Posted on 08/17/2024 11:39:02 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
Vladimir Putin is feeling the stress from Russia's invasion of Ukraine - as he is seen wringing his hands in a meeting with his top officials after Volodymyr Zelenskyy's troops bit back and made a counter-incursion into the country.
The dictator, 71, was in a security council session on the crisis he faces due to Ukraine's dramatic invasion of the border areas of Kursk region.
His very public hand-wringing and fidgeting came as he was told earlier this week about how Russia had lost territory to Kyiv troops and - at the time - more than two dozen settlements, a figure far higher now.
-snip-
As he was told the news, Putin was seen with a solemn expression on his face, fidgeting with a pen and absent-mindedly rubbing his wrists. He occasionally appeared to grimace as he was told the worst information.
Such non-verbal gestures are seen by experts as reflecting anxiety, stress, or indecision.
They may show the dictator is facing an internal conflict and a lack of confidence, or feels fear, or insecurity. He may be seeking to calm himself in an act of self-soothing.
Putin is more often seen strongly gripping a table with one hand, which could also be a reflection of tension and anxiety. As such, the hand-wringing is unusual for the Russian leader.
During the meeting Putin showed some strange facial movements, at several points appearing to bite his lip, appearing exasperated at what he was being told by his officials.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
>>>>Progressive Field - Cleveland Guardians<<<<
They’ll always be the INDIANS to me.
And the name “Progressive Field” tells you all you need to know about that democrat/union run crap hole known as Cleveland.
________________________________________________________
List of Current Major League Ballparks
American League
Angel Stadium of Anaheim - Los Angeles Angels
Comerica Park - Detroit Tigers
Fenway Park - Boston Red Sox
Globe Life Field - Texas Rangers
Guaranteed Rate Field - Chicago White Sox
Kauffman Stadium - Kansas City Royals
Minute Maid Park - Houston Astros 👍👍
Oakland Alameda Coliseum - Oakland Athletics
Oriole Park at Camden Yards - Baltimore Orioles
Progressive Field - Cleveland Guardians
Rogers Centre - Toronto Blue Jays
T-Mobile Park - Seattle Mariners
Target Field - Minnesota Twins
Tropicana Field - Tampa Bay Rays
Yankee Stadium - New York Yankees
National League
American Family Field - Milwaukee Brewers
Busch Stadium - St. Louis Cardinals
Chase Field - Arizona Diamondbacks
Citi Field - New York Mets
Citizens Bank Park - Philadelphia Phillies
Coors Field - Colorado Rockies
Dodger Stadium - Los Angeles Dodgers
Great American Ball Park - Cincinnati Reds
LoanDepot Park - Miami Marlins
Nationals Park - Washington Nationals
Oracle Park - San Francisco Giants
Petco Park - San Diego Padres
PNC Park - Pittsburgh Pirates
Truist Park - Atlanta Braves
Wrigley Field - Chicago Cubs
274 posted on 8/29/2024, 9:40:33 PM by Allegra
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29 August 2024 in Astrakhan Striptease contest sparks fury in Russia as nightclub revellers face jail and make grovelling apology for taking clothes off to win an iPhone
>>>>29 August 2024 in Astrakhan Striptease contest sparks fury in Russia as nightclub revellers face jail and make grovelling apology for taking clothes off to win an iPhone<<<<
All they had to do to get an iPhone was take off their clothes.
In this country, thugs kill to get one.
Is that his “shocked” face?
I hear ya. I went to high school in the DC area and was a REDSKINS fan. Loved the team, the colors, the logo and the song. And I had a bit of a crush on John Riggins.
I really think we made RFK Stadium sway.
Nobody was offended by the name Redskins then. The media hadn’t told them to be offended yet.
29 August 2024 in Astrakhan Striptease contest sparks fury in Russia as nightclub revellers face jail and make grovelling apology for taking clothes off to win an iPhone
Wow.. unbelievable! Thank you for your comment.
Despite the anti-freedom for Ukraine “distractors & detractors,” it is very impressive to read all the research and comments from the anti-invasion Freepers.
Just a big thank you :)
ARTICLE
Exclusive-Russia payment hurdles with China partners intensified in August, sources say
By Thomson Reuters
Aug 30, 2024 | 1:06 AM
https://wsau.com/2024/08/30/exclusive-russia-payment-hurdles-with-china-partners-intensified-in-august-sources-say/
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Some Russian companies are facing growing delays and rising costs on payments with trading partners in China, leaving transactions worth tens of billions of yuan in limbo, Russian sources with direct knowledge of the issue told Reuters.
Russian companies and officials for a few months have pointed to delays in transactions after Chinese banks tightened compliance following Western threats of secondary sanctions for dealing with Russia. The sources said the problem has intensified this month.
Chinese state banks are shutting down transactions with Russia “en masse” and billions of yuan worth of payments are held up, a source close to the government, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
China is Russia’s largest trading partner, accounting for a third of Russia’s foreign trade last year and supplying items such as vital industrial equipment and consumer goods that help Russia weather Western sanctions. It also provides a lucrative market for many Russian exports that China relies on, from oil and gas to agricultural products.
After the U.S. Treasury in June threatened secondary sanctions on banks in China and other countries for dealing with Russia, Chinese banks started to take a very strict stance on transactions, said a source at one of Russia’s leading e-commerce platforms. It sells a wide variety of consumer goods imported from China.
“At that moment, all cross-border payments to China stopped. We found solutions, but it took about three weeks, which is a very long time, trade volumes fell drastically during that time,” said the source.
One working solution was to buy gold, move it to Hong Kong and sell it there, depositing cash in a local bank account, the person said.
Sources told Reuters that some Russian businesses have been using chains of intermediaries in third countries to handle their transactions and get around compliance checks run by Chinese banks. As a result, costs to process transactions have risen to as much as 6% of transaction payments, from close to zero before, they said.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“For many small companies, this means a complete shutdown,” another source close to the government said.
The Kremlin acknowledged the problem but said that economic cooperation is important for both countries and that solutions will be found.
“With such volumes and in such an unfriendly environment, it is impossible to avoid some problematic situations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement to Reuters.
“However, the truly partnership spirit of our relations allows us to discuss and resolve current issues constructively,” he said.
Transactions with China are not of grave concern to top Russian leadership, however, because payments in priority areas are still proceeding smoothly, and there is political will from both sides, a banking source told Reuters. Bilateral arrangements for large companies, such as Russia’s commodity exporters and China’s exporters of vital technologies, still work well, whereas smaller companies trading in consumer goods experience problems, sources said.
Russian exporters haven’t experienced difficulties in receiving payments for commodities that China imports, such as oil or grain, another source close to the Russian government told Reuters.
Bilateral trade between Russia and China grew by 1.6% to $137 billion in the first half of 2024, according to China’s official customs data, after hitting a record high $240 billion in 2023.
“Normal trade between China and Russia is consistent with WTO rules and market principles, is not directed against third parties and is not subject to interference or coercion by third parties,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters.
“We firmly oppose any illegal unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction” and will take all necessary measures to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests,” the spokesman added.
Russia’s imports from China fell by more than 1% to $62 billion in January-July 2024 due to payment problems, according to China’s official statistics.
Russia’s central bank forecasts the country’s total imports from around the world will fall by as much as 3% this year.
“Imports will decrease in 2024 due to the strengthening of sanctions barriers related to payments and logistics,” the central bank said, although it predicted that the situation would improve in the medium term, according to draft monetary policy guidelines published on Aug. 29.After Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China in May, some local Chinese banks without a global business stepped in to handle bilateral payments. They would be out of the reach of Western sanctions enforcers.
However, sources pointed out that these banks often had outdated IT systems and lacked staff with the necessary skills.
The banking source said that cross-border couriers were shuttling transfer papers across the Russia-China border to get them physically stamped and signed by Chinese bankers.
“Until issues with payments are resolved at the state level, we cannot expect a dynamic inflow of investments from China,” said Kirill Babaev, head of the China Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Research co-authored by Babaev and released this month highlights the risks posed to Russia’s industrial sector where China has become a leading supplier.
“In today’s situation, payment problems with Chinese banks particularly exacerbate this challenge, as there are no other major suppliers of many types of industrial equipment besides China at present,” the research paper said.
Large companies in China as well as India are heavily dependent on American and European markets, Dmitry Birichevski, head of the economic department at Russia’s foreign ministry, said at a conference in Moscow on Aug. 16.
“And they are being told, ‘Guys, if you continue to work with Russia, we will cut off your access to our market and choke off your oxygen supply’,” he said.
(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow; Editing by Elisa Martinuzzi and Susan Fenton)
ARTICLE
Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/cotton-gin-and-eli-whitney
In 1794, U.S.-born inventor Eli Whitney (1765-1825) patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. By the mid-19th century, cotton had become America’s leading export. Despite its success, the gin made little money for Whitney due to patent-infringement issues. Also, his invention offered Southern planters a justification to maintain and expand slavery even as a growing number of Americans supported its abolition. Based in part on his reputation for creating the cotton gin, Whitney later secured a major contract to build muskets for the U.S. government. Through this project, he promoted the idea of interchangeable parts–standardized, identical parts that made for faster assembly and easier repair of various devices. For his work, he is credited as a pioneer of American manufacturing.
Whitney Learns About Cotton
Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765, in Westborough, Massachusetts. Growing up, Whitney, whose father was a farmer, proved to be a talented mechanic and inventor. Among the objects he designed and built as a youth were a nail forge and a violin. In 1792, after graduating from Yale College (now Yale University), Whitney headed to the South. He originally planned to work as a private tutor but instead accepted an invitation to stay with Catherine Greene (1755–1814), the widow of American Revolutionary War (1775-83) general Nathanael Greene, on her plantation, known as Mulberry Grove, near Savannah, Georgia. While there, Whitney learned about cotton production–in particular, the difficulty cotton farmers faced making a living.
Did you know? Some historians believe Catherine Greene devised the cotton gin and Eli Whitney merely built it and applied for the patent, since at that time women were not allowed to file for patents. Others believe the idea was Whitney’s but Greene played an important role as both designer and financier.
In many ways, cotton was an ideal crop; it was easily grown, and unlike food crops its fibers could be stored for long periods of time. But cotton plants contained seeds that were difficult to separate from the soft fibers. A type of cotton known as long staple was easy to clean, but grew well only along coastal areas. The vast majority of cotton farmers were forced to grow the more labor-intensive short-staple cotton, which had to be cleaned painstakingly by hand, one plant at a time. The average cotton picker could remove the seeds from only about one pound of short-staple cotton per day.
Cotton Gin and Eli Whitney
Greene and her plantation manager, Phineas Miller (1764-1803), explained the problem with short-staple cotton to Whitney, and soon thereafter he built a machine that could effectively and efficiently remove the seeds from cotton plants. The invention, called the cotton gin (“gin” was derived from “engine”), worked something like a strainer or sieve: Cotton was run through a wooden drum embedded with a series of hooks that caught the fibers and dragged them through a mesh. The mesh was too fine to let the seeds through but the hooks pulled the cotton fibers through with ease. Smaller gins could be cranked by hand; larger ones could be powered by a horse and, later, by a steam engine. Whitney’s hand-cranked machine could remove the seeds from 50 pounds of cotton in a single day. Whitney wrote to his father: “One man and a horse will do more than fifty men with the old machines…Tis generally said by those who know anything about it, that I shall make a Fortune by it.”
Whitney received a patent for his invention in 1794; he and Miller then formed a cotton gin manufacturing company. The two entrepreneurs planned to build cotton gins and install them on plantations throughout the South, taking as payment a portion of all the cotton produced by each plantation. While farmers were delighted with the idea of a machine that could boost cotton production so dramatically, they had no intention of sharing a significant percentage of their profits with Whitney and Miller. Instead, the design for the cotton gin was pirated and plantation owners constructed their own machines–many of them an improvement over Whitney’s original model.
Cotton Gin’s Impact on Slavery And The American Economy
The patent laws of the time had loopholes that made it difficult for Whitney to protect his rights as an inventor. Even though the laws were changed a few years later, Whitney’s patent expired before he ever realized much profit. Still, the cotton gin had transformed the American economy. For the South, it meant that cotton could be produced plentifully and cheaply for domestic use and for export, and by the mid-19th century, cotton was America’s leading export. For the North, especially New England, cotton’s rise meant a steady supply of raw materials for its textile mills.
One inadvertent result of the cotton gin’s success, however, was that it helped strengthen slavery in the South. Although the cotton gin made cotton processing less labor-intensive, it helped planters earn greater profits, prompting them to grow larger crops, which in turn required more people. Because slavery was the cheapest form of labor, cotton farmers simply acquired more slaves.
Interchangeable Parts
Patent-law issues prevented Whitney from ever significantly profiting from the cotton gin; however, in 1798, he secured a contract from the U.S. government to produce 10,000 muskets in two years, an amount that had never been manufactured in such a short period. Whitney promoted the idea of interchangeable parts: standardized, identical parts that would make for faster assembly as well as easier repair of various objects and machines. At the time, guns were typically built individually by skilled craftsmen, so that each finished device was unique. Although it ultimately took Whitney some 10 years, instead of two, to fulfill his contract, he was credited with playing a pioneering role in the development of the American system of mass-production.
In 1817, Whitney, then in his early 50s, married Henrietta Edwards, with whom he would have four children. He died on January 8, 1825, at age 59.
“Christian” Russia. ROFLMAO. Only the mentally retarded see anything of value in the filth of the Russian World.
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Thank you for LINK :)
The "REVEREND" is so verklempt over the negative comments she received today, she doesn't even know what she's posting.
It's a beginning :)
STREAMING VIDEO - 8,740 WATCHING
🔴 UKRAINE GAINS GROUND IN KURSK, RUSSIANS BOMB BELGOROD! Breaking War News With The Enforcer (Day 919)
270 subscribers
8-30-2024 10:00 p.m. EDT
Ukraine has been able to break Russian defenses and push forward nearly 2 whole miles, capturing the towns of Nechaev and several others.
Russian forces are being faced with massive stress, and this has led them to bomb their own major city of Belgorod; causing serious damage and harm to the Russian public.
While this is going on Ukraine has continued deep strikes into Russia, with Russia still having a tough time intercepting the incoming strikes. Russia has made minor gains near Pokrovsk, capturing a part of Karlivka today.
We Gather Our Intelligence From Various Sources To Deliver The News As It Happens in Realtime. Our Team Consists Of History & Political Science Graduates To Bring You Expert Analysis On Current Events.
Ukrainian defense forces have eliminated total combat losses of the enemy from 24.02.22 to 30.08.24 are approximately:
• personnel ‒ about 613,590 (+1,200) people,
• tanks ‒ 8574 (+3) units,
• armored combat vehicles ‒ 16,722 (+23) units,
• artillery systems – 17572 (+23) units,
• MLRS – 1175 (+1) units,
• air defense equipment ‒ 940 (+1) units,
• aircraft – 368 (+0) units,
• helicopters – 328 (+0) units,
• UAVs of the operational-tactical level - 14453 (+84),
• cruise missiles ‒ 2556 (+0),
• ships/boats ‒ 28 (+0) units,
• submarines - 1 (+0) units,
• automotive equipment and tank trucks - 23,763 (+57) units, special equipment ‒ 2967 (+2).
VIDEO
Putin ‘losing his mind’ as Kursk triggers ‘turning point’ in war
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Times Radio
944K subscribers
8-30-2024
Minutes 11:49
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YRLzDyT_Ok
“’Putin is on thin ice and the temperature Moscow is getting warmer by the day.’
People are questioning whether “Putin is losing his mind” after Ukraine make the “biggest land grab” in the war, says Col. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon.’
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