Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Russia Wants to Ban Virtual Currencies Like Bitcoin by 2015

What Russian lawmakers want is to allow people to use their cryptocurrencies as they please, but they can’t use these “surrogate currencies as tender,” as stated by Aleksey Moiseev, the Deputy Finance Minister.

“We will discuss this law in the current session of parliament, and possibly even pass it then, or at the very latest by spring next year. We are currently dealing with comments from the law enforcement agencies, about the specifics of legal measures, and we will take their remarks into account. But the overall concept of the law is set in stone,” Moiseev added.

Officials say that they will open criminal proceedings against those who mint digital currency, but also against those who use them for transaction, while asking regulators to ban access to exchanges and online stores that accept Bitcoin.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Russia-Wants-to-Ban-Virtual-Currencies-Like-Bitcoin-by-2015-458774.shtml

Taras Shevchenko’s Testament (1859)

Great Ukrainian poet and artist and classical liberal Taras Shevchenko’s Testament (1859):

shevchenko

Dig my grave and raise my barrow
By the Dnieper riverside
In Ukraina, my own land,
A fair land and wide.
I will lie and watch the cornfields,
Listen through the years
To the magic river voices,
Whisper in my ears.

When I hear the call
Of the racing flood,
Loud with hated blood,
I will leave them all,
Fields and hills; and force my way
Right up to the Throne
Where God sits alone;
Clasp His feet and pray…
But till that day
What is God to me?

Bury me, be done with me,
Rise and break your chain,
Water your new liberty
With blood for rain.
Then, in the mighty family
Of all men that are free,
May be sometimes, very softly
You will speak of me?

— Taras Shevchenko

Curt on Russian mentality / conspiracy theories

Reacting to this propaganda:

I think this is pure nonsense. But then I also understand the Russian predilection for conspiracy theory, pseudoscience, and the myth that any one would want to conquer Russia rather than just put a wall separating Russia from civilized countries.

At the same time I also recognize the relationship between social rejection, marginal schizophrenia, and conspiracy theory.

Russia is a bad world citizen, and always has been.

The USA doesn’t want or need a war. It’s war weary from first suppressing communism, and now suppressing its instantiation as islamism. And now the USA has to worry about the fact that Russia, China and Iran are attempting to restore authoritarianism as the aspirational political model in direct opposition to the meritocratic political model.

Donbass Commander on Russia’s propaganda difficulty

“Many of them can not believe that they are in the “Nazi” Ukraine! And when they see dignified resistance and acts of self-sacrifice, which stereotypical “punitive” troops can not have, much is changing in their minds. This is already happening. Guys participating in negotiations told me about this,”- said Semenchenko.

“Primarily for this reason, Putin’s army will not sustain a long war. They will not find the answer here to the question of what they are dying for. But we have that answer!” – added the commander of the Donbas battalion.

I think this is true, but believe it’ll stop Putin’s mercenaries is wishful thinking.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/09/10/the-commander-of-the-all-volunteer-donbas-batallion-explained-why-putins-army-will-not-sustain-a-long-war-in-ukraine/