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
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
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
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
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
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
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”
Dear friends,As many of you have noticed, the new blog was down, now it is back up, but with a older version which is missing at least two posts and many comments. My fault, my bad. Now I need to fix it. I will. Still,To be honest, I am having major problems and, to be equally honest, I need you guys to help me. I am too tired right now
Dear friends,The new blog is down (good thing I kept this one open). As soon as I find out what is going on, I will let you know. In the meantime, the big news is that following today’s ballistic missile strike on Donetsk, Zakharchenko has declared the ceasefire over.I apologize for all the problems with the new blog. The Saker
Dear friends,This has been a “week from hell” for me, with the main blog down for days, but now at least this problem has been fixed. Still, since there are still some odd things happening with the new blog, I will continue to double-post on both blogs, for the time being.The Latin American Saker Blog is coming along nicely with a top-notch team being assembled for various Latin American countries
Dear friends,As you can see, the new blog is still down. I was told by my IT specialist that it will be back up tonight. As soon as I know something I will let you know too. Guys, Hebrew is not the second language in the Ukraine. Rate your sources, okay? (FYI – What is true is that the junta wants to make English the second language).Gubarev was shot at.
Dear friends, In this short post I just want to share with you four small housekeeping items: 1) Your suggestions and comments about the new blog: they have all been carefully parsed and we have made a few immediate corrections, but there are still major problems with the migration to the new blog which have to be taken care of first before we turn to ironing out the aesthetic issues.
Dear friends,Please forgive the short reply, I am swamped with work, but I want to let you know that the following change to the new blog has already been approved: adding another box on the right hand column with St George ribbon in it. This box will also include links to the blogs philosophy, moderation policy, and a quick blurb about anonymous postings are welcome. Second, the domain name/URL http://10.16.86.131/
Dear friends,It is with a huge pleasure that I can announce some very good and long waited news: the new Saker blog is now up and running and you can use either of the two following links to access it: http://10.16.86.131/ and http://10.16.86.131/ My wonderful IT team (A, F and MB – thanks guys!!) put a lot of work into importing seven years worth of posts and comments and to
Dear friends,I have absolutely no idea what happened recently, but I am getting comments and emails form many of you saying that their comments had been “censored”. Guys, I did not censor any comments or, much less so, ban anybody (well, I did trash a few comments, but they were either totally insulting and rude, or spam; I mean no “normal” comment was trashed) Blogger is clearly doing something weird
Dear friends,First, the good news: our IT specialists are finalizing the final touches of the new blog and, God willing, it should go live before the end of the week. I will make an official announcement when everything is ready, so don’t worry about missing anything.Second, today I have so much technical and administrative things to deal with and so many emails that I have to reply to that I
Dear friends,First, I want to thank you all for your support and kind words about the Russia Insider project. I am also truly delighted to be associated with this endeavor.Second, I wanted to clarify a few things about Russia Insider and my role in it. Russia Insider is not a blog or a collective of blogs. The format used by RI is deliberately kept to short(er) posts, not long analytical
Dear friends,I wanted to share with you a couple of blog housekeeping news. First, the “kinda-but-I-am-not-so-sure-bad” news: after both of the people whom I had asked to help me as pre-moderators bailed out on me (the first one due to disagreements in the format of the blog, the second due to personal issues) I have decided that when the new blog goes live I will do all the moderation myself.
Dear friends,First, I want to begin this news update with an un-official pre-announcement: it appears that the Saker Blog community might welcome a new Language Team in our community, and a big language at that! Since this is neither final nor official, I don’t want to announce this yet, but I cannot resist giving you a little head-up about this.Second, I have seen the prototype of the new WordPress based
Guys, I had a very good Sunday, finally (!) some time to relax, so I will only post this small request:Please – read what I actually wrote, not what you think I have written or what you assume I have implied. Seriously, I never personally took position on the Ferguson topic. I never said that I liked the policies of Helmut Schmidt, Charles de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand or
