[sch_peakoiler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sch_peakoiler', 'A')nd I would say except for Garden State cause it is the same all over the place, so there can be only one experience, right?

[lutherquick]

sch_peakoiler

Dude, you are so wrong... The US is far more corrupt than Russia.
From the police, to the lawyers to the president to our last governor that gave NJ's top security post to a GAY friend, and had no security experience. The US is as corrupt as in Floridian prisons for forcing woman into prostitution so prison management can make a buck... Corrupt as in Kenneth Lay of Enron, more with Tyco, WorldCom, GlobalCrossing, Rush talking about virtues... Bush to this day will say, Well, Saddam had to go, as if to justify his lies about wmd... Gitmo, is corruption... America stands here pointing at Russia about Chechnya, and then can't even contain the abuses in Gitmo, a God Damn prison (where you have 100% control, HELLO?)... I mean ok, the American guy that was just arrested for raping a young girl in Iraq and then killing her and her family, sch_peakoiler, you call that NOBLE? Let me guess, it's democracy...

To me, it's all corruption...

I worked at AT&T, Lucent, Telcordia, Fijitsu, US military contractors, big ass medical companies and let me tell you, the friggen corruption is mind boggling... But, I must say, it's all so and quite sophisticated. sch_peakoiler, maybe a cop in Moscow will try to squeeze $50 out you, and maybe a local mobster might squeeze more out of you, but that is being fixed, slowly by the same guys that took down Yukos... But corporate corruption is even more sinister, you will NOT fix it in one generation, not 2, not 3. People are losing their entire pensions... and trillions more will be lost while Americans look the other way and "join"...

Cut me a break... sch_peakoiler, what do you do for a living? How old are you? Have ever been in the corporate world? You ever run a business and deal with stupidity in American culture?

Explain this. How come, the US blows 175 million dollars on a piece of FBI software, and the thing can't even demo? Between the shenanigans I saw at places like AT&T, Telcordia, and Fujitsu, these guys are so god damn corrupt. One time we had this major, 3 million dollar software project at Fijistu DMR, the friggen server software would crash after 45 minutes... A demo was scheduled with the president, so the team organized a caviar break 40 minutes into the demo, while us developers rebooted and restarted everything... the customer didn't know reboots were being done... I quit after that con job.

Corruption, the US is the center of it all corruption, but so eloquent, and oh so, so sophisticated, and oh so soft...

sch_peakoiler, you basically, THINK like Bush, your lies are good lies, well, good for you. Reality will be one bastard for you.

Peak oil is being held back from the public while Cheney and Bush design their homes for off grid operations, that sir is corruption. Bush talk about hydrogen, when he knows damn well it's a fairy tale, that is corruption.

Reaching for Caspian oil, while pumping NGO money into Ukraine, and talking democracy, that's corruption.
And you know, I'm laughing my ass off as I write this, because all this aliquant and sophisticated corruption is pilling up to be one hell of a crash.
Bon-appetite...

[gg3]

Anyone with an IQ above room-temperature has to have high respect for Russian aerospace technology. Quite frankly, Russian spacecraft (and their space station) have often come through when our own (USA) technology was down for repair following one disaster or another.

Russian military aircraft are impressive as well. The US once captured a Soviet fighter, and of course took it apart to see what made it tick. The technicians got to the avionics computers and radio communications gear, and discovered they were made with vacuum-tube technology. Everyone started laughing their asses off at this "primative" equipment... until someone reminded them that it would survive the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects of nuclear weapons detonations, whereas our own (silicon integrated circuit technology) might or might not. The laughter stopped.

Russian military rifles are legendary, I'll leave it to the firearms specialists here to talk about those.

I know of two example of Russian signals intelligence or electronic surveillance technology, one from the early 60s, one from the 80s, and both were impressively clever.

In the early 60s, the Soviet Union gave a present to the United States Ambassador who was stationed in Moscow. This was a large wooden carving of the Great Seal of the United States. The Ambassador, duly impressed, hung this above his desk. It turned out that this carving was actually hollow and contained a resonant cavity, a diaphragm, and a tuned rod. It was a passive listening device, activated by bouncing a microwave beam through the area where the tuned rod was located, and then picking up the modulated reflections imparted to the beam by sound waves that struck the diaphragm. Sound waves such as highly confidential conversations the Ambassador held in his office, directly below the Great Seal with its passive ears.

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union agreed to build a new US embassy, using, of course, good strong Soviet concrete. But as it turned out, after the walls were up, this concrete had something special in it. Some of the coarse aggregate (gravel) had been replaced in the mix with an equal percentage of metallic objects. These objects were little cone-shaped and rod-shaped things, 1/2" to 1" long. They too, would interact with radio-frequency and microwave-frequency energy in some manner, either for direct surveillance purposes, or to provide a chaotic and noisy radio-frequency environment and thereby confuse any American attempts to sweep the place to detect electronic listening devices. I don't know for certain what happened to that partially-constructed embassy, but I suspect it was torn down and replaced with something in which the concrete production process was closely watched by American intelligence officials. To think, it could have stood as another great example of Russian use of passive radio-frequency technology. What I wouldn't do to have a sample of *that* wall:-)

In the civilian sector, Russia still produces vacuum tubes. These are highly prized by people who restore antique radios and audio equipment, and by companies that build modern audio equipment using vacuum tubes to get the particularly "warm" sound of the even harmonics for which tubes are well known. Presumably Russian tubes have other applications as well that I'm not aware of, but in any case, they are the "gold standard" for the world in this field.

BTW, if Russia wants to nationalize its energy supplies, that's up to Russia to decide, and the rest of the world to respect and deal with.

[sch_peakoiler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', 's')ch_peakoiler

Dude, you are so wrong... The US is far more corrupt than Russia.
From the police, to the lawyers to the president to our last governor that gave NJ's top security post to a GAY friend, and had no security experience.

[sch_peakoiler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', '
')BTW, if Russia wants to nationalize its energy supplies, that's up to Russia to decide, and the rest of the world to respect and deal with.

[sch_peakoiler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', 's')ch_peakoiler

sch_peakoiler, maybe a cop in Moscow will try to squeeze $50 out you, and maybe a local mobster might squeeze more out of you, but that is being fixed, slowly by the same guys that took down Yukos... But corporate corruption is even more sinister, you will NOT fix it in one generation, not 2, not 3. People are losing their entire pensions... and trillions more will be lost while Americans look the other way and "join"...

[lutherquick]

sch_peakoiler,

You speak and write in TRENDS...
Sounds to me like you have done LITTLE with your life...
I mean you claimed to have been in Belarus, and sure enough, my guess was right on target, you switched planes and call that experience.
Shit, you are sure as Bush is on the wmd bs.

Russian companies need to be far more transparent today than US companies. In order to join the WTO, Russia has been put threw hell, and is being subjected to higher standards than US "Enron" companies. Good grief, even ISO9000 standards qualifications are more common in Russia than the US.

Let me tell you how it will be, here is the future.

Ukraine is going back to work and will fix it's problems on it's own and will move closer to Russia as a partner. Georgian people will finally be piss off with moron Saaskavilli and will rejoin the CIS (well, officially, and become a reliable partner to other CIS members). The BRIC, the SCO, the CIS, and other pro Russian organizations will lead the world within 5 years. At that time, the US will cut and run from Iraq, Oil will be $250 /brl and there ain't one thing America will do about it.
South America will move closer to each other and push America out, dollar hegemony will be finished. Saudi Arabia will STOP selling oil in dollars... Russia and China will probably commission a Mars landing while the US is still trying to figure out how to fix it's foam and ice problems... In 5 years time, my Lukoil gas station in NJ will allow me to exchange my worthless dollars for some Russian Rubles. Meanwhile, America will have oh so many Enron like trials...

[sch_peakoiler]

luther,
I never claimed to have been in Belarus for more than several hours, or can you cite my words saying otherwise?
Actually I did not change planes in Belarus, I was transitting through it on a bus, just to be exact.

Ok I see your vision. My vision is different to yours. I see big problems for russia ahead, starting with depopulating far east and chinese alert of illegal immigrants. Moreover, current russian politics can with time lead to a full blown military conflict between NATO and Russia, with a more probable victory of NATO (despite many beliefs that nuclear war destroys everything), just due to the fact that NATO is now poised to destroy a substantial part of Russia's nukes before they start.

Moreover, I doubt about a substantial life standard growth in Russia, neither do I hope to see even a stable population number in the next 5 to 10 years.

Now we can just let our visions here and compare in five years.

By the way, you like russian roubles, dont you? Well, I have some here, would you like to buy them from me : 1 dollar for one rouble?? I mean this is a bargain price for you, just imagine, you pay one worthless dollar for a precious priceless russian rouble! Man, decide quickly! The price can change! Please give me your feedback if you are interested!

[lutherquick]

sch_peakoiler,

Highly educated scientists like Albert Bartlett beg for population control. 20 years from now America will be dreaming of some way to reduce population... Russia is in the middle of this, part is bad news if you focus on hegemony and monetary growth... yet balance would be were a population holds, neither growth nor contraction.

You claim Russian current politics is going to lead to full blown conflict between Nato and Russia. So what part is bad? Nato wanted military bases in Ukraine, Nato wants to occupy Chechnya, you know, for democracy (oil) . Nato want Belarus, Nato want more... So, yup maybe, you are right, fuck it, I say, if nato wants to put the US flag on Kremlin like you do, yup, WAR is it.

If there will be a fight, it will started by America, for sure... no doubt about it... But, I just don't see it happening... I mean come-on, you can't even find one gram of wmd, you can't even find Bin Laden. That points to, that's proof positive, that is the action items that America is the most incompetent nation of leaders on Earth.

Not one gram of wmd, and now you are telling me, advanced Nato growth and a conflict to the fault of Russia. nope...
Russia will simply turn the gas off, arm the Tor-M1 and wait, then the lights go out in Eu, the UK and finally the US. Then America will be back to the peace table, especially when the war machine is stalled.

All this is hypothetical, try to see the future. Yet, I'll bet my "vision" will be in the "ball park", your delusion of America will be as accurate as securing the wmd...

Again, why can't ONE GRAM be found?

sch_peakoiler, you are so Western, so American, its why right after the shuttle crashed, Bush announced "we are go for Mars". It is so western, amongst so much failure, an increase of poor track records, that all of a sudden, that qualifies you for MORE. And you stand there, pretending that Iraq is all so peaceful, everything is so successful, when it's getting worse, day by day.


Let me guess, your next post will give me facts, about the 300 tons of wmd, right?

All this heated 'chat' and is a waste of my time, you still can't tell me what your qualifications are? What experience do you have in work, career? seams to me, I'm wasting my time with a teenager that at best lives in a video game world where there are WMD, tightly secured.

Russia will have a stable demographics... The results, the deliverables will mirror the last 5 years of stabilization. Real economic growth has been had, real income growth has been delivered, this isn't some fairy tale, or hallucination such as a Bush presidential speech.

As far as Rubles is concerned, sure, PM me, how many you got? sure... like the saying goes, "A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted"... But the rate is more like 24 Rubles to 1 $. Since you THINK they are worthless, why are you holding on to them? If you realy believe they will fall, then lets make it 50 rubles for 1 dollar.

My gut feeling says, no resource wars... Reason, America will be too busy with so many internal problems... Either feed it's people or power the war machine... No friggen way, people inside America will put up with TV shows of "shock and awe" while they have no money for rent, mortgage, big screen tv's, gas for the SUV, no money for food... nope... You ever try to watch TV while you are hungry? American leadership will place America in the bad position of choosing, during the down side of peak, of choosing between food or war, and no way, war will work at that point. Resource wars would work if America could make "resources flow", but insurgency, resistance, nukes, sabotage, depletion, mistakes, out right US incompetence, will keep said resources from flowing.

Peak oil, simply put, is going to give America attrition, delivered by herself, like suicide. Even if most Americans will localize and deal with reality, there will be a few nut jobs like sch_peakoiler looking at Russia or Venezuela talking democracy, but drooling out of his mouth for that there oil.

[sch_peakoiler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', 's')ch_peakoiler,


All this is hypothetical, try to see the future. Yet, I'll bet my "vision" will be in the "ball park", your delusion of America will be as accurate as securing the wmd...

[lutherquick]

sch_peakoiler,

"As you told something about yourself, I am returning the favor :"
Thanks for letting me know, I'm still NOT impressed, I'm very unimpressed.

So far, you have given only opinions about where you think the world will go and why you justify attacking Russia. Anyway, America will attack, for sure, she needs to, she's out of oil. Isn't that enough reason? Beslan school children died because Aslan Maskhadov needed to romp around Washington DC meeting and dinning with the American congress and Akhmed Zakayev is being protected by England. Sure, America will attack... While sch_peakoiler will tell how thing MIGHT be, the world will see things the way they WILL be.

Again, you speak about what you HOPE, what you DREAM, what you ANTICIPATE. Simply draw a line, do some simply interpolation, and you can draw from history to the future. If you look at the US track record, and the state of US finances, it's clear to see the she will collapse. If you look at Russia, interpolate, a simple vector, 6 years of POSITIVE, has a higher probability of being 6 more years of more POSITIVE.

Oh, I'm sorry... now I get it... Russia for 6 years hasn't been positive, no Yukos is sending wealth out of Russia, hummmm, I see you point... Well, fvck it, it's positive for Russia... that's where the problem is, you can only see from your pocket book, your wallet.

Now don't tell me you FEEL this, and THINK that, and your JUDGMENT is this or that.
Give me FACTS.

But you can't, because if you did, HOPE would be the only thing left.
Sorry to say, but you have been cheated. You need oil, God damn it, Russia wants market value, too bad.

[sch_peakoiler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', 's')ch_peakoiler,

"As you told something about yourself, I am returning the favor :"
Thanks for letting me know, I'm still NOT impressed, I'm very unimpressed.

[gg3]

Let's agree that elites everywhere are corrupt.

A nation is not its elites.

A significant advantage Russia has over the US is that the Russian people are tougher and apparently more capable of dealing with adversity. There was a time when Americans could claim parity in that department, but we have had it easy for so long that we have become lazy and decadent. This will prove our undoing unless we can toughen up again, as we did during the 1930s depression and WW2.

By "toughen up" I do not mean sending other peoples' kids off to war and putting a yellow ribbon sticker on the back of the SUV, but rather, measures as simple as carpools and victory gardens, cutting back on consumer baubles, shifting the econmy back from baubles to basics, and learning how to work with our hands again.

What's not helping us is the culture of excuses for incompetent leadership. Eisenhower was a five-star General; Carter was a nuclear engineer in the Navy; we have had competent Republicans and Democrats, but at present we have a guy who made "gentleman's C" at Yale, ditched his cushy military job for the bottle, and has a track record of business failures made less pointed only via infusions of other peoples' money. He is simply out of his league. We need someone like a Colin Powell or a Wesley Clark, we need to shift our culture onto a more spartan footing, and we need to stop making excuses for mediocrity.

[sch_peakoiler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', '
')Let's agree that elites everywhere are corrupt.

[Vick]

Interesting discussion...
sch_peakoiler, you know very litte about my country (yes, I am Russian). You are full of misconceptions... lutherquick knows much more - I am really surprized...
Anyway, I thought you might be interested in insider`s opinion...
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'm')y optimism level in assessing what Putin does is rather low.

[lutherquick]

Basayev, finally, killed. The master mind of the Beslan, Russia school massacre, the Moscow theater crises, and numerous hostage situations including 1000+ people in a hospital.

Here are the late Maskhadov and Basayev.
http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20060710/51133784_5.html

Remember that Maskhadov was in Washington DC in the 1990's romping around, dining with US congress and senators, gaining financial promises for splitting Russia apart. The US agreed, and for oil. Just coincidently, Maskhadov frequently communicated with the same US officials (congress and senate) that communicated with Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

It's a matter of time before the brilliant oil traders realize that Chechnya and Iran are closing the gap around the Caspian Sea energy reserves. Over time, the stability around the Caspian will make energy go UP, way UP. Instability is what kept prices down. Chaos, crises, and civil war in Chechnya were the most brutal when oil was at 1998 $10 / brl.

Peace is costing the west. Whether America likes it or not, oil wealth will not flow simply because the US funds Chechen terrorists or NGO efforts.

Real democracy is winning, and it starts by delivery prosperity to the energy "producers", not the "consumers".

Peak oil is a nightmare, but for the consumer, it's friggen Christmas for the producers.

[Vick]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'h')ow do you measure my knowledge? by my opinions?

[lutherquick]

Vick, sch_peakoiler,

Vick:
I was born a US citizen in Germany, lived in Spain as a child, and married my wife in Belarus. I lived in Belarus for about 12 month over 8 trips...

sch_peakoiler:
You seam to be dreaming of a colored revolution in 2008, in Russia. I ask, do you think Russians want to be like Georgia, or Ukraine? In case you forgot, Russia had the first colored revolution, it was in 1991, the Western leaning leader's name was Yeltsin, and like Yuschenko and Saaskavilli, things were a mess for a decade. Not until a pro-Russian leader took office did things begin to work... Putin is not anti-western, but he is pro-Russian.

No 2008 colored revolution. Russian people are very, very smart... They look at America and 66 trillion of debt, they look at Iraq, they look at 9/11, at many problems all over the world, and they see America.

So far, Putin is delivering results, and promises keep getting delivered by Putin... Meanwhile Bush talks about abstracts and comes up with more excuses as to why things are flying apart, and he keep asking Americans to keep going, don't cut and run, be vigilant, bla, bla, bla...

The Bulgarian people were given a referendum and asked if NATO should move in, they said no... But parliament said, Yes, anyway... so much for democracy... The Soviet people had a referendum and voted to keep most of USSR together, Yeltsin went against the wishes of the people... so much for democracy... Chechnya had a referendum and people voted to stay within Russia, too bad America, no NGO money worked there... although, to America's credit, America still thinks she can bypass that democracy and referendum, probably for "American" democracy, since we all know, pure democracy for Russians and Chechens has nothing to do with it. America's efforts are about America's democracy...

Regardless, the reason there is so much turmoil in the world right now is because REAL democracies are moving ahead of fake , American financed democracies... The insurgency in Iraq is just another form of democracy, as is Hamas.

2008 will be a peaceful time for Russia to elect a new Russian president, and I have faith dollar based NGO money will be worth less than used toilet paper.

[pongle]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', 'B')asayev, finally, killed. The master mind of the Beslan, Russia school massacre, the Moscow theater crises, and numerous hostage situations including 1000+ people in a hospital.

Here are the late Maskhadov and Basayev.
http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20060710/51133784_5.html

Remember that Maskhadov was in Washington DC in the 1990's romping around, dining with US congress and senators, gaining financial promises for splitting Russia apart. The US agreed, and for oil. Just coincidently, Maskhadov frequently communicated with the same US officials (congress and senate) that communicated with Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

It's a matter of time before the brilliant oil traders realize that Chechnya and Iran are closing the gap around the Caspian Sea energy reserves. Over time, the stability around the Caspian will make energy go UP, way UP. Instability is what kept prices down. Chaos, crises, and civil war in Chechnya were the most brutal when oil was at 1998 $10 / brl.

Peace is costing the west. Whether America likes it or not, oil wealth will not flow simply because the US funds Chechen terrorists or NGO efforts.

Real democracy is winning, and it starts by delivery prosperity to the energy "producers", not the "consumers".

Peak oil is a nightmare, but for the consumer, it's friggen Christmas for the producers.

[lutherquick]

pongle

Brilliant thinking.

Actually, Raisa Gorbachev didn't die of Leukemia, she died of chemotherapy. Same logic...
The terrorists were the "cause", yet you linger on the "effects" and the best "solution" at hand.
Next you blame the FSB for bombs done by terrorists.
Let me guess, you think Saddam did 9/11, right?

Anyway, I don't see one event as being some silver bullet. Yet I am happy this dirt bag (Basayev) is gone.
And I am still waiting for the euphoria after Saddam was caught.
I think that will come right after the wmd have been found.

The Chechen people voted to stay with in Russia, the majority. And like so many other REAL democracy movement, US money comes in and corrupts everything. Basayev was paying using US NGO money, not entirely, but partially. This, to me, represents typical US hypocrisy.

Basayev was nothing compared to the support he got from the US.
And England is protecting one of Basayev's lover boys, Zakaev.

Akhmed Zakaev is next. And each time the Russian military and FSB wipe out yet one more terrorist, Chechnya move closer to peace. This terror campaign has a very high level of success compared to the Iraq delusion perpetrated by Bush.