Mainstream news/discussion: Russia's invasion of Ukraine

[Andrew Walker]

What did you think was dodgy?

Not sure what you want MR to elaborate on when she said the whole thing looked dodgy

[A Country Member]

Not sure what you want MR to elaborate on when she said the whole thing looked dodgy

Your guess is as good as mine

[mightyrooster]

What did you think was dodgy?

Um is this a trick question? News ltd owning the Storm and half the game. Er..what you said. I haven’t got time to write an essay on the subject if that’s what you want.

[mightyrooster]

Your guess is as good as mine

I think from now on I will stop replying to your messages as it always seems to generate an obtuse response from you and strange dig at me.

[ism22]

Willie Mason confirmed Gus and Tallis' 'inside view' that everybody's cheating, the Storm just got caught. Interesting that players don't really care. Guessing it's more the fans who are p!ssed.

Zzzz I'm still tired from the Mega Swim. Was gonna make an individual thread for it but this one's probably good enough.

Solid night out. Dunno why but I've always been REALLY slow in the water. My into involved a dodgy school dad at Austi (beach pool with lotsa waves) trying to drown me by dunking my head under for minutes as I wouldn't put my head under the water while swimming for a scout badge at night (dark, cold and big waves crashing in from the beach... I was ~8 years old and wasn't putting my head under, particularly without goggles!)

Anyhow I eventually learned how to swim properly while recovering from my one and only footy injury. I also did a few (largely practical) swimming lessons as part of my sports science degree. More recently I've been teaching kids' swimming and doing my own private training for this Mega Swim after work (a great feeling doing ~9pm laps... all quiet and still!)

MS Mega Swim highlights for me were:

- Being a night watchman for our team. Got a lot of love from team mates for being loud and full of beans during various early morning shifts (both lap counting and 1hr swims). The 3am swim was a highlight as I gelled with the lap counter and people in an adjacent lane so we had an awesome time bouncing off each other's energy.

- An Elvis impersonator rocked up for my 9am shift (everybody slept at the pool and was super tired by this point). I was cheering loudly (often from the pool while swimming freestyle) as he finished every song. Also did a bit of a jig with him wearing my budgies when my hour was up (then ran from the cameras).

- Killed the final relay while all the good swimmers were knackered. Again I just dunno how to convert my running speed into pool speed, but the fitness is there so I was full of energy for the final hour (from 11am) when the 4 of us who remained did 100m sprints as a relay in order to notch up some extra metres before the end. Loved it as we made some solid kilometres and solidified our 3rd place finish during the 11th hour.

- Meeting an awesome lady who inspired me to do something about my writing as she's got MS and (planning ahead for when she loses mobility) she authored a book called Diprotodon that'll be out this October. I asked her for some writing tips and am optimistic she'll be able to show her book off at my son's school some time. Reminded me of why we were doing to swim and was just such a cool story.

---

- Now it's sadly all over until next year. SUCH an event though!!! I'm amazed how fun 24hr of swimming can be! We had DJs, movies, footy, Elvis, MS ambassadors sharing their stories and... just such a good crowd!

- Time for a night cap of limoncello followed by a long sleep. Goodnight, friends

[Dr. Voodoo Man]

Or Comrade Paddo's other stat that 96% of Chinese give the Chinese Commo Party "Government" the thumbs up.

From a survey of 32,000 folk which took 13 or so years to undertake conducted by a Chinese Commo Party "Government" approved China Based Company

Their other thumbs may have already been removed. In China you may like the CCP or love the CCP.

[Dr. Voodoo Man]

Haven’t all universities sold out to fee-paying students? It’s seems as though they give anyone a law degree these days

Years ago mate

[Dr. Voodoo Man]

Can you two please stop bickering about who has been the most disrespectful towards me? I’m the sole judge of that and as I explained before, I choose to forgive and forget as that is what us enlightened folk do. We’ve all had some very unpleasant times over the years on here (I’m blaming Covid and lockdown madness for that) but we’ve also had some funny ones too. I have enough aches and pains without having to carry grudges around too..it’s ugly and stubborn behaviour and not my way of life.

I don’t want to be the meat in your idiot sandwich as Elaine from Seinfeld would say, but that’s just it., neither of you are idiots..both of you are very intelligent, have good senses of humour and well read in your own ways and I’ve learned a lot from being friends with both of you away from here over the years and for that I will always be grateful. Now pull your heads in both of you and grow up. If you see each other around at the track or a Roosters game, please shake hands and play nicely. I know I’m fabulous and gorgeous but I may not be around forever to keep an eye on the pair of you. Stick to my cover versions thread and Eddie's music thread and find some common ground there..keep those threads going with something worthwhile..

Ism, apologies for highjacking your thread. I’m wishing you a very happy birthday for next Saturday 12 August as I didn’t forget you and hope the team can get a win over the Dolphins for you. I’ll make some Italian lemon biscotti in your honour and have it with espresso..


Live good, healthy, positive lives and be well everyone..now that is MY definition of the Roosters way…xxxx

You shall be called the Boomerang Member hence forth.

[Dr. Voodoo Man]

[QUOTE=Paddo Colt 61;n1015242][QUOTE=Dr. Voodoo Man; Paddo do you think the US blew up the pipeline? There seems to be mounting evidence that they did.


Well renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh (not Butts), who broke the My Lai massacre (not Butts again), reports that the pipeline was sabotaged by the US. There are a couple of articles which cite his report on Menadue.

Gotta laugh at the MSM claims that Russia did the pipeline and the dam and the sea bridge. Naturally the Anglo free and independent fearless seekers of truth haven't mentioned Hersh's report.

[/QUOTE]

It's a terrible act of either war or terrorism by the USA imo.

[A Country Member]

In other news, let’s cross to our resident Basebrawl correspondent Corporal Klinger for his take on the second base scuffle. King Salvo

[ism22]

Can you two please stop bickering about who has been the most disrespectful towards me? I’m the sole judge of that and as I explained before, I choose to forgive and forget as that is what us enlightened folk do. We’ve all had some very unpleasant times over the years on here (I’m blaming Covid and lockdown madness for that) but we’ve also had some funny ones too. I have enough aches and pains without having to carry grudges around too..it’s ugly and stubborn behaviour and not my way of life.

I don’t want to be the meat in your idiot sandwich as Elaine from Seinfeld would say, but that’s just it., neither of you are idiots..both of you are very intelligent, have good senses of humour and well read in your own ways and I’ve learned a lot from being friends with both of you away from here over the years and for that I will always be grateful. Now pull your heads in both of you and grow up. If you see each other around at the track or a Roosters game, please shake hands and play nicely. I know I’m fabulous and gorgeous but I may not be around forever to keep an eye on the pair of you. Stick to my cover versions thread and Eddie's music thread and find some common ground there..keep those threads going with something worthwhile..

Ism, apologies for highjacking your thread. I’m wishing you a very happy birthday for next Saturday 12 August as I didn’t forget you and hope the team can get a win over the Dolphins for you. I’ll make some Italian lemon biscotti in your honour and have it with espresso..


Live good, healthy, positive lives and be well everyone..now that is MY definition of the Roosters way…xxxx

Thank you kindly for remembering my big day!!!

Very much hope you enjoy those biscotti (much like I'm sure that I would).

[ism22]

Vladimir Putin's biggest rival Alexei Navalny is in 'one of the worst places in the world' — this is what it's like

It's a harrowing existence.

No visitors, and only one parcel permitted per year. Solitary confinement. One 90-minute walk per day, with hands cuffed behind your back. The ever-present threat of physical torture.

For Alexei Navalny — Russian President Vladimir Putin's most prominent political opponent — it's the reality of life inside the "special regime" at the IK-6 penal colony.

Navalny has been jailed since February 2021 and earlier this month had 19 years added to his sentence for various offences including funding extremism — charges he says are concocted and politically motivated.

Olga Romanova, the director of prisoners' rights group Russia Behind Bars, says Navalny is in "one of the worst places in the world".

"Imagine if an Australian prisoner and a Russian prisoner were swapped, so the Russian went to an Australian prison and the Australian went to a Russian one," she says.

"After a month, the Australian would ask for a death sentence."

Romanova says Navalny was the first person to be sent to a "special regime" colony — the toughest conditions in Russia's prison system — after being convicted of non-violent crimes.

Despite special prison restrictions supposedly stopping the Russia of the Future party leader from communicating with anyone, last week, a lengthy letter published under Navalny's name appeared on his website.

In it, he detailed "his greatest fear".

It wasn't what might happen to him inside his "SHIZO" (a Russian acronym for "isolation cell"), or that he might die behind bars.

Navalny's main concern is that Russians will squander the opportunity to turn their nation into a functioning, transparent democracy when the moment comes.

It's happened before.

When the USSR dissolved in August 1991, 15 sovereign states emerged.

While most have gone on to hold free and fair elections in the decades since, Russia has become an authoritarian kleptocracy.

"I don't just believe, I know that Russia will still have a chance," Navalny writes.

"This is a historical process. We will again be at a crossroads.

"In horror and cold sweat, I jump up in my bunk at night, when I think that we had a chance again, but we again went the same way as in the 90s."

William Pomeranz, deputy director of of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington D.C., agrees the "lessons of the 1990s have to be learnt" by the Kremlin.

"And, these were multiple lessons in terms of how one organises elections, how one organises political parties, how Russia decentralises, how Russia devolves power to the regions," he says.

"All these are issues that were raised in the 1990s, that Russia really didn't have an answer to.

"All these things will have to be addressed."

Dr Pomeranz says the country's courts — which have a 99 per cent conviction rate in criminal cases — often deliver "political justice as opposed to legal justice".

"Navalny doesn't have a chance, as long as he is engaged in the Russian legal system."
'The end justifies the means'


In his letter, Navalny's descriptions about what went wrong in Russia focus on domestic issues, rather than the impact any western policies (say, the expansion of NATO) inevitably had as a new nation emerged from the ashes of communism.

He identifies the "fraudulent" 1996 election — in which inaugural president Boris Yeltsin required a run-off to defeat Communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov — as a key turning point in the country's commitment to reform.

"I did my best to ignore it, and the general unfairness of the election didn't embarrass me even for a bit," he writes.

"Now we are paying for the fact that in 1996 we thought that election fraud was not always a bad thing.

"The end justified the means."

The idea of the end justifying the means to get things done in Russia still exists today.

...

The idea of there not being a war in Ukraine is widespread in Russia, because the invasion is described by leadership in state-run media as a "special operation".

It's not to say Navalny didn't have a following — he has 6.3 million YouTube subscribers — but it's dwarfed by the apathy or caution among the rest of the federation's electorate.

"I do not expect any changes in Russia in the next 50 years," Romanova says.

If and when they come, it won't be easy.

Dr Pomeranz says after more than two decades of Putin, any future reforms the country embarks on would likely be more difficult now than it was in the 90s.

"Russians would have to make a commitment to democracy," he says.

"And quite frankly, you know, the security services are not going to go away without a fight."


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-...like/102745438

[Andrew Walker]

Izzy I’m not sure who gets harder over this type of article Kingsley Kakfa Salvatori or yourself

[ism22]

Izzy I’m not sure who gets harder over this type of article Kingsley Kakfa Salvatori or yourself

I'm just sharing since we've got the thread and there's a lot of misinformation out there.

[ism22]

Ten dead in Moscow jet crash with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on passenger list, say local authorities

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-...rash/102768858

Russia's civil aviation authority says Wagner group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner commander Dmitry Utkin were on board a private jet that crashed in Russia's Tver region north of Moscow, with no survivors.

The pair, who were on the passenger list of the crashed jet, had previously attended a meeting with officials from the Russian Defence Ministry.

A Telegram channel linked to the Wagner Mercenary Group reported that Prigozhin had died.

"The head of the Wagner Group, a Hero of Russia, a true patriot of his Motherland, Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia," a post in the Grey Zone channel said.

Eight bodies have been found and all 10 people aboard died in the crash.

A Reuters reporter at the crash site saw men stretchering black body bags.

Part of the plane's tail and other fragments lay on the ground near a wooded area where forensic investigators had erected a tent.

The Embraer aircraft, en route from Moscow to St Petersburg, was carrying seven passengers and three crew.

The plane had been in the air less than 30 minutes when it crashed.

Russia's Federal Agency of Air Transport announced it had launched an investigation.

...

While even peaceful protests in Russia can draw severe punishments from authorities, Mr Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries were, largely, left alone in the incident's aftermath.

Despite living in exile in Belarus post-uprising, Mr Prigozhin was seemingly able to travel to Russia and appeared at a meeting of African leaders in St Petersburg.

Earlier this month, Jenny Mathers, a senior lecturer in international politics at Aberystwyth University, said the light touch Mr Putin had used so far on Mr Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries was "extraordinary".

"Russians protesting the war have been arrested for even holding blank pieces of paper, so the Wagner group has been treated remarkably gently," she said.