“Biden's assessment of Putin has been widely quoted.
However, few people seem to have read his answer in full.
If you get acquainted with the full, uncut text of Biden's interview then the meaning of what was said becomes clear.
“Yes, he's a killer. He will pay a price. You will see it soon. He has done bad things. I will not say what I will do, but he will understand. We must be able to "walk and chew gum at the same time" at the same time.
Therefore, I extended the START agreement with him. There are cases (places) where, in our common interests, we will work together. "
In other words, Biden has five theses:
1. Putin is a killer, he has done bad deeds.
2. Putin will pay a price, which you will soon see.
3. Putin and I understand each other well.
4. We have common interests with Putin.
5. I have worked with Putin, I work and will work where we have common interests.”
From me:compare this with the record from the Bukovsky Archive of what Biden told the Soviets during his visit there and he comes out looking very consistent, but not in the way you are being told.
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Napoleon said that had it not been for the Revolution, he would have become a scientist. He also stated that would have like to solve the problem that troubled Newton - or as he put it “Newton explained how the planets attract one another but not why they do so”. Laplace, who had
taught young Napoleon and probably wrote the famous characterization of him (see below) thought him intellectually completely capable of this.
Indeed, on a famous occasion Napoleon surprised Lagrange & Laplace by telling them of mathematical discoveries he learnt about in Italy, they had not heard about.
For those who understand Russian are are interested both in history of WWII and details of military technology (both engineering and science behind it) there is a fantastic new series of talks by Mark Solonin on his YouTube channel
Mark Solonin is the
most important independent historian of WWII on the Eastern Front, as well as a professional aviation engineer and aircraft designer. He begins with a detailed account of the history of the development of the atom bomb, with technical details of the science behind it and
the engineering of making one. As he says, the basic details of the first generation of atomic weapons are on Wikipedia (based mostly on reverse engineering) but there is also a lot of disinformation about the working of later technology. This is the first of the series,
Pretty good account of the Treaty of Riga signed on thus day 100 years ago, which ended the Polish-Bolshevik war. The account of the seizure of Vilnius is a bit sketchy though, and what actually happened was a little mote interesting.
Piłsudski was, of course, a native of
Lithuania. His father’s family is known from the XV th century, his mother’s family (Billewicz) was one of the most ancient and distinguished families in Samogitia (part of Lithuania). One of the main female characters of Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy Aleksandra Billewiczówna, was
from this family. But Piłsudski’s family was, like most of Lithuanian nobility, thoroughly polonized. I don’t know much about the family of general Żeligowski, but it resided near Vilnius in the days before the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. General Żeligowski
I avoided so far the subject of lockdowns, masks, social distancing etc, as means of dealing with covid-19 essentially because I did not know myself the best approach to this kind of pandemic and didn’t believe that anyone else knew either. I have even unfollowed some people
simply for being excessively confident that they knew and for being too ready to assume that those who disagreed with them were idiots or heartless grandma killers (or were guided by some nefarious self-interest - some people are simply unable to imagine anyone disagreeing with
them for any other reason).I have also listened to some world class virologists and epidemiologists arguing for completely opposite approaches. The tendency to blame governments one didn’t like for other reasons could be seen basically everywhere but the governments were usually
In April 1979, a delegation of American senators headed by Senator J. Biden from Delaware was on an official visit to the USSR. The main issues discussed were the limitation of strategic arms and the deployment of American
weapons in Europe. What was discussed outside the scope of the protocol became known thanks to the efforts of Vladimir Bukovsky.
Bukovsky's archive contains a memo of the first deputy head of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee Vadim Zagladin. It is called "On the Main Content of Conversations with US Senators" and is dated April 19-20, 1979.
One of the really stupidest things I have ever seen on Twitter (there is even some petition to this effect) is the demand that pharmaceutical companies which developed these vaccines should make no profit on them. Vaccine development is one of the most
risky enterprises there is. The most common thing that happens is that what looks like an epidemic ends before a vaccine gets to the stage of human trials: that’s what happened with SARS I and MERS vaccines (which, of course, gave lots of fools & rogues the opportunity
to claim that “no vaccine against a coronavirus has ever been developed so none will...”). Vaccine development has a huge cost and when finally it turns out that there is no demand, the loss has to be absorbed by the developer. And, in addition to this, many vaccines simply