Category: Russia

Sometimes I wonder about humans. I have watched the development of using a gun laser site to blind pilots as they land. At first I took it as a isolated issue. But it seems that now, like me, the news in Russia has finally understood that this is a serious problem…

So while sipping that cup of coffee this morning. I did some digging up on information about laser blinding of pilots flying aircraft. Somewhere around 30 incidents of laser blinding have occurred or were attempted in Russia since January of 2011. The first recorded incident in Russia seems to be around 1994 when a teenager tried to blind a pilot of an aircraft. The Moscow area seems to be most prone to laser blinding. Last month during June. Federal aviation authorities of Russia, put out on the news sources that there is an increasing number of laser-related attempts targeting aircraft pilots, with gun site laser targeting devises…

In fact we just had a teenager arrested in Russia this last Monday: “Police in Chechnya detained on Monday a teenager who on Sunday had aimed a laser pointer at the cockpit of a passenger aircraft as it came into land at the airport in the republic’s capital, almost blinding the pilots.”

I can see it now: The airline captain says: Welcome to Moscow, fasten your seat belt and don’t worry about the evasive maneuvers as we try to dodge the laser pointers aimed at blinding us. Just hang on tight and we will make it alive…

There are just some stupid things that people shouldn’t do and pointing laser devices at airline pilots is one of those things…

Windows to Russia!

PS: How did we progress from writing our name on the wall with a laser pointer, to blinding airline pilots? It also looks like this is common in America…

The predicted outcome of the meeting between Medvedev and Rasmussen. NATO says: Russia involved in Europe’s missile defense? No Way! But we can keep talking about it come the NATO summit and G-8 meeting in Chicago in May 2012…

Hmm, I find it interesting that Rasmussen side stepped until May 2012. That is a long ways off. Could be election pressure by America. Since America will bankroll most of the missile defense…

Windows to Russia!

“The Russian Communists say the country’s foreign policy needs to change course as a new world order is looming.

­The country’s course will be radically changed if the Communists come to power after parliamentary elections in December, the party’s leader Gennady Zyuganov has said. The Communist Party (CPRF) will work to disband NATO and establish a full-fledged alliance with Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Russia could revive and remove external threats through a change of power, Zyuganov told the CPRF Central Committee’s plenary meeting held at the weekend. The Communists are planning to come to power via peaceful means to “change Russia’s fate in the interest of the masses,” he stressed. Read More >>>”

I find this an interesting article and from what I see around here in Moscow. The disbanding of NATO would be welcomed by Russians. It makes me wonder will that pull more Russians to look at the Communist party as a viable option again…

Windows to Russia!

Over coffee this morning I was doing some thinking’s about a few e-mails. After being asked more than several times by e-mail how we knew we were blocked and not just hosting problems? Also asked was how could they block just one single site? Those are fair questions…

Answer: A website is made up of various files and in our situation with Wordpress we have what is called an index file. Files have a setting to change the readability of them. The host was changing our index file to unreadable. They physically blocked our index file. They did this from higher up than what we have access to on the server. I tried to change this file back myself but they refused to allow it to be changed. Then they would change the file themselves and allow us access, after prodding by me over the legalities of what they are doing. That is how we knew that the host performed the block themselves. If index file was unreadable, the whole blog was unreadable and that is how they affected only one blog out of all that we have. It was a direct targeting of Windows to Russia…

Hope that answers the e-mails that we got about this issue…

Something that needs to be realized by people who have a website on line. You never have total security from being shut down. You only can take the best and strongest precautions that you can, to circumvent said shut down. In our case we have now removed one more way that the USA can pull the switch when they decide to censor a website…

What was happening was a deliberate block of Windows to Russia and this was done with the hope that I would not see it for several days. If we had been on vacation or something and a way from the computer for days. Then yes it would have worked…

I have seen a lot of this happening anymore…

Windows to Russia!

The big issue in Russia today seems to be centered around the Russia-NATO Council that is in Sochi as I write this article. It will mainly focus on Euro-Atlantic security and the joint AMD system…

The foundation of the focus of the meeting is on the agreements settled on during the Russia-NATO summit in Lisbon on November 20, 2010. Moscow and the NATO during that meeting had agreed to build a Russian-NATO partnership based on the principles of mutual trust, the indivisibility of security, transparency and predictability…

Russia is wanting to see the: Trust, Security, Transparency and Predictability part put into effect. Words are words, but actions speak louder than words…

So far NATO actions are going in the opposite direction of NATO words…

Windows to Russia!

Have a happy and safe 4th of July, 2011!

When I was young this was my second favorite big holiday (Christmas was first of course!) I just loved to set off fireworks. Sometimes I wonder how I survived after thinking about some of the things I did and created with fireworks… 🙂

Happy 4th…

Windows to Russia!

After an interesting day, Windows to Russia has been moved from a USA based hosting to a hosting based out of India… (As several figured that out and expressed to us, their thoughts in comments and e-mails!)

As per this article: “Coffee and Blocked” explains what happened and enough information of why we had to leave. I will state and add that the same day that “Coffee and Blocked” was posted. We were knocked offline again for over three hours. It covered a 6 hour period and was a one sided affair by me. The site would be blocked and I would write an e-mail. (I would also try to connect by live chat and that just did not work either.) Then the site would come back on line and they would never respond. The site would go back down and I would write an e-mail. The site would be unblocked, again with no word from the host. This became a game for about 6+ hours until they tired of said game and gave up on it for the day. It only affected the Windows to Russia blog. All other blogs were unaffected. No explanation was offered by said host…

On Saturday Sveta and I finalized who we wanted to use as our next host. This host right now is only for Windows to Russia. We have acquired two hosts, one in India and one in Russia. We will have a reflective updating mirroring system set up after we are all done and that will allow Windows to Russia to be able to stay on line better against server crashes. Of course this does not happen over night because Sveta and I have to learn as we go…

We are officially on the Indian server as I write this and the new hosting company has been very nice to work with during the transfer. It looks to be a good situation for Windows to Russia and we will decide later about moving all blogs. As of right now Coffee Talk, Thoughts of Moscow, Russian News From Russia and Windows to Russia have been moved. They all reside on the same domain…

Thanks everyone for patience and lets hope over the next few days that we get everything back in the groove again. Sveta and I have learned a lot this weekend and we had fun…

Windows to Russia!

Update: After being asked several times by e-mail how we knew we were blocked and not just hosting problems? That is a fair question…

Answer: The host was changing our index file to unreadable. They physically blocked our index file. They did this from higher up than what we have access to on the server. I tried to change this file back myself but they refused to allow it to be changed. Then they would change the file themselves and allow us access. That is how we knew that the host performed the block themselves. If index file was unreadable the whole blog was unreadable and that is how they affected only one blog out of all that we have. It was a direct targeting of Windows to Russia…

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” by  Dwight Eisenhower…

That sums up what I was thinking this morning while sipping that cup of coffee…

Windows to Russia!

Coffee was good this morning but thinking’s lay heavy on my mind as I sipped that cup of java…

Yesterday I posted an article that evidently hit home to some organizations. This article touched on the subject of “Political Rot” in the Western System…

I have known that I am going to have to protect Windows to Russia better from censorship by the West. It is an issue that has been predominate since Blogger tried to shut me down over a year ago. I have watched the development of the internet issues in America and also Europe. It seems that every week now we have sites being knocked off line by the governments. It seems to me that last week, when they took several whole servers offline in America for one bad site and many people lost their websites, that the writing is on the wall…

So to make a long story short! Windows to Russia was knocked offline yesterday on purpose and deceitfully. My article was going viral and exploded. That is when Windows to Russia was shut down and after many hours of calls, e-mails and chat sessions. They finally had no legal grounds to keep our site shut down and grudgingly put it back on line. But by then the damage was done and we lost the momentum of the moment and Google then turned tail and ran from it… 🙂

The article took off in China, Russia, India and several other countries. That was accomplished by their search engines. But the one place that it needed to be presented was curtailed… (That was the goal!)

I realized after studying the situation that I left myself vulnerable. I am hosted out of the USA and in that sense everything falls under the jurisdiction of America and her idiosyncrasies. So for that fact alone we are going to have to safe haven Windows to Russia in a server situation that can not be exploited by government intervention easily…

Funny – Ha Ha for me and against me! Windows to Russia still had one of the largest days ever for traffic and they succeeded in keeping her off line for almost 4 hours during the peak time frame for Windows to Russia…

So if I am shut down again! You know why…

Windows to Russia!

PS: The issue should be fixed by Monday. Sveta and I are going Indian based…

Soup maker Campbell has announced that it is giving up on business in Russia. The reason given in the local news for Campbell’s demise is in Russia’s conservative food culture. The American company just could not defeat Russian culinary tradition…

Russian’s say that in Russia, a housewife who cannot cook soup is not a proper housewife. I say that anyone in Russia who can not cook soup is not Russian. In Russia soup is more than a quick meal and it is part of most every meal. So to not be able to make soup means that you simply can not cook…

Soup is part of that “Old Russian Soul” that I talk about time and again…

Windows to Russia has several soup recipes:
http://windowstorussia.com/recipe-from-russia-simple-solyanka-soup_25.html
http://windowstorussia.com/chicken-lapsha-russian-noodle-soup.html
http://windowstorussia.com/recipe-from-russia-very-simple_15.html

These links are just a few of the home made liquid meals available… 🙂

I understand why Russians would not want Campbell soups because they just are not soup in the Russian sense of the world. They are fake soup and full of sodium…

You have to look at Pepsi and Coke in Russia to understand how to survive. Pepsi and Coke are buying up juice companies like there is no tomorrow and Coke is rocking the Kvas world in Russia with their form of Kvas. The bottom line is you have to look at what the Russians want and give them what they want. Kvas and real fruit juice rules in Russia… (Don’t say yuck until you try it!)

As in my article yesterday about fast food: Russia the New Fast Food Haven? Russia is a huge growing market for the fast food industry. But I say growing. Most people in Russia never eat out and that means that you cook food at home and it is not from a can and instant…

Sveta and I eat soup several times a week. In fact I am making some today. Why have condensed soup when you can make the real thing the way you want it to taste?

So it is a good thing in my eyes that Campbell soup has gone home…

Russians do not need that type of food…

Windows to Russia!