There was a wedding? How many people were shot?

Accidental shootings at the wedding in Abkhazia

At a wedding celebration in Sokhumi, Abkhazia (an occupied territory by Russia), two people were injured by accidental shootings. They are a 60-year-old man and a 35-year-old pregnant woman. The injured were taken to Sokhumi Republican Hospital. At present, injuries do not pose any threat to their lives. Some locals say that the woman’s injury caused miscarriage

The accident occurred during the wedding ceremony. One of the guests wanted to celebrate the day by shooting a gun in the air. Unfortunately, the shooting ended in injuring other guests. The person who was shooting is wanted by the police. 

s the locals say the wanted person has an authoritative person behind him. Owing to that, they suspect that the police are not going to investigate the case properly. The scenes of shooting guns in the air have been spread all over the social network. According to the scenes, the guests have been shooting guns on the streets. 

Some locals say they remember that the former Minister of internal affairs has been giving guns to sportsmen as gifts. They believe that such actions have resulted in terrible incidents in Abkhazia.

https://www.georgianjournal.ge/society/35058-accidental-shootings-at-the-wedding-in-abkhazia.html

No free speech in Sweden

Swedish woman criticizes Islam, gets three months in prison.

Supreme court decides woman is guilty of “’criminal contempt against people with Muslim beliefs’”. 

“During the investigation, the woman, whose name is Christina, was subjected to six police interrogations and searches, something she described as a terrible experience.

“The police demanded she hand over her keys, mobile phone and iPad. The fact that she needed to get in touch with health care for a doctor’s visit was not taken into account whatsoever.”

  

https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/09/65-year-old-swedish-woman-sentenced-to-prison-for-criticising-islam-and-migration/

Decorating with Commies

Check out this Russian site, where you can get busts of all the famous Communists – Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Merkel, Khrushchev, Ortega, Fidel Castro, and not to be left out of any Commie group, Barrack Obama.

https://soviet-power.com/product.php?cat=29

Link at http://knuckledraggin.com/2018/09/buy-your-communist-leaders-bust-here/

Huey replacement

I thought the Blackhawk did that.

“In an upset, a Boeing-Leonardo team has won a $2.38 billion contract to manufacture a new batch of helicopters to replace the Air Force’s UH-1N Huey used to guard the service’s nuclear missile silos.

“Bell Helicopter built 10,005 Hueys from 1957 to 1975. Of the 10,005 production Hueys, 9,216 went to the U.S. Army, 127 to the U.S. Marine Corps, 79 to the U.S. Air Force and 42 to the U.S. Navy.  The rest went to other countries.

“Today, There are only 113 B models registered. 9 E models, 12 F models, 10 Training F Models, 1 HH-1K, 8 TH-1L’s, 14 UH-1L, 3 M models, 1 P model, 5 civilian 205’s and 547 UH-1H’s.   There are zero registered for all other makes and models of the military variant hueys, leaving only 723 Military varient Huey models in all registered today.”

https://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=81992

With other soldiers in Aero Rifle Platoon, Air Cav Troop, 11th Armored Cavalry, I spent most of 1966 learning air assault in UH-1D Huey slicks. In 1967, practice became application in South Vietnam, along with more than 60 missions as door gunner on slicks and B-model gunships.

Michael, my oldest, in the late 1990s at Fort Hood, flew in the last Huey at that post. Almost 30 years connecting Michael and me to an old, slow, best-ever helicopter.

New Year's celebration

New Year arrived, 1967. 

At midnight, flares popped all over the perimeter -- parachute flares that hung in the quiet air, star clusters arcing into the dark sky and then raining down green and red and white comets. The celebration lasted about five minutes, then a voice of angry authority was on the command net.

"All Comanche elements, this is Comanche Three. All unauthorized firing will cease immediately! Echo Six, Foxtrot Six, Golf Six and Hotel Six will determine who is firing the flares and will take appropriate disciplinary action. Out."

 And another voice on the radio: "Well, Happy Motherfuckin New Year to you, too. Over."

 Comanche Three did not reply.

Something else that yanks my chain

Used to be, some bloggers wrote "prolly" instead of "probably," for some reason those bloggers deciding to write the way people talk. Not me. In all my life, I've never said "prolly."

The not-word now in vogue is "M-kay." That somehow makes people "feel" special, I guess. "OK" or "Okay" are so plebeian or something.

So, bloggers and responders who use "M-Kay," I will admit you are special as soon as you prove admission to the short bus.

(SHORT BUS: "Generally, the short bus is a smaller version of a regular school bus that carries mentally challenged students to school.")

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=short%20bus

Google downtown

Studying Google town pictures is an education.

Take for instance a picture of downtown Freedom, Okla., population around 300. You got the usual high school, a couple of churches, board-clad buildings the city council or business association decided would make the town more Western-like, when councils and associations a few decades past decided downtown looked too country and needed sprucing up a little.

Anyway, one street-level picture has a couple of ol’ boys sitting on a bench in front of a hardware store. A red Dodge pickup is parked in front of the store. The street and sidewalk are dusty, as, most likely, they always are in Freedom. It’s in that part of Oklahoma, almost in Kansas and not far from the Texas Panhandle. Both these ol’ boys are wearing faded jeans, probably Wranglers, since they look like working men. One wears a red and white checker shirt, a red gimme cap and slip-on canvas shoes. The other man wears a gray pullover shirt and brown boots. Both have tanned arms, and you know there’s only one way to get a tan in Freedom, and that is by staying out in the sun.

On the left side of the picture is Cimarron Saloon. Freedom is on the banks of the Cimarron River, so the saloon’s name certainly is not out of order.

Just looking at the picture, you don’t know if the men are talking things over before going into the hardware store, or if they’re waiting for the saloon to open.

You can see the Google photo car reflected in the hardware store windows. It looks like a Thunderbird.

I’ll give those two ol’ boys the benefit of the doubt and say they’re fixing to go into the hardware store.

Here is a link to Freedom:

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.7686905,-99.1140428,3a,75y,180h,89.04t,1.53r/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scJfPm_1Y3rSP0_4cK_VdXQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Victor Martinez, baseball player

Victor Martinez retired from Major League Baseball on Saturday. Martinez played 16 years in MLB – eight-plus with the Indians, one-plus with the Red Sox and the last seven with the Tigers.

Martinez was an All Star five times. He retired with a .295 lifetime batting average, 246 home runs and 1,178 runs batted in.

His last at bat, in the bottom of the first inning, Martinez hit a slow roller to the second baseman. He ran for all he was worth and beat the throw. An infield hit at 40 years old and his last at bat.

Some players have hit a home run in their last at bat and then trotted around the bases.

Martinez worked for his last hit. He ran it out, never slowing down until he was past first base.

Martinez looks like a baseball player. He wears his uniform socks high, the way a baseball player should. Martinez does not wear his uniform with the trouser cuffs below his ankles or below his shoes.

My daughter would like Martinez’s style of play. She says, “A player who wears his uniform the proper way, he plays baseball right. Those others, I want to tell them. ‘It’s a baseball uniform, not a track warmup suit.’”

She’s right. A player who wears his uniform right, he hustles. You won’t see those players lollygagging on an infield ground ball. Those players run out every ball.

Watch the Astros big three – Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and George Springer. Those players wear a proper uniform, and they hustle.

The Yankees big guy, Aaron Judge, wears his uniform properly. And he hustles.

Maybe high-socks players will set an example for the track warmup suit players. Maybe more players will play like Victor Martinez.

Russian countryside

“Some say time goes by at a different pace there.”

http://englishrussia.com/2018/09/17/photos-from-russian-countryside/

I wouldn’t mind an MT-LB in the back yard.

Poland, Czech Republic back Hungary in EU fight

Bulgaria likely to support Hungary.

"Following the EU’s plenary session, many politicians have raised concerns about launching Article Seven. The Deputy Speaker of the Czech Parliament, Petr Fiala, explained how the procedure could spur growing mistrust among member states.

"The deputy chief whip of CDU and CSU in Bundestag, Arnold Vaatz, also warned that the procedure could trigger a dangerous trend in which Central and Eastern countries start to discuss how to turn their backs on Europe without incurring a huge financial loss. Zbigniew Ziobro, Justice Minister of Poland, stated that his country will support Hungary under any and all circumstances.

"Czech Prime Minister, Andrej Babis, proclaimed that The Czech government stands behind Viktor Orbán after the European Parliament voted to sanction the country for flouting EU rules.

“'This nonsense just ushers negative sentiment into the European Union,' Babis told online news website Parlamentni Listy when asked about the vote, 'so, I stand behind Orbán. We are allies,'” he added.

https://hungarytoday.hu/the-european-leaders-who-support-orban-in-the-article-seven-debate/

The philosophy of the European Union in one sentence

“(M)member states are free to organise their judicial systems in a way that they see fit, but there are some minimum standards that have to be complied with.”

Statement from European Network of Councils for the Judiciary after removing the voting rights of the Polish Judiciary Council.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/09/poland-suspended-from-the-european-network-of-councils-for-the-judiciary/

And a majority of European Union states will decide the “minimum standards” other states must approve.

The Union has no power, other than to bluster and bluff and threaten not to let the “other kids” into the tree house. The Union will not expel any member state, lest others demand, “Me, too!”

Just remember, the European Union was formed so Germany and France could do anything they bloody well wanted.

And, unlike its newest members, the original Union States had not lived for almost 50 years under the thumb and heel of Soviet Russia.

The EU’s judicial council decision is tied in with the Union’s insistence that Europe become Moslem majority within the next few years. Poland, Hungary and Austria are fighting the Muslim invasion because the people remember their history, when armies of Islam invaded and occupied much of Central Europe. Western Europe has no such memory.

Over-protective parents raise dumb kids

Why college students don’t vote absentee? They don’t know where to buy a postage stamp

“Vote or die.” Unless, it’s too hard to find a stamp.

A Fairfax County focus group this summer found many college students who have gotten an absentee ballot simply fail to send it back because a U.S. Postal Service stamp seems to be a foreign concept to them.

“One thing that came up, which I had heard from my own kids but I thought they were just nerdy, was that the students will go through the process of applying for a mail-in absentee ballot, they will fill out the ballot, and then, they don’t know where to get stamps,” Lisa Connors with the Fairfax County Office of Public Affairs said.

“That seems to be like a hump that they can’t get across.”

The focus group included college interns from across numerous county departments.

“They all agreed that they knew lots of people who did not send in their ballots because it was too much of a hassle or they didn’t know where to get a stamp,” Connors said.

“Across the board, they were all nodding and had a very spirited conversation about ‘Oh yeah, I know so many people who didn’t send theirs in because they didn’t have a stamp.’”

https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/09/college-students-not-mailing-absentee-ballots-because-they-dont-know-where-to-buy-stamps/

Hey, I know! Drop social justice classes and choose-a-gender workshops and have mandatory “How Life Really Works.”

Stories we can believe, right?

The New York Times: “Climate Change Threatens World’s Coffee Supply, Report Says.” 

TIME magazine: “Your Morning Cup of Coffee Is in Danger. Can the Industry Adapt in Time?” 

Newsweek: “Climate Change Effects Could Mean the End of Coffee Beans.”

Popular Science: “Climate change will make your coffee cost more and taste worse.”

Uh, no.

“According to a new report by the Financial Times, prices for coffee beans have hit a 12-year low. But that’s only taking into account recent data. If we look all the way back to the beginning of time (which, in this case, is the 1970’s), we see that the highest coffee prices, just under $3.40 per pound, occurred in April 1977. Today, the coffee price is about 93 cents per pound.”

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/18/remember-when-climate-change-meant-the-end-of-coffee-never-mind/

Link at maggiesfarm.

Bean shortages and price hikes occur now and then because of colder weather, but that is an aberration.

American feminists

“Instead of being good at the thing they can be good at, like being a wife and mother, they choose to be terrible at something no one wants and no society has ever needed.”

http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=15057

Biden labels Trump supporters ‘dregs of society’

Dang. Obama blasted us for “clinging to...God and...guns,” Mrs. Clinton called us “deplorables,” and now the former VP and possible candidate for 2020 president gets “tremendous applause and goodwill from the heavily Democratic crowd.” Biden spoke to a “crowd of LGBT supporters.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/09/classy-joe-biden-calls-trump-supporters-the-dregs-of-society-in-speech-video/

Link at maggiesfarm.

Well, what else would Joe say about real people to queers and lesbians?

Billy Graham says…

“I’ve read the last page of the Bible. It’s all going to turn out all right.”

Decapitated corpse ID’d as alleged pedophile

Aurora, Ill., judge granted bail to man charged with child molestation, corpse sans head placed on judge’s doorstep.

“Smith was arrested last month following allegations by his then girlfriend that he had raped her 8-year-old daughter.”

https://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=81858

The judge said Smith did not pose a threat to the community.

Note to local citizens: Check the unnamed judge for stupid.

No bias here, huh

From Wikipedia:

“Code Pink: Women for Peace is an internationally active NGO that describes itself as a ‘grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S.-funded wars and occupations…”

“The Center for Security Policy (C S P) is a far-right Washington, D.C., think tank.”

Reckon which entry was written by a card-carrying member and which was written by a left-wing Wikipedia propagandist?

Search conducted after reading a piece in hungarytoday.hu, to wit:

‘Hungary Receives US Recognition for Helping Persecuted Christians’

“The Washington-based Center for Security Policy has awarded the Hungarian nation for its efforts to help persecuted Christian communities.

“The award was received by Tristan Azbej, state secretary at the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office for persecuted Christians, at a gala dinner in Washington, DC, on Thursday night.

“In his laudation Gregg Mitchell, co-leader of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, noted the Hungarian government’s readiness to help persecuted Christians in the world, with special regard to Hungary’s 2016 programme aimed at helping Christians in the Middle East. He called the initiative exemplary and called on other governments to follow suit.”

https://hungarytoday.hu/hungary-us-recognition-persecuted-christians/

Art and ravens and blue sky

A tour de van Gogh, expanded.

https://vimeo.com/261379936

Link at http://americandigest.org/wp/something-wonderful-no-blue-without-yellow/

When in doubt, call a tank

The gooks were in bunkers, four or five, dug in well, everything low to the ground and hard to see. Somebody in Second Platoon spotted something that didn’t look right and opened fire and then everybody was shooting at that one bunker. Gooks in the other bunkers started firing and we quickly realized we were in a gun fight. After a while, Foxtrot Six radioed all tracks to move back fifty meters, behind a small hump. Then a FAC came in and fired a willy pete rocket. Two F-105s followed, with four 250-pound bombs each on the bunker area. Foxtrot Six moved First and Second Platoons into the complex then. Sergeant Guerrero from First Platoon later said they took fire from one bunker, and an M48 tank moved forward and stuck the main gun muzzle close to the bunker. "It was ... ," Guerrero said, and he moved his hands. "It was ... something else, man. That gun fired, and there was dust and pieces of gook and shit coming out the firing apertures. We was all applauding and shaking our fists and saying, 'All right, man, all right.' "He shook his head. "It was something else, man."

Make up your mind, son

“The son initially said that there was no gunshot and then said that there could have been a gunshot.

“A witness said that there was a gunshot.”

Tennessee man arrested for breaking glass door with deputy sheriff’s head.

“Ray was charged with disorderly conduct, domestic violence, resisting arrest, aggravated assault, filing a false report and violating a condition of bond.”

http://maconcountytimes.com/Content/Default/Local-News-Stories/Article/Man-allegedly-breaks-door-on-deputy-s-head/-3/9/5519

About that extinct dinosaur business

We are told dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago.

Extinct. Gone. No more here.

We are told birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Uh...

Danish government ready to OK pepper spray for home defense

Police union opposes plan, “arguing that legalisation would make it more likely that the spray ends up in the wrong hands.”

“The use of pepper spray in Denmark has caused a number of headline-generating incidents in recent years. In early 2016, The Local’s report about a 17-year-old girl who faced police charges for using pepper spray to fend off a sexual assailant went viral. Later that year, the nationalist Danes' Party elicited strong reactions went it took to the streets of Haderslev to hand out cans of what it called ‘refugee spray'. In 2003, current speaker of parliament Pia Kjærsgaard of the Danish People’s Party was fined 3,000 kroner for pulling a can of pepper spray out of her purse and threatening to spray a woman who Kjærsgaard said was harassing her.”

https://www.thelocal.dk/20180910/denmark-proposes-legalisation-of-pepper-spray

It is a step in the right direction. There should be no question concerning defense of the home.

Well, all right, then!

Salome Zurabishvili, independent candidate for Georgian president, says she is running for the future of the country and to “expel devils.”

“… I am coming to bring Russian troops back from these territories through a peaceful way. I am coming to expel devils,” Zurabishvili told voters in Kutaisi.

http://www.ipn.ge/en/politicss/97887-salome-zurabishvili-i-am-coming-to-dismiss-devils.html?rund=1536820202

Only state officials may stab, stick or shoot each other

Member of Russian Duma proposes bill that would allow use of handgun, sword or epee only by officials and only against each other.

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-deputy-submits-bill-regulate-duels-62864

Can’t have Russian deplorables acting above their stations, can we.

European Parliament warns Hungary to change its ways or face sanctions

Members of the European Parliament voted to censure the Hungarian government on Wednesday for eroding democracy and failing to uphold fundamental European Union values.

…

Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty opens a path for sanctions against a member state and a temporary loss of EU Council voting rights. The mechanism is triggered when one of the bloc's members violates the vales of "human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities."

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-parliament-votes-to-trigger-article-7-sanctions-procedure-against-hungary/a-45459720

PM Viktor Orban responded: "I refuse to threaten, blackmail and defame Hungary and the Hungarian people by the immigration forces. 

"All nations and Member States have the right to decide how to organize their own lives in their own country."

http://www.miniszterelnok.hu/magyarorszag-nem-enged-a-zsarolasnak/

Danes want ‘temporary refugees’ sent home

Fifty-four per cent of respondents agree “that refugees should be temporarily assisted in Denmark for repatriation rather than being integrated for permanent residence. Only 24 percent disagree.”

https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/09/large-majority-of-danes-would-rather-deport-migrants-with-temporary-residence-than-integrate-them/

Did Russia get advance notice?

“Carsharing or car sharing (AU, NZ, CA, & US) or car clubs (UK) is a type of car rental where people rent cars for short periods of time, often by the hour.”

http://englishrussia.com/2018/09/07/troubled-fate-of-moscow-car-sharing/

(CA and US? Is secession waiting the governor’s signature, and somebody told the Russians but not the rest of us?)

And the point of the photographs: “However, in Moscow, people think it is a source for free car parts.”

Almost all the pictures are really “Smash it like you rented it.”

The problem is, Johnny boy, we do know you

“You have a president who clearly doesn’t understand America, doesn’t understand the Constitution, doesn’t understand the role of the Justice Department, the separation of powers, and that’s dangerous,” — John Kerry

https://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=8172

Kerry was born an elitist, schooled as an elitist, married as an elitist, and he has no understanding of Americans. He learned nothing from his naval service.

And, Johnny, your first four words are wrong. "You have a president..." No. We have a president. That includes you. President Trump has a better understanding of the Constitution than do you, and certainly a greater understanding of the separation of powers than does your former boss.

Antifa Progressives would have a heart attack

Choctaw Confederate veterans at a 1903 reunion in New Orleans.

https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soubor:Cherokee_Confederates_Reunion.gif

These old men are displaying a Confederate battle flag!! The one they fought under against the Union!

Elizabeth hid from dictator, book claims

Ceausescu’s wife expected “top-level academic degrees from the UK to bolster her fake claim to be one of the world’s great scientists.”

French President d’Estaing “warned the Queen to remove any items from their rooms in London that could be removed or even unscrewed.”

          ***********************************************************

A new book about the British monarch’s diplomatic activities recounts how Queen Elizabeth “hid behind a hedge” in the garden of London’s Buckingham Palace to avoid having to meet Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife during their controversial state visit to Britain in 1978.

The book says Queen Elizabeth agreed to host Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu under pressure from the UK Foreign Office but – after hosting the protocol carriage ride and state dinner – had no intention of exchanging another word with them.

“While out walking her dogs in the Buckingham Palace garden the next day, she spotted the Ceausescus coming the other way … And, as she later revealed to another guest, she hid behind a bush in her own garden to avoid them”, Robert Hardman writes in Queen of the World, as cited in the UK Daily Mail.

The book describes the Ceausescu visit as an embarrassment from the word go.

The Foreign Office soon regretted its impetuous decision to invite the infamous duo to the UK, but by then it was too late.

Worries in London mounted after French President Giscard d’Estaing telephoned the palace to warn them that the Ceausescus had behaved like “burglars” on their visit to Paris, and had stolen a number of items from the Elysée.

The French leader warned the Queen to remove any items from their rooms in London that could be removed or even unscrewed.

The Queen followed the advice carefully, among other things removing the eminently steal-able silver-backed hairbrushes from the Belgian Suite in the palace.

But the troubles mounted when the British ambassador in Bucharest warned royal officials that the title-hungry Mrs Ceausescu would expect top-level academic degrees from the UK to bolster her fake claim to be one of the world’s great scientists.

Embarrassingly, Oxford and Cambridge refused to offer her any honours at all – an example followed by all other universities in the UK.

As a result, the best that Foreign Office pressure could come up with was an honorary professorship, squeezed out of an obscure sub-university-level college in London.

The Romanian state visit has since gone down in history as one of the most discreditable in Britain ever.

The British motives were unashamedly venial; the then cash-strapped UK government was desperate to sell a fleet of aircraft to Romania’s Tarom airline – and Ceausescu had demanded a gold-plated trip to London as part of the deal. In the end, the Romanians never paid up.

During the trip, the Queen gave the Romanian dictator an ancient English honour, the Order of the Bath – which wags soon nicknamed the “Order of the Bloodbath”, in reference to his appalling human rights record.

The then foreign minister, David Owen, later admitted the whole trip had been a huge mistake. “I try to pretend it never happened,” he told Hardman. The Queen “made it very clear she intensely disliked having Ceausescu to stay”, he added.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/britain-s-queen-hid-to-avoid-romanian-dictator-book-09-10-2018

I think it’s a joke

But, given the tears and disbelief the night Mrs. Clinton’s loss was announced and the downright hatred shown all us deplorables since, maybe it isn’t a joke.

“So I was taking my child (we don't use gendered terms like ‘son’ or ‘daughter’) out in the Prius to go to Whole Foods and on the way I encountered a cis white male driving a pickup truck. I didn't want to make eye contact out of fear, so we stopped and let the truck turn in front of us. While he was turning he nodded right at me and raised his hand. Is this a new white power symbol? I'm literally shaking right now!?

“He had a bumper sticker that said Pipe-fitters Local 117, and another that said Ford Power. I've reported both of these new hate groups to the SPLC.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/9ckxpo/what_the_fucking_fuck/

A Russian man got his feelings hurt

A girl said some things.

A Russian feminist blogger has been charged with inciting hatred toward men on social media, less than two weeks after she told rights organizations she was being investigated for extremism.

A self-described radical feminist, Lyubov Kalugina warned the SOVA Center anti-extremist group in late August that she was subject of a pre-investigation check into her social media posts after an anonymous man had complained that her posts insulted him as a male.

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-feminist-blogger-charged-with-inciting-hate-toward-men-62781

Another story:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/matthewchampion/russia-feminist-blogger-hate-speech

One Russian dude was “insulted as a male.” A real news organization would tell us what it was the woman said that “insulted” the male.

Here’s an idea: When someone says something that you find “insulting,” just say “Fuck off” or laugh.

I don’t get insulted. I get pissed off at stupid, but not insulted. There’s a difference.

Surviving the Gulag

No guarantees, of course.

§  Your best chance to escape is before you get to the Lubyanka. You’re healthy and you’ve got no walls and fewer guards than you ever will again.

§  Lie to your interrogators. Remember nothing at all. If you build them a story you’ll get tripped up in the details.

§  Sign absolutely nothing that they give to you.

§  Don’t trust the thieves.

§  Spend what time you have in the transit prison sleeping. You’ll be thankful for it after a tour on general labor.

§  If you want to survive your ten-ruble note then do whatever you can not to get out on general labor.

§  The thieves are going to get all the trustee positions.

§  It’s not the short ration, but the long ration that kills you. (The bonus ration is given to shock-workers who overfulfill the norm. You spend more calories earning it than you get from eating it.)

§  Don’t bother petitioning Stalin to release you. He wants you right where you are.

§  Don’t believe the rumors of a general amnesty either.

§  Gorky won’t tell the world about your prison conditions. Gorky depends on praising the state to maintain his livelihood.

§  Gorky will end his days in the camps anyway.

§  Tukhta: A word for the difference between the work you do and the work you tell your commissar you do.

§  If you get your Tukhta past the commissar then he’s going to be invested in maintaining the illusion to his bosses. He doesn’t want to end up behind the wire.

§  When the godfather recruits you to inform on your comrades laugh in his face.

§  Knife stoolies.

§  To escape requires constant observation, meticulous planning, and a willingness to immediately seize whatever chances fortune throws your way.

§  Study up on geography now; you’ll be thankful when you’re trying to cross the Kazakh steppes.

§  When you’re dying of thirst in the desert it doesn’t help to stab your comrade to death to drink his blood to survive a little longer. He’s also badly dehydrated and won’t bleed much at all.

§  Lie to the commissars. Tell them what they want to hear.

§  When they let you out they aren’t actually letting you out. They’ll arrest you again and slap another tenner on you.

As a rule, it’s better not to live in a country that maintains a gulag. 

https://ricochet.com/549015/on-finishing-the-gulag-archipelago/

Link at http://americandigest.org/wp/escaping-from-the-gulag/

The part about “Stalin…wants you right where you are” reminds me of a book about Cuba published in the early 1970s. Many Cubans, faced daily with corruption and inefficient officials said, “If only Fidel knew this sort of thing is going on.” Those Cubans would not have believed it if told, “Fidel does know. He set up the system.”

Those boys played some baseball

Bert Ellison managed the 1925 San Francisco Seals to a Pacific Coast League championship. He also played now and then, batting .325, smashing 22 home runs and driving in 160. Ellison was all of 29 that year, sent back to the minors after playing parts of five seasons for the Detroit Tigers.

Not bad for a country boy from Ola, Arkansas.

Ellison’s 1925 Seals had a won-loss record of 128-71.

Yep. That many games. As Jim Brosnan would say, “It’s a long season.”

Back in those days, some Pacific Coast League players were paid more than major league players. And, they played in smaller, cleaner cities, too.