock Holmes was born around 1854 and Doctor Watson was born around 1852. This makes Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to be member of the Progressive Generation. Thus, Holmes and Watson both seem to fit the Artist archetype by their birth years.

In late 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviet television filmed eight feature films about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. These films icluded A Study In the Scarlet, The Speckled Band, Charles Augustus Milverton, Final Problem, Empty House, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Sign of the Four, and His Last Bow, and I had seen all of these. I also heard that here were films The Blue Carbuncle, The Six Napoleons, The Red-Headed League, and The Dancing Men, but I have never seen any of these films.

Sherlock Holmes was played by Basil Livanov, who was born in 1935. Doctor Watson was played by Vitaly Solomin (1941-2002). By Strauss and Howe definitions, Livanov and Solomin were Russian peers of the Silent generation, also the Artist archetype. So, the Silent actors were playing the Progressive characters. Those Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Livanov were very popular in Russia, and have even become available in the West. Perhaps actors of the right Strauss and Howe archtype played the right characters of the right archetype.

Livanov's Holmes is very focused, very sharp, and very energetic. However, his Holmes is also very arrogant and hubristic, and sometimes overconfident. Sometimes, Livanov seems to portray a hybrid of a Hero and an Artist. Yet, he is also very human. Solomin's Watson is very tolerant and very soft-spoken. His Watson is a good listener and seems to be supportive.
I had seen a recent thread on this forum about how early Silents differ from late Silents. Russian Sherlock Holmes films perhaps show how an early Silent Basil Livanov differs from the late Silent Vitaly Solomin.
Not all eight known films are on youtube, but at least a couple of films must be on youtube.
The most famous film, Hound of the Baskervilles (1981) with 46 year old Livanov and 39 year old Solomin is on youtube with English subtitles.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...4DCD0F30520A76

Marvelous and thanks! I always figured Holmes for a fellow Artist, and in the UK, would that be Edwardian rather than Victorian? At any rate, a generation later than the stuffy-old-Victorian image. Neat analysis!

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Marvelous and thanks! I always figured Holmes for a fellow Artist, and in the UK, would that be Edwardian rather than Victorian? At any rate, a generation later than the stuffy-old-Victorian image. Neat analysis! 


Edwardian Generation in UK does seem equivalent to the Progressive Generation in US. By their birth years, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would fit right into the Edwardian Generation.

In the Soviet films of late 1970s and early 1980s, Sherlock Holmes is portrayed by an early Silent actor, and Doctor Watson is portrayed by a late Silent actor. Basil Livanov seems to play an overconfident and socially conservative Holmes, yet a very human and sensitive one. So, Livanov's Holmes seems to be a cusper between Victorian and Edwardian generations. Solomin's Watson is Edwardian all the way. At any rate, Russian Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson seem to be very much in tune with their Strauss and Howe archetypes.

A Study In the Scarlet (1979) - English subtitles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOz_t...e=channel_page

Charles Augustus Milverton (1980) - English subtitles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaC4K...eature=channel

The best political system for borth Russia and the USA is a pragmatic, nonideological nationalism, along the lines of Argentine Peronism or, better still, French Gaullism.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

The best political system for borth Russia and the USA is a pragmatic, nonideological nationalism, along the lines of Argentine Peronism or, better still, French Gaullism.

Cue up an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with Antonio Banderas covering the revolution as a massed choir sings "A new Argentina...."

Didn't Evita's lack of money sense bankrupt the country?

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Cue up an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with Antonio Banderas covering the revolution as a massed choir sings "A new Argentina...."

Didn't Evita's lack of money sense bankrupt the country?

Just a little touch of, just a little touch of, just a little touch of bad policy.

I asked around about those movies. Apparently -- at least according to the people here -- the movies differ from other versions of Sherlock Holmes primariyl in that the writers and directors stayed 100% true to the books. This whereas most movie versions are modified somewhat to fit the tastes of the audience or producer or whoever.

I'm megashara-ing a couple of them tonight; I'll watch them this weekend.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

The best political system for borth Russia and the USA is a pragmatic, nonideological nationalism, along the lines of Argentine Peronism or, better still, French Gaullism.

Yeah. Because Russians -- like everyone else in the world -- are really, deep-down in the core of their souls, exactly the same as Americans...

And Americans already know the best way...