Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Caliga]

What I meant to ask, and didn't articulate it well, is just if this is how Russian gallows humor works.  I know Stalin was famously a practical joker and liked to joke about executing people (sometimes to their face/on the phone), but I'm wondering if the "oops, that guy fell out a window by mistake!" is just a thing in Russian culture, and if they always joke about people being murdered and it must have been an accident or not.

[Josquius]

I wonder if there's been anyone in Russia died falling from a window in their single story luxury bungalow.

[Tamas]

Un chief Guteres went to the BRICS meeting, met Putin and called for a just peace in Ukraine. What a disgrace.

[viper37]

Guteres

Ambiguous enough to cover himself saying he didn't mean what is implied with that.
Uninvited gestures

Toss him in the brig.  Throw him out.  He's lost all credibility and he affects the UN.

[HVC]

He's a socialist, it's not hard to imagine he has Russian sympathies, if not directly in putins pocket. 

[Zoupa]

New on WSJ: Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022. At one point, Putin asked him to avoid activating his Starlink internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said two people briefed on the request.

How does this fucking idiot have a security clearance? What is going on down there? God I miss the Cold War. At least the FBI had balls back then.

[The Minsky Moment]

Starlink should have been nationalized a while ago

[The Minsky Moment]

That said I doubt words from Putin was a key factor in influencing Musk re Taiwan.  He is so deep into China he has reason enough to jump to Xi's tune.

[Syt]

That said I doubt words from Putin was a key factor in influencing Musk re Taiwan.  He is so deep into China he has reason enough to jump to Xi's tune.

https://www.ft.com/content/6e08ea9b-0c4a-4e0f-8a13-0eca06aa76b9

Elon Musk's Tesla has joined Chinese automakers in pledging to enhance "core socialist values" and compete fairly in the country's car market after Beijing directed the industry to rein in a months-long price war.

[Sheilbh]

Starlink should have been nationalized a while ago

Yes.

That said I doubt words from Putin was a key factor in influencing Musk re Taiwan.  He is so deep into China he has reason enough to jump to Xi's tune.

Yeah I've said before but my biggest concern of Musk and Twitter etc is he's taken over a social media company funded by the Saudis and his other company is very very deeply involved in China. That all strikes me as a serious problem and even if not for the US (which I think it is) for activists and anti-government speech around the world.

And we have seen that. I've mentioned before but Twitter used to try and fight law enforcement requests to identify their users or at least force them to get a court order. They are spending no money on that and just acquiesce. We've seen this in Turkiye especially and other Middle Eastern countries especially. Like Telegram it's a useful tool for authoritarians - especially, I suspect the ones who funded it and are involved in Musk's other companies.

[HisMajestyBOB]

How does this fucking idiot have a security clearance? What is going on down there? God I miss the Cold War. At least the FBI had balls back then.

No kidding. The idea that the CEO of, say, McDonnell Douglas chatting regularly with Brezhnev during the Cold War is absurd, but I guess now there really are no consequences to colluding with our enemies if you're rich enough.

If Harris wins, the Dems really need to grow a fucking spine and start reigning in our oligarchs.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Came across an article claiming that the Chinese had found a way, using Startlink satellites, to find the locations of stealth craft when in flight.
Something with the high number of satellites and signals being distorted or bumped or something. Anyways, if true that's problematic.
But in light of Musk's treason (cause I don't see any reason to not call it treason, but on the other hand: is also South-African and they're in Putin's camp) I wonder if he didn't spill beans to the CCP too. It would certainly fit his pattern of 'bending over and saying "thank you"' to autocrats that are bent on dismantling the West

[Tamas]

NATO has confirmed that North Korean troops have been deployed in the Kursk region.

I do wonder what the hell is going on. I assume they are used to guard the safest sector because their morale must be the lowest in the history of morales, but how can this possibly be a good look for Putin back home? Is the idea that this frees up a few thousand conscripts to feed into the Donetsk meatgrinder because the Big Push there is just around the corner?

[Syt]

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/29/russian_court_fines_google/

Russian court fines Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Don't hold your breath Putin

A Russian court has ruled that Google owes Russian media stations around $20 decillion in fines for blocking their content, and the fines could get bigger.

To put that into perspective, the World Bank estimates global GDP as around $100 trillion, which is peanuts compared to the prospective fine. Google would therefore have to find more money than exists on Earth to pay Moscow - but on Tuesday fell a little short of that mark when it posted $88 billion quarterly revenue.

The bizarre amount has been calculated after a four-year court case that started after YouTube banned the ultra-nationalist Russian channel Tsargrad in 2020 in response to the US sanctions imposed against its owner. Following Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 more channels were added to the banned list and 17 stations are now suing the Chocolate Factory, including Zvezda (a TV channel owned by Putin's Ministry of Defence), according to local media.

"Google was called by a Russian court to administrative liability under Art. 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code for removing channels on the YouTube platform. The court ordered the company to restore these channels," lawyer Ivan Morozov told state media outlet TASS.

The court imposed a fine of 100 thousand rubles ($1,025) per day, with the total fine doubling every week. Owing to compound interest (Einstein's eighth wonder of the world), Google is now on the hook for an insane amount of money, or what the judge on Monday called "a case in which there are many, many zeros."

Not that there's much chance of bankrupting Alphabet over the issue. Google in Russia has been inactive since 2022 after the search giant effectively pulled out of the country following Putin's special military operation. Google says the Russian authorities had seized its bank accounts and the offshoot was essentially bankrupt. The ad-spreader had over 200 staff in Russia and, while some have been relocated, others were laid off.

The battle is now on in courts around the globe as Russia seeks to seize Google's assets, with little success. The Chocolate Factory certainly seems sanguine about it.

"We have ongoing legal matters relating to Russia. For example, civil judgments that include compounding penalties have been imposed upon us in connection with disputes regarding the termination of accounts, including those of sanctioned parties," Alphabet reported in its last earnings statement [PDF].

"We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect."

Google had no comment on the fine at time of going to publication.

[garbon]

Their chocolate factory moniker is lame.