Kerry Sees Ukraine Crisis as Uniquely Putin's - WSJ.com: "His greatest fear now? "I think it could deteriorate into hot confrontation," even without Russian troops crossing into Ukraine, Mr. Kerry said. "And there are provocateurs who are perfectly capable, who are trying to instigate that kind of flare-up."
The fact it hasn't happened so far, he said, is a tribute to the discipline and restraint of the fledgling Ukrainian government. "But obviously," he added, "you could have a flash point here.""
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Wednesday, April 30, 2014
John Kerry: Putin lives in his own reality, divorced from world of people - Kavkazcenter.com
John Kerry: Putin lives in his own reality, divorced from world of people - Kavkazcenter.com: "
It is to be noted that according to the testimony of Russian psychiatrist Natalia Barannikova, when a person "does not recognize any human laws, live in their own, imaginary world, where everyone around - enemies, and believes his behavior normal, always finds an excuse to any of his act, does not recognize of societal norms in the society", he needs medical attention.
In turn, PhD, psychiatrist Lyubov Borodina determines the state in which the patient exists in his own secluded world, such as autism and warns:
"Autism is not dementia, and often people suffering from this disease have a phenomenal memory and not mediocre abilities... These people ... should be under constant supervision of... doctors in order not to fall into the dangerous... situation"
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It is to be noted that according to the testimony of Russian psychiatrist Natalia Barannikova, when a person "does not recognize any human laws, live in their own, imaginary world, where everyone around - enemies, and believes his behavior normal, always finds an excuse to any of his act, does not recognize of societal norms in the society", he needs medical attention.
In turn, PhD, psychiatrist Lyubov Borodina determines the state in which the patient exists in his own secluded world, such as autism and warns:
"Autism is not dementia, and often people suffering from this disease have a phenomenal memory and not mediocre abilities... These people ... should be under constant supervision of... doctors in order not to fall into the dangerous... situation"
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Kiev reacts to warning of Kavkaz Center and puts army on full alert - Kavkazcenter.com
Kiev reacts to warning of Kavkaz Center and puts army on full alert - Kavkazcenter.com: "Delivery of the ousted criminal Yanukovych to Kiev and announcement of the restoration of "legitimate Ukrainian authorities".
The final plan to occupy Kiev was approved in early April 2014. On April 24, a special meeting of Russian leadership confirmed the date of the offensive.
The operation of the Russian tank breakthrough to Kiev was developed by a former chief of staff of the USSR armed forces, General Lobov, who has recently been called back to service after his retirement in 1994.
The most likely date of the start of the operation is May 2 or 3, 2014."
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The final plan to occupy Kiev was approved in early April 2014. On April 24, a special meeting of Russian leadership confirmed the date of the offensive.
The operation of the Russian tank breakthrough to Kiev was developed by a former chief of staff of the USSR armed forces, General Lobov, who has recently been called back to service after his retirement in 1994.
The most likely date of the start of the operation is May 2 or 3, 2014."
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Email Suggests White House Strategy on Benghazi - NYTimes.com
Email Suggests White House Strategy on Benghazi - NYTimes.com: "“This document, as I said, was explicitly not about Benghazi but about the general dynamic in the Arab, or in the Muslim world, at the time,” Mr. Carney told reporters. “This was part of our effort to explain our views, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of what was happening on the ground with regards to the protests that were underway around the region.”
Mr. Carney said the email from Mr. Rhodes was not included with the prior batch of documents because it was not directly about the Benghazi attack. But conservatives signaled they intend to use the new document as evidence that Ms. Rice’s appearances on the talk shows were guided by political, not intelligence, considerations."
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Mr. Carney said the email from Mr. Rhodes was not included with the prior batch of documents because it was not directly about the Benghazi attack. But conservatives signaled they intend to use the new document as evidence that Ms. Rice’s appearances on the talk shows were guided by political, not intelligence, considerations."
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Some key facts about V. Stiviano, the woman at the center of the Donald Sterling scandal | Fox News
Some key facts about V. Stiviano, the woman at the center of the Donald Sterling scandal | Fox News: "ATTORNEY NO LONGER ANSWERING QUESTIONS
Stiviano's attorney, Mac Nehoray, has said his client did not leak the audio of the conversation with Sterling, but he has said what's been posted online is a snippet of a conversation lasting roughly an hour.
On Monday, a man who answered the phone at Nehoray's law office wouldn't identify himself and said the attorney would no longer comment on the audio or Stiviano's case. He said the attorney was invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, citing a statement issued by the Clippers accusing Stiviano of embezzlement.
"
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Stiviano's attorney, Mac Nehoray, has said his client did not leak the audio of the conversation with Sterling, but he has said what's been posted online is a snippet of a conversation lasting roughly an hour.
On Monday, a man who answered the phone at Nehoray's law office wouldn't identify himself and said the attorney would no longer comment on the audio or Stiviano's case. He said the attorney was invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, citing a statement issued by the Clippers accusing Stiviano of embezzlement.
"
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Sterling again insists Clippers not for sale, despite NBA ruling | Fox News
Sterling again insists Clippers not for sale, despite NBA ruling | Fox News: "Rivers canceled practice Monday and declined a meeting request from Sterling. He wouldn't address whether he would return next season if Sterling were still in control, a stance reaffirmed by the coach before Game 5 of the Clippers' playoff series with Golden State.
A lawyer for V. Stiviano said the woman Sterling was talking to when he made the comments is saddened by the lifetime ban, and she denies releasing the recording.
Attorney Siamak Nehoray tells the Los Angeles Times that his client "never wanted any harm" to come to Sterling and is devastated that the remarks became public.
Sterling's estranged wife has sued Viviano, seeking to reclaim a $1.8-million home, cash and luxury cars given to her by Sterling. The lawsuit alleges that Viviano is Sterling's mistress.
But Nehoray says the 31-year-old Viviano and Sterling never had a romantic relationship. He says she worked as an archivist for Sterling."
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A lawyer for V. Stiviano said the woman Sterling was talking to when he made the comments is saddened by the lifetime ban, and she denies releasing the recording.
Attorney Siamak Nehoray tells the Los Angeles Times that his client "never wanted any harm" to come to Sterling and is devastated that the remarks became public.
Sterling's estranged wife has sued Viviano, seeking to reclaim a $1.8-million home, cash and luxury cars given to her by Sterling. The lawsuit alleges that Viviano is Sterling's mistress.
But Nehoray says the 31-year-old Viviano and Sterling never had a romantic relationship. He says she worked as an archivist for Sterling."
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OP-ED COLUMNIST Challenging Putin’s Values Thomas friedman NY Times 04/29/14
The Opinion Pages | OP-ED COLUMNIST
Challenging Putin’s Values
While you can talk about Ukraine until the cows come home, this story is 95 percent about Vladimir Putin and how he has chosen to define Russia’s interests. The truth is, Russia and its neighbors need a different definition of Russia’s interests. That, however, raises a series of questions: Can Moscow ever define its interests differently under Putin? If not, how do we deter him without also weakening Russia to the point of instability? And if we do induce such instability over time with sanctions, do we know what comes next and will we be better off?
I think America and the European Union have done exactly the right thing in ratcheting up sanctions on Putin, to try to stop him from destabilizing Ukraine further and preventing the presidential elections there on May 25 from producing a legitimate government. But we’d also better be ready for the consequences of success.
When we lived in a world of walls — during the Cold War era — weakening Russia was a strategy that seemed to have only upsides. But in a world of webs, a world that is not only more interconnected but interdependent, the steps we take to make Russia weaker can also come back to haunt us. When the world gets this tightly interwoven, not only can your friends kill you as quickly as your rivals (see Greece), but your rivals crumbling can be as dangerous as your rivals rising (see Russia or China).
Russia still has thousands of nuclear warheads that need to be controlled, and hundreds of nuclear bomb-designers. We need Russia’s help to control mafia crime, drug trafficking and cybercrime. And we need a stable Russia to serve as a counterbalance to China, to be a global energy supplier and to provide a social safety net for all its elderly.
The sanctions thus far will not cripple Russia, but, over time, they will sap its strength, and, if widened, will really hurt. Will Putin change? Today’s globalization doesn’t mean leaders won’t do crazy, aggressive or nationalistic things that rattle markets and seemingly defy their economic interests. Putin has already confirmed that. But it does mean that whatever price an autocrat is willing to pay for such behavior will almost always be bigger, and come faster, than anticipated.
Look how just our limited sanctions triggered a stampede by the electronic herd of global investors who have pulled more than $50 billion out of Russia this year. Standard & Poor’s just cut Russia’s rating to one notch above junk status, raising its borrowing costs. The same day, Russia’s central bank boosted a crucial interest rate from 7 percent to 7.5 percent to try to stave off a run on the ruble. Russia’s currency has lost nearly 8 percent against the dollar this year, while its stock market is off 13 percent.
Bloomberg News reported last week that: “Russia scrapped bond sales for the seventh time in eight weeks as investors demanded higher yields.” That is why S.& P. added that continued regional tensions could “further undermine already weakening growth prospects.”
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I take no joy in seeing Russia put under economic stress, and we should be ready to consider its legitimate interests in terms of protecting its borders. But the problem today is how President Putin defines those interests. It’s bogus. After all, what is Ukraine trying to do? Host U.S. nuclear missiles? No. Join NATO? No. It isn’t even trying to become a full member of the E.U. It wants to sign an “Association Agreement” that would provide Ukrainian companies more unfettered access to European markets and require them to abide by E.U. regulations, which Ukrainian reformers believe would help drive more rule of law inside their own country and make it more globally competitive. The Ukrainians want to import E.U. rules, not NATO missiles!
It’s actually what Putin should be trying to do for his country, rather than trying to prevent his neighbors from associating with Europe. But Putin is focused on building the power of his state, not the prosperity of his people. And he wants total political control and the right for him and his clique to steal vast sums, while seeking out foreign devils to distract the Russian public. These are not geopolitical interests that we have to respect.
Ukraine is not threatening Russia, but Ukraine’s revolution is threatening Putin. The main goal of the Ukraine uprising is to import a rules-based system from the E.U. that will break the kleptocracy that has dominated Kiev — the same kind of kleptocracy Putin wants to maintain in Moscow. Putin doesn’t care if Germans live by E.U. rules, but when fellow Slavs, like Ukrainians, want to — that is a threat to him at home.
Don’t let anyone tell you the sanctions are meaningless and the only way to influence Russia is by moving tanks. (Putin would love that. It would force every Russian to rally to him.) If anything, we should worry that over time our sanctions will work too well. And don’t let anyone tell you that we’re challenging Russia’s “space.” We’re not. The real issue here is that Ukrainians, as individuals and collectively, are challenging Putin’s “values.”
We couldn’t stop them if we wanted to. They’ve been empowered by globalization and the I.T. revolution. Get used to it, Comrade Putin.
OP-ED COLUMNIST Is Barry Whiffing? Maureen Dowd NY Times 04/30/14
WASHINGTON — Stop whining, Mr. President.
And stop whiffing.
Don’t whinge off the record with columnists and definitely don’t do it at a press conference with another world leader. It is disorienting to everybody, here at home and around the world.
I empathize with you about being thin-skinned. When you hate being criticized, it’s hard to take a giant steaming plate of “you stink” every day, coming from all sides. But you convey the sense that any difference on substance is lèse-majesté.
You simply proclaim what you believe as though you know it to be absolutely true, hoping we recognize the truth of it, and, if we don’t, then we’ve disappointed you again.
Even some of the chatterers who used to be in your corner now make derogatory remarks about your manhood. And that, I know, really gets under your skin because you think they just don’t get your style of coolly keeping your cards to yourself while you play the long game. Besides, how short memories are. You were the Ice Man who ordered up the operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
I also appreciate the fact that it’s harder for you than it was for J.F.K., W. and all those other pols who had their rich daddies and their rich daddies’ rich friends to buy anything they needed and connect them up and smooth the way for them. That gives them a certain nonchalance in the face of opprobrium and difficulty, a luxury that those who propel themselves to the top on their own don’t have.
We understand that it’s frustrating. You’re dealing with some really evil guys and some really nutty pols, and the problems roiling the world now are brutally hard. As the Republican strategist Mike Murphy says, it’s not like the campaign because you have “bigger problems than a will.i.am song can fix.”
But that being said, you are the American president. And the American president should not perpetually use the word “eventually.” And he should not set a tone of resignation with references to this being a relay race and say he’s willing to take “a quarter of a loaf or half a loaf,” and muse that things may not come “to full fruition on your timetable.”
An American president should never say, as you did to the New Yorker editor, David Remnick, about presidents through history: “We’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.”
Mr. President, I am just trying to get my paragraph right. You need to think bigger.
An American president should never say, as you did Monday in Manila when you got frustrated in a press conference with the Philippine president: “You hit singles; you hit doubles. Every once in a while, we may be able to hit a home run.”
Especially now that we have this scary World War III vibe with the Russians, we expect the president, especially one who ran as Babe Ruth, to hit home runs.
In the immortal words of Earl Weaver, the Hall of Famer who managed the Baltimore Orioles: “The key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals, and three-run homers.” A singles hitter doesn’t scare anybody.
It doesn’t feel like leadership. It doesn’t feel like you’re in command of your world.
How can we accept these reduced expectations and truculent passivity from the man who offered himself up as the moral beacon of the world, even before he was elected?
As Leon Wieseltier wrote in the latest New Republic, oppressed and threatened swaths of the world are jittery and despairing “because the United States seems no longer reliable in emergencies, which it prefers to meet with meals ready to eat.”
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The Times’s Mark Landler, who traveled with the president on his Asia trip,reported that Obama will try to regain the offensive, including a graduation address at West Point putting his foreign policy in context.
Mr. President, don’t you know that we’re speeched out? It’s not what we need right now.
You should take a lesson from Adam Silver, a nerdy technocrat who, in his first big encounter with a crazed tyrant, managed to make the job of N.B.A. commissioner seem much more powerful than that of president of the United States.
Silver took the gutsy move of banning cretinous Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life, after many people speculated that there was little the N.B.A. chief could do except cave. But Silver realized that even if Sterling tries to fight him in court (and wins) he will look good because he stood up for what was right.
Once you liked to have the stage to yourself, Mr. President, to have the aura of the lone man in the arena, not sharing the spotlight with others.
But now when captured alone in a picture, you seem disconnected and adrift.
What happened to crushing it and swinging for the fences? Where have you gone, Babe Ruth?
About a "Girl" Who Refused to Just Shut up and Take Orders | Dr. Peggy Drexler
About a "Girl" Who Refused to Just Shut up and Take Orders | Dr. Peggy Drexler: "Stiviano has been accused of setting Sterling up, "payback" for the lawsuit Sterling's wife has pressed against the younger woman accusing her of embezzlement. But while Stiviano's motivations are surely worthy of question, so is Sterling's apparent belief that he could say those things to a woman, herself half black, and that she'd have no nerve to retaliate. That it's still acceptable to expect to call the shots, as the rich, older, white man."
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About a "Girl" Who Refused to Just Shut up and Take Orders | Dr. Peggy Drexler
About a "Girl" Who Refused to Just Shut up and Take Orders | Dr. Peggy Drexler: "Stiviano has been accused of setting Sterling up, "payback" for the lawsuit Sterling's wife has pressed against the younger woman accusing her of embezzlement. But while Stiviano's motivations are surely worthy of question, so is Sterling's apparent belief that he could say those things to a woman, herself half black, and that she'd have no nerve to retaliate. That it's still acceptable to expect to call the shots, as the rich, older, white man."
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Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Tennis, Anyone? - Michael Jordan's House - Lonny
Tennis, Anyone? - Michael Jordan's House - Lonny: "27. Tennis, Anyone?
And just in case you didn't think Jordan had enough on his athletic roster, there's a full tennis court where we're sure MJ always gets the first serve." 28 photos + Video
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And just in case you didn't think Jordan had enough on his athletic roster, there's a full tennis court where we're sure MJ always gets the first serve." 28 photos + Video
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Donald Sterling could tie up Clippers sale 'for the rest of his life' - latimes.com
Donald Sterling could tie up Clippers sale 'for the rest of his life' - latimes.com:
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-clippers-sale-donald-sterling-nba-20140429,0,2483274.story#ixzz30KvzkKUT
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Donald Sterling could tie up Clippers sale 'for the rest of his life'
 Donald Sterling could draw out a Clippers sale indefinitely, analysts say. (Danny Moloshok / Associated Press / April29, 2014) |
The Clippers could have a new owner within a few months if Donald Sterling accepts the lifetime ban from the NBA and $2.5-million fine issued against him by the league Tuesday morning, analysts said.
But if the real estate mogul and trained lawyer decides not to cooperate, the sale of the team could drag on indefinitely.
“If he truly doesn’t want to sell, I’m going to guess he could tie this up for the rest of his life,” said Notre Dame sports economics professor Richard Sheehan. “It would be an absolute disaster.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced Sterling’s punishment Tuesday after the Clippers owner’s alleged racist comments were posted online last week. Soon afterward, the NBA Players Assn. said it wants league owners to vote immediately on whether to force Sterling to sell the team.
Analysts believe Sterling could sell the team for as much as $1 billion, especially if an auction creates a bidding war. A transaction could wrap up within a year, if not before the next NBA season starts in November.
But Sterling may choose expensive and time-consuming litigation to keep his claim on the Clippers.
“It’s distasteful, it’s disgusting, but what he said is still ostensibly private conduct,” said Robert Boland, a professor of sports business at New York University’s Tisch Center.
Sterling could also launch a protracted anti-trust argument against the NBA, though most experts said he’d probably be standing on weak legal grounds because he had previously agreed to the league’s constitution.
Still, any courtroom tussle is “going to be ugly,” said Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of sports economics at Smith College.
“It’s going to cost a lot of money,” he said. “It’s going to keep his name in bad repute. It’s going to damage the team, which won’t perform well, and it may face some kind of boycott and maybe damage the sales value.”
A legal battle could leave the Clippers in management purgatory, costing Sterling as much as $500 million, Zimbalist said.
Still, Sterling is often considered to be litigious and an aggressive negotiator.
“It doesn’t mean Donald Sterling is going to go quietly into the night -- he may fight it at every turn,” said David M. Carter, executive director of the USC Marshall Sports Business Institute.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-clippers-sale-donald-sterling-nba-20140429,0,2483274.story#ixzz30KvzkKUT
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