Personal announcement: this was only a short intermission

Dear friends,

I just wanted to touch base with you and let you know that the reason why this blog was relatively inactive recently was due to a mix of three factors: 

1)  I have had an rather insanely busy schedule and a few personal issues I needed to focus on.  Things are better now.

2) Most of the stuff in the news recently is boring beyond belief.  For example, I cannot find it in me to write anything about the idiotic media event otherwise known as the "US Presidential Election".

3) I am doing some research on topics which are immensely interesting but rather complicated, such as the events in Dagestan and the interesting debate in the Russian elites on the future of political Islam in Russia.  I need time before I can post on these topics.

Anyway, please do not take this relative lull in posts here as a sign of lack of interest - I am simply making use of specific circumstances.

As always, please feel free to post here on anything of interest and keep sending me good articles.

Many thanks and kind regards,

The Saker