Today, Russian State Duma changed the penal code to increase penalties for conscripts dodging draft, put in penalties for willingly surrendering to the enemy and reviving Soviet-era penalties against “marauding” (while also adding what would count as extenuating circumstances, which includes participating in the armed conflicts). And there are also ( Read more... )

When I started checking through my phone archives, it turned out that I got the first in what would would turn out to be a series of texts back in October. For some reason, I missed it completely.

October 22, 2018 | 9:13

IL early voting is open NOW until Nov 5 & Republicans need your vote. Skip the Election Day lines. Find your polling place ( Read more... )

Over at spb_ru, petras_pirt recently posted an image of what appeared to be a St. Petersburg municipal government poster in a subway train car, warning residents to be careful what they say, lest they run afoul of the Russian "anti-extremism" law.


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I was scrolling through my friends feed last night, and I saw that noted North Korea expert Andrei tttkkk Lankov posted about the least thing I expected - at how DPRK state media responded to Trump winning the electionTurned out, the fact that they responded at all was pretty surprising ( Read more... )

A few days ago, some pretty shocking allegations lit up the pro-government Ukrainian social media. I originally saw it in a post over at pauluskp's LJ, but Google and Yandex search turns up plenty of other places. They're all showing a poster that was supposedly a military recruitment seen around occupied Donetsk ( Read more... )

While looking through my LJ friends page, I stumbled across a post over at spb_ru by someone who goes by hipster_spb, and it's...

I'm just going to translate the whole thing.

(As usual, translated text is in italics, my notes are in plain text)

The "St. Petersburg Hipsters" Movement says hello from the city of Luhansk.


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Earlier this week, Czech Republic's Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a complaint against a documentary recently shown on Russian state TV channel Rossiya-1.

Why? Because, as the Gazeta.ru article explained, it, shall we say, took some liberties with historical facts about the Prague Spring. Prague Spring, for those who don't know, being a period ( Read more... )

A recent look through my Twitter follower list reminded me of something I meant to follow up on months ago, while Chicago run-off elections were still going on ( Read more... )

The way advertisements are set up inside Chicago 'L' train cars is pretty simple. They are printed on sheets of paper, which get inserted inside the metal brackets in the spaces above the seats. It makes it pretty easy to change them in and out. But, as any experienced 'L' riders know, it makes it just as easy for riders to take advertisements out ( Read more... )

When you hear a phrase "state-run news agency," it tends to conjure up images of authoritarian regimes like Russia or Turkey, or totalitarian regimes like Belarus and North Korea. So when Indianapolis Star reported that Indiana state governor Mike Pence created a state-run news agency, it raised more then a few eyebrows.


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