Milk.

No, not Harvey Milk dude known for his fight for the "rights" of gays, but milk, as in skim, 1%, 2%. Our local QFC (Kroeger) chain grocery store was without milk (not counting those ungodly varieties of soy and organic pseudo milk) for two days. I get it--panic rush on durable products such as rice, beans, canned food is to be expected. Understandable, those are staples which are getting swept from the shelves in times of panic. After all, Russians already have an anecdote such as: Russia just registered its first death from coronovirus. The dude was killed in his garage when the shelf with 400 kilograms of rice, beans, buckwheat and canned food collapsed on him. But milk, a perishable product which cannot be used much longer beyond its expiration date, yet, evidently some bunch of fvcking morons simply loaded on it. My question, how are they going to use this milk once it goes bad? 

This is the price we all pay for covid-19 hysteria amplified by media, those very same media which gave us Russiagate, Ukrainegate, which "predicted" landslide for HRC in 2016 and which continue even today. Especially European media whores who already came up with this:

When all else fails, blame Russia. That seems to be the EU approach to deflecting blame from its response to the coronavirus pandemic, no doubt because it has worked so well for Democrats in the US or London in the Skripal affair.As Brussels finally got around to locking down the EU borders on Tuesday, London’s Financial Times ran a ‘bombshell’ story blaming “Russian pro-Kremlin media” for a “significant disinformation campaign” to stoke “confusion, panic and fear” in the West and “aggravate the coronavirus pandemic crisis.” This is based on a nine-page report by the strategic communications division of the European External Action Service, the EU’s de facto foreign ministry.

As I speak non-stop about it, Europe is run by incompetent imbeciles heavy on Euro-left pseudo political theory and very light on actual statecraft. In this case, one can only extend condolences to Europeans, those who didn't lose their head yet, with the fact of them being run by cretins. It is also rather remarkable that it is China which is helping this "economically advanced" EU with covid-19 testing kits, masks and other supplies. Russia helped China, too. So, the question is then this: who are, exactly, those second or third world nations? I think we have the answer, EU qualifies quite well, because its response to covid-19 is nothing short of a disaster, with EU bureaucrats having no fvcking idea on what to do and how to do anything sensible in terms of facing down a health crisis. Now about crisis--so far the death percentage hovers just above 4% (4.001 to be precise) and there is another resource you all may check the data--Worldometers. In general, there are plenty resources now giving current spread, so to speak, which helps to see larger picture. 

Russia and China called on the US to lift sanctions on Iran:

We urge the US to immediately lift unilateral sanctions on Iran. Continued sanctions are against humanitarianism and hamper Iran's epidemic response and delivery of humanitarian aid," spokesman Geng Shuang said. Russia's Foreign Ministry made a similar announcement, calling the sanctions "anti-human". "Illegal unilateral US sanctions, imposed since May 2018 as part of the 'maximum pressure' campaign, are a powerful obstacle to the effective fight against the infection," Russia's foreign ministry said. 

So, you also have pretty good idea on who are real humanitarians in this world. Don't expect the United States doing anything in this regard. Sanctions are the only instrument the United States has to do anything about emerging new geopolitical reality. The more it uses this instrument, the faster the change is coming. It is a classic Zugzwang. Having said all this, I, however, still remain on the sidelines (or on the fence) in passing any judgement on covid-19 panic, not until I have a verifiable data on demographics and, what is even more interesting for me--I, being busy (lazy, actually) will wait for someone to do this--comparison of data on covid-19 and seasonal flu. The only thing to do here is to keep those medical professionals and volunteers on the front lines of fight against this pandemic in out thoughts (and prayers for people of faith).    

UPDATE: Per milk--evidently you can freeze it but, unlike ice-cream, one has to wonder what will be its taste after that. This, however, in no way takes responsibility off the shoulders of those hoarders. 

New New Europe?

While whole "civilized" world holds its breath waiting for new revelations of yet another perpetrator of pussy-grabbing or other cases of accidental fucking with post-coital results rejection among ever morally and spirituality minded, in a very Roman Polanski way, Hollywood, good ole' Bundeswehr decided to quench our sexual harassment stories' thirst by means of "leaking" some rather interesting views on the fate of EU to the pages of Der Spiegel (in German, obviously, at least for now).  RT immediately reacted with producing a synopsis of this study in English. It is a very fascinating view of the worst case scenarios for EU. One phrase from their report caught my eye:

A scenario called ‘Multipolar competition’ predicts extremism on the rise in Europe as some EU members appear to move closer to Russia’s “state capitalism model.” All scenarios, drawn by the German military’s Planning Department, are viewed as conceivable by 2040.

The immediate question here is this: could Russian "model", which still didn't completely emerge (it is in the process) be called "State Capitalism"? No doubt, Russian State made huge strides in addressing the results of robbery of Russia by internal and external thieves and returned large swath of national (strategic) natural resources and manufacturing back under state's control. Granted, not without private capital having sometimes a minority share in many of those enterprises. There is certainly something in the making and apart from Bundeswehr's contingency planning, one piece, remarkable in its coincidence, captured my imagination today. This one is from Aleksandr Rogers, a Russian journalist who made next observations yesterday. The piece is in Russian, from Journalist Pravda, but Google Translate will help those who are interested. The title of the piece is About Great Russian Smoke Curtain. There he makes several, rather fascinating but by no means far fetched, hypotheses based on facts that we all are witnessing, indeed, a massive operation by Siloviki in "emerging" Russia into the model which, no matter how one tries to interpret it, has very little to do with classic liberal (libertarian) "free" market economy and, for all intents and purposes it is working. Here is a phrase:

И не нужно забывать, что и Путин, и Иванов, и Нарышкин, и остальные члены так называемого «кооператива «Озеро» – это профессиональные разведчики, специалисты управления «С» КГБ СССР (линии «Л» и «Н»). Они обучены действовать нелегальными методами, запутывать противника и прикидываться не теми, кем являются на самом деле. Например, могут прикинуться олигархами или коррупционерами.

Here is a translation: 

And do not forget that Putin, Ivanov, and Naryshkin, and other members of the so called Cooperative "Ozero" (Lake)--are all professional spies, specialists from Directorate "S" KGB USSR (Lines "L" and "N"). They are taught to act undercover, confuse the enemy and to pretend themselves being somebody else. For example, they can pretend to be Oligarchs or corruptioneers. 

Judging by the enormous scale of the infrastructure project in Russia this very moment--one has to inevitably agree that Rogers has a point. It is especially striking on the 100th Anniversary of the October Revolution. I find it amusing since I can totally see (well they are here already) some major economic, scientific and cultural breakthroughs in Russia, made especially contrasting against the hell which is slowly unfolding in Europe. Yes, I also see Visegrad Group formalizing as an actual economic and even military block  relatively soon and they will decide themselves how they want to be oriented economically and, considering the number of Muslims and African population exploding in EU, militarily and culturally. After all, somehow Russia raised her standard of living dramatically in the last 10 years, even despite falling oil prices and sanctions. This is the cold hard fact of life which can not be denied and this was done by refusing to follow "free market" financial capitalism prescriptions. Hm, interesting....

Wink, wink, if you know what I mean.