Rich, blonde, blue-eyed white girl crying on the stand saying “Oops, silly me”. Sunny Balwani is fucked. Proper fucked.
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The headline in your quoted article had me thinking she was putting a hit out on someone with the initials WSJ. 
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This is pure evil. There’s no other word for it. It’s just made me physically sick reading this so please be warned that the content is extremely upsetting.
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I don’t know what to say to such stories. The idea of treating a child like that is alien to me.
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Posting this here chiefly because I am unable to post in Breaking News due to forum engine.
Incredibly embarrassing, but I have stopped being embarrassed on the behalf of Americans after Trump.
Maybe this guy was a decent general, I don’t know or dare to speculate, but he talks like a complete moron and it is being spread to the wide world.
- There is nothing called “the Ukraine”, it is called Ukraine.
- The Soviet Union has not existed for decades.
Some may say, “oh, this is not a serious gaffe, those words don’t mean that much”, I disagree. He comes across as a buffoon to a lot of Europeans including Ukrainians and will be ridiculed a lot on Russian tv.
It is just an old form, and it actually makes some sense. Ukraine means ‘borderland’, and it was referred to with a definite article in most European languages as ‘the Ukraine’ for centuries (no definite/indefinite article distinction in RUssian or Ukrainian). It really only started to disappear in English with the Ukrainian declaration of independence in 1991.
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I know, but Ukrainians don’t like it and try to protest every time someone use it, to little avail, and the Russians find it hilarious and evidence of American ignorance.
They don’t like being called Russia’s hinterlands and the Russians absolutely love it. I don’t understand why it is so difficult for Americans with an education to change to the correct terminology.
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The Soviet Union gaffe is worse. On the other hand, if he had said the neo-Soviet Union, it would have been pithy.
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Agreed obviously, but both gaffes in one sentence is more than a tad bad. It reeks of ignorance of Slavik culture and the geopolitical situation. It is certainly not good.
By the way, the situation is tense. Increased shelling today, and it has spread to more than one front (usually, in one contact point, there is some light shelling):
From the sources I read, this come across as gradual and increasing Ukrainian shelling first and foremost with counter shelling from the separatists. I am wary, I find the Ukrainians to be playing a dangerous game. Clearly they have assessed that 92 000 Russian soldiers on the border is not enough to invade, so they are free to play. I don’t know if that is wise. The 92 000 Russian troops are mobilized there to intimidate and persuade Ukraine into not going on the offensive. If they are planning an offensive, which they do at current deny (but one cannot trust the word of either party here) , this is when Kreml might decide to use their troops.
Not yet of course. But the trajectory is a bit worrisome I think.
I want someone to ask the US Defense Secretary what his view is of East Germany and whether he thinks there could be an end to the Cold War.
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Maybe having the US defence secretary using an incorrect form of their country name is a subtle way of getting across the message that when push comes to shove, they may or may not have the fulsome support of the US? A thinking Ukrainian ambassador might note that he doesn’t seem to have any trouble remembering the names of the individual Penghu islands.
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I don’t think so, but the US is indeed now pushing the Minsk Agreement to Ukraine, which gives a pretty good indicator of that exactly (but no I doubt this was subtle as such in this particular context), since Ukraine then de facto must recognice the Donetsk and Luhansk republics and it clearly damages their sovereignty by…a lot.
But no, I don’t think a US Secretary makes a gaffe to make a 4D point. Because that would be just silly when they are already telling Ukraine that Ukraine must deal directly with Russia, which is something Ukraine does not want to do and etc.
Basically, the US has browbeaten Ukraine into doing this:
No, probably not intentionally - but that almost makes the point stronger. The US’ strategic priorities are a long, long way away from Ukraine right now. In Canadian circles, we are fairly attuned to that (large Ukrainian community, including Deputy PM). Europe as a whole has slipped well down the list.
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This is very true. But it is some what problematic that the US makes regular statements concerning Europe that it really can’t back up. But yeah, the focus is China, China, China and it bleeds through quite often. The US will probably attempt to get their allies to boycott the Olympics as well I reckon (unless they gauge the mood to be impossible etc.), while of course ignoring their favorite dictatorships in the ME (which again is something that many actually notice). I am quite wary of US hypocrisy these days. I want to be in favour of Human Rights, also in China, but I would not like Norway to be used as a geopolitical pawn in a game which really is chiefly about American strategic interests. I find it all quite complicated and a mess, like most geopolitics is in the end.
I read about this last week, those words have haunted me since and probably will do for a long time. There are no words.
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Apologies for spamming about one topic, but context to the above:
Although the source above (the video) is Pro-Russian other sources corroborate the increased shelling by Ukraine towards Separatist positions
Russian official rhetoric also escalating: https://twitter.com/Dpol_un/status/1466384720632156167
Should bring back the death penalty for cunts like these.
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I think it’s bluff but at the same time, I hope Ukraine tries to deescalate instead of increasing the shelling on contact lines, because Russia will not attack without some sort of Casus Belli. A Ukrainian offensive to take back territory is a Russian Casus Belli…