Kazak | Russia

KAZAK | казак Россия | Evropa Call of the Kazak Audio | #1  Charge of the Don Kazak         Don Kazak             Audio | #1 LINK | source The photos are so beautiful, I want to climb inside history and be there. I imagine that the exhilaration of battle cannot be surpassed. I love the horse hair standard; the shoulder decoration; the portrait of the two standard bearers; the horseback charge of the Don Kazak; the shine of the black leather boots; the masculinity; the music; the dance in the field; the dust of the field; the land, the soil, the blood, the blade in the dust, the horses and the trees. I wish I was there. Look at this and look at the destruction and the abomination that is the outcome US-Anglo capitalist false ideology, destruction of nations, destruction of peoples, destruction of cultures, greed, lies, propaganda, indoctrination and control. KAZAK | казак Россия | Evropa

British Capitalist State Political Imprisonment of Australian Journalist Julian Assange - Costs in Pounds Sterling

UNDEMOCRATIC Political Imprisonment of Australian Journalist Julian Assange Costs in Pounds Sterling JULIAN ASSANGE AUSTRALIAN JOURNALIST UNLAWFULLY & UNDEMOCRATICALLY IMPRISONED BY RULING CAPITALIST BASTARDS POLITICAL PRISONER UNDEMOCRATIC CAPITALIST-CONTROLLED STATE POLITICAL PERSECUTION POLITICAL IMPRISONMENT  U.K. COST COUNTER UPDATE Updates:  per Seconds Figure based on that of https://govwaste.co.uk/ site as at 16 July 2016 (£15,474,518.15) |  site currently down { basis of current calculation } £ GBP.COSTS £ ASSANGE IMPRISONMENT COST IN GBPCounter FREE ASSANGE JULIAN ASSANGE POLITICAL PRISONER BRITISH CAPITALIST-CONTROLLED STATE EMBASSY SIEGE via @WikiLeaksShop FREE ASSANGE UNLAWFULLY DETAINED JULIAN ASSANGE WikiLeaks WikiLeaks Twitter Justice4Assange POLITICAL PRISONER UNDEMOCRATIC POLITICAL PRISONER UNDEMOCRATIC UNDEMOCRATIC CORRUPT UK CAPITALIST-CONTROLLED CRIMINAL STATE U.K. Spent More Money 'Guarding' Assange than on IRAQ ILLEGAL WAR PROBE by February 2015: at just over the then 2.5 year mark of criminally & undemocratically detaining Aussie journalist JULIAN ASSANGE by UNLAWFUL ECUADOR EMBASSY SIEGE (UN PANEL RULING | LINK) EXTRACTS TELESURTV U.K. authorities have previously threatened to forcibly enter the embassy to capture Assange, but backed down after the Ecuadorian government slammed the proposal as a violation of international norms. Australian-British journalist and Assange supporter John Pilger has described the U.K.'s response to the asylum standoff as a “farce.” “Their quarry is an Australian charged with no crime, a refugee from gross injustice whose only security is the room given him by a brave South American country. His true crime is to have initiated a wave of truth-telling in an era of lies, cynicism and war,” he stated. source http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/UK-Spent-More-on-Guarding-Assange-than-Iraq-War-Inquiry-20150205-0006.html archive http://archive.is/txsoH Assange: the untold story of an epic struggle for justice 31 July 2015 John Pilger | LINK UNDEMOCRATIC POLITICAL PRISONER EMBASSY SIEGE *5 Sept 2016* 16,305,655.23 GBP 21,676,085.84 USD 186,222,322.80 SEK 28,633,219.75 AUD 19,430,797.11 EUR *Figures based on earlier estimate/cost counter that has since been adjusted; ballpark figures therefore require subsequent adjustment in due course (but good as a guide for time being). POLITICAL PRISONER 324,756,474.08 ARS 38,003,427.59 BAM 38,003,427.59 BGN 150,533,809.08 BOB 70,592,073.19 BRL 28,170,791.37 CAD 14,749,041,397.39 CLP 144,847,864.05 CNY 64,376,914,414.75 COP 144,582,734.09 DKK 192,496,249.76 EGP 286,143,346,577.89 IDR 81,499,578.20 ILS 1,443,039,726.12 INR 677,804,926,757.86 IRR 2,253,218,002.25 JPY 32,676,629,610.40 LBP 211,044,747.87 MAD 402,990,192.60 MXN 88,571,503.93 MYR 29,724,231.14 NZD 2,263,201,628.84 PKR 2,393,409,460.34 RSD 63,963,172.11 TRY 579,238,019.98 UAH 482,996,488,776.97 VND POLITICAL PRISONER UNDEMOCRATIC

The Kitchen - Beef Burgundy

Planet Tokyo The Kitchen Planet Tokyo Beef Burgundy Boeuf Bourguignon Using this recipe as a guide.  Slight variation, but pretty much along the lines of this.  Used a Cabernet Sauvignon.  Tasted nice, but I couldn't drink more than a couple of sips.  More than I would have spent on something for cooking (I'm not the shopper here, which is kind of cool ... don't miss it one bit), but it tastes nice and the sauce tastes nice, too. Stove top browned and prepared, then tipped into slow cooker. Cooked on a high temperature to get it done in time, but it's something that can be set to slow maybe in the late morning or even done overnight and reheated when needed. It smells so good. Tastes good, too. Dipped bread in, while I was stirring.  :)  Didn't need stirring ... I just couldn't help fiddling and tasting. Will serve with mashed potato and crusty bread. I like a thickened sauce, so my meat cubes were covered with flour before browning and then I made a flour roux before I deglazed the pan with red wine, and adding stock and tomato paste, ahead of throwing the meat into that (together with the chopped mushrooms) and pouring all of that into the slow cooker (containing several quartered and browned onions, browned halved cloves of garlic, and browned carrots, sliced capsicum (which I wanted to get rid of) and herbs (fresh thyme from the garden and dried bay leaves). Seemed like there might not have been enough liquid at first, so I poured in another cup of beef stock on top. A little more liquid than I anticipated (which is what happens when things cook down), but it's no problem.  Plan to pour in a cornflour slurry, to thicken my liquid over the next hour or so, although it's quite acceptable as it is now.  I just like it thicker. The shopping instructions I gave were for gravy beef, or for some cheap cut of beef roast or beef cheek (which I've never tried, but it's a budget meat).  We wound up with a blade roast that was on special, and we trimmed and cubed that. Braised Beef Cheeks in Red Wine sounds much like a Beef Burgundy. Cinnamon is the variant.  Served on mushed peas.  Next on my plan is Stroganoff, using pork loin, which I've not done before.  We usually have Beef Strog. Wow, the Beef Burgundy was really nice. Ate too much. Got really lazy sitting in front of TV for a change. Somehow got hooked on renovation and real estate shows selling the capitalist dream. Watched one after the other, interrupted by annoying ads selling more of the same ... and fantasy cosmopolitan 'intellectual' eye-wear ... LOL) , often skipping the local/national spin altogether. Who are these ads for, a PR (propaganda) fantasy 'multicultural' capitalist consumer 'cosmopolitan'? Got me thinking about the pointlessness of our existence and the pursuit of all manner glittering things, and then you die. Bored with myself. Been meaning to change my eyebrows. Did that after my long session of vegetating in front of the TV I normally don't watch. Now I have myself a new pair of eyebrows and a new me. LOL Kitchen is a disaster area. I don't know what I used all those pots for. Might crash out after a microwave warmed coffee and a cigarette out the back. I like this every now and then ...  Brand New Key https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FPn5noN_qs

Capitalism Is Incompatible With Democracy

Capitalism & Democracy Capitalism Is Incompatible With Democracy Capitalism Unjust and Unsustainable Capitalist Rule Companion, 'Democracy', Is A Lie Noam Chomsky RECD =  Really Existing Capitalist Democracy (Noam Chomsky phrase) https://chomsky.info/20130305/ Can Civilization Survive Capitalism? Noam Chomsky Alternet, March 5, 2013 The term “capitalism” is commonly used to refer to the U.S. economic system, with substantial state intervention ranging from subsidies for creative innovation to the “too-big-to-fail” government insurance policy for banks. The system is highly monopolized, further limiting reliance on the market, and increasingly so: In the past 20 years the share of profits of the 200 largest enterprises has risen sharply, reports scholar Robert W. McChesney in his new book “Digital Disconnect.” “Capitalism” is a term now commonly used to describe systems in which there are no capitalists: for example, the worker-owned Mondragon conglomerate in the Basque region of Spain, or the worker-owned enterprises expanding in northern Ohio, often with conservative support — both are discussed in important work by the scholar Gar Alperovitz. Some might even use the term “capitalism” to refer to the industrial democracy advocated by John Dewey, America’s leading social philosopher, in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Dewey called for workers to be “masters of their own industrial fate” and for all institutions to be brought under public control, including the means of production, exchange, publicity, transportation and communication. Short of this, Dewey argued, politics will remain “the shadow cast on society by big business.” The truncated democracy that Dewey condemned has been left in tatters in recent years. Now control of government is narrowly concentrated at the peak of the income scale, while the large majority “down below” has been virtually disenfranchised. The current political-economic system is a form of plutocracy, diverging sharply from democracy, if by that concept we mean political arrangements in which policy is significantly influenced by the public will. There have been serious debates over the years about whether capitalism is compatible with democracy. If we keep to really existing capitalist democracy — RECD for short — the question is effectively answered: They are radically incompatible. It seems to me unlikely that civilization can survive RECD and the sharply attenuated [reduced] democracy that goes along with it. But could functioning democracy make a difference? Let’s keep to the most critical immediate problem that civilization faces: environmental catastrophe. Policies and public attitudes diverge sharply, as is often the case under RECD. The nature of the gap is examined in several articles in the current issue of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Researcher Kelly Sims Gallagher finds that “One hundred and nine countries have enacted some form of policy regarding renewable power, and 118 countries have set targets for renewable energy. In contrast, the United States has not adopted any consistent and stable set of policies at the national level to foster the use of renewable energy.” It is not public opinion that drives American policy off the international spectrum. Quite the opposite. Opinion is much closer to the global norm than the U.S. government’s policies reflect, and much more supportive of actions needed to confront the likely environmental disaster predicted by an overwhelming scientific consensus — and one that’s not too far off; affecting the lives of our grandchildren, very likely. As Jon A. Krosnick and Bo MacInnis report in Daedalus: “Huge majorities have favored steps by the federal government to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated when utilities produce electricity. In 2006, 86 percent of respondents favored requiring utilities, or encouraging them with tax breaks, to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit. Also in that year, 87 percent favored tax breaks for utilities that produce more electricity from water, wind or sunlight [ These majorities were maintained between 2006 and 2010 and shrank somewhat after that. The fact that the public is influenced by science is deeply troubling to those who dominate the economy and state policy.  [comment:  how do we know public is influenced by science and not by lobbying NGOs funded by capitalist interest, as is usually the case, and how do we know that the science that the public purportedly relies on is correct? ] One current illustration of their concern is the “Environmental Literacy Improvement Act” proposed to state legislatures by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-funded lobby that designs legislation to serve the needs of the corporate sector and extreme wealth. The ALEC Act mandates “balanced teaching” of climate science in K-12 classrooms. “Balanced teaching” is a code phrase that refers to teaching climate-change denial, to “balance” mainstream climate science. It is analogous to the “balanced teaching” advocated by creationists to enable the teaching of “creation science” in public schools. Legislation based on ALEC models has already been introduced in several states. [comment:   K-12 refers to kindergarten to year 12 of capitalist-controlled government indoctrination of children in capitalist serving education system- here  ] Of course, all of this is dressed up in rhetoric about teaching critical thinking — a fine idea, no doubt, but it’s easy to think up far better examples than an issue that threatens our survival and has been selected because of its importance in terms of corporate profits. Media reports commonly present a controversy between two sides on climate change. One side consists of the overwhelming majority of scientists, the world’s major national academies of science, the professional science journals and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  [comment:  but they are sponsored by capitalists, so how can we trust them? ] They agree that global warming is taking place, that there is a substantial human component, that the situation is serious and perhaps dire, and that very soon, maybe within decades, the world might reach a tipping point where the process will escalate sharply and will be irreversible, with severe social and economic effects. It is rare to find such consensus on complex scientific issues. The other side consists of skeptics, including a few respected scientists who caution that much is unknown — which means that things might not be as bad as thought, or they might be worse. Omitted from the contrived debate is a much larger group of skeptics: highly regarded climate scientists who see the IPCC’s regular reports as much too conservative. And these scientists have repeatedly been proven correct, unfortunately. The propaganda campaign has apparently had some effect on U.S. public opinion, which is more skeptical than the global norm. But the effect is not significant enough to satisfy the masters. That is presumably why sectors of the corporate world are launching their attack on the educational system, in an effort to counter the public’s dangerous tendency to pay attention to the conclusions of scientific research.  [comment:  Wonder if the propaganda dissemination is at all associated with Tavistock Institute disciple organisations? ] At the Republican National Committee’s Winter Meeting a few weeks ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal warned the leadership that “We must stop being the stupid party … We must stop insulting the intelligence of voters.” Within the RECD system it is of extreme importance that we become the stupid nation, not misled by science and rationality, in the interests of the short-term gains of the masters of the economy and political system, and damn the consequences. These commitments are deeply rooted in the fundamentalist market doctrines that are preached within RECD, though observed in a highly selective manner, so as to sustain a powerful state that serves wealth and power. The official doctrines suffer from a number of familiar “market inefficiencies,” among them the failure to take into account the effects on others in market transactions. The consequences of these “externalities” can be substantial. The current financial crisis is an illustration. It is partly traceable to the major banks and investment firms’ ignoring “systemic risk” — the possibility that the whole system would collapse — when they undertook risky transactions. Environmental catastrophe is far more serious: The externality that is being ignored is the fate of the species. And there is nowhere to run, cap in hand, for a bailout. CONTINUED https://chomsky.info/20130305/ COMMENT Influence of policy by 'public will' sounds good on the surface, but it's not good at all.  The public really *is* stupid.  However, rule by capitalist elites is just as stupid, because they go against the interests of what are supposed to be their own people.  I say 'supposed' to be.  It's hard to say what a capitalist economy site with mixed disparate populations actually might be.  It is difficult for me to view such places as 'nations'; to me, these places are stations (like cattle ranches).  So, it is rule by oligarchy in disparate capitalist controlled cattle stations that the West has and that Western Europe is turning itself into. We have seen the public march demanding what will damage what is left of the public's nation, because the public is denied informed consent and the public is easily indoctrinated and manipulated. 'Democracy' as a system cannot work in any form. I would prefer a dictatorship that is based on enshrined values and aims of a related European people that are a people, and a socialist or communist economy. Chomsky refers to public opinion versus government policy in the US regarding environmental issues.  But public opinion doesn't impress me at all, especially when you consider the amount of money that is poured into shaping public opinion.  Scientists are also capitalist-owned, and there is dissenting scientists with opposing views.  So who is right? That the capitalist take that step further to project their influence on the already indoctrinated children in the American education system (via passage of the ALEC Act) is an interesting extension of the already enormous influence and indoctrination, in service of the capitalist rule by oligarchy fake American 'democracy'. Found myself thinking, if man ceased to exist on the planet, would it be such a bad thing?  While there are special men, man is not that special.  And everything has to cease to exist at some point.  The end is inevitable.

The Kitchen

Planet Tokyo Beef stirfry -  made up as I went along - was today's selection, as there's only so many nights in a row we can eat Butter Chicken.  LOL Had to get rid of the refrigerated vegetables.  Opted for stirfry to do that, although a stew was tempting.  Thought maybe like a Beef Burgundy based stew.  But I'd left it late and I wouldn't have had a cooking wine.  Stirfry seemed the more economical option. Forgot the garlic, in all the prep and batch frying saga of getting stirfry together.  Must be going senile. Tried something different:  stirfried French fries to throw into the mix.  Difficult cooking the potato off.  Went in the microwave ... but sort of got stuck together and turned limp and unappetising looking.  Still threw my chips in, along egg, onion, carrots, capsicum, cauliflower, cabbage shreds, fried rump steak strips and an improvised sauce:  light soy, Kecap Manis, Char Su sauce, chilli paste, tomato sauce, splash of water, few drops of sesame oil (later thickened with cornflour slurry). Tastes nice.  Could have maybe done with a bit more sauce.  But it's OK, considering I just made it up as I went along. The prep and small batch frying everything takes forever, but I cook enormous proportions.  Batch frying makes all the difference, as the food gets sort of charred and wok smoked instead of steamed as it would do cooking in big batches. I got the vegies out of the way, tipping those into a stainless steel bowl as I went along.  Meat was last.  Batches again and tipped into separate bowl, so that I could then give the meat some time to soak in the sauce, before tipping all the vegetable into the sauce, which I have thickening in the wok by that stage. The wok smoking I did yesterday has seasoned my wok nicely.  It was a breeze using it, all the way through the meat batches. Same shit, different day. F*cking assh*le. Threw back who knows how many drinks while I was preparing the meal. It has gone from relaxed and normal to arguing with a d*ckhead who is insisting to me that I am the problem and that he's not drunk, while he's indulging in conducting himself like a poorly behaved adolescent and talks absolute sh*t at me and then argues and argues and argues and argues, like he's suddenly sprouted a vagina. The personality change in him and the change in his demeanour disgusts me, while the argument takes me to the edge of tolerance. It rapidly turns into an argument. He's cocky and full of sh*t and he just won't let up. Full of absolute sh*t, escalating argument about sh*t. I can't f*cking take a minute more of him. This is how just about every day with him is. It will begin OK. It ends in sh*t. Now it's muttering loud enough for me to hear from the next room. Obviously, it's something that's supposed to be insulting. It's his favourite form of torment. Having already argued and already going from composed to wreck in the space of minutes of dealing with this pissy moron, I will try not to react. I feel sick. I feel extremely tense and shaky. It's impossible to imagine continuing to live with this insanity. My fucking existence thrown into chaos by this assh*le, who drinks for no sane purpose and imposes this on me. Refusing to blow in the 'breatho'. Mouthing off at me. It's psycho, saying "I won't do any test for you, you c*nt." So much for the claim it's not drunk. We seriously can't live together. This is insane. He's off his head. The stuff he's rambling doesn't even make sense. I'm freaked out and shaking. Took me forever to find the device, because he wouldn't find it himself.  Wasn't even sure what I was looking for.  Finally found it, half expecting to get a whack for my troubles, but determined to know the reading.  Last time this happened a few days ago, I'd let it go.  But I'm curious.  I want to know what it takes. Meanwhile, he's playing Ramone's 'Psycho Therapy' loudly on his mobile, just to aggravate me, I guess.  Or he finds it funny.  No idea. Finally got him to blow:  0.87.  0.087 Muttering that I'm a 'Nazi c*nt' (for having insisted he blow in tester).  Now he's muttering about 'Nazi feminists'.  That would be any female that doesn't want to take crap, I'd say. So we went from perfectly amicable and at peace to entirely at odds, and having an insane disruptive 'argument' that wasn't even really an argument about anything real or material ... it was just mayhem and unpleasantness for no reason, that erupted while I'd joined him to watch some TV program. Just him being unpleasant, overbearing and at odds, displaying a degree of aggression or hostility (without reason) that I found quite unpleasant (although it was displaced); and being unwilling to pipe down, even when I've clearly expressed that I've had enough and erupted in an outburst of my own by this stage. All that changed in the 'before' and 'after' mayhem scenarios is his alcohol intake (which isn't even all that much, I would think). I find this particularly stressful, because I feel I need to decide what I'm doing in future. I can't just keep repeating this.  But there seems to be no getting this through to him. All quiet on the Tokyo Front. Felt so upset that I went to bed and tried to sleep, but I couldn't.  Lay there feeling really anxious and freaked out for ages.  Overwhelmed and really emotionally charged. At one stage he came in, flicked on the overhead light, swore at me, gathered up whatever he'd left on top of the bed.  This was really uncalled for, as I wasn't arguing with him or anything; I'd retreated. Told him that if this kept up, we'd both be homeless.  Said he didn't care because he's got a swag.  LOL ... I'm sure he's not serious, but the problem is that we *will* wind up homeless if this keeps up. Lay there feeling sick and really worried.  Kept personalising what had happened, like it was a deliberate attack on me or something.   Began wondering what sort of 'sick individual' would deliberately do this to someone. But I don't really think it is as deliberate as it seems to be at the time, after I've had time to calm down.  However, highly charged arguments usually follow a deliberate act, in so far as it is a deliberate act to get into a state that leads to what I guess is disinhibition that usually precedes the dramas; so, in that sense, it is a deliberate act. At the height of feeling overwhelmed and emotionally flooded and wired, I feel like I could just about have a breakdown.  I feel this more keenly than I have before. Eventually got up to do a kitchen clean.  Sort of feeling teary, but I don't cry.  The crying part of me is generally blocked.   Resumed reading Coleman's book about Tavistock Institute.  But felt too guilty to focus on that. My companion's still engrossed in Ramones videos, but he's got earphones in now. It's taken me something like 4 hours to calm down and to wonder WTF even happened. I don't understand what happened. We were on good terms earlier, it was all calm, we were getting along (I even got a present) ... and then everything just sort of exploded out of nowhere. I think it's highly emotionally charged scenes I can't handle.  Suddenly, it was high intensity and high-energy, out of nowhere and unrelated to anything that was happening, and my angry protests just sort of fuelled that (instead of putting it to a stop), and it just got more highly charged, unpleasant and chaotic. At the time and for some hours later, I found it really distressing, infuriating, emotionally disturbing. Before that, I had an anxiety sort of mounting.  Suspected alcohol was being consumed and I'd hoped to avoid exactly the scene that was played out ... only I wasn't expecting one just out of nowhere, like that.  But I suppose that's where all these scenes always come from:  it's like a wildfire set off by some small spark. I don't know what I could have done differently. "You should have kept your mouth shut", he says.  He's dreaming.  It's not as though one person can be sort of wired, high-energy, disinhibited and sort of aggressive (or aggressive-appearing), and that the other person in close proximity (and disturbed by the dynamic etc) can just ignore it like it's not happening and ignore that their angry protests are met with more of the same. It is impossible not to react and then not to get more distressed if angry protests are met with more of the same sort of arguments, insults and high-energy drama that's suddenly erupted. Even so, once the dust had settled I found myself feeling guilty wondering if I was maybe me:  was it my fault?  Woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. First act of the day was accidentally dropping my coffee cup (which luckily fell in the sink and didn't break).  Spilled coffee all over the kitchen cupboards and floor.   Barely a mouthful left, but I took that outside so I could have a cigarette. Tried to discuss things, but I'm not being heard.  Walks off mid-way during my attempted discussion to fuss with kitchen cleaning, when I'd mentioned I'd lost my coffee.  That annoyed me.  Anything to avoid addressing what has to be addressed, matches the various subsequent denial manoeuvres that I'm also familiar with. Conceded that he'd had too much to drink.  But it's like dealing with a lunatic, because I still cannot get a promise out of him not to drink around me again.  The 'controlled' approach to drinking that he proposes (and he was already supposedly exercising during the months of these same dramas) is exactly what I told him it would be:  a failure.  But, no matter how many dramas we have (and no matter the mental breakdown I'm about to have), he refuses to do the rational thing and simply stop drinking.  He's going to drink less, he says.  But his record so far demonstrates that this is lunacy, and that this not within the means of control once it is under way as a habit. So I'm stuck playing Russian roulette with a lunatic, unless I'm prepared to make us both homeless now.  That's pathetic and I'm a prisoner. I don't understand why he will not just stop drinking in my presence.  Point blank refuses, even though we will be homeless because I cannot cope with this.  It's not like it's a big ask for him to drink elsewhere; but he refuses to do this, even though it is proven that he is capable of desisting and that the zero alcohol approach works well. His refusal to stop subjecting me to this leaves me feeling like I'm dealing with a lunatic.