The brutal reality is that Putin’s Russia embodies everything the Trump Republicans dream of for America: a boundlessly corrupt, white supremacist, ethnonationalist fascist state whose oligarchs possess limitless power so long as they obey The President.

They call themselves the “party of Reagan”, while they trip over themselves to sell the geopolitical future of Europe down the river to Moscow…

“Chinese officials visibly nervous at the outpouring of public praise for dead leader [who they had sidelined and demoted].”

Русский, no — Российский, yes.

Well, it’s a good thing that the Bad Foreigners are to blame for the issue — otherwise the Kremlin might be forced to engage in critical thinking over the implications of their incessant agitprop for the stability in minority regions, and we can’t have that.

The monthly prices users pay per maid are according to race, the website states – with employers charged less for the services of a black maid. “Filipinas AED3,500 ($952)/month” and “Africans AED2,700 ($735)/month,” it states

The website states that Filipina maids require a bedroom of their own to sleep in, while African maids do not.

Nobody does racist slavery quite like the Gulf Arab countries, do they? I don’t know which is more grim, that or the disclaimer:

“Zero legal liability. Maid stays on our visa, so you’ll never have to worry about any legal consequences. If anything goes wrong (eg runaway maid, pregnancy), we’re responsible to deal with any lawsuits or visits to police stations, not you.”

IE, you can sexually abuse your underpaid migrant worker without fear of legal consequences, and the employer can then revoke their visa. What a great service! /s

Potemkin military.

Speculation runs that Dimi has been told by the Tsar that if he acts like the tough guy he isn’t with enough bravado, he’ll be allowed to sit in the big boys’ chair and pretend to be president again.

Also known as stalkerware or spouseware, these kinds of phone monitoring apps are often planted by someone — such as spouses or domestic partners — with physical access to a person’s phone, without their consent or knowledge.

Man. The fact that stalkerware is used so often on people’s domestic partners that they call it “spouseware” is pretty fuckin’ bleak.

Hubris is the word.

The CEO Stockton Rush, just off the top of my head:

• Fired his own director of marine operations for formally reporting “numerous issues that posed serious safety concerns". These included that the viewport was only rated to 1,300 meters, the carbon fiber hull had flaws which gave it the potential to fail, and that the hull integrity monitoring systems installed in response “might only provide ‘milliseconds’ of warning before a catastrophic implosion”.
• Refused to submit to an industry certification process for the sub, despite being warned in an open letter with dozens of signatories that failing to do so risked “negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic)”.
• Denounced the laws regulating submarine tourism as having “needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation”.

He’s pretty involved in the deep sea submersible community by all accounts, supposedly he’s dived to the Titanic site 33 times and been involved in the design of some of the vessels used.

Good point. I’d call it poetic justice, if his reckless decisions hadn’t also claimed the lives of others.

Agreed. It sounds like both the viewport — its manufacturer wouldn’t guarantee it past 1,800m the way they had it installed — and the hull itself were both potential liabilities.

I hope they nail the CEO to the wall, frankly. The more info comes out, the more this disaster looks entirely foreseeable. He refused to have the sub certified despite being warned of potentially catastrophic results, fired his own director of marine operations for blowing the whistle on serious safety risks, and is on the record denouncing regulations for tourist subs for having, quote, “needlessly prioritized passenger safety”.

Not a pretty picture.