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“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”


Monday, July 30, 2007

Never Thought I'd Be a Cold Warrior

Because let's face it--the only good thing I remember from the 1980s was the Thundercats, He-Man, and My Little Pony. (Well, I am a girl afterall.)

Again with the Russians--

Russian expedition sets sail to claim Arctic for the Kremlin:

Two weeks after Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Canada’s plans to assert itself more vigorously in the Arctic, a Russian expedition sailed Tuesday for the North Pole, where it plans to send a mini-submarine crew to plant a flag on the seabed and symbolically claim the Arctic for the Kremlin.

The mission is part of a race to assert rights over the Lomonosov Ridge, a barren but energy-rich wasteland that stretches across 11 time zones.

Scientists estimate the glassy icescape is rich with 10 billion tonnes of gas and oil deposits.

The Russians have long claimed that the ridge, which extends into northern Canada, as an extension of their continent.

“The Arctic is Russian,” Artur Chilingarov, the expedition leader and deputy leader of the country’s parliament, told Russian television.

So! Who wants hot chocolate? We can nuke some up for ya...

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posted by Mary, 10:30 PM

Anyone Know the Russian for Lebensborn?

Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp:

Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp's mass wedding. "They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia".

Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.

With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.

But this organisation - known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours" - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.

[snip]

Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.

Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear - supposedly a cause of sterility - and given more wholesome and substantial undergarments.

Twenty-five couples marry at the start of the camp's first week and ten more at the start of the second. These mass weddings, the ultimate expression of devotion to the motherland, are legal and conducted by a civil official.

[snip]

Life for young people in Russia without connections is a mixture of inadequate and corrupt education, and a choice of boring dead-end jobs. Like the Hitler Youth and the Soviet Union's Young Pioneers, Nashi and its allied movements offer not just excitement, friendship and a sense of purpose - but a leg up in life, too.

Nashi's senior officials - known, in an eerie echo of the Soviet era, as "Commissars" - get free places at top universities. Thereafter, they can expect good jobs in politics or business - which in Russia nowadays, under the Kremlin's crony capitalism, are increasingly the same thing.

Wow--that's sure different from my old Girl Scout camp.

I know I quoted this at length, and the article is probably four times longer, but if it's true, it's really disturbing.

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posted by Mary, 10:00 PM