Russia
Posted: Thu May 11, 2023 7:29 pm
It would be a good use of public money to send them there ASAP.
They're obviously trolling us. I think we should troll them (and the nutjobs) back by proposing changes to the current sanctions regime to allow "temporary exports of construction equipment, electrical construction material, household appliances (including washing machines), etc. in sufficient numbers to support construction of new dwellings for as many American and Canadian family units register a desire to emigrate to Russia with their respective governments." Also grant waivers of embargoed firearms so each American expat family can take as many guns with them legally as they can carry.patgund wrote: ↑Thu May 11, 2023 7:04 pm Russia to US and Canadian right wing nutjobs, "Come home to Mother Russia! We hate the same people you do!"
I would bet money that within 5 years, those "immigrants" would be whining about how their embassies are doing enough to let them "come home" to the US or Canada. Not to mention they would be upset that they would be expected to learn Russian. And gun ownership in Russia is rather....dicey.Russian authorities will launch construction of a village outside Moscow for conservative-minded Americans and Canadians next year, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Thursday.
Timur Beslangurov, a migration lawyer at Moscow’s VISTA Foreign Business Support, claimed that “around 200 families” wish to emigrate to Russia for “ideological reasons.”
That is, assuming they didn't all end up fertilizing Ukrainian sunflowers after being used as cannon fodder.
I like it. Especially the part where they can take as many guns as they can carry.johnpcapitalist wrote: ↑Thu May 11, 2023 7:48 pmThey're obviously trolling us. I think we should troll them (and the nutjobs) back by proposing changes to the current sanctions regime to allow "temporary exports of construction equipment, electrical construction material, household appliances (including washing machines), etc. in sufficient numbers to support construction of new dwellings for as many American and Canadian family units register a desire to emigrate to Russia with their respective governments." Also grant waivers of embargoed firearms so each American expat family can take as many guns with them legally as they can carry.patgund wrote: ↑Thu May 11, 2023 7:04 pm Russia to US and Canadian right wing nutjobs, "Come home to Mother Russia! We hate the same people you do!"
I would bet money that within 5 years, those "immigrants" would be whining about how their embassies are doing enough to let them "come home" to the US or Canada. Not to mention they would be upset that they would be expected to learn Russian. And gun ownership in Russia is rather....dicey.Russian authorities will launch construction of a village outside Moscow for conservative-minded Americans and Canadians next year, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Thursday.
Timur Beslangurov, a migration lawyer at Moscow’s VISTA Foreign Business Support, claimed that “around 200 families” wish to emigrate to Russia for “ideological reasons.”
That is, assuming they didn't all end up fertilizing Ukrainian sunflowers after being used as cannon fodder.
Fox News and company would lose their shit if Dark Brandon pulled a move like that.
Sounds a bit like the Wunderwaffe in WWII.
They are extremely dependent on Western technology for almost all critical parts, because of the kleptocracy. If you sell ball bearings to the military in Russia, it's far easier to just import Western products and slap a big markup on them, which is approved by the procurement agents you've bribed, than it is to figure out how to actually build them yourself.
I was never convinced by the frenzied pursuit of "just in time" inventory management: it seemed close to "almost too late". Sometimes shouting and waving contracts cannot guarantee that the supplier will deliver the necessary goodies when needed.johnpcapitalist wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 1:20 pm The inherent problem with a distributed supply chain is that one late part means you have nearly completed equipment sitting on the ramp. You're vulnerable at thousands of points along the way. That's why it was impossible to buy a new car at any price during much of the pandemic -- a single semiconductor part meant you couldn't ship that new SUV.
We're finally working our way out of this situation. The short term kinks naturally worked themselves out given time, as most countries are now fully open. Longer-term, there's a huge push towards "near-shoring" (Mexico instead of China) or "friend-shoring" (moving to more closely allied countries like Malaysia instead of China).
Am I unrealistic in hoping that the missing components Russia needed are, in some cases, the same parts Ukraine stockpiled?Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 6:05 pm Further on Russia's supply problems: someone mused (or reported, I can't vouch for reliability) that Ukraine had been quietly buying black market spares for its T-series Soviet/Russian tanks before the invasion. This was a doubly good move: Ukraine built a stockpile of spares for its tanks while Russia found that its own tanks were missing components that had been sold to dealers, and there was little inventory on the shelves.
It is likely that they are the Russian parts that are in the Ukrainian tanks...Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 6:52 pmAm I unrealistic in hoping that the missing components Russia needed are, in some cases, the same parts Ukraine stockpiled?Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 6:05 pm Further on Russia's supply problems: someone mused (or reported, I can't vouch for reliability) that Ukraine had been quietly buying black market spares for its T-series Soviet/Russian tanks before the invasion. This was a doubly good move: Ukraine built a stockpile of spares for its tanks while Russia found that its own tanks were missing components that had been sold to dealers, and there was little inventory on the shelves.
Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 6:11 pmI was never convinced by the frenzied pursuit of "just in time" inventory management: it seemed close to "almost too late". Sometimes shouting and waving contracts cannot guarantee that the supplier will deliver the necessary goodies when needed.johnpcapitalist wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 1:20 pm The inherent problem with a distributed supply chain is that one late part means you have nearly completed equipment sitting on the ramp. You're vulnerable at thousands of points along the way. That's why it was impossible to buy a new car at any price during much of the pandemic -- a single semiconductor part meant you couldn't ship that new SUV.
We're finally working our way out of this situation. The short term kinks naturally worked themselves out given time, as most countries are now fully open. Longer-term, there's a huge push towards "near-shoring" (Mexico instead of China) or "friend-shoring" (moving to more closely allied countries like Malaysia instead of China).
Obviously there is a cost to holding extra inventory, I'm not denying that. That can be the price of prudence.
I feel the same way reading you say that that I felt today in my last day at Mission UK. My current department head -- the straight-up best of the 4 department heads I've had in 2 countries -- sat down at my cafeteria table when I showed up for a token appearance today (turning in my spare flat keys, my badge, etc., then running the rest of my hopping-on-a-plane-tomorrow errands, but also one last Breakfast in the Embassy cafeteria) and spent about 20 minutes over our breakfast wraps telling me that he's learned a great deal about both scientific service management *and* soft customer service skills from me than he thought he would. Bear in mind, dude is a retired E9 Marine Infantry grunt who taught himself programming while serving as a Drill Instructor at Quantico, earned his CS degree after retiring from the military, then started a 20+ year second career as a Foreign Service IT guy of which this is probably his last post before retirement. So he has forgotten more about both leadership and about IT than I will ever know.
JIT also requires more management, or at minimal more work to give middle managers. It requires a lot more collection of metrics and generation of reports than earlier systems.Ben-Prime wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 1:57 am Put more simply: While it is a waste of work-hours to spend more time chasing just-in-time inventory, some types of management view worker time as worth less than the inventory costs, since they are already paying for the labor; and even when shown how it inevitably costs more, they can't get over squeezing the most of out of the baked-in labor costs.
Russia issues arrest order for British ICC prosecutor after Putin warrant
Interior ministry seeks to detain Karim Khan in wake of allegations against president over abducted Ukrainian children
Andrew Roth
Fri 19 May 2023 18.34 BST
The Russian government has put the British prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) on a wanted list in an act of retribution after the Hague-based court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for allegedly overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children.
The arrest order said Russia’s interior ministry was seeking to detain Karim Khan, who has served as the ICC prosecutor since 2021.
In March, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, on allegations they facilitated the forced deportation of thousands of children from Ukraine to Russia, where many have been placed with Russian families.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/ma ... karim-khan
Ukraine war latest: Russia says Ukraine has attacked Moscow with drones; Kyiv 'knows where Putin is in real-time'
5h ago - 14:42
'Thank God nothing exploded': Russians describe what happened during drone attack
Although attacks have become familiar for Ukrainians, civilians in Russia appeared confused as they came under assault from drones in Moscow.
One local resident, who did not give their name, said: "I heard an explosion but I didn't understand.
"I looked out of the window and didn't understand what happened. I thought maybe it's an earthquake, but then I figured out that it's most likely a drone."
Another resident, who also chose to remain anonymous, said they had seen police and security outside their building.
"I went out to find out what happened. They said it seemed that an UAV got into the apartment, the wings fell down, it crashed into the glass, the wings fell down, and the (UAV) body landed inside the apartment.
"There are three young girls in the apartment. Thank God nothing exploded."
Another described hearing a propeller sound shortly after 5am followed by a loud bang and the sound of shattered glass falling to the ground.
They said police had later cordoned the area off.
part of https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war- ... t-12541713
‘Spymania’ grips Russian security services amid sharp rise in treason cases
The recent arrest of a number of high-profile scientists has led the scientific community to fear they are being targeted by the Kremlin
Andrew Roth
Sun 4 Jun 2023 09.21 BST
As Russia’s war in Ukraine has grown into an existential conflict for the Kremlin over the past 15 months, its search for internal enemies has intensified, with a sharp rise in treason cases that experts have equated to a “spymania”.
While many of the treason cases focus on those allegedly fighting for or aiding Ukraine, others have burrowed into seemingly loyal state institutions, such as the scientific research centres that helped research the very weaponry that Russia is using to strike Ukraine.
Last week, the first of three hypersonic missile scientists to have been arrested on suspicion of treason went on trial in a case where the evidence and accusations remain secret. All were from a single institute in Novosibirsk, the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM).
Anatoly Maslov, a 76-year-old professor of aerodynamics at the institute, is thought to be suspected of passing secrets to China, possibly a result of his participation in international conferences on aerodynamics in the 2010s.
The arrest of the respected scientist and two colleagues has led to a rare backlash among the scientific community at his institute, which published an open letter calling for his release.
“We know each of these [scientists] as a patriot and a sound person incapable of doing what the investigators have accused them of,” wrote a collective of dozens of Maslov’s colleagues, who also demanded the release of Alexander Shiplyuk, the director of ITAM, and Valery Zvegintsev, a chief researcher.
The men could face the rest of their lives behind bars, the letters read, for their “quality” work that included presenting at international conferences, publishing in international journals and participating in international projects.
Maslov has had two heart attacks and spent time in hospital since his arrest last June in Novosibirsk, Reuters reported, citing a source close to the scientist.
The cases also put the entire scientific community at risk, the letter went on, and have sent a chilling effect across research areas to anything that could be deemed secret.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... ason-cases