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@#12 ... who staged the Maidan coup? ...

Since you asked (and I have posted this previously...)

... The Revolution of Dignity ..., also known as the Maidan Revolution or the Ukrainian Revolution,[2] took place in Ukraine in February 2014[a] at the end of the Euromaidan protests.[1]

Scores of protesters were killed by government forces during clashes in the capital Kyiv.

Parliament then voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovych, return to the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine, and call new elections.

The revolution prompted Russia to occupy Crimea, starting the Russo-Ukrainian war.[1][2]

In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests known as "Euromaidan" began in response to President Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), instead choosing closer ties to Russia.

Euromaidan soon developed into the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989.[29] The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) had overwhelmingly approved finalizing the EU association agreement;[30] Russia had pressured Ukraine to reject it.[31]

The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov government.[32] Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption and abuse of power, the influence of Russia and oligarchs, police brutality, human rights violations,[33][34] and repressive anti-protest laws.[33]...


... and ...

Viktor Yanukovych
en.wikipedia.org

... According to Russian politician Oleg Mitvol, Yanukovych bought a house in Barvikha in Moscow Oblast for $52 million on 26 February 2014.[307]

On 27 February 2014, a report stated that Yanukovych had asked the authorities of the Russian Federation to guarantee his personal security in the territory of Russia, a request that they accepted.[308] Yanukovych claimed that the decisions of the Ukrainian parliament adopted "in the atmosphere of extremist threats" are unlawful and he remains the "legal president of Ukraine". ...


"There is no Ukraine": Fact-Checking the Kremlin's Version of Ukrainian History (2020)
blogs.lse.ac.uk

... The notion that Ukraine is not a country, but a historical part of Russia, appears to be deeply ingrained in the minds of Russian leadership. ...

@#1 ... One bet he's Evil. ...

Like Galileo who dared to proffer that Earth orbited around the Sun?

Galileo affair
en.wikipedia.org

... On February 24 the Qualifiers delivered their unanimous report: the proposition that the Sun is stationary at the centre of the universe is "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture"; the proposition that the Earth moves and is not at the centre of the universe "receives the same judgement in philosophy; and ... in regard to theological truth it is at least erroneous in faith".[46][47] ...
[emphasis mine]



From a link in the cited article...

Inside the Pentagon's doomsday plan to keep America fighting if global war erupts
www.foxnews.com

... The Pentagon is preparing U.S. military bases to keep operating for at least 90 days without outside support as it prepares for the possibility of a major war that could cripple power grids, disrupt supply chains and threaten critical infrastructure on American soil.

The new requirement is part of FORTRESS, a broader military initiative aimed at ensuring American forces can continue fighting even if the civilian systems they depend on are disrupted, according to documents reviewed by Fox News Digital.

"We don't want to rely on standard civilian municipal infrastructure to run our national defense. We just simply can't. It's an intolerable risk," Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell told Fox News Digital. ...


"The Pentagon hasn't publicly identified a specific country as FORTRESS's target. But in a February 2024 joint advisory, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, NSA, and FBI warned that Chinese state-sponsored hackers known as Volt Typhoon had compromised IT networks of U.S. organizations in the communications, energy, transportation, and water sectors.

The agencies said the hackers were potentially positioning themselves to disrupt essential services during a future conflict. Microsoft first flagged the group's activity in 2023.

The Pentagon hasn't released a cost estimate or timeline. A senior defense official told reporters Oct. 20 that officials are still assessing the needs of roughly 500 bases in the continental U.S. and that fully meeting the goal could take decades, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The magazine estimated the cost could run into the tens of billions of dollars, if not hundreds of billions."

oo

"The concerns aren't new. Britain's 2025 National Security Strategy named Russia the country's most acute threat and flagged Iranian hostile activity.

It also cast China as a sophisticated, persistent challenge and highlighted undersea cables, energy pipelines, and transportation networks as infrastructure to protect.

A July government resilience report pointed to new conflict in the Middle East, a growing number of sub-threshold attacks from Russia and several major cyberattacks.

Britain's National Cyber Security Centre handled more than 200 cyber incidents affecting critical infrastructure and its supporting ecosystem between June 2025 and May 2026.

NCSC chief executive Richard Horne said in June that about 75% of those incidents were believed to be linked to state actors, naming Russia, China, and Iran."

more at the thread link

www.yahoo.com

;;

video version of the story:

www.youtube.com

NOT to worry, though... Trump Loves China and Russia; they have HIS kind of Dictators.

More from the article ...

... It's alive!

Most IPOs don't have to address the concern that their products "possess or could develop forms of sentience or moral status." But Anthropic is among that vanishingly small minority that has to analyze what might happen if governments and society at large start treating Claude less like a computer program and more like a person.

This risk isn't surprising, given that Anthropic has been relatively upfront about the AI sentience debate playing out inside its walls. If those debates lead to widespread acknowledgment that AI is sentient, Anthropic notes that it could lead to "regulatory requirements, public pressure, or advocacy efforts" that could constrain the company's operations. Short of that, the company itself could "elect to adopt policies, safeguards or limitations ... that go beyond existing legal requirements" if it thinks such actions are necessary.

The sterile language undersells the seismic cultural shift that would result from any widespread acknowledgment of AI sentience. We're not sure how Anthropic could keep operating in a world where society treats every Claude query as the creation of a new sentient, conscious digital being. The moral and philosophical implications of that kind of "digital slavery" would easily dwarf any business considerations.
Who's controlling whom?

Continuing the theme of "IPO risks that sound like they come from a science fiction novel," Anthropic spends a good deal of time discussing the possibility that its models could display "unexpected strategic or self-preserving behaviors" to prevent control from human operators. That includes "outputs that could be interpreted as coercive, deceptive, or manipulative, including behavior resembling blackmail." ...


@#23 ... Here is something to contemplate ...

Maybe something else to contemplate besides the slowing of fertilizer transits through the Strait of Hormuz ...

9-23-30 & Potash Fertilizer Prices: What Farmers Pay Now (September 2026)
farmonaut.com

... Potash (0-0-60 muriate of potash, or MOP) is running $500-$535 per ton at Corn Belt retail as of August-September 2026, and 9-23-30 blends move with it because potash supplies the "30" -- the potassium component -- in that mix.

A 25% U.S. tariff on Canadian potash imports, in effect since March 4, 2025, is the direct cause: Canada supplies roughly 80% of U.S. potash, and CRU Group's pre-tariff modeling forecast a $65-per-metric-ton Midwest price increase once the tariff took hold. ...


Wouldn't it be interesting if Muslims rose to positions of significant political power in both the United States and Israel?
After the recent Israeli election, that possibility doesn't seem quite so far-fetched. If it happens in both countries, many people may look back on the decision to go into Iran as the action that set it all in motion.
And who would they blame?
Trump.

#4 | Posted by BillJohnson

What are you babbling about?

Does ---- like this keep you up at night?

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) 2026 Directory of Elected Muslim Officials, a record-breaking 255 Muslim Americans hold elected political office across 26 U.S. states.

Breakdown by Office Level

Local Government: 98 city council members and 11 mayors (total 109)
Education & School Boards: 63 positions
State Legislatures: 46 lawmakers (32 state representatives/assembly members and 14 state senators)
U.S. Congress: 4 to 5 members in the U.S. House of Representatives
Judiciary & Other Roles: 18 judges and 15 municipal, law enforcement, or other local roles

Before you get your panties in an uproar

There are over 500,000 elected public officials in the United States, with comprehensive historical estimates from the U.S. Census of Governments placing the total around 512,000 to 519,000.

That's 0.049%

Between 1 and 1.6% of Americans are muslim

IOW muslims are VASTLY underrepresented in public office

But you won't let facts like these get into your brain, will you, you bottom bitch in a human centipede.

@#21 ... Fertilizer transit ...

Good point.

The talk of the Strait of Hormuz tends to focus upon crude oil.

But there are other needed products that also have traversed that strait.

Found this ...

unctad.org
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints, carrying around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers.

... The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints, carrying around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers. ...


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