News Stuff
The BBC reports that Russia opposition politician Boris Nemtsov has been shot dead. Vladimir Putin has personally taken control of the investigation to find that he didn’t do it, and it was the work of Islamic, probably Chechen, extremists. 😈
Meanwhile Canada has decided Veterans will only need to verify lost limbs every 3 years, instead of annually. The change was made, no doubt, after discovering that none of the limbs reappeared in a year. 😈
Program Note: Your occasionally humble blogger will be involved with making changes to some old software on another machine that is not connected to the ‘Net. No idea how long it will take, so things will be hit and miss.
10 comments
“Program Note:” …
Wow… real work! I vaguely remember that! How does it feel? 😈
I verify my lost limb at least once an evening when I change the liner to its prosthesis, and again 2-3 times in the span of a day when I remove the whole prosthesis to give the stump a rest. You know what they say: “A skunk sat on a stump. The skunk thunk the stump stunk, and the stump thunk the skunk stunk …” Stella gave me a fake skunk when I came home from the hospital two years ago, and I can assure you the whole skunk, stump and process ALL stink!
Glad to see that the United States isn’t the only country whose government is led/staffed by idiots.
And BTW, it’s always a pleasure to find world leaders who know their heritage and understand their history. “No people, no problem.” Yep. SNORT!
The software issue feels a lot like archaeology because these programs are decades old DOS programs, Steve, which is why I still have a machine that will run them.
While I realize that there are conditions that might improve with time, there is no suggestion that the regrowth of missing limbs is possible with our current knowledge. This is more ‘one size fits all’ rule making that doesn’t allow common sense.
There is a very long history of this sort of thing, Badtux, but, if memory serves, Henry II of England was the last ruler who paid a penalty for it. For a Russian autocrat, Vladimir is rather restrained compared to many/most of the Romanovs.
Ah, Russia. Russia seems to get two kinds of rulers — the ruthless, and the inept. Vlad of course being of the former persuasion. No wonder Russians are so gloomy!
Russians with marketable skills have emigrated. Between the falling oil prices and sanctions the economy is in the toilet. They are getting circuses but no bread. This is the Russia they have come to expect. For the majority of the people life was better under Communism.
And life wasn’t exactly a piece of cake under the Communists either, so that’s saying a lot.
Half of Russia’s people with marketable skills are here in the Silicon Valley. The other half are in Israel. I know numerous expatriates who were in Moscow prior to the past six years or so. To a man they all report that things have gotten rather too chilly lately and they’ve decamped for elsewhere too. Oddly, many are going to China… which still claims to be a Communist country but seems to have a growing entrepreneurial class that’s hungry for talent. Funny, eh?
You have to go where the jobs are, and China has a lot of technology very familiar to Russians. Politics are for people who have something to eat and a place to live.
People didn’t get a lot in the Soviet Union, but they got something, which is more than many people have now.
And now O.J. err Vlad says he’s caught the “real” killers. ROFL! Talk about your “bring in the usual suspects”!
One of the nice things about the decades old non-aggression pact between the KGB and the Russian crime lords is the ability to have a ready supply of ‘the usual suspects’ for crimes that ‘have to be solved’. The system is easier than ordering a pizza 😈
Oh, I just saw on the ABC that one of the suspects is a Chechen – what a surprise 😈