11 December 2016. Our Great Russian Motherland… The Winter Palace in Piter… Yes… That’s a RECENT Pic

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Yep… it’s winter before winter in Russia again! It’s ten more days before the official faceoff, but Ol’ Baba Winter is goin’ on strong in the Rodina, as this picture from Piter shows. That’s the Winter Palace… today, the restored palace forms part of the complex of buildings housing the State Hermitage Museum (the official website of the museum complex is here). By the way, nothing in Washington comes even close to the Ermitazh in scope or grandeur… so, all American claims of “exceptionalism”, “indispensability”, and “unique goodness” are nothing but vacuous bullshit. The Ermitazh is the real deal (it was around BEFORE the USA even existed… fancy that)…

BMD

29 November 2016. Here’s Something That Looks Like FUN… La Tomatina

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Don’t come to this shindig unless you want to PARTY HEARTY. This is the annual La Tomatina festival in the Spanish city of Buñol (in Valencia), held on the last Wednesday in August. It started when there was a surfeit of tomatoes at the harvest in the late 40s (some say that disgruntled townspeople threw them at hated local officials)… it went from there. Trust me, it’s tons of fun… wouldn’t you want to squish a tomato on the top of your dearly-beloved’s head… AND GET AWAY WITH IT!?! Have the jug at hand and smile! God didn’t make us to be Misery Mopes with a “frown two feet long”… have a laugh… it doesn’t hurt!

BMD

29 November 2016. Echoes of the Past: Artek Pioneer Camp in the 1980s… “Our Earth is So Small. Why Do We Need Wars?”

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Artek in the Crimea was the jewel in the crown of all Pioneer camps in the USSR. When the Ukraine took it over in 1991, they let it go to rack and ruin (they stole all the maintenance money and the Uniate Bandura Strummers just didn’t seem to know how to run it right). When the Crimea came home to the Motherland in 2014, one of the state’s first priorities was to put the neglect and decay at Artek right. They did so, and in short order, too! Artek is back up and running, as good as ever. It does speak volumes about the Galician Uniate nationalists and their rants, doesn’t it? Russia put it right; the “Ukraine” let it rot. That, to me, is the epitaph of the Galician Uniate project… may God cut it short to lessen the suffering of the peoples in the notional “Ukraine”. They didn’t deserve what they got after 1991…

BMD

29 November 2016. It Was Just Another Ordinary Day in the Rodina… Why Is It “Winter” Before Winter?

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It’s not winter, but it’s “winter”. Yes, there’s been warming in Russia, too, but it’s still COLD there in most parts. It still snows early and hard, and the thaw still comes late and slow. The more things change…

BMD