nomadpete

Who has tRumpy upset lately... apart from the Irish. This ex Rusky wrote him a open letter. Tis a pity it is lunger than donold's attention span. Hopefully someone will read it to him. https://www.ceedweb.ca/2025/08/19/eduard-topols-open-letter-to-donald-trump-why-putin-cannot-end-the-war-in-ukraine/ On August 11, 2025, Soviet-born writer and filmmaker Eduard Topol published an open letter addressed to former U.S. President Donald Trump. The letter, released by Kontinent, a Russian-language outlet in the United States. In it, Topol argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot stop the war in Ukraine, not because he does not want to, but because history shows that ending foreign wars has often triggered domestic unrest and even regime collapse in Russia. Below is the letter in full. Dear Mr. President! Dear Donald! As the author of fifty books and a dozen films about Russia, I consider myself entitled to inform you. You must know that he (Putin) cannot stop the war with Ukraine, even if you gift him your Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Trump Tower in New York, and a dozen of your golf clubs. And not because he doesn’t want a break from war, but because he simply cannot. Because he knows Russian history not from Medinsky’s textbooks, but the real one: The return of Russian troops from Europe after the victory over Napoleon led to the anti-tsarist “Decembrist” uprising in 1825. Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War led to the 1905 Revolution. The desertion of a million Russian soldiers from the Russo-German front during World War I forced Emperor Nicholas II to abdicate and caused the February Revolution of 1917. The peace signed by Lenin with Germany allowed the Bolsheviks to execute the entire royal family. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in February 1989 marked the beginning of the USSR’s collapse. Knowing this, Putin cannot end the war with Ukraine and bring his troops home. Only the opportunity in May 1945 to keep almost his entire army in Europe as occupation forces helped Stalin avoid a postwar coup. That is why Putin dreams of occupying Ukraine, as well as the Baltics, Finland, Poland, etc., to keep his army far away from Moscow. He remembers how 525,000 soldiers returning from Afghanistan in 1989 turned into bandits—“Afghantsy”—who terrorized the entire population of the USSR. And he knows what will happen if one and a half million soldiers, trained to kill, loot, and rape professionally, return home from the Ukrainian front. The war with Ukraine has allowed Putin to get rid of two million of the most active opponents of his regime, whom he forced to flee Russia, while the rest of the young Russian men he either drove to the front or recruited into punitive services. Today, any war—against Ukraine, the Baltics, NATO, anyone at all—is the best way to enforce Russia’s obedience to Putin and his junta. Unfortunately, none of your advisers will explain this to you before your meeting with Putin, but you can check my arguments with Jack Matlock and Michael McFaul. I do not want Putin—a KGB man, a thief, and a murderer of millions—to keep brazenly deceiving you, lying, and misleading my President. Of course, I am not a military expert or political scientist, but I am a writer with a good memory. I remember how Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II managed to push oil prices down to $9 per barrel, gave the Afghans “Stingers,” and thereby stopped Moscow’s takeover of Afghanistan and destroyed the USSR. If you want to stop Putin and the imperial ambitions of at least half of Russia’s population, you need to do the same—bring oil prices down to at least $25 per barrel and give Ukraine the weapons that will help it crush the aggressor. As for your desire to establish U.S.-Russian business partnerships, not in words but in reality, this could happen in a hundred years—or never at all. If you are interested in why, call me and I will explain. Respectfully, EDUARD TOPOL, citizen of the U.S. and Israel

There already is. There is a small number of very wealthy tech moguls (independant of political pressure, of course) looking after all that.

It's all a man needs, ever...... And maybe also a little cash to buy the wine.

Yes, on that issue, I can see advantages in better computing capability. But I cannot see that one issue providing the profits that are demanded by billion dollar investments. I see it as a new toy that the tech billionaires are playing with. They must be expecting to reap more wealth from their new toy. And they are already so wealthy they can to gamble on it because at worst, if it doesn't pay off, they still won't ever go hungry.

Nah, there's plenty of push button electronic baristas already - and they don't use A.I.

I remain unconvinced. I mentioned services that I figured were unlikely to be improved by A.I. because I was searching for a meaningful benefit. We plebs want to see tangible improvements to our lives before we see value in the new tech. I mentioned return on investment because nobody invests billions without an expectation of billions income from it. So far the promises are intangible. They have not been clearly defined in a way that we can look forward to any specific improvement to our life. Rather, the opposite; There will be less jobs, and no promise of a reduction in cost of living. But certainly someone somewhere will be reaping megadollars income - dollars which must be coming from the people.

I can see you have tried to answer my question. Thanks for that. But you seem to be struggling to name any definite benefit to the people. What is the prospectus? Will my Council rates/car rego/groceries/rent, etc, go down? Will the hospitals definitely deliver faster/more accurate/cheaper health care? Seems the promises are all couched in terms like 'might' or 'should' do lots of the above. In the past, multibillion dollar projects were only approved when there were specific itemised measurable deliverable values that warrant the investment. So far I only see wishy-washy vague half promises. And little sign of addressing any of the risks. Is it just 'build it and the world will beat a path to your door, bearing gifts of gold' ?

Nowadays reality can be created while you wait. And history has become an evolving story, when it was once a record of the past.

I understand Parkinson's satire. I pointed out there is a real process that is not satire. My point is that in real business, real people are doing it without seeing the silly side. To me, real life contains a lot of laughable events. Real life is my comedy. For instance, most politics cannot be taken too seriously, and is best laughed at.

A long time ago, I subscribed to several 'Business Management' periodicals. Although I did this primarily to upset my paranoid manager, there were numerous interesting articles. For instance, There are long mathematical formulae for the prediction of absenteeism by workers. Much like your Parkinson's Law one. Maths indeed are used by big business for some curious reasons. BTW, my manager never subscribed to such magazines. He simply 'knew' everyone was after his job. Character flaws in my workplace were a constant source of amusement. Most of us were not harmed by this.

Gee thanks for clearing that up, OME. So, maths holds an important place in every administration.

In summary, you haven't listed any personal benefits to the masses. But you do hint that big business such as banking will make more profit than ever, and employ less humans than ever. Yet we are constantly told how great things will be after this revolution

I always wondered how many folks actually read my posts. Now I know. Thanks!

Ok, older than a WLA. OME knows I was only joking about his ride. No offense intended. I know he has broad shoulders.

Let's see, about 200 million adults x $5 = a billion dollars. (less if Palantir gives him the names of those voting Republican). Did he mention where he intends to find that moolah?