MsGuy

Yazoo is a first nation word too. It's just that I'm such a delicate boy, Zipper; I tear up too easily. Yeah, I've had that very problem with my own posts on more than one occasion. Sometimes folks just don't get that I'm joking around. (not meaning you, of course) When we're doing humor, I guess we've got to accept that sometimes our best effort will fall flat on its face.

1) Neither the will nor the capacity exists for the US (or NATO) to support Ukraine with hard power. 2) German reserves of natural gas are not all that substantial at any time and have been run down a bit already to meet winter demand. I guess they could turn those mothballed nuclear plants back on for electricity, but w/o Russian gas, in a few months a lot of people in Germany would be sitting in cold apartments and eating cold food out of cans. Their chemical industry would be crippled. The US threw a purple fit back when they Germans first cut their gas deals with the USSR for exactly that reason. 3) What are the chances the Europeans will support serious sanctions if that threatens their gas supply, not to mention tens of billions of existing investments in Russia? The threats are empty because objectively Russia can influence events in Ukraine much more easily and more effectively and at far less cost than we can. And because the Ukraine is far more important to them than to us. I can remember feeling sick to my stomach when Bush, jr. and Biden would natter on in public about offering Ukraine candidate status for the European Union and eventually NATO membership. Crazy talk and arrogant as hell. In the past Putin has been fairly cautious and realistic in his objectives outside Russia. I just hope that will prove to be the case in Ukraine. Please remember: the folks in Kiev who took to the streets essentially mounted a coup against a government they saw turning toward Russia. Not all Ukranians oppose a pro-Russian policy. To them that bunch in Kiev we're backing has no legitimacy. I doubt a few thousand Russian troops based in Sevastopol could seize control of the Crimea w/o substantial support from the local population.

Where do I find that 'action figure'?

Thank you for the support, RA1. I was studiously ignoring Zipper's insult but it's nice that someone stepped forward to stop the bully.

Naw, I just pretended to change my mind & let her think she had persuaded me the publication was legit. Wasn't hard 'cause she wanted to believe that too. I'll put up with a lot if you make good pasta.

What with the kleptocracy running the Kremlin. I'm not sure Putin can afford to have a Ukraine next door that's better governed than Russia proper. Might make too many folks restless. At any rate, I don't believe for a minute this is about the Crimea. Putin intends to have a Russia friendly state with a government in the Ukraine prepared to give Moscow due deference. I doubt formal annexation of the rest of Ukraine is an immediate goal. And don't think the Baltic countries with their large Russian minorities won't notice when Germany, the US and Western Europe confine their reaction to ineffectual fussing. What's that NATO guarantee worth now?

I had a friend who was invited to have herself listed in something called "Who's Who in American Academia" or some such. Only cost a couple of hundred bucks. I got the giggles when she bragged to me about it; she got highly offended, lol, and I back tracked and tried to explain it was a scam. Not much luck with that effort. She wanted to believe she was being recognized & honored for her outstanding academic work, so believe it she did. Silly woman believed in gypsy fortune tellers too and lit candles to a little statue of St. Jude (patron saint of lost causes among other things). And got really loud when she felt you had crossed her (did I forget to mention she was 1/2 Sicilian?). I just shut up. It was only a couple hundred dollars and it made her happy. Besides she was a good cook and I liked being invited over to eat.

And the band plays on. More than 120 scientific and engineering papers have had to be withdrawn by publishers after Cyril Lobbe of Fourier University developed a program to automatically detect papers written by gibberish generator SCIgen. You'd think someone would have figured this out by now.

22.56 Ukraine's defence ministry said it had information that unknown "radical forces" were planning to try to disarm its military units in Crimea early on Saturday morning and warned against such action. "In the case of such unknown actions, the Ukrainian armed forces will act in accordance with the laws of Ukraine and the regulations of the Ukrainian armed forces," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Here you can find the BBC live feed on the Ukraine. 20:57: The head of police in Sevastopol, Gen Vitaliy Malikov, has resigned according to the ATR television channel. 21:13: The assets of up to 20 Ukrainians, including those of President Yanukovich and his son, have been frozen by Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein, Reuters reports. The former president on Friday said that talk of foreign bank accounts was "empty chatter". 20:34: Meanwhile, armed men are operating at checkpoints on the main roads connecting Crimea to mainland Ukraine. In this photo, masked men who say that they are members of Ukraine's disbanded Berkut riot police force man a barricade near the northern Crimean city of Armyansk. ==== PS I found lookin's link ("can't see...ending well") useful and insightful. Well worth reading. ==== Just my first guess, but Putin appears to be setting up for a slow roll annexation of the Crimea and possibly more. Whether he pulls the trigger on that probably depends on how much he can get through intimidation & negotiation. I doubt he himself knows (at least I hope not) but he has sure as hell made it crystal clear that ain't nothing going to happen without his consent. Remember when Georgia was making noises about joining the European Union and maybe eventually NATO? Naw, that didn't happen either, did it?

County coroners (elected in Mississippi) rarely have any medical training. Often enough they are funeral home directors anxious to make first contact with the recently bereaved. Who the hell else would want the job enough to mount a county wide political race? Seeing as how they were about to drain him and pump him full of formaldehyde when he started jerking around, I'd say the guy moved as fast as possible to secure a profitable piece of business.

Previously I've read descriptions of Ukraine as Russia w/o Putin, i.e. oligarchs busy looting the country with no check on their activities. Recall that many of the opposition speakers to the crowds in Kiev were booed and shouted down. Some say they are just another set of kleptocrats trying to ride the demonstrations back into power and grab their share of the loot before it's too late. Another take on what's going on there now and mistakes the folks in Kiev have been making: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0228/Is-it-too-late-for-Kiev-to-woo-Russian-speaking-Ukraine ==== Ukraine appeals to U.N. Security Council: 19.45 The UN Security Council will hold a closed-door emergency session in 15 minutes on the escalating crisis in Ukraine on Friday at the request of the new Kiev government, which warned that the situation in Crimea threatened Ukraine's territorial integrity, Reuters has reported. Armed men took control of two airports in Ukraine's autonomous Crimea region earlier on today in what the country's leadership described as an invasion and occupation by Russian forces. Russia denied involvement in the airport seizures. CNN reports as I type that masked gunmen who appear to be Russian military personnel have surrounded the state TV station in the provincial capitol of Crimea. Also reports are that telecommunications and internet connections between the peninsular of Crimea and the rest of the Ukraine have been disabled. ==== Back to gossip about memos re: Clinton's sexual doings back in the 90's and speculation of present rivalry between Hilary and Biden vs. their cooperation in the Obama administration. Can the latest news of the Bieb be far behind? I thought CNN was supposed to be the serious news channel.

Follow real time news of events in the Crimea here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10666893/Ukraine-crisis-live-Russia-admits-its-troops-are-moving-in-Crimea.html Sample posts: "Russian foreign ministry admits to entering Crimea from its Black Sea Fleet base as the Ukraine's interior minister accuses country of 'armed invasion' " 17.06 Russia has just said it will give Russian passports to members of Ukraine's Berkut - the disbanded riot police. 16.42 Putin has called for a rapid return to normality in Ukraine and warned against any further escalation of unrest, in telephone calls with key EU leaders, the Kremlin said. Putin emphasised "the extreme importance of not allowing a further escalation of violence and the necessity of a rapid normalisation of the situation," the Kremlin said after Putin had separate phone calls with Cameron, Merkel and European Union president Herman van Rompuy. 16.40 Journalists in Crimea have spotted a convoy of nine Russian armored personnel carriers and a truck on a road between the port city of Sevastopol and the regional capital, Sinferopol. 10.10 Our foreign correspondent Harriet Alexander says worried politicians inside Ukraine’s parliament have pleaded with Britain and the US to come to their rescue. The two Western powers signed a memorandum with Ukraine in 1994, which Kiev’s parliament now wants enforcing. The Budapest Memorandum, signed by Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma – the then-rulers of the USA, UK, Russia and Ukraine – promises to uphold the territorial integrity of Ukraine, in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons. Article One reads: “The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine ... to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” ---- One should be aware that the Crimea is 80/90% ethnic Russian, people who speak Russian as their first language. Until the late 1950's the Crimea was politically a province of Russia. Khrushchev transfer the province to Ukraine for administrative reasons. Over the weekend an ethnic Russian nationalist mob took over the municipal mayor's office and installed a new mayor. ----- Latest: 17.35 All aircraft movements at Sevastopol's Belbek airfield are stopped after unidentified individuals seized the runway, a according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency

I wish... But yes, there's been one or two I would definitely off if I had a black card.

AS, I'd tell you to go fuck your Moma but you would.

Vanity, thy name is OZ. But I gotta admit it was the best review I've read in a long time.

Ain't a question of right or wrong. Or principle or the public interest. It's about who can muster the lobbying clout to muscle their self interest through Congress.

You're on! Fucking Bama peckerheads always looking down on folks from Mississippi. Your only hope is Sabin recruits an out gay quarterback who wins both the Heisman and a national championship.

Sounds so much nicer than the truth: "Well the religious crazies were gnawing at my right tit and the tourist lobby was gnawing at my left. I was squirming like hell but then the NFL stuck hot needles through my nips * and I saw the light." * The NFL commissioner allowed as how he would reserve judgement on moving next year's Super Bowl from Arizona until the matter was resolved. (The NFL cancelled a prior Super Bowl in Arizona when it refused to recognize Martin Luther King Day as a state holiday.)

LOL, I thought I read somewhere your twice born Supreme Court Judge was still out campaigning to pave Alabama all over with copies of the Ten Commandments. Want to make a side bet on whether Alabama or Mississippi will fall first?

LOL, like I'm ever going to think of buying a hand-crank while the lights are still on. Hell, I'm doing good to remember the ketchup.

kindness and compassion?

When you're soaking up 5% to 6% of the economy over and above the next most expensive health care system in the world, the cost of "an incredible amount of legislative and administrative bandwidth" is a rounding error. The hell of it is that the health care folks as a whole are completely conscious that the system is unsustainable but each separate segment is willing to die in the trenches rather than have their particular part of the pie squeezed. It just occurred to me: folks are always bitching about US jobs being shipped overseas when converting to a single payer system would reduce the labor costs of US based manufacturing by 25% or so immediately.

You have good taste, Tomcal. #119 is definitely the pick of the litter.

Sorry, AS, but unless Ms. Chambers is a particularly attractive pre-op, I'd have to take a pass on that.