Giving up is a great release - I did it with Italian on Duolingo, and with the guitar - it frees up time for the stuff you need to do

@dsquareddigest.bsky.social Classic case of a system that wants its actors to disobey its rules

More statistical analysis of Presidential meetings What the numbers do and don't show

More statistical analysis of Presidential meetings open.substack.com/pub/newkreml...
Wherein I try to make sense of the fluctuations of public meetings on the Presidential website, while learning more than I wanted to about its technical workings.

Crikey, looks mad. I've just ordered it

Sad news. Definitely on the critical path for the establishment of the asset class

I adored it! Also loved her “Forty rules of love”. She’s an astonishing woman

"Robert De Niro's waiting" by Bananarama - apparently it was meant to be Al Pacino because they fancied him, but it didn't scan

Statistical Analysis of Putin's meetings And a call for requests....

In which the author shows the results of his vibe coding of a crawler for the Kremlin website, and discusses how much it costs to get a meeting with Putin

open.substack.com/pub/newkreml...

Really thorough piece of analysis

There's a Venn diagram with a big overlap between High Church Anglicans, posh Anglo-Catholics, and closeted misogynistic gays

The prophet speaks for God, and God is always on the side of the powerless, the suffering, the oppressed.

Richard Rohr

I always thought that Brexit had its intellectual roots in the break with Rome under Henry VIII and the refusal to bow to the new Popes in Brussels. I guess Frost's conversion undermines that

and they have not been at the front lines.
The fact that a Deputy Minister is willing to take this step suggests to me that he is taking the view that the conflict will not be long (and presumably has influence to keep himself away from the fighting). 5/5

They should be the new elite inside Russia. However few jobs have been found, because the skills of fighting and working in the government bureaucracy are different. A number of Duma deputies have very publicly signed up to fight, although there is a suspicion that this has only been on paper 4/5

Communications in the Russian Army have been a sore point ever since the operation in Georgia in 2008 mostly had to run on mobile phones.
President Putin has given orders that veterans of the "Special Military Operation"(SMO) be given preference when it comes to promotions. 3/5

Zarenin oversees the field of radio electronics at the Ministry including import substitution of radios. In 2022, there was a scandal that so-called special radios, which were meant to have been localized at great cost, turned out to be rebadged cheap Chinese products and not fit for purpose. 2/5

Замминистра записался добровольцем Андрей Заренин отправится в зону СВО

Maxut Shadayev, the Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media announced that Deputy Minister Andrey Zarenin will volunteer to go to the front. "Kommersant" say this is the first known case of an official of such a high level volunteering. 1/5
www.kommersant.ru/doc/8554125

Just sold my position in the last few days, so it's probably the bottom

I think a lot of good news was priced into RHM in Feb 2022 and then again when Trump became President. European defence spending will soar, and RHM gets a lot of it, but it's already in the price at 68 times earnings

David Rocastle: The phenomenal person behind Arsenal’s perfect player (Gift Article) Twenty years after David's death, his family and friends recall what made him such a special man and how it helped shape him as a player

Rocky. Loved and remembered always.

Everyone who knew him adored him. If you didn’t know him I’m able to share a free to read article in his honour.

Here are memories from his family and friends to celebrate what made him one of a kind. ❤️

www.nytimes.com/athletic/248...

Someone posted that they found the Karajan Ring CD set for £1 in a charity shop. This was something that only rich people could own when it first came out

When Robert Harbison suggested that the endpoint of the history of development of human narrative was the prison memoir, I'm pretty sure this is NOT what he had in mind

This scandal could represent a broader challenge to Alexei Gromov who runs media inside the Kremlin, or indeed to Sergei Kiriyenko who runs domestic politics.

More thoughts about Remeslo The battlefields for Russia’s social policy are segmented.

The Remeslo case is a sign of strains inside the elite, but only in the bit that deals with social media. It gets disproportionate attention because it's so visible in the West, but it is important. The scandal could represent a challenge to Alexei Gromov who runs media inside the Kremlin.

Thank you for your reply. Would I be right in restating it as a tax on the export of IOUs (equity and FI) as a replacement for taxing the import of goods (tariffs)? It would have the positive externality of reducing the financialisation of the home economy.

Isn't it your view that China is the root cause of some of these flaws? Isn't part of that flawed system the capital controls that his organisation maintains? Or is his view that everyone else should close their capital accounts?

This is an interesting reframing of a question that vexeds me. Why does autocracy always prevail in Russia? I don't believe the "lack of a land border" answer for similar reasons to @birblib.bsky.social . I think path dependency/contingency is a good answer, too. History is one thing after another.

Thanks for your comment, Brian! I think I agree with you on it not being an attempt to smoke out opponents - it's more about forcing the other commentariat prostitutes to fall in line.

The Remeslo Case You can lead a stalking horse to water....

Weighing in on the Remeslo case - this is my Russia-specific substack. I think Remeslo's anti-Putin post is a response to Viktoriya Bonya and intended to force other bloggers to declare their loyalty:
open.substack.com/pub/newkreml...