From an article by a Russian scholar:

Russia is a poor country.” However much people focus on the limousines of its wealth,

the future pensions of its citizens are so small that they would elicit only pity “in the poorest of the EU countries” and the state of its villages and other rural areas is comparable to “the poorest countries of Africa

It’s all true what he’s saying.

A very easy and delicious vegan recipe. A cup of red lentils is brought to the boil and then allowed to simmer until the lentils achieve the desired firmness  (some people like them firmer while others let them fall apart completely).

While the lentils simmer, add your favorite spices and herbs. I do some Madras curry, a cinnamon stick (a cinnamon stick is really crucial, in my opinion), a bit of nutmeg, a few allspice, and some cumin seed.

Then throw in a handful of fresh spinach leaves. Remove seeds from a tomato,  cube it, and throw it in.

And that’s all you need to do!

So Scott Walker never even graduated from college?

How very unsurprising that this clown was too stupid even to get a Bachelor’s degree.

Let’s now stop embarrassing ourselves with suggestions that somebody who is this useless can actually lead the country. Low-achieving losers are not what we need in the world where education is everything.

A fierce battle is under way around the Ukrainian city of Debaltseve in spite of the “ceasefire” brokered by Obama and Merkel. Even as the agreement was being signed, Russian troops and weaponry kept flowing across the border.

The US State Department keeps expressing “grave concern”, which Russians find extremely funny. They welcome these impotent statements as a sign of the West’s weakness. And it’s hard to disagree with them here.

Obama still has almost 2 years in office. And there’s no way Ukraine can resist for as long as that. It’s an absolute miracle that the country has managed to beat the invaders back for an entire year.

If somebody told me back in the USSR that one day folding would be the most onerous part of doing laundry, I’d just laugh.

If you never washed bedclothes by hand and then ironed them, you wouldn’t understand. I still have nightmares about ironing blanket cases sometimes.

The town of Popasne has been liberated by the Ukrainian Army. This Ukrainian soldier is trying to make two kids in the liberated town smile:

And it’s working.