http://blogs.marketwatch.com/themargin/2014/02/21/plan-to-divide-california-into-6-states-gets-closer-to-vote/http://blogs.marketwatch.com/themargin/2014/02/21/plan-to-divide-california-into-6-states-gets-closer-to-vote/
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-21 11:10:00 UTC
UKRAINE UPDATE : A LOT GOING ON TODAY.
In theory there is a deal.
1) The 2004 constitution will be restored within 48 hours, and a national unity government will be formed within 10 days.
2) Constitutional reform balancing the powers of president, government and parliament will be started immediately and completed by December.
3) A presidential election will be held after the new constitution is adopted but no later than December 2014
I don’t buy that they will leave Maydan until the president is gone. But if they restore the 2004 constitution. I think he has to resign. As I understand it, they can fire him right away if so. But that doesn’t mean much here, because the locals have even less respect for rule of law than Obama does. “Lie and make it up later” has become as American as it is Post-Soviet.
The reason being (you have to remember this is the east) that you can’t trust anyone here to hold to an agreement, so the ‘opposition’ will just assume that the president is buying time. Personally I’d raise the stakes. Call the europeans and have them freeze the assets of the Oligarchs. The guy is on the ropes here.
One of the districts outlawed the President’s Political party today. I expect that will continue.
EARLY RECONCILIATION IS FAILURE AS I SEE IT
– Focus on Corruption, not people and power.
– Replace the presidency with a prime minister.
– Get reform of the judiciary and police included in the package. (remove current judicial independence which in this country is a bad thing)
– Create a senate for the formal federation of the regions.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-21 09:11:00 UTC
UPDATE: PUTIN BLINKED.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-21 04:25:00 UTC
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/partial-list-of-75-people-killed-in-kyiv-violence-since-feb-18-337265.html
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-20 23:52:00 UTC
UKRAINE: BBC TELLS THE SIMPLE STRATEGY : CUT OFF THE MONEY
—“The business clans are the Achilles’ heels of the regime. With smart sanctions, targeting financial assets and judicious visa bans, including on members of the Yanukovych family, the West could help to break the status quo in Ukraine. Big businesses need access to European markets. Further instability will devalue their assets. Cutting off European oxygen would mean that the cost of doing business under a Yanukovych presidency would be too high. This is the main leverage that the EU and the US have.”—
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-20 17:59:00 UTC
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116655/kiev-ukraine-protests-are-vladimir-putins-worst-nightmare**THE BROKEN WINDOW THEORY, UPSIDE DOWN**
–“If it can happen in Kiev, in other words, it can happen in Moscow.
[…] Putin sees dissent as a slippery slope. He knows the cold has never stopped a single Russian revolutionary. One day people are camping out in a snowy fountain in Moscow, the next they’ve set up camp and put up barricades in the center of town, bringing traffic to a halt, sowing chaos, and toppling the government. It is the authoritarian take on the broken windows theory, turned upside-down.”–
My purpose in promoting the problem here in Ukraine is to advocate AGAINT endemic corruption. A free and independent Ukraine that is free of corruption, or one that is divided, is not material to me. That is a political question. The moral question is simple: the people are exploited.
I DON”T think the collapse of the soviet union was a good thing. I do think that the collapse of world communism was a good thing. I wold love to see the collapse of world social democratic democracy next. And participate in that if I can.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-20 16:32:00 UTC
The American diplomat was not honest ENOUGH.
The EU is a privileged, toothless, gutless, cowardly, institution without moral courage or integrity, and whose only legitimacy is its ability to unleash the american military through demonstrated moral indignation.
“Sanctions”. Bullshit. Freeze all Ukrainian assets.
GET US, THE U.S., OUT OF EUROPE
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-20 15:54:00 UTC
UKRAINE : A LESSON FOR AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES
The square in Maydan has held nearly a million people, but is being manned by as few as 20,000.
Their successes and sacrifices have encouraged people in other areas of the country to revolt.
It is very easy to render a country ungovernable, and a government illegitimate, with a very small number of people willing to use violence and to risk life and limb for freedom.
A small, armed, distributed population, willing to use weapons against police and military, to disrupt bureaucratic organizations from functioning under their the thin veil of legitimacy, can rapidly bring an economy to a halt.
The status quo in any society is not an immutable force of gravity. It’s a fragile set of habits, easily disrupted. And with that disruption the veil of ignorance is lifted from the public: governments are disposable. Freedom is not.
UKRAINE IS A TUTORIAL.
WATCH CAREFULLY.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-20 13:13:00 UTC
UKRAINE UPDATE: ** WE WAITED TOO LONG **
It’s spun out of control now. They’re just using AK47’s on the protesters. Parliament has left. They are shutting down the city.
Security has closed our offices. They devs will come to the apartment to work.
The violence is spreading around the country.
Lviv voted to secede last night. Crimea stated their threat to secede today.
We need to get out of here.
(The airport unfortunately, is on the other side of the city.)
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-20 06:57:00 UTC
UKRAINE UPDATE : FROM PROTEST TO REBELLION, FROM REBELLION TO WAR
–“..267 pistols were seized by the protesters, as well as two rifles, three machine guns, 92 hand grenades, and about 15,000 pieces of ammunition.
Serhiy Burlakov, a representative of the Interior Ministry, said that also close to 300 piece of arms were stolen from police departments in Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne and Ternopil regions that were also taken over.
In a separate statement, the SBU said protesters since yesterday have seized more than 1,500 guns and 100,000 rounds of ammunition, which they have used “to commit murders and take hostages,” the service said in a statement…”–
INJUSTICES
PAMPHLETS
WORDS
SLOGANS
ROCKS
BARRICADES
MOBS
MOLOTOVS
GUNS
GUNS TO GET MORE GUNS
GUNS TO CHALLENGE THE MILITARY
CIVIL WAR.
92 HAND GRENADES IS ENOUGH.
Three dedicated men with ten hand grenades each, and a wall of police will fall.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-19 13:54:00 UTC