Nordstahl @Nordstahl@social.cleverlibre.org

A super productive morning! I’m feeling much more alert and perky now. How’s everyone else getting on?

It melts my heart to see Ginza sleep like this #CatsOfMastodon

Not sure how these two expect me to get my work done for the day!

#Cats #CatsOfMastodon #Kitty #Kitties #KittiesOfMastodon #Computer #Work #Helpers

@GottaLaff Lock him up already FFS. I mean come on

A few comments on the rising interest to the topic of #corruption in #Ukraine - and I don’t mean state-level corruption, but mostly cases of misappropriation of donations or material help sent for humanitarian or army needs:

Cases described by Western media - like selling of food sent with humanitarian help - are most likely true.
Scale does matter - articles I’ve seen described dozens of such cases, which sounds a lot by mere concentration in a single place and confirmation bias, by not mentioning thousands of transports that were delivered and distributed correctly.
I know about the latter, because I myself have been sending material support to Ukrainian army almost from day zero. As I have many friends there and some joined army, I had a direct channel to people I trust and I know where every piece of equipment I sent was going.
There’s a massive difference in the support needed back then and now. In May 2022 the guys in Territorial Defence were asking for summer shoes, uniforms, medikits and other rather basic equipment. Those serving in regular army were apparently much better supplied, so they asked for items like drones, radios or optical devices.
And I never saw any of my deliveries lost or sold or in any other way misappropriated. Each of them was confirmed by my friends as delivered, sometimes with a photo and “thank you” note from the front line.
But even these requests largely stopped by end of 2022, as the direct supply chains were largely established for commercial purchases, large scale Ukrainian army tenders and supplies from Ukraine’s allies. Since then I was only occasionally asked to help with some very specific radio equipment etc which was e.g. much cheaper in UK or market for used devices was much larger here.
And I’m very happy about that because the logistics was pain: even with periodic volunteer trips from UK to Ukraine, it took from 3-5 weeks from purchase to delivery. Today, when asking if any help is needed, I mostly hear that they can now buy everything either in Ukraine or get it delivered to Ukraine easily.
The volunteers did a huge job over the last year, driving from literally every single town in Europe and moving thousands of tons of goods donated by good people willing to help Ukraine.
There’s some things that the recipients of the help will rarely tell you: for the example, when what you honestly thought may be needed comes out to be a completely wrong guess. I had that with some cheap Baofeng radios I bought last year - by their reaction I saw something was wrong and only after a long questioning they reluctantly confessed these simply can’t be used on the front line due to no encryption and modulation that is easily triangulated and jammed.
I never again made the mistake of guessing what they might need, I just started simply following their very specific orders, and that worked perfectly. A single professional Motorola radio purchased for 200 GBP exactly to their specification delivers much more actual value to the soldiers than 10x cheap radios they can’t use at 20 GBP each.
What you do with even the most sincere gift you can’t use? Just go and sell it, and then buy whatever you actually can use. I don’t know if they donated my radios to some civilian emergency service or sold them, and I don’t care - as long as the guys who risk their lives on the front line could have in any way benefit from my donation, it has worked.
There’s the soldiers, and there’s the volunteers. The word sounds nice, but if you’re doing something for well over a year now and you need to spend significant amount of your time and resources, is it still just “volunteering”? The people certainly are volunteers in the sense of donating their time voluntarily, but they’re now playing an important part in optimising the war logistics, adding flexibility and speed to the huge but less agile army tenders process. For many of them it became almost a full-time job, but they also have families to feed and cars to fuel.
Also remember that Ukraine’s economy has been severely impacted by Russian aggression. There’s much less ways people can work or make business, and significant part of the economy has shifted towards the war effort.
While this may sound controversial on the first look, I’m absolutely ready to accept the fact that a percentage of the material donations will be sold, because it allows the everything else to be delivered and distributed. I don’t think it’s rational to donate say thousand of pairs of socks and then expect they will magically appear on the front line, and that will repeat every week or month. In the same way, if one soldier gets ten pairs of socks from donations, it’s rather natural that he will sell the surplus and buys whatever else he needs more. Anything that helps Ukrainian economy is OK from my point of view.

(continued)

#larawanblog
KULIMLIM - a Filipino word meaning overcast.

Black widows battle their even deadlier cousins in a brutal spider war https://t.co/JQDkBlbpfO

Our dog Bubbles wore her most festive hat to my wife’s birthday party.

October 29, 2023. Wolverine Lake, Michigan.

#dog #dogs #labradorretriever #dogsofmastodon

Thank you to Dr. Linsey Marr for explaining the effectiveness of masks on 60 Minutes Overtime. I really wish this segment featured on the full broadcast and not online only though, as the whole country really needs to watch it!

Battlestar Galactica - #art by Alex Ross (2013)

Neo-Nazis Are Targeting American Power Grids in Coordinated Attacks, Watchdog Warns - The Messenger

https://themessenger.com/news/neo-nazis-are-targeting-american-power-grids-in-coordinated-attacks-watchdog-warns

🔥

Only YOU can prevent #Fascism

#Antifa #Antifascist #Art #ArtFED #Protest #Propaganda

Each oligarch purchase of a news source or magazine heralds the end of its credibility.

Goodnight everyone 😽🐾 #CatsOfMastodon #TheHardyBoyCats

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