Windows to Russia

Poison Ivy that is something that I grew up with and dealt with many times in my life in America. I even had to steer Sveta away from the plant in America when she came and visited many years ago. She had never heard of it and was wanting to check out a healthy dark green vine of the dreaded plant of itching…

As Sveta and I walk around Russia, be it in Moscow or in the village or on one of our trips, I am always on the lookout for that plant. It is engrained in me as while I do not get it. I have had family members that have been hospitalized with sever cases of Poison Ivy. One case came from a wood fire that had Poison Ivy tossed on it to burn and the fumes got in their lungs…

Poison Ivy, Poison Oak and Poison Sumac:

I have looked and do not find Poison Ivy, Poison Oak and nor Poison Sumac. I had all three when I lived in Missouri and getting rid of it was like try to get rid of fleas and ticks on your dog. If you live in the country it is a fact of life and you learn to deal with it, by avoidance…

So I have been trying to find if there is such a plant in Russia and as far as I can tell – NO!

Sveta has never seen it nor heard of it and had no idea what it looked like in America. That means that they do not have it and if they do, it is very minor and maybe down south Russia. It is the same thing as asking a Russian, “Do you know what a skunk is?”

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 79.4 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered easy to read…

Movie star Bruce Willis is watching you! As you sit in traffic in Russia, you feel someone watching you. You look around and see no one. Everyone is bored and unhappy as they sit in traffic for hours, but someone is watching you! Then you look up and realize that Bruce Willis is staring at you from a billboard, above the roadway, as he sells banking wares…

Then as you sit in traffic you realize that Depardieu is watching you as he sells home supplies and then you see many more super stars as they sell everything from baby food to high interest loans. Such is the world of Russia as you travel…

Traveling across Moscow will allow you to see Bruce Willis a couple of dozen times. Bruce has a face recognition factor that several banks are using in Russia to peddle their wares. I have no idea if Bruce makes money from these ads and I don’t care. I just know that I see him all over the place as you drive and that includes driving to the village…

Russians loves a movie star of old and they have “real time” recognition with all the actors that are being shoved out of Hollywood for the newer faces. I watch the press in the west as it crucifies actors that turn toward a fan base that still loves them. Steven Seagal is being shredded by the western press as he continues ties with Russia, Bruce Willis gets slaughtered as he makes movies in Russia, Depardieu is being treated as yesterdays day old meat, as he embraces Russia…

I have heard of people from the west talk about how terrible it is that Russians so blatantly use illegal images to promote products…

Movie Star promotion:

I have a better way to look at it and it makes a whole bunch more sense. Face recognition is a priceless factor. By the time I have driven across Moscow, Bruce Willis is embedded in my mind. His latest movie is gangbusters in Russia and why I even am writing an article about the subject of Movie stars on ads in Russia. That is how powerful the message gets across and that my friend, is why it is worth its weight in gold…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 70.1 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered fairly easy to read…

It is way too soon to bet the house fortune on the reliability of reports by the Washington Post (Washington, DC) and The Guardian (United Kingdom) on President Obama’s data harvesting program, known for the moment as PRISM.

With the hot pursuit of mainstream media reporters underway by the US Department of Justice (Associated Press, for example); a US Corporate-State show trial of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange/Wikileaks (Obama has already stated they are guilty); the extraordinary cyberwar/hacking accusations against the Chinese government; and the shrill sound of cyber quackery from the Defense Science Board and its legion of security contractors, caution all around is the order of the day.

Indeed, the membership of President Obama’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NTSAC) reflects the close proximity of the President to critical cyber/telecom/ISP leaders who likely get advanced warning of the incoming nukes. Some of the NSTAC members include Verizon Business Group, Raytheon, AT&T, Vonage, Intelsat, Avaya, Microsoft and Lockheed Martin. And they did not know that their networks, switches, routers, and packets were being violated? Of interest is the presence of FireEye, a cybersecurity firm. One of FireEye’s Board members is Robert Lentz who has an excellent DOD/NSA pedigree. “Robert has served as a member of the board of directors since March 2010. He has served as the president of Cyber Security Strategies since October 2009. He served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber, identity, and information assurance in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Networks and Information Integration/Chief Information Officer from November 2007 to October 2009. Since November 2000, he has also served as the chief information security officer for the U.S. Department of Defense. He previously worked at the National Security Agency from 1975 to 2000, where he served in the first National Computer Security Center.”

The US national security machinery has stated time and again that the Internet and World Wide Web are fair game for military information support operations (MISO) and that means shaping the consciousness of individuals, organizations and governments to the benefit of America’s national interests. Viewed in this manner, it is possible to argue that PRISM would have a chilling effect on not only whistleblowers and their media handlers, but perhaps on practitioners of industrial espionage whether they are French, Chinese or Israeli’s.

The calculated pursuit of mainstream media by President Obama, the publicizing by the US corporate-national security machinery of PRISM, Stuxnet—and the takedown of BitCoin websites; and the entry of Cyber Command into the daily lives of Americans seems to suggest that a new order is afoot, or at least that the US Corporate State is trying to recover/wrest control of the US historical-current-future narrative from independent internal and foreign news/information sources.  Obama seems to have taken US presidential paranoia to new levels.

President Obama’s national security aides and political handlers appear to have adopted the John Haldeman—John Erlichman philosophy and practice of protecting Obama. According to the Telegraph, UK, “Vali Nasr, a university professor who was seconded in 2009 to work with Richard Holbrooke, Mr Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, records his profound disillusion at how a “Berlin Wall” of domestic-focused advisers was erected to protect Mr Obama.  “The president had a truly disturbing habit of funneling major foreign policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisers whose turf was strictly politics,” reports The Telegraph.

Intelligence Agencies as Pollsters

Would it surprise anyone of some eager Obama aides decided to use data mined through a program like PRISM to figure out what American citizens are thinking? Forget Gallup and Pew. With the thoughts, pictures, video, travel records and expenditures of tens of millions of Americans harvested and interpreted by various machine programs and human analysts in the NSA, CIA, and DIA, who needs commercial pollsters. Talk about sample size! And thanks to many US Court decisions, data gathering is largely legal.

And would it not be a matter of national security for the President of the United States to know what Americans are thinking as the USA remains in a state of emergency since 911. Moreover the American nation is still at war and just steps away from lighting up Iran, Syria and Iraq (again). For the global carnage to proceed as planned, the US Corporate State must control the flow of information as it did in World War II (1939-1945).

Obama “is the boss” has a need for “the info” as Doctor Evil so eloquently put it the movie Austin Powers. PRISM data must be in his hands, particularly given that Obama can say with a straight face “civil liberties improve with this type of surveillance.” US Senators must have the info too. Senators like Diane Feinstein, John McCain and Lindsey Graham are “happy” to be monitored and, well, why not all of us. All four of these characters know that American’s will collectively shrug their shoulders and forget about the matter by immersing themselves in the celebrity breakdown of the day.

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of US government data harvesting and analysis programs is that the all of the work is researched, developed, tested and deployed by for-profit companies like those belonging to NSTAC.  According to the Defense Security Service (DSS), “U.S. industry develops and produces the majority of our nation’s defense technology – much of which is classified – and thus plays a significant role in creating and protecting the information that is vital to our nation’s security… DSS has Industrial Security oversight and assistance responsibility for over 13,000 cleared facilities participating in the National Industrial Security Program and estimates that there are over 11 million classified documents in the hands of U.S. industry.” DSS, always understaffed but extraordinarily dedicated, do their best to keep US industry within a tolerable degree of greed.

 All PRISM’s are Not Created Equal

Email, voice, video capture would seem to rely on some sort of read-module within a switch. Analyzing it all—separating wheat and chafe—would appear to require some sort of autonomous machine language. Perhaps some of these PRISM’s are tangentially related to the NSA’s PRISM.

Over at Cryptome, a document from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) describes Protect, Respond, Inform, Secure, and Monitor (PRISM). According to DHS PRISM is composed of two primary components: Contora and ESRI ArcIMS. Additional and optional components include Message 911, Ensco Sentry, and Lunar Eye. These components have been tightly integrated into a single end-user application that provides a messaging, alerting, geo-referenced mapping, asset tracking, CBRN sensing, and public warning system. Lunar Eye is a GPS tracking suite.

A USAF “communications” dictionary shortens Programmable-Reconfigurable-Integrated-Switch and Multiplex to PRISM.

Alcatel-Lucent’s product PRISM/GORI manages SMS (text) messages. A sample of DOD’s DTIC search engine returns when PRISM is entered follows:  MITRE’s PRISM is a software program used to request intelligence collection on moving vehicles, aircraft, people and animals; PaRallel Inference SysteM–PRISM—a connectionist inference for developing machine language and autonomous network management programs; and RDTE Budget Note–PRISM to MAJIIC Interoperability Assessment: assessed that Planning Tool for Resource, Integration, Synchronization and Management (PRISM) and the interface to NATO Multi-Sensor Aerospace-Ground Joint ISR Interoperability Coalition (MAJIIC) was functional and ready for operations by demonstrating automated interoperability and exchange of intelligence requirements.

What’s the Big Deal?

David Bromwich at the Huffington Post sums it up best, “Even now, government aides are most concerned about “the magnitude of the leak.” The question that troubles them is not, How did we come to this? but rather, Shall we prosecute the whistleblower? The pattern is so galling and tedious, and its harms so invisible to all but a few, that we may be tempted to relax and wait for the next election. But remember again the language of the court order. On an ongoing daily basis. All call detail records. Including local telephone calls. The next president will inherit this. No names, no records of words (not yet), no inculpating or exculpating evidence (just “signatures”), but still: these are outlines of the communicative behavior of upward of a million persons, with similarly compelling orders out to the other telecoms. The aim is to capture by index the whole of the U.S. population. The amazing and routine FISA order is a blind command for the opening of a thousand eyes. The plainest rebuke to such procedures comes from the language of the fourth amendment itself.”

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

“By what right are the addressed envelopes of the spoken communications of 280 million citizens plucked from the air by government and filed away? Supported by whose oath and what affirmation? There is a simple force to the words of the fourth amendment after all. It says: we do not live by secret laws, and we will not abide by general warrants. And to the comfort offered by senators Chambliss, Graham, and Feinstein, who ask us to sleep well and sleep long, there is a simple reply. In what country do they think they are living, and under what constitution?”

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security matters. His latest book is Cyber Noodles (cyber security), Orphan Nukes and the Failure of the US National Security State. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 37.3 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered difficult to read…

Russian Bees, a bee that collects pollen at even 38 degrees Fahrenheit or 3 degrees Celsius and endures hardships that only Russian Bees could understand. When winter is 7 months a year and pollen time is short, Russian Bees have to “get er done” or else. It seems that Russian Bees have adapted to such harsh conditions that they have become a super bee in many ways. They even produce as much honey, or even more honey in many cases, than their counterparts in the rest of the world. Could the Russian bees save pollination in the USA? Could the Russian bee save pollination in the rest of the world?

Russian Bees are tough and why?

1. Varroa mites, a tiny parasite that can infest beehives have been declared by the, “US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the single greatest cause of the dramatic decline in the US honeybee population, which has fallen from 6 million colonies in 1947 to 2.5 million today…”

It seems that many moons ago, the Russian Bees grew to adapt to these mites and have learned to live and thrive with them present. The American Bee is being decimated by these mites and the Russian Bees dance with them at night…

2. Russian Bees gather pollen when other bees are sitting by the fireplace and warming their wings. It can be almost freezing out and you will find Russian Bees happily flying around and gathering pollen off of those almost frozen flowers…

3. Russian Bees are – well – Russian Bees and that means they are tough. If you live in Russia, then you know that anything that survives a Russian winter is tough…

Honey is taken very serious in Russia. There are huge markets that travel around Russia and sell honey. There is more varieties of honey than there are people in Russia. Processed honey is a crime in the Russian eyes and a honey seller takes great pride in his product. Bee hives are everywhere and everyone has their special type of honey produced by their special bees and their special fields of flowers. Why we have many bee hives in our tiny Russian Village. The Orthodox Church has these hives for thir use. I call it “Pine Cone Honey,” as that is all that is around for pollen in our Russian Village…

Why am I bringing this up? Well in most of the world, the bee population is declining and with that decline the ability to reproduce food is dropping with the bee decline. Bees single handily pollinate the world and food is the result of that. One of the most important issues we are faced with in this day and age is the bee decline…

No bees – no food – no people! Russia has bees and they are doing great…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 69.1 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered OK to read.

Nothing more needs to be said…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

Normally while drinking a cup of coffee for breakfast, the thinking’s of cottage cheese (Tvorog) would not be brought up. But living in Russia has changed those thinking’s…

In Russia cottage cheese is more than a, “I eat it for losing weight and its great with tuna,” food substance. In Russia it is a mainstay in the food chain…

Sveta just adores Tvorog and would eat it 3 times a day and smile the whole time. I have learned to eat it three times a day and now I smile also… 🙂

Before we get to a recipe for Russian Tvorog (cottage cheese). Lets touch on what the difference is between Russian cottage cheese and what we are use to in America…

Tvorog…

Russian cottage cheese is much dryer looking and is like a paste that can be formed into balls and blocks very easily. Russian cottage cheese has flavor and does not make a soppy mess of your plate…

In all fairness cottage cheese is not tvorog and tvorog is not cottage cheese. It is just that translation between the East and West ends up calling them the same. Another way to look at them is Curds and Whey and Quark cheese…

Now that we all are confused lets make some Tvorog:

Cottage Cheese Ingredients:

* 4 liters of raw whole milk  (important raw is best and about a gallon)
* 400 gram package of sour cream (kefir can be used as well? (your taste buds is what counts), that is about a pound of sour cream)

Cottage Cheese Lets Make:

1. In a large pot that is able to be heated in the oven – mix the milk and the sour cream together. You should add the milk to the sour cream a little at a time. That way the sour cream is broken down first and you do not have lumps. Stir thoroughly and it will be a thin mixture when done…

2. Now you need to set aside the mix in a warm place. I cover with a cheese cloth or cotton cloth, it will do also. This keeps the dust and dirt out. Placing it near the stove or oven is a good compromise for a warm spot. Let it stand and do not bother it for about 2-3 days until the mix starts to curdle. (I know, Yuck!) You will know when it is curdled… 🙂

3. I say give it 3 days. (That is what I do.) Once it has curdled sufficiently, place the pot in a 250 F (120 C) oven for about an hour. Remove from the oven and let it cool overnight. (Do not let oven get too hot or it will burn)

4. Now we will separate the curd from the whey. (This is what makes Russian cottage cheese better than American cottage cheese.) For this, you will need that cheese cloth that I said to cover the pot with. Just use another pot and or big mixing bowl. Use the cheese cloth as a filter over the new bowl and pour the curds and whey into it, through the cheese cloth. Make sure to tie off and hang above the bowl…

Let it drain for the whole day and or night, and wallah you have a delicious tvorog. To go a step farther you can make farmers cheese. Just squeeze or press the cheese cloth between several clean boards. Leave the tvorog another day while it drains more moisture off. The more moisture that you get out of the tvorog the better when it comes to that rich flavor. The tvorog will keep in the fridge for about a week. But ours never lasts that long… 🙂

The best way that we here in Russia buy tvorog is off the back of a truck that you will find all over Moscow. We have one that sells raw milk and tvorog everyday just around the corner…

That is what I love about Russia…

Yummy for your Tummy!

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 86.3 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered easy to read…

Sveta Drinks Tea and I Drink Coffee… (windowstorussia.com)
Thoughts by Coffee in Russia… (windowstorussia.com)
Thoughts from Russia with Coffee… (windowstorussia.com)
Coffee Thoughts in Russia… (windowstorussia.com)
Emails and Coffee… (windowstorussia.com)
Coffee Thinking’s in Russia… (windowstorussia.com)
Oladushki: Another Russian Pancake… (windowstorussia.com)
That Cup Of Coffee and the START Treaty… (windowstorussia.com)
Russia – Georgia: World “Wake up and Smell The Coffee!” (windowstorussia.com)
Sveta and I Live in Korolev, Russia… (windowstorussia.com)

Non Lawsuit: If Iran sees that Russia has changed its position on the delivery of S-300 missile systems, the Islamic Republic will also “change its conduct,” Iran’s Ambassador to Moscow Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi told Interfax News Agency…

He said that Iran resorted to judicial prosecution after Russia refused to deliver the systems to the Islamic Republic according to the stipulations of a previously signed contract. Russia refused to deliver the systems under the pretext that they were covered in the UN Security Council sanctions against Tehran…

So a Lawsuit will become a non lawsuit, if Russia does what is correct…

Non Lawsuit is a power play by Iran to help Syria and give Russia a way out of Medvedev’s naivety when he was president of Russia…

“Under the contract, if either party fails to abide by the obligations assumed, the other party will have the right to turn to court,” Sajjadi said…

The Iranian ambassador’s remarks came after Russian Technologies (Rostech) CEO Sergei Chemezov said on May 30 that Moscow seeks to reach a settlement with Tehran to withdraw its lawsuit against Russia’s state-run arms export company Rosoboronexport over the canceled deal as Russia’s chances “to win the case is very slim.”

Interesting and accurate on the part of Iran. This was a very bad issue during Medvedev’s presidency and it amongst a few other maneuvers by him, labeled him as the Western Wannabe Russian President. Iran has been very patient about this issue and now Iran is giving Russia the way out of the lawsuit and will turn it into a non lawsuit issue…

Do what is right Russia and make sure that these S-300 missile systems are in Syria and give Syria a chance to defend herself against tyranny…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 42.4 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered difficult to read…

Metro Fires in Moscow have been an issue all day today and Sveta took the bus all the way to work today. I did not have to try to change Sveta’s mind about riding the metro today. Sveta’s mother called and said stay off the metro. Oh by the way a metro is a subway in America…

I am relieved that she decided to take a bus and since the initial fire there seems to have been several more. I am not sure what is really going on, but fire is fire and so far 30 people have had smoke inhalation issues. I hear rumors that it is power cables catching on fire and since the metro runs on electricity, that can not be a good thing at all…

I suspect that she will take the bus home tonight. I am sure her mother who is watching all that is happening will make sure that Sveta goes the best route. Sveta’s mom is a wonderful person and mother, she will make sure her kid is okay and Sveta always listens to her mom… 🙂

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 77.4 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered fairly easy to read…

Metro – Video on the smoke and fire: Update…

On the news: Fifteen people harmed by the Moscow metro fire have been hospitalized, and three of them are staying at an intensive care unit, city health department chief Georgy Golukhov reported as of 1:30 p.m. Moscow time…

“Timber Smuggling” in Russia: I read Hardy Boys books to Sveta all the time. Sveta just loves those books and we have now read 18 of the books. So with my coffee this morning, I was thinking about an article that I found in the news. Then I smiled as I realized that this could have been one of the last books we read. In fact it was one of the books about Canada and the USA and this real life story is about China and Russia. The main difference being that Smugglers were using the logs in Canada to smuggle jewels and other items into America to sell them. You never know what they are sending to China from Russia in the logs? Interesting in my eyes…

Eight members of an illegal logging gang  have been detained in Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East, for cutting timber smuggling worth an estimated 30 million rubles ($939,000), local police said on Wednesday. “The organized criminal group, led by the founder and director general of a large company, were in action for a year,” police said in a statement. The criminal group, consisting of Armenian and Azerbaijani nationals, supplied the illegally cut timber to China. A local forestry official is suspected of have been involved in the group’s activities and have warned his accomplices about impending inspections, police said…

Timber Smuggling is big business:

The world never has enough wood to burn, build with or produce paper with. In effect the vastness of the Russian country makes it ideal for the process of “Timber Smuggling.” No other country in the world has borders as long as Russia and that is a formidable undertaking to keep an eye on what comes and goes all the time, across the borders. China has the need for such a tremendous quantities of resources that  “Timber Snuggling” is a natural thing to do. Now that does not make it legal, it just makes it profitable…

I know people think that a few trees gone mean nothing, but there are some very rare animals that rely upon the safety of these forests. One of these animals is the “Amur Tiger,” I also see that the Far Eastern Leopard is about extinct and these timber smugglers endanger the big cats…

So I thought that I would toss this information out today, as it just struck home with the Hardy Boys books that I am reading to Sveta. Many of those Hardy Boys books are about smuggling and that seems to be a natural thing going on in Russia. Be it “Timber Smuggling” or anything else…

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 63.6 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered OK to read…

Politician – Be they in America or be they in any other part of the world. They are vain, rude, conceited and egotistical. A politician is a class of human that has no connections with real people and these are the people that we elect to run our world. I have talked about this before (Narcissistic) and nothing has changed. Since that article of mine, I have seen a couple dozen more from big name writers saying the same thing about politicians, from Obama on down the list…

The reason I am thinking of this again over coffee this morning is about what is happening in Turkey. You know – Right?

Politician in Turkey: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Hundreds of thousands if not millions are taking to the streets in anti-government rallies across Turkey to show discontent with the 10-year rule of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  This is now in day 5 and is growing. The people want answers! And the answer they are getting?

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says it means nothing, he sees nothing, they are scum in the streets and no one cares. The people who are doing this are thugs. Paid to cause issues and are infiltrating the good people of Turkey…

This is the same politician that has done all he could to start a war (NATO) with Syria and he has denounced constantly and consistently the fact that Syria’s Assad has not stepped down. The fact is, Syria’s Assad has as many people who support him in Syria, as Erdogan has pushing against him to leave in Turkey…

“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander” – (The old goose cliché means that one person cannot assume to rise above another.)

Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 66.6 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered OK to read…