As any other form of warfare, information warfare also needs funding. Please help.

Dear friends,

In the recent weeks the donations have fallen to almost *zero* even though the combined readership between the two blogs is comfortably over 50'000 a day.  Please help me to continue putting as many hours of work each day into the old and new blog and bring you the same quantity and quality of information and analyses.  As any other form of warfare, information warfare also needs funding.  Please help.

Thank you,

The Saker

Important clarifications about the new blog

Dear friends,

New blog presentation format:

A lot of you have emailed me to tell me that they don't like the "thematic" presentation used for the new blog and that you prefer a regular "chronological" one.  That is very simple to address:

If you prefer the "thematic" one use this link: http://thesaker.is/
If you prefer the "chronological" one use this link: http://thesaker.is/blog/ 

I think that with time you will see that having a choice of both is actually very helpful.  The thematic mode makes it far easier to research a topic while the second one makes it far easier to get the latest news.  I think that this flexibility is a huge improvement over the rigid "chronological only" format.

Delay between posts on the old and new blog:

Some have noticed that post appear hear before they appear on the new blog.  Correct.  I am learning the various options offered by WordPress and my webmaster helps me in the process.  So especially in the beginning, there will be a time lag between here (blogger is very simple to use, but also have very little functionality) and there (WordPress is extremely powerful but take a little bit of time to learn).

Moderation on the new blog:

Finally, moderation should improve massively.  I remind you that my moderation policy is spelled out here: http://thesaker.is/moderation-policy/

And just to clarify - my moderators (there are 10 of them) have a sole function to allow comments which are clearly in compliance with that policy.  However, they do not delete the others, but leave them to me to make the final decision.  In other words, don't blame them from not allowing a comment, if that happens - blame me.

The good news is that your comments should get posted much faster.  Also, there will be no software-controlled moderation and no obligation to sign up.

Comments:

Please do not post comments on this blog but only on the new one.  And please DO let us know what you like and dislike about the new blog by posting our opinions under this article's comments section:

http://thesaker.is/the-new-saker-blog-v3-is-now-ready/

That's it for now.

I hope to have a Ukraine SITREP ready in a few hours.

Cheers and hugs,

The Saker

New blog: request for comments

Dear friends,

I just want to invite you to share your comments about the new blog not here, but at the announcement post on the NEW blog.  That way our IT specialist can track what is requested instead of going through all comments everywhere.

Many thanks,

The Saker

Short message for some commentators

I would like the following commentators to email me:

Seamus Padraig
elsi
eimar clark

Please email me at vineyardsaker@gmail.com

Thanks!

The Saker

Message form the Saker + Open Thread

Dear friends,

a) The Saker needs to spend time with his veterinarian

One very sick Saker

My health issues have caught up with me yesterday and I still feel terrible.  I hope to feel better on Monday but in the meantime I have a favor to ask.  Please:

• Don't email me (unless this is a major emergency)
• Don't post questions here
• Don't expect more than reposts from other sources

I will reply to emails on Monday, okay?

b) SYRIZA

Okay, you win.  I will suspend judgment.  But if really Greece was not consulted, then Greece should now introduce an official protest.  Not in the media, but at the EC.  But okay, fair enough, I will suspend jdugement

c) Photo of Nazi goons

Guys, when I wrote "FSB agents impersonating Nazis" I was *jocking* for Pete's sake!  How can anybody seriously believe that I meant that?!  Valentin D: головой думать надо, а не.....,  а бабушке - привет!

Some dismissed it all under the heading "in any country or group you can find bla bla bla".  Yeah, except that these guys are from the Azov deathsquad, i.e. the junta's "Pretorian guard wannabes" who are now being disbanded, but not for human right violations or Nazi salutes, but for cowardice before the enemy.  Just like the last photo of Ukrainian Nazis was of cops, not just anybody.  I am not trying to prove that most Ukrainians are Nazi - they are not - but I am trying to illustrate that the stench of the Nazi ideology permeates the power base of the junta.

What the picture Photoshopped?  Oh come on...

d) Donbass news

So far so good.  As far as I can tell, if the "Debaltsevo cauldron" is not quite closed, is is almost and the still open segment is completely under Novorussian fire.  The Junta forces have taken huge losses (just as when the "Ialovaisk cauldron" was being formed).  The Junta forces are doing better north and east of the Donetsk airport where the Novorussian lost at least one, possibly two, villages.  Peski is still contested (as far as I know).  The big news is that the DNR and LNR have released a joint statement saying that they are willing to return to the negotiating table on the basis of the Minsk Agreements, but only if the current and actual line of contact is used to separate the forces.  In other words, they ain't gonna give back terrain which was won in hard battles.  Good for them.  Bottom line, the junta appears unable to break the resistance.

Okay, now I need to go back to recovering.

In the meantime here are the English language sources I recommend:

FortRuss: http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/
SouthFront: https://www.youtube.com/user/ygfront
Kazzura: https://www.youtube.com/user/wintersodomy (I know, weird choice)
Russia Insider: http://russia-insider.com/en
Colonel Cassad in English: http://cassad-eng.livejournal.com/

and, of course, the rest of the Saker community: 

PLEASE BOOKMARK THE NEW DOMAIN NAMES

French Saker: http://lesakerfrancophone.net
German Saker: http://www.vineyardsaker.de/
Oceania Saker: http://www.vineyardsaker.co.nz/
Latin American Saker: http://vineyardsakerlatam.wordpress.com/
Italian Saker: http://sakeritalia.it/

Okay, that's it for me.  Please give me some time to get my health back in order and, in the meantime, please consider this as an OPEN THREAD.

Kind regards and many thanks,

The Saker

Important blog news: we are getting stronger, much stronger

Dear friends,

I have some important issues to bring to your attention:

1) Domain names:

We are trying to fix the domain name problems and also making some major changes in our IT architecture. As of right now, please note that the following Saker Blogs are still functioning normally:

French Saker: http://lesakerfrancophone.net
German Saker: http://www.vineyardsaker.de/
Oceania Saker: http://www.vineyardsaker.co.nz/
Latin American Saker: https://vineyardsakerlatam.wordpress.com/

the following Saker Blogs are down due to domain name problems which I hope will be resolved soon:

Italian Saker: http://www.vineyardsaker.it/
Russian Saker: http://www.vineyardsaker.ru/ 

=>Please note that these domain names are temporary and will be changed in the future.

2) Popularity vs Donations:

The number of visitors to this blog is at an all time high - just under 70'000 a day!  See for yourself on this blogger dashboard screenshot made this morning:

But donations have almost stopped.

So please click on that PayPal button on the left and show your support for this blog's effort with your donation.

3) Structural Changes in the Saker Community: the SCEC and SALLC

Following the recent crisis I have decided to make two major changes in the way the Saker community will be organized.

First, I have decided to hand over the responsibility for community-wide decisions to what I call the "Saker Community Executive Committee" or SCEC.  This is a small group of people whom I fully trust who will from now on be in charge of issues such as accepting new blogs into the Saker community, making key decisions about our IT architecture or deal with domain name issues.  After much thinking I have decided that the membership of the SCEC must remain confidential and known to me only.  This is first and foremost to protect the SCEC members but also to make this key component of our community a much harder target to hit then myself.  Besides, if you, the community, have trusted me in the past with the management of the community, then you can logically also trust those whom I have chosen to deal with these issues from now on.  Just to make clear: the SCEC will have no say in the way each individual Saker blog is run (each blog will retain its full editorial and organizational independence) and the SCEC will only deal with community wide issues.  In fact, the only person for whom this will be a major change is me, the Saker, as I will be able to focus on blogging and writing analyses rather then deal with technical/administrative issues.

Second, the corporation "Saker Analytics, LLC" or SALLC has now been formed.  It will have an "in house council", a US based lawyer who has agreed to help SALLC, the SCEC and myself on a pro bono basis. I shall share his name with all of you in the near future, but for the time being let's call him "spoonful".  "spoonful" will help the SCEC with domain name issues and he will advise me on a new copyright policy for the blog.

4) New copyright policy for the blog: CC-BY-SA 4.0

For a number of legal reasons I cannot continue to post everything and anything without thinking about the copyright issues which might be involved.  I wish I could, but I cannot.  During the latest crisis I was threatened with a lawsuit not once, but twice, and even though this threats did not involved copyright issues, I have to assume that the folks out there who hate me and the Saker community (there are a lot of them, believe me!) will resort to all sorts of dirty tricks to try to shut us down, including frivolous copyright lawsuits.  On the advice of "spoonful" I have decided that as soon as the new blog is back up, all my original contents will be published under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).  This is also what I will recommend to guest authors.  As for external materials, they will remain under their original licenses.

Summary:

The crisis which hit me and the rest of the community was definitely a very bad one much worse then I can say here, believe me.  I have had to deal with betrayals, slander, blackmail, threats, sabotage and an amazing amount of hatred.  Still, I also have to admit that I myself have been naive and way too trusting.  For all my life I have many many mistakes, but at least I never made the same mistake twice.  And this time around, I had to make a painful "lessons learned" exercise, helped by some wonderful friends, and a few crucial things will now change:

1) We will built redundancy on all levels of our community.  From now on, no level will depend on a single individual, not the community, not the individual blogs and not the IT architecture.
2) We will de-personalize the community: it will still be "The Saker Community" but not "The Saker's Community" meaning that my community-wide "footprint" will shrink in size making personal attacks on my much less lucrative for those who hate me.
3) We will harden the community making all forms of attacks (political, technological, legal, etc.) much harder.

With these changes I hope to go back to my primary role as a simple blogger and to trade my "community leader" hat for a far more modest, and better fitting, "community founder" hat.

Various people have tried to bring down myself, this blog and our community.  God willing, their efforts will eventually result in the opposite effect and we will all bounce back much stronger than before.

The Saker

PS: if no major crisis erupts between now and then, I hope to resume the podcast in February (if only to remind you folks to donate - hint hint).

Of Podcasts, Donations and Books

Dear friends,

I would like to announce that I will be recording the next Saker Podcast #3 the coming week-end and, hopefully, make it available here by Monday morning on the (temporary) Saker Podcasts home page:

https://sites.google.com/site/sakerpodcast/home

Please note that thanks to the kind help of a wonderful lady "A" the Saker Podcast #1 transcript is now available for download from Mediafire (one zipped file containing the transcript in ODT, PDF and RTF formats).   Just click on the link above and then click under the transcript download link under Saker Podcast #1.

"A" is now transcribing the 2nd podcast and will be providing transcripts in the future.

Now is the time to post your questions for the next podcast.  Please do not email me your questions, but post there in the comments section under this post. Important: questions do not have to be about the Ukraine or any one specific topic: this podcast is for *you* so you ask whatever you want on any topic you want and I will try my best to reply to it.  I will be accepting questions until Thursday December 4th at 1800 GMT.

As we have agreed upon, I am using the opportunity of this podcast to remind you to send in your donations to support my work and this blog.  I have to report that the feared "donor fatigue" syndrome has apparently kicked in and that donations were very, very small this month (sorry!  I had to tell you).  Please don't let that happen and help me keep putting in the work-hours needed to do it all!

The following contributors have sent me donations in November via PayPal:

AN, MW, AB, RA, BG, MD, JT, AW, DS, GSH, PZ, HRS, PM, DK, PB, JDB, SF, RM, SD, ND, MM, KK, VF, DF, MM, MM, JMC, MD, RZ, RA, SM, GS, RH, HPO, SB, DK, GC, BS, KG, DK, BP, AV, TRH, DN, SE, BS, JC, HPO, JH, JL, AW, HMK, SC, VED, AA, JEM, KS, VA,

The following contributor has sent me a donation in November via Amazon:

MD

Speaking of donations,

A supporter of the Saker blog has offered me and the community a nice way of supporting my work.  Here is what he offers:

Hello everyone. I am a small leatherworking business owner and when Saker reached out to the community a while ago I decided to show my support. In collaboration with Saker, my girlfriend and I introduced to our store our new line of promotional Vineyard of the Saker hand-crafted Leather Key-Chain and Coffee Coasters. Purchasing any of these items will see 30% of your purchase donated to Saker directly, and we also offer 20% discount coupon code on any item in the store (save promotional items) as further gratitude after purchasing one of these items – thanks for your support! 

All I can add to this is that I have seen the finished product, and it is very very well done.  So if you want to get a well made leather item while helping the Saker blog, this is, I think, I great way to do it.  And just in case somebody gets the wrong idea that these folks are trying to make money off this blog, I can tell you that it took me a lot of emails to finally convince them to accept to donate 30% to my work as they wanted to give me almost every cent.  So they are truly doing that only to help me and support my work.

To purchase, simply click on the links in "Key Chain" and/or "Coffee Coaster" here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/212498318/vineyard-of-the-saker-key-chain?ref=related-0
https://www.etsy.com/listing/212506505/vineyard-of-the-saker-coffee-coaster?ref=shop_home_active_1

One more good thing to report:

With the help of two very kind friends, I have begun working on an book to try to explain the *real* Russia to the western public, the one the MSM tries so hard to hide.  It is too early for me to provide details about this major project yet, but I have been asked to completely block all my Wednesday mornings for this work.  So on Wednesday mornings, starting tomorrow, there will be no posting and no moderation of comments.  I apologize for that interruption, but I think that once you found out the details, which are still being finalized, you will completely approve of this decision.

Speaking of books, Pepe Escobar has recently released a book of his own, entitled Empire of Chaos and which you can now get as an ebook from Amazon for pennies ($3.99!!):

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Chaos-Roving-Eye-Collection-ebook/dp/B00OYVYD3G/

I have seen a draft version of this book and I can sincerely say that I recommend it with unqualified enthusiasm.  Yes, sure, Pepe is a friend, but his book, a collection of essays is a fantastic compendium of all the crazy, vile and sometimes even comical stuff the Empire is busy doing world wide.  And, of course, Pepe wrote it all in his direct, deliberately non-academic style, while producing analyses which very few academics, if any, could match.  Pepe is really "Da man" right now, one of the best informed sharpest analyst out there, and this book is most definitely a "must read".  The only bad thing is that it comes with Amazon's friggin DRM "defective by design" restrictions.  Well, no big deal.  Just get the book, pay the few pennies this costs - it is well worth it - then do a little research here and there (sorry, I legally cannot say where exactly) and this problem can easily be removed.

So, friends, please keep Pepe and myself in the business of informing you and thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Kind regards,

The Saker

On conspiracy theories and credibility

Dear friends,

I am noticing with some dismay that some (many?) of you are still firmly the mental clutches of the "conspiracy theories" logical fallacy.  The reactions to Koenig's articles about Ebola and HIV are typical of that kind of logical derailment.  So it is hight time that I state a few basic assumptions of this blog.

1) A "conspiracy theory" is, a priori, a good thing.  Why?  Because the world is chock full of conspiracies.  What is a conspiracy? It is a secret plan of a group of people.  Does any of you really believe that with 16+ "intelligence" agencies in the USA there are not thousands of conspiracies hatched every day by tens of thousand of professional people just here, in the USA?  Don't you know that corporations conspire too?  What do you think antitrust laws are all about?  Do you know that the criminal code is also full of conspiracy crimes?  So here is the deal: if you want to understand what happens behind the smokescreen thrown before you by the corporate media and government official you HAVE TO spend most of your time looking into conspiracy theories.  Put simply - if you reject conspiracy theories you are blind.  Period.

2) I don't give a damn about my "credibility" or the "credibility" of my blog.  I don't deal in "credibility".  "Credibility" is an "argument of authority" which assumes that something coming from "A" is credible because it comes from "A".  This is not what I want for this blog.  In the Saker community I want everybody to be critical of everybody and everything and to only judge an arguments in its own merits (or lack thereof).  If tomorrow Poroshenko or Joe Biden write a good piece I would not hesitate to publish it.  Not because I endorse it (I only endorse what I write!), but to foster an intelligent discussion.  In other words, "credibility" is something attached to an argument, not a person.

3) In order to reject a hypothesis we have to first look into it.  Unless we develop an 1984-like automatic rejection without analysis capability, there is no way for your to evaluate a thesis without being exposed to it.  A hypothesis is just that - a "maybe" or "what if".  If it passes a preliminary stage of acceptance, and if it becomes formalized, it becomes a theory.  Then, that theory can be tested, in particular in its ability to predict.  Only then can it be proven false.  In the case of Ebola and HIV all I hear is side "A" claiming that it was created by the US government while side "B" says that this is not so.  In the meantime, NOBODY is offering any kind of halfway intelligent discussion of the hypothesis.  Instead the hypothesis is dismissed prima facie as a "conspiracy theory".  Those who do that apparently fail to realize that if, as this hypothesis states, the US government had something to do with the creation of HIV or Ebola then by definition this was a conspiracy and, again, by definition only a conspiracy theory could help prove that.

What is wrong with you guys?!  Has basic logic just become extinct?!

4) Last but not least - this blog is about *freedom of thought*, something sorely needed in our single-thought and completely monolithic society.  I feel that freedom implies the freedom to make up you own mind and therefore to be exposed to something which is wrong or untrue.  All of the media and 95% of the blogosphere is busy trying to establish "credibility" like a dog peeing in the four corners of a room to establish its territory.  I say let them aspire to "credibility" if they so chose - I aspire for *freedom*.  I want this blog to be a place where people can present odd, "heretical", rejected, crimethink and otherwise persecuted ideas.  Let them come here, present them, and if you disagree with them - tear them apart with facts and logic, be ruthless, don't leave them a place to hide from your merciless analysis.  But don't rejected them without that, without this "trial by comments" in which all of us are jurors.

It just so happens that I remember some very well informed people telling me in the late 1980s early 1990s that HIV had all the signs of having been engineered.  Is there a reason to reject such a hypothesis prima facie?  Not if you know anything about the history of biowarfare research, especially by the US government.  That I know for sure. But I personally have no opinion about HIV and no opinion about Ebola.  Frankly, I don't have the time to form an opinion about them (oh yes, I don't consider having an opinion a "right" of some kind.  Having an opinion is the result of a painstaking and long process of analysis at the end of which you sometimes, not always, end up with an opinion).  To be very honest, I don't particularly care.  But I care that others care and that is why, I posted these articles by Koenig because I know for a fact that others (which shall remained unnamed) have chickened out from posting them, probably for reasons of "credibility".

I don't care much about this specific topic, but I do care, immensely, about the intellectual freedom of this blog.  And I will never, ever, let considerations of "credibility" stand in the way of this blog's intellectual freedom.  There are plenty of really, truly, totally "credible" and "respectable" blogs out there.  Somebody got to be free and non-respectable and I very deliberately chose to be part of that "fringe lunatic conspiracy theorist" with "zero credibility" which does not let the society's doxa tell me what I should, or should not, post.

:-P

The Saker

Before hitting the road :-)

Dear friends,

I am about to hit the road and do what I like most: jump in the car with my wife, leave everything behind, and spend a couple of days in the Florida wilderness.  God willing, we will be back on Friday.

In the meantime, I want to leave you with a few short notes:

1) Podcast: there definitely was some kind of glitch in the 2nd part of the podcast and I had no time to detect it.  Lesson learned: it was a mistake to leave the post with questions open until Friday 18000 GMT and hope to get the podcast ready my Monday.  The next time around, I will leave three days to post questions (Monday-Wednesday) and then I will use the remaining time (Wednesday-Sunday) to prepare the podcast for release on Monday.  From now on and until the new blog is up, I will release on Soundcloud, Mediafire and Youtube.

2) My "homophobic video": from a comment posted today I realized that some of you had not realized that the person sitting next to the cop is not a a woman at all but, to quote the official dogma, a person manifesting a "normal and natural variation in human sexuality and is not in and of itself a source of negative psychological effects".

3) These past couple of weeks I have been bombarded with people accusing me of endorsing Šešelj or of "discrediting" or even "abandoning" Strelkov.  What these critics apparently fail to understand is that I can discuss somebody's views or situation without necessarily endorsing or betraying that person.  As it happens, I have no personal opinion whatsoever about Šešelj and I have the utmost respect for Strelkov.  My view of the world and of people is not binary, black or white, and I like to freely analyze and discuss ideas, situations and personalities.  If you are too stupid to cope with that kind of diversity of approaches, then I suggest you avoid my blog like the plague because I sure intend to continue to do that.

4) The "Putin is weak and beaten" chorus is not letting up.  I personally explain that by too much exposure to the corporate media which is constantly presenting Putin as beat, isolated, humiliated and otherwise broken.  Since these comments never come with fact based and logically presented arguments, I don't see the point if trying to refute them.

5) Novorussia: today Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke during a Q&A at the Duma and he also mentioned the possibility that the economic blockade of Novorussia by the Nazi regime in Kiev (which basically stole the money of the people of Novorussia) could be a prelude to a Ukrainian attack.  I am personally convinced that the recent statements of Putin and Lavrov about this possibility are designed to prepare the public opinion of Russia and, to some degree, the EU to situation in which Russia might have to intervene to stop such an attack.  The situation right now is extremely dangerous, but not hopeless as I am sure that there is a lot of pressure put upon the junta and its US bosses by Russia and other countries not to attack.

6) US elections: I am not a US citizen, so I don't get to vote anyway.  If I did, I still would not vote.  The choice of a lesser evil is still a choice for evil.  It is also a de-facto endorsement of the legitimacy of the system.  Can I recommend to those interested in this issue to read an old post of mine entitled "USSR 1974 - USA 2007: back to the future"? 

Okay, that's it for today.  I am off to my beloved wilderness with wifey.  See you all in a couple of days!

The Saker

Various news updates and housekeeping issues

Dear friends,

A boring but important post today about housekeeping issues along with a news update. First the housekeeping:

1) We are working on the new blog and we will display most of the logos/pictures you have sent me. These are the ones selected so far:

Can I ask each one of you who sent me these pictures to please email my webmasters at saker-webmaster@yandex.com and say which picture you sent and how you want to be identified (real names, alias, nickname, anonymous - whichever).

2) The next blogs to join our Community will be: Italian and Latin American (Spanish). Both are being worked on, so please be patient, but rest assured that "it is happening" - the teams have been organized, they have chosen a leader.

3) Complaints: at least two people have complained that I was not posting as many military updates about the Ukraine as before. Guys, this is due to the fact that right now there is a kind of an ugly-non-full-war taking place where the Ukies are shelling Donetsk up to 8 hours in a row, but with no real offensive and no other purpose than terror. I cannot make up events to keep things interesting, sorry. At least when the Net flooded with rumors of a Ukie attack I told you that this was not so. That is also what I get "paid for" - to say that nothing happens when nothing happens. But I assure you that my information sources are every bit as good before and that I am keeping a very close (hourly) eye on what is happening (or not happening).

4) Charge: "you are too busy". Plea: "Guilty as charged, your honor". Right now my schedule includes:

i) a full time job in meatspace
ii) a family (including 3 teenagers and health problems)
iii) 8 hours of sleep (in theory)
iv) writing for this blog and monitoring the Ukraine
v) working on the new blog (giving input to the team working on it)
vi) trying to get the ball rolling on the Italian and Latin American blogs
vii) trying to get several translations done
viii) preparing the podcast
ix) working on the upcoming book
x) replying to no less than 50 emails each day (out of over 200)
xi) writing for Russia-Insider (I try do to that once a week)
xii) deal with submissions to the blog
xiii) moderating (including the recent surge of nasty comments)
xiv) research on a topic which, I promise, will generate plenty of controversy
xv) assorted corresponence with good people I don't want to offend by not replying

As for my thesis - I had to put in on hold until January.

Finally, I will be gone for 3 days (19-20-21) to celebrate my birthday with my wife (We need the time alone, together in nature and away from all of the i-xv above).

So yes, I am over-worked and over-stretched, but please remember that most of that is done on your behalf, to deliver to you want you appreciate in this blog, and to strengthen and grow our global community. And remember this: I love doing what I do, I love every second of it, I finally am doing what I wanted to do all my life: be free to do analysis and writing with no boss to censor me. So while I am outlining the reasons why I am over-stretched, I am not complaining. I am happier today than every before in my life :-)

5) Donations: new update here: besides the podcast which I shamelessly use as a reminder for donations, and the book which I am working on with some fantastic folks to help me out with, there will also be a few other things I will offfer soon to donor. But I must come back to the true deluge of donation which followed my appeal of October 21st: if before this appeal the donations had shrunk to a truly *tiny* trickle, after that they surged and in one month I got more donations than in the previous several months combined. The number of first-time donors, in particular, truly exploded and if most donations were modest, a few were not, and all of this combined really has helped me out in a tough situation. For that I want to thank you all!

The only drawback form that is that there are so many donors to list that I have decided to refrain from doing this in November as that would take up too much of my time. Of course, If you have any doubt or want to check whether I got your donation (electronically or by snail mail) just please email me and I will let you know. But since now I am really in a race for time and each minute counts, I will forgo the usual "list of initials" donation acknowledgement, okay?

6) Several of you have requested a transcript of the podcast. Okay - if any of you are court-reporters or stenographers or simply fast typist and if you are willing to help, please email me and let me know.
That's it for today "housekeeping and news update".

Kind regards to all,

The Saker

Podcast project - let's give it a first try, okay?

Dear friends,

Since several of you have expressed interest for this, let's give it a try.

I invite you post your questions in the comments section below (on any topic) and I will try to record a podcast with my replies.  Please do not send me questions by email (I have way too many emails to answer already!).  Also - and just to make clear - I don't promise to necessarily reply to all questions, but only those that will inspire me to reply.  Any topic seems legit to me - feel free to ask any question you want.  Also, if you have suggestions, comments or criticisms about the blog, our community, or anything I wrote or did - please feel free to post them here.  I will try to answer the best I can.

Let's see if you guys enjoy this.  I think I might :-)

Cheers and kind regards,

The Saker

Blog news update - decisions, decisions...

Dear friends,

Wow!  Really.  Wow!  Your response to my Community Brainstorming: I am swimming against a Tsunami post was nothing short of massive, huge.  I got more donations then ever before, I got long and very moving letters of support, and I got a lot of very good advice and suggestions.  Frankly, I had never expected such an outpouring of support and I am immensely grateful to you all for it.  

Truly, it is hard to put in words.  I will try though, in the near future.  I will call the post "submarines in the desert".  I will explain what I mean by that at that time.  All I can say is that I am immensely touched and absolutely amazed by your support.  As I said - I will discuss this important topic in a future post (now is not the time).

I also had the time to think, consider all the suggestions you sent and ask for advice.  To keep a long story short, here are my conclusions (organized in the usual time and money categories):

Time:

First, as soon as I move to the new blog I will have at least three co-moderators to help me with this extremely time consuming task.

Second, the Saker community is working on the creation of a "pool of webmasters" which would  be able to support all the various Saker websites.  We have already received applications from some highly skilled volunteers and we hope that once this system is in place the turnaround time to fix any problems or to implement a needed change will be much shorter.  If you are interested and if you have time, availability and strong WordPress skills, please email me.

Third, I will keep this (old, blogger) blog indefinitely open as a mirror of the main (new) one although I will eventually close the comments section here.  Should anything happen to the main blog, I will always be able to open up comments here.  In other words, the blog will have triple-redundancy: new blog, a main (and so far hidden) backup, and the old blog as mirror.

Fourth - the new blog should be back online soon.  Again, before that happens I will keep you posted.

Money:

First, the site will, of course, remain 100% free.

Second, if anything at all, I have come to the obvious conclusion that the sudden drop in donation was not due to any lack of desire of anybody to donate, but to a lack of reminders to do so.  I do not want to put up ads, I do not want to place a constant reminder, I do not want to have fund-drives, I do not want to place big signs or do any other of the many techniques I have seen used which I personally find obnoxious.  However, what I am thinking of doing is post short and unobtrusive reminders about donations about once a month in the form of a post.

Third, I have decided to try out a monthly podcast which I would also make available for free, but which I would also use as a reminder about donations.  My idea is for anybody interested to send in questions about any topic and I would read these questions out and reply to them in a recording which I would then make available for download/streaming.  In this way, I could communicate with you in an informal way, simply by speaking directly to you (in English) rather than by always writing.

Fourth, I have agreed to write a book based on some topics touched upon in this blog, but organized in a logical way and edited by a professional and a team of volunteers.  The book would be available for download along some kind of donations scheme still to be worked out.  I will keep you posted.

Other miscellaneous issues

The logo.  Again, wow!  I did not expect such a massive response :-)  Frankly, my main "problem" is that I like almost all of these logos and you seem to like them all.  So I am wondering whether there is a way to use them all too.  Maybe an animated GIF (though I don't like this format) or some HTML5 equivalent?  Maybe a moving banner?  Or maybe I will ask one of my webmasters to write a PHP script rotating the logos every week.  The main arguments to have various logos is that seems only appropriate for a very diverse community like ours. 

Latin American Saker Blog.  It's happening, I promise.  It's just that this a very big enterprise (possibly the biggest Saker blog) and that the main people organizing it are very busy in *meatspace*.  I had hoped to officially launch last Friday, but that was not doable.  So I hope for an official launch in the not too distant future, but I cannot say when.

What about an Italian Saker blog?  I have a good friend who has a big archive of Saker articles already translated into Italian, and making one more clone of the Saker blog model websites would not be too hard.  All I need is a few Italian volunteers to create a small Italian Saker blog team.  Is anybody interested?  If yes, please email me.

That's it for now.

Your turn now - what do you think about these ideas?

Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Please let me know.

Kindest regards and tons of thanks,

The Saker

Which logo do you prefer? (UPDATED!)

Dear friends, 

I need to decide which logo to use on the new blog.  Which one do you prefer?

Thanks,

The Saker 

UPDATE: it just 'hit me' that we are a community, right? Okay - if you want to submit a logo of your own, please do.  I make no promises to use it, but if I like it I will add it to the list of logos submitted for comments in this survey of opinions.  Deal?

Logo 1

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Logo 3

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Logo 5

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Community "counter-Tsunami" response: fantastic!

Dear friends,

I just wanted to thank you all for the huge response you gave to my appeal yesterday.  Not only did donations come in as never before, you also gave me extremely valuable advice (in both public comments and private emails).  You have also pointed out some mistakes I have made in the past which I shall not repeat again.  

In the very near future, I will write up a response and a plan for the future which I think you will be very happy with. Right now I need to deal with more urgent matters - including some possibly very serious developments in the Ukraine - but I just wanted to thank you all: the miracle of "spontaneous self-organization of people" has happened again and our community - you - are nothing short of absolutely fantastic!!

Kindest regards and thanks to all,

The Saker

Community brainstorming: I am swimming against a Tsunami

Dear friends,

As I mentioned yesterday, I have come to the conclusion that I need to share with you the problems which I and my blog are having and, frankly, to ask for your help.  I have been trying to avoid this, but several good friends have strongly urged me to do so and time has proven that they were right.

First, I will begin by a short "state of the community" mini-report so we can all see how far we have got and where we all are now.

Since 2007 this blog has been a "one-man show" where one anonymous dude shared his thoughts with an abstract (and very small but also very nice) Internet audience.  The war in the Ukraine changed all that.  From a blog which almost never even mentioned the Ukraine (I was focused mostly on the Middle-East) the Saker Blog rapidly became a 99% Ukraine-centered blog.  Along with that, an explosion in the number of readers happened: while for years I had maybe a couple of hundred visitors (on a good day), this spring it went from hundreds, to thousands, to tens of thousands to the absolute record of just under 70'000 in one day in August.  Then, it slowly tapered off back to a more reasonable 20'000-30'000 per day, depending on the events in the Ukraine: the worse the war, the more readers I got (-: which made me feel like a "war profiteer" :-).  The second huge change which suddenly happened was the the small community around this blog suddenly massively grew in size.  It all began when a wonderful French lady ("C" - encore merci pour tout!!) wrote to tell me that she thought my blog should be translated into French.  I replied "great - but I cannot do it myself".  She said that she would try to find somebody.

A few months later there are now six, soon to be seven (Latin American is almost ready!), independent Saker blogs - all tremendously successful, all with their own large readership and attached YouTube channels.  

Then there are the guest-author's SITREPS: Ukraine, Iraq, Nigeria, Transcarpathia Transnistria and Gagauzia, and Latin America.  Two of them come directly from a war zone and thus depend on the author's personal safety and access to communications.  All of them provide an insider look which is simply not to be found elsewhere.  I consider these SITREPs a fantastic asset to our community.

Furthermore, there are two more recent developments which I am delighted with and which deserve special mention here: Alexander Mercouris has agreed to post his (always excellent) FB commentaries on this blog and I am now a regular contributor to Russia Insider with whom the Saker community can now also collaborate on various issues.  In other words, our community is rapidly growing.  And what all this means is this:

We are making a real difference.  We have established a presence in a record time and the future prospects look nothing short of fantastic.  Furthermore, in this current war the information aspect is at least as important as bullets and guns.  In fact, the Empire spends a lot more on information warfare then on the military hardware actually used.  In other words, while a diverse community of like-minded people like ours has neither the goal or the means to beat the big heavyweights like the AngloZionist media or special services, we are big enough to make a difference and they cannot completely ignore us.  At the very least, we can serve to crash their propaganda about a consensus in their support.  Finally, we can be a people-to-people bridge between the people living under the AngloZionist Empire's rule and the those living in the (truly) "free world" lead by Russia.

I still have to pinch myself from time to time to check whether this is " really real", or this is just a dream (the regular contact I have with the wonderful people working on the other Saker blogs and that I now consider as friends, proves to me that, yes, this is real).

Finally, because of the very high risks of censorship and/or legal attack, I have agreed to move this blog to a new server in a safe(r) jurisdiction (Iceland) and on a privately owned server.  As you know, this important and necessary step has, so far, been less than a success (More about that further below) So let's turn to my problems now.

They can all be summarized in a simple expression: time and money.

The huge growth of this blog and the other independent Saker blogs and of our (now truly worldwide) community did not just happen "like that".  At each step of the way, I had to find the right people, discuss an immense array of issues and, of course, make mistakes and try to learn from them.  I had to cope with at least one major crisis which took a lot of energy to mediate and resolve and I had to deal with a lot of people who promised much but delivered nothing.  I am not complaining about this, but I want you to understand that it all entails a huge number of hours of work to organize and fix.  All the while while producing analyses of the civil war in the Ukraine and moderating one to several hundred comments each day (I had asked two friends to help me with that task, but one concluded that the philosophy of this blog did not make him feel comfortable while the second one simply dumped me with less than a week's notice).

As a result of all these developments, my daily workload for this blog has been exponentially going up throughout the spring, summer and fall.  At the same time, however, donations have been going down.  So let's talk about these donations (sigh, deep breath, plunging).

Those who have been here long enough know that the entire idea of donations came from readers who literally demanded that I create some kind of donation option.  I have to tell you that I have always been extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed taking about money (even writing this makes me feel absolutely terrible) but that I decided to give it try.  To my most absolute amazement, donations began coming in and even in amounts sufficient enough to make a difference in my family's budget.  In fact, without these donations we could not have made it through the summer without sinking further into debt (full disclosure: we have a house and 2 old cars, but no savings, no pension, and plenty of credit card debt).  Over the past couple of months, however, these donations have been steadily decreasing and, frankly, my family and I only pulled it through thanks to one individual from northern Europe who has been helping month after month and without whom I could never have maintained this blog.  Clearly, many supporters are suffering from "donor fatigue" or are also maxed out.

From the beginning of the existence of this blog I always have been reluctant to create categories of readers or to offer some products/services only to paying subscribers.  This is still something I don't want to do.  Still, I am told by friends that I should consider such an option.  In practical terms, we are talking about the possibility of writing a book about Russia based on some of the articles I have posted here and/or making a podcast.  Right now, I have way too much to do just to keep things running, but I could consider these options in the future, especially if my financial situation continues to deteriorate.  At this point in time, however, I cannot add any further activities or ventures to what I have to do every day, not unless I find a way to squeeze 36-48 hours of life into a 24 hour day.  Worse, if I have to take on these ventures just to make ends meet, I will have to dramatically decrease the time spent on this blog and this, right at the time when the Empire's war against Russia is heating up and the Ukraine is about to explode again.  This makes no sense to me.

By the way, I am often accused of being a "paid Putin agent".  Every time I read that I sigh in think "if only that was true...".  The reality is that Vladimir Vladimirovich has not contributed a single kopek to this blog (yet?), nor has any other Russian government, corporate or even private entity.  A few Russian readers have, but I can count them on the fingers of one hand.  Considering the absolutely dismal Russian performance in the current PR war against the western MSM propaganda machine, I am at loss for words to describe this apparent indifference.  I can only surmise that this the "not without honor, except in your own country, and in your own house" phenomenon at work.

If I had a magic wand, I would go back to doing what I think I do best and what most of you would probably want me to do: write analyses for this blog.  But in order to do that, I need to be honest with you and admit to you that I hit a kind of a "wall" and that I need your help.  If you value what you get on this blog then please help me work for this blog in conditions where I can at least preserve my mental health and focus on my writing rather than on my ballooning debt.  I am sorry to be so blunt about this, but at this point I have no other choice.

Then there is the issue of the new blog.

Fundamentally, I think that the decision to move the blog to Iceland is a sound one.  Furthermore, I personally like the new blog a lot, both the design, the visual appearance and the work on it as an author and administrator.  Simply put: WordPress is infinitely better than Blogger.  Furthermore, there is a real risk of being shut down here, on Blogger.  So I see no reasons to question the original idea.  The implementation is, however, a different business.  Here I personally responsible for a number of mistakes.  I will spare you all the technical details, but the bottom line is that for the time being the new blog needs to go back into testing and until it is fixed we all have to only use this blog here, on Blogger, for the foreseeable future.  The new blog will be back and, hopefully, the next time around it will be more solid than the first one.  But for the time being - Blogger is the only option.

The bottom line is this: I need your help.

First, if you have not contributed to this blog in the past, please do.  Right now less than 0.25% of the readers of this blog have sent a donation.  If you have, please consider contributing again or even increasing your contribution.

Second, please let me know what you think of the idea of creating "for purchase" products as opposed to keep everything for free.  Specifically, please let me know if you would be interested in purchasing a book and/or a podcast.  My own preference goes for the former, but you might think otherwise. 

Third, do you have any ideas about fund-raising/crowd-funding?  Are there any amongst you who are knowledgeable about this realm about which I know nothing?  Would any of you offer your time as a volunteer fund-raiser of some type?  What about this idea: can the community support my work by raising funds for me not by sending donations, but literally by creating some kind of fund-raising mechanism?  Seeking out donors amongst friends?  Organizing some kind of mailing list or dedicated website?  Write to Vladimir Vladimirovich and ask for his help (just kidding!)?  Seriously, if you cannot donate or are maxed out - can you help with your brain and, especially, your time?

In other words, while advice about what I could/should do is great, it would be even greater if some of you could actually take it upon themselves to help directly. Right now, I am so overworked that I stopped writing my thesis, stopped all my recreational activities and my daily reading is down to 15min a day max: I have 3 books in the pipeline to review for this blog, and I had only enough time to read 3/4 of the first one...

Fourth, please forgive me all the problems with the new server and the back and fourth between the old and new one.  For the time being, let's stay here and if suddenly I get shut down by Blogger - then go to any of the other Saker blogs (which are all safely hosted in Iceland) until the new blog is fixed.

Fifth and last, but most definitely not least - do you have any other suggestions or ideas? I really hope that this appeal to the community will generate one (or several) solutions. So far, what I call the "spontaneous self-organization of people" has been nothing short of miraculous for me and since the friend I mentioned yesterday did write "We can fix everything except you" I have decided to honestly lay out in front of "all of y'alls" (as they say in Florida) the stuff I am struggling with and which destroys my peace of mind.

Right now, I have the feeling that I am swimming against a Tsunami and I am losing the strength to do so very fast.  Please think about it all and if you can help, in any form, please do.

I would prefer if you posted your reactions/ideas/suggestions here, but feel free to also email me if you prefer.  I will probably not have the time to respond individually to most (or even any) of your comments/emails, but I will try as best I can.  And I will definitely read every single with the greatest attention.

For the rest of the week, I will probably post less as I will be working on many of these behind-the-scenes problems, but since I left you with two *truly* world-class articles to consider (Strelkov's reply to Khodorkovsky and the Glaziev - Khazin press conference) and since the "questions to Khazin" are still being collected until Friday, I trust that this is fair enough.  Of course, in case of critical developments I will set everything aside and keep you posted as best I can.

Okay, readers and friends, your turn now.  Please help in any way you can.

Thanks and kind regards to all,

The Saker