Category: Russia

Lets start it off right….lets grab it by the “Russia Did It” crowd and read a book that is so full of crap, yet everyone wants it. Let Hillary lovers ring in the New Year reading a book at least…. Reading is good for you…

Fire_and_Fury_by_Michael_Wolff

I just had to get you a link to a new source. Wikileaks put it out there (not sure why?) Google has already shut down the link on Google servers. Saying, “Bandwidth exceeded, try again later!”

Twitter has shut down the Tweet Tweet…

New Trump book “Fire and Fury” by Michael Wolff. Full PDF: https://t.co/sf7vj4IYAx
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 7, 2018

Did not know that Google had bandwidth limitations? But I have always known that Twitter censors… Hmm…

My suspicions are that like many other things that have surfaced, this book was bought and paid for by The Clinton Foundation governmental services to make sure that you get nothing but the truth and I mean nothing but the truth….along with several other unworthy lies called news, in the last few many many years…

Now the whole planet can read it….The USA Chaos in its purest form…

WtR

MOSCOW, January 8. /TASS/. Fifteen independent applicants intended to participate in presidential elections in Russia, filed documents with Russia’s Central Election Commission, while 46 potential candidates initially claimed they would participate in the elections, according to Central Election Commission’s press service.

At midnight on January 8, the Commission has finished receiving documents from independent candidates. “Since the beginning of the presidential campaign, the Russian Central Election Commission received 46 notifications from citizens who decided to run in Russian presidenti46 c\al election independently, while only fifteen such candidates submitted their applications for consideration,” the Commission said.

Self-nominated candidates must collect at least 300,000 signatures of voters on order to be registered, at least 7,500 signatures in each Russian region. Candidates from non-parliamentary parties require 100,000 signatures, candidates from parliamentary parties do not have to collect signatures.

The stage of registering candidates began on December 27, 2017. The Russian presidential election will be held on March 18, 2018. According to the campaign schedule, candidates nominated by parties are obliged to provide documents required for nomination to the Central Election Commission before January 12.

More: http://tass.com/politics/984161

WtR

Russians are slowing down from the partying and fireworks every night…

It is almost fun to walk Boza during the day. People are resting and reading books (Russians still read books and books and more books!) and something else that I noticed; this year the dachas are able to be utilized. Normally it is frozen solid around here and trying to get to the dachas would be a death sentence, but this year people are spending holidays elsewhere and in their dachas is a good place…

It has made our Moscow world seem like it is summer, but cold. In the summer people stay in their dachas and life is better in Moscow, less people. This winter holiday has been that same way. Life is not bad for once. I even saw empty parking spaces this morning, that my friend is totally amazing. I counted four empty spots as I walked Boza at 5 a.m…

Svetochka just spent a few days staying at her mothers and she came home last night to her boys. Boza and I were glad our girl is home. She was tired and grouchy though… 🙂

Orthodox Christmas in Russia on the 7th of January

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and this is a big Orthodox Holiday. This is considered real Christmas in Russia, the New Year is the basic materialism holiday and the Christmas coming on the Jan. 7th is a very religious holiday…

Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Belarus, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Moldova and Montenegro continue to celebrate Christmas on January 7…

To me, I like it. I feel having a religious based Christmas separate from such an overwhelming materialistic Christmas is a good thing. We try to convince ourselves that Christmas is about Jesus, but in reality, our Christmas on the 25th is about commercialism and money…

Therefore, for two days I will not post. This time of the year has become special to me. I spent the last two winters in the Tiny Russian Village and this Orthodox Christmas time is special. We need more real special in the world and a whole lots less, “Special!”

Sometimes I feel the whole world has become, “So Special, as in Special Ed!” This is a saying we use to have in my younger years, I am sure it would trigger a few million (billion) snowflakes now!

I will see you all in a few days. I need a break. Last month I posted 70 articles. That is more than two a day and I only missed posting two day out of the whole month of December. This is very normal for me, but sometimes it needs to be cyclic broken. Then start again…

Read a book people, I am…

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one. ~ George R.R. Martin

or

Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river. ~ Lisa See

or

Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón

or

Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you’ll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the binding. ~ Stephen King

WtR

Russian Sergey Lavrov has learned to smile in the face of adversaries, from Vladimir Putin: When asked about how he manages to keep a straight face and say, “Western partners” without laughing and or cringing out loud, Lavrov expressed that Putin has taught him to be diplomatic in his expressions…Besides Lavrov said, “He also uses this phrase,” Then he said, “I believe that, by and large, everyone we communicate with is a partner. But partners are contractual partners – and there are partners that are hopelessly incompetent, which is more and more apparent in the West.” said Lavrov…

I see that Russia is getting real tired of trying to be polite and courteous. This is the upcoming moments that I have expressed many times on this website…

The world has been accommodating, but there is a limit to how much a bully (USA) can push people around…

WtR

Months ago we got what was the start of updates to try to salvage a bad situation with Intel chips…

After several updates sneaked in when no one was watching, the computer started to crawl. Then I installed the savior of my system update and….The speed (not too good to begin with) dropped by at least 25% and more. The computer became a dog on a hot summer day, laying under a shade tree… (Bow Wow)

The flaw, now named Meltdown, was revealed on Wednesday and affects most processors manufactured by Intel since 1995.

Latest update:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000025619/software.html

Therefore, our computer had become a snail and was not really fun to operate anymore, but you are told, “Sacrifice speed for safety!” Merry Christmas is what I say…

It got so bad that Svetochka and I talked about what to do and how to get the money together to get a better system. Sveta kept saying the computer is slow and I saw and felt the same thing….I knew why to a point, but did and had nothing to salvage the situation….code writer I am not, for Intel…

I even went to the trouble to try to install a video card in a system that did not like the idea, just to help play a simple YouTube video again. The computer had gotten that slow….this lead me to doing things that I should not have done and I did those things that I should have not done and things that were forced upon me, because of Intel issues and flaws. Flaws that have been known about for a long time. I sent the turtle speed computer to an early grave. My bad….but I learn…

Honey I blew up the computer, so lets have coffee…

At least I found out it was not all my fault!

In all my work over several days on the computer, RIP, I inadvertently allowed the WannaCry Virus to sneak in. This added insult to injury and in the process of trying to salvage a computer that was on its deathbed anyway, I almost lost two hard drives of data. But I salvaged most of it. I salvaged the disks also…

Then I gathered parts and emptied the computer case and started from scratch…

Svetochka helped in areas that I needed patience and a smart girl and we succeeded. I take blame for allowing what happened to happen. I should know better! Guess I was lazy?

Then started the next round of issues:

The motherboard I had installed was a Windows 7 Gigabyte board and an AMD processor. We doubled our memory to 16 Gigs and I installed Windows 7. Ran like a stripped ass ape….But, even the updates (and a decidedly lack of care by Microsoft on updates, due to a non supportive Microsoft who wants Windows 10 to be installed), could not stop the onslaught of viruses coming at us left and right. This is the same thing that we found many years ago with Windows 2000 and the security venerabilities…

WannaCry found its way back and crippled the system for the second time…

Thus, I turned to Linux:

Now I had too become a We!

We both use the computer and Svetochka wants the computer to do all she could do with Windows installed. That means all programs that she used in Windows had to have a good or better replacement or be made to run under Linux. That left out my favorite Linux, Puppy Linux and it meant that I had to try to adapt one of the big Linux boys to our use…

Time to study and relearn some Linux data and I settled upon Linux Mint, a Ubuntu branch, a very supported branch. Since the computer was a we in the end. I installed Clam Av anti-virus scanner and activated the built in firewall. Then I grabbed “Wine” (No not a drink!) and installed what I could make work of Windows based programs and then found better software to replace what I could not make run. Svetochka the boss wants what Svetochka wants and if not, it better be better than what she had… 😉

Little more work:

I have to say, Linux if chosen correctly is main stream ready. Linux Mint is solid and stable and I will leave it at that…

More work than Windows to get up to speed, but worth it. Linux is just not an install and dance a happy dance as you play in the computer world. Linux still takes a little bit of effort and a learning curve, but Linux Mint as Ubuntu does, takes much of that away. It has become a very user friendly system for someone who desires to get all anti-Windows and all such…

Grandma would say, “Always good in the end!”

Everything just works. Plug in something to the USB and it just works. Eg….we have a external CD and in Windows you had to install a huge program to make it work correctly. In Linux it just works, no extra drivers, no extra software and plug and play. Also we have a Netis WiFi adapter and it was just plug and use. Just simply amazing. I guess all works out in the end…right grandma?

Bad Intel:

http://fortune.com/2017/11/21/intel-core-cpu-security-minix/

You have known about this issue and we have millions and millions of computers that are worthless now that issues are being exploited. If you get it sealed up, you slow your system down. But as the big boys say, “Suck it up baby!”

Good article below on what has happened and what they will do about it. In the meantime as always, some of us get taken for a ride…

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-management-engine-bug/

Hey, just buy a new computer! 😉

WtR

It takes a few days to sink in. 2018 is here and we are now counting down a new year….actually hard to get a grip on, for it seems that 2017 just started to me. It was a good year here in Russia and the Russian people moved forward far in life this last year…

According to the past:

1. We should be out of oil.
2. The ozone hole should have killed us all by now.
3. Y2K was the end of technology.
4. Religion televangelist Pat Robertson said, “I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world,”.
5. Halley’s Comet, 1910 the end of times.
6. The upcoming ice age turned to a heat wave in propaganda.
7. Mass starvation the world over.
8. Pollution would end life way before now.
9. Nitrogen build up was inevitable.
10. Computers would never be a home and personal item.
11. TV and other media stuff would become boring and end in its usage.
12. Reading and such, would cause us to loose an eye and become cyclops.
13. Lots more was predicted.

But some things happened…

1. Nikola Tesla predicted personal wireless devices would be real.
2. H.G. Wells talked about Nukes.
3. Isaac Asimov talked about the Internet and learning.
4. Driver less cars.
5. AT&T told us about tablet computers.
6. TV will make future generations stupid.
7. Organ transplants.
8. lots more happened…

All I know is this:

We are able to do anything and everything, if we could just get over our stupidity. Nothing is beyond our reach as a species, but ignorance and self-contentedness keeps getting in the way all the time…

Will we grow out of it?

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It’s made up of pioneers, the beginners. That’s where the action is. – Abraham Maslow

Can we keep from killing, suppressing and devaluing the tips of growth?

WtR

Source: “#FrozenAmerica”: Locals Panic As 92% Of US Below Freezing

I find this article above interesting, for Russia is the opposite and is really very nice weather here…

I am not complaining….for it is great to walk around in just 0 Celsius temperatures instead of -20 below and that my friend is a needed break for us Russian types…

I have always said, “Keep the natural gas at home and use it for your own people! Life is not a dollar bill and staying warm is worth all the gold and dollars in the world.”

Why Britain is being beat to death over extremely high gas prices, that Russia is having to ship excess gas LNG to Britain so that the British do not run out of fuel this winter…

Hmm! Maybe Russia needs to ship some to America?

Stay warm America…

WtR

January 1st till January 8th and all of Russia literally comes to a halt. I kind of like it and have grown use to it. When I first came to Russia many years ago, I was taken back by the fact that the whole country shut down and people partied until they ran out of money and or booze. Russians have lots of extra spending money and the ones who drink? This is the holiday of all holidays….plus Russians shoot fireworks like no tomorrow and this shooting of fireworks will last about the whole week they are off. Once again, the limitations is when everyone runs out of money, booze and fireworks…

Though as the title suggests….this holiday is sleepy and quiet. You can walk the daytime streets of Moscow and find at best 25% of the normal people out and about. Svetochka and I take advantage of such moments in life and go see things…

Yes I like the holidays in Russia and below is a table of the 2018 holidays to come…

Date	Weekday	Holiday Name	Holiday Type
				Jan 1	Monday	New Year’s Day	National holiday
Jan 2	Tuesday	New Year Holiday Week	National holiday
Jan 3	Wednesday	New Year Holiday Week	National holiday
Jan 4	Thursday	New Year Holiday Week	National holiday
Jan 5	Friday	New Year Holiday Week	National holiday
Jan 7	Sunday	Orthodox Christmas Day	National holiday, Orthodox
Jan 8	Monday	New Year Holiday Week	National holiday
Jan 14	Sunday	Old New Year	Observance
Feb 14	Wednesday	Valentine’s Day	Observance
Feb 23	Friday	Defender of the Fatherland Day	National holiday
Feb 27	Tuesday	Special Operations Forces Day	De facto holiday
Mar 8	Thursday	International Women’s Day	National holiday
Mar 20	Tuesday	March equinox	Season
Apr 8	Sunday	Orthodox Easter Day	Observance, Orthodox
Apr 28	Saturday	Spring and Labor Day Holiday	Working day (moved weekend)
Apr 30	Monday	Spring and Labor Day Holiday	National holiday
May 1	Tuesday	Spring and Labor Day	National holiday
May 9	Wednesday	Victory Day	National holiday
Jun 9	Saturday	Working day – moved weekend	Working day (moved weekend)
Jun 11	Monday	Russia Day Weekend	National holiday
Jun 12	Tuesday	Russia Day	National holiday
Jun 21	Thursday	June Solstice	Season
Sep 1	Saturday	Day of Knowledge	De facto holiday
Sep 23	Sunday	September equinox	Season
Nov 4	Sunday	Unity Day	National holiday
Nov 5	Monday	Unity Day observed	National holiday
Dec 21	Friday	December Solstice	Season
Dec 29	Saturday	Working day – moved weekend	Working day (moved weekend)

Have a nice day…

WtR

Here comes Santa Claus Ded Moroz…

Is There A Santa Claus in Russia? (Audio)

Have a happy New Year from Svetochka, Boza and Kyle at Windows to Russia…

WtR

U.S. Military To Allow Transgender Recruits After Trump Administration Drops Appeal

An LGBT activist says the Trump administration has waved “the white flag,” dropping an appeal of court rulings blocking a ban on transgender troops.

Source: U.S. Military To Allow Transgender Recruits After Trump Administration Drops Appeal

Maxwell Q. Klinger played by Jamie Farr was a well loved part of MASH, but Klinger has been grounded….no chance of getting out now, transgenders are welcomed with open arms in the USA military. 😉

Time to be who you want to be and get to crawl on the ground at shoot someone at the same time…

Yes I know that Klinger was just acting and really desired to just get out of the hell hole of war, but he will have to find another way out now….he is no longer unique… Now it is no longer acting to get out, it is soon to be, what “prom dress” do I get to wear to the front line? A girl has to look good you know?

I wonder if we will accept all (100+) genders? Will we allow all aspects that go hand in hand with these gender names? (and or) Will we pay for all gender reassessment or realignment of body parts, including mental adjustment and what-knots?

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There is still a ways to go (but we are over half way to the bottom) before we slam head first unto the floor of the pit. Many years ago we threw ourselves off the edge and decided that the ride to the bottom was worth it. But one day that bottom will come and then paying the piper will become foremost important. Funny thing about leaping off a cliff and or into a big hole, it is like selling your soul to the devil!

I am going to have a cup of coffee and then go laugh until I cry…

Happy New Year America!

WtR